Reagan, Gorbachev and arms control

Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union in March 1985. He was younger than the leaders before him, and he believed the USSR had to change.

Causes:

• The economy was failing: shortages of food and consumer goods, and old-fashioned industry.
• The arms race cost a huge share of the USSR's wealth, and SDI threatened a new, even more expensive race.
• The war in Afghanistan was costly and unpopular, with no victory in sight.

Gorbachev concluded that the USSR could only reform itself if it spent far less on weapons and on controlling other countries.

Gorbachev's 'new thinking' changed Soviet policy at home and abroad:

• Perestroika ('restructuring'): reforms to make the economy work better, with some private business.
• Glasnost ('openness'): more freedom of speech, and less censorship.
• Reducing nuclear weapons, to cut costs and tension.
• Leaving Afghanistan: Soviet troops withdrew by February 1989.
• Ending the Brezhnev Doctrine: in 1988 he announced large cuts in Soviet forces, and made clear that the USSR would no longer use force to keep communist governments in power in Eastern Europe.

Significance: this made real agreements with the West possible, but it also loosened Soviet control over Eastern Europe.

Gorbachev and Reagan met at a series of summits:

Significance: even the failed summit at Reykjavik built trust, and showed how far both leaders were willing to go.

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed in Washington in December 1987, was the first treaty to get rid of a whole class of nuclear weapons: all American and Soviet missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres, including those in Europe.

Each side could inspect the other to check that the missiles were destroyed.

Significance: earlier treaties, such as SALT 1, had only limited the growth of nuclear weapons. The INF Treaty actually reduced them, and showed that the superpowers now trusted each other enough to check each other's bases.

Reagan had called the USSR an 'evil empire', but once Gorbachev came to power he was willing to negotiate. In 1987, in West Berlin, he challenged Gorbachev to go further:

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Historians' debate: some argue that Reagan's pressure, through the arms build-up and SDI, forced the USSR to negotiate. Others argue that Gorbachev's new thinking mattered more, because without it there would have been no agreements.