Michel Tatu

Is an East-West policy necessary, and what should it be? Such a question would seem to go without saying and, in the eyes of countless academics and other observers, requires an affirmative response. More vigorously than ever, they are demanding from their governments, and, above all, from the United States, a "clear," "coherent," and "global" East-West policy. The question will become still more pressing in 1983, which will see the playing out of one of the most difficult matches in the game of nuclear arms negotiations since the beginning of the cold war, after the close of a year marked by two major events. In Moscow, the death of Leonid Brezhnev and the rise to power of Yuri Andropov may offer an opportunity for a new approach to old problems, and open up new perspectives on Soviet behavior. In Washington, in 1982, we have seen Ronald Reagan's policies run into their first serious problems in two areas that are supposed to be the main pillars of his "doctrine" regarding the Soviet Union: the philosophy of trade with the communist nations and the rearmament program.