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assumption of Gorbachev's critics is that his policies had the opposite effect.
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Two distinct periods can be seen in international politics during 1985-1991. While the direction
of change was the same — toward ending the ideological, political and military confrontation
between East and West and the Soviet Union's reintegration in the world as a normal country —
the pace of this process was relatively slow during the first period and extremely fast during the
second, starting in early 1989. The quickening of the pace was the result of internal
developments in the Soviet Union and Central Europe, something that could be ―put under
control,‖ in my view, only by sacrificing the process of change itself, by turning back.
Gorbachev bore the brunt of decision-making at that time; had he yielded to the temptation of
reversing course, history would have taken a different and probably much more dangerous path.
Working with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze during those years, I recall the difference in the
psychological makeup and the political agenda of the two periods. During the first three years,
there was a feeling that history had given us sufficient time to disengage from the confrontation
and build a sound basis for new international relations. This was a time when Gorbachev
engaged the West on arms reduction and proposed the new thinking — a set of non-ideological,
common-sense, international law-based principles in which he profoundly believed. During the
second period there was a feeling that events were running ahead of us and, increasingly, that the
best we could do was to manage change and assure its peaceful character, without prejudging the
outcome. It was certainly a humbling experience but I believe that the new thinking greatly
facilitated our adaptation to and acceptance of both the pace of change and its eventual outcome.
The new thinking was based, above all, on the understanding that much of the old, ideology-
driven agenda of international relations had become obsolete. The words ―new thinking‖ had, of
course, been used before, nor was the substance of the concept totally new. Indeed, in the early
1980s the Palme Commission had presaged many tenets of the new thinking such as, for
example, the concept of common security (rather than security at the expense of others).
Nevertheless, the Soviet Union under Gorbachev was the first state to declare and elaborate these
principles, setting in motion a major revision of, and shift in, the international agenda. As David
Holloway points out in his very perceptive essay, the new thinking ―provided a vision of the
Soviet Union's place in the world that reassured the Soviet public as well as foreign leaders and
publics. It therefore exercised a calming influence on the process of change.‖