Gorbachev and Obstacles Toward Detente
The November 1985 Geneva summit meeting between General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan has revived the hopes of many for a United States-Soviet detente similar to that of the early 1970s. Reagan administration officials indicate privately that they see the summit as showing Soviet readiness for rapid progress toward agreements substantially reducing strategic nuclear weapons on both sides, while foregoing their previous insistence on a simultaneous ban on the United States' Strategic Defense Initiative. The Soviet willingness, expressed just prior to the summit, to reunite a few Soviet citizens with their American spouses raises expectations for wider cooperation on humanitarian and emigration issues. While a persuasive case can be made that many opportunities for a lasting improvement in significant areas of U.S.-Soviet relations were indeed missed in the 1970s, I it is a mistake to believe that Gorbachev's approach to relations with the United States, whether the issue be arms control, economic relations, human rights, or almost any other foreign policy question, will bear but a superficial similarity to that of the Brezhnev regime in the early 1970s. In fact, this article argues that Gorbachev's deeply held perspectives, assumptions, and beliefs reflect a sea change in Soviet conceptions of what is possible and desirable in U.S.-Soviet relations. This change is away from notions of superpower partnership and toward greater