The Superpower Relationship and U.S. National Security Policy in the 1980s

In retrospect, the United States has experienced repeated failure in the efforts of successive administrations over the last decade to bring about an improved relationship with the Soviet Union because of fundamentally different Soviet and American security interests and objectives and conceptions of the role of force in international politics. The debate in the United States about the SALT II Treaty provided the basis for a broader discussion of the adequacy of American defense capabilities in light of the growth of Soviet capabilities and the manifest propensity to extend Soviet influence by direct means, as in Afghanistan, or by the use of surrogates, as in Africa. In the years ahead, the United States faces the need both to rebuild its military forces and to fashion a global political strategy that deters the Soviet Union from exploiting whatever advantages may be perceived to accrue from vast military capabilities during this period of vulnerability in which interests vital to the United States and its allies will be at stake.