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that stands out as we recall that time; not so much turning in a particular direction — the
direction stayed basically the same — as refusing to go back, despite the, in all likelihood,
frequent temptation to do so. Since it is often asserted, particularly in Russia, that the West alone
benefited from the end of the Cold War. It would be useful to consider the benefits that accrued
to the Soviet Union and its successor states by first taking a look at the international position that
Gorbachev inherited from his predecessors.
In the early 1980s the Soviet Union was saddled with an astounding range of foreign policy
problems. It found itself in a situation that almost could be described as ―us against the world.‖
Its relations with the United States were confrontational, and with Europe at best tense; with
China, relations were downright hostile. The unwinnable war in Afghanistan was having a
destructive effect both on the domestic situation and on relations with the West and much of the
rest of the world. We were bogged down in several regional conflicts in the third world, with
little hope of extricating ourselves from them. We had no real friends and the Soviet elite knew
only too well that the Warsaw Pact countries could not be regarded as reliable allies. The Soviet
Union's negotiating position in the arms control negotiations reflected the sense of isolation,
insecurity and pervasive hostility: in the INF talks, for example, the Soviet delegation was
initially asking to be allowed the same number of weapons as all its potential adversaries put
together.
By mid-1991 the Soviet Union had worked out its relations both with the West and with China.
The arms buildup had been stopped and two treaties — INF and START — calling for real and
deep cuts in nuclear weapons had been signed. Steps had been taken toward the Soviet Union's
acceptance by and eventual admission to the Group of Seven industrialized nations. The Charter
of Paris proclaimed a Europe without dividing lines. Gorbachev's visit to China, in the words of
Deng Xiaoping, closed the book on the past and opened the future. Soviet troops had left
Afghanistan, and conflicts in Cambodia, Central America and Angola were being defused. Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait had been rejected and reversed, with the United States and the Soviet Union
taking a stand against the aggression and working through the United Nations to put an end to it.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, the changes in Central and Eastern Europe benefited the
Soviet Union by ending an unsustainable relationship in a peaceful manner and therefore without
long-term ―bad blood.‖
As Henry Kissinger said to Gorbachev in Moscow in February 1992, ―as a result of your policies
Russia today is more secure than ever before.‖ This is important to bear in mind, since the