When Eduard Shevardnadze resigned as foreign minister of the Soviet Union in 1990, he ended one of the most remarkable and controversial political partnerships in modern history. Together with Mikhail Gorbachev and Alexander Yakovlev, Shevardnadze led the dramatic Soviet about-face in the 1980s that ended the Cold War and transformed the international political climate. While Gorbachev and Yakovlev focused on domestic reform, Shevardnadze redirected foreign policy. His willingness to act decisively made him the "moral force" of new thinking and the point man for the policies of...

"Memoirs are worthless if their authors attempt to present themselves as angels. I resolutely oppose those of my countrymen who shift responsibility for Soviet evils exclusively to the leaders. It is important that each Soviet citizen realize and admit his or her share of the responsibility." --from On the Battlefields of the Cold War

For more than forty years Victor Israelyan served in the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rising through the ranks to become one of the Soviet Union's leading diplomats specializing in disarmament negotiations. He was forced to retire in...

In the past four decades, the United States has spent $85 billion pursuing the fantasy of an effective missile defense system to shield our nation against the threat of a nuclear attack. Recent public tests, while less exotic than some of the original Star Wars proposals, were spectacular failures and call into question the whole program's rationale. Neither the land-based system proposed by the Clinton administration, nor the alternatives proposed by earlier administrations, would ever work--regardless of how much R&D money is channeled into the project. Rather than enhancing national...

In this fascinating inquiry into the Soviet retreat from the Third World, Melvin A. Goodman analyzes Gorbachev's policy from the standpoint of disillusionment with the Third World. He cites, among other reasons for the retreat, the diminished strategic significance of the Third World to current Soviet leadership, the limitations for Soviet power projection in distant areas, and the dilemmas in Moscow's relations with Third World regimes. Goodman contends that Gorbachev's foreign policy shift to achieve a more stable international arena and a less militant Soviet stance allowed Moscow to...