The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the USSR in 1991 shed new light u pon the character of the two political systems, causing us to re-exami ne many of the standard interpretations of Soviet and Yugoslav politic s. This work is a comparative study of the disintegration of Yugoslavi a and the USSR--as multinational, federal communist states--and the re action to these parallel collapses of European and US foreign policy. Structural similarities in the destabiliazation of the two states mean that their comparative study provides great insight into the demise o f both.

This systematic observation of foreign policy within the Soviet Union shows how such phenomena as nuclear warfare, continued Western prosperity, and the Sino-Soviet split have forced analysts to diverge sharply from traditional Leninist orthodoxy. The result has been a Soviet analysis of world politics that is considerably more complex and politically sophisticated than westerners often assume. This is manifested in an increasingly multipolar world view, accepting the continued existence of the United States, in which the USSR is seen as an integral component of an international system rather...