In contrast to his controversial domestic reforms,
Gorbachev was largely hailed in the
West for his 'new thinking' in foreign affairs. During his tenure, he sought to improve relations and trade with the West by reducing
Cold War tensions. He established close relationships with several
Western leaders, such as
West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl,
U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher—who famously remarked: "I like Mr. Gorbachev; we can do business together".[25]
Gorbachev understood the link between achieving international détente and domestic reform and thus began extending "
New Thinking" abroad immediately. On 8
April 1985, he announced the suspension of the deployment of SS-20s in
Europe as a move towards resolving intermediate-range nuclear weapons (
INF) issues.
Later that year, in September, Gorbachev proposed that the
Soviets and
Americans both cut their nuclear arsenals in half. He went to
France on his first trip abroad as
Soviet leader in October. November saw the
Geneva Summit between Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. Though no concrete agreement was made, Gorbachev and
Reagan struck a personal relationship and decided to hold further meetings.
January 1986 would see Gorbachev make his boldest international move so far, when he announced his proposal for the elimination of intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe and his strategy for eliminating all nuclear weapons by the year
2000 (often referred to as the '
January Proposal'). He also began the process of withdrawing troops from
Afghanistan and
Mongolia on 28 July.[11] Nonetheless, many observers, such as
Jack F. Matlock, Jr. (despite generally praising Gorbachev as well as Reagan), have criticized Gorbachev for taking too long to achieve withdrawal from the
Afghanistan War, citing it as an example of lingering elements of "old thinking" in Gorbachev.[26]
On
11 October 1986, Gorbachev and Reagan met at
Höfði house in
Reykjavík, Iceland, to discuss reducing intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe. To the immense surprise of both men's advisers, the two agreed in principle to removing INF systems from Europe and to equal global limits of
100 INF missile warheads. They also essentially agreed in principle to eliminate all nuclear weapons in 10 years (by
1996), instead of by the year 2000 as in Gorbachev's original outline.[26] Continuing trust issues, particularly over reciprocity and Reagan's
Strategic Defense Initiative (
SDI), meant that the summit is often regarded as a failure for not producing a concrete agreement immediately, or for leading to a staged elimination of nuclear weapons
. In the long term, nevertheless, this would culminate in the signing of the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces (
INF) Treaty in
1987, after Gorbachev had proposed this elimination on 22 July 1987 (and it was subsequently agreed on in
Geneva on
24 November).[11]
In
February 1988, Gorbachev announced the full withdrawal of
Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The withdrawal was completed the following year, although the civil war continued as the Mujahedin pushed to overthrow the pro-Soviet
Najibullah government. An estimated 28,
000 Soviets were killed between
1979 and
1989 as a result of the Afghanistan War.
Also during
1988, Gorbachev announced that the
Soviet Union would abandon the
Brezhnev Doctrine, and allow the
Eastern bloc nations to freely determine their own internal affairs. Jokingly dubbed the "
Sinatra Doctrine" by Gorbachev's
Foreign Ministry spokesman
Gennadi Gerasimov, this policy of non-intervention in the affairs of the other
Warsaw Pact states proved to be the most momentous of Gorbachev's foreign policy reforms. In his 6 July 1989 speech arguing for a "common
European home" before the
Council of Europe in
Strasbourg, France, Gorbachev declared: "The social and political order in some countries changed in the past, and it can change in the future too, but this is entirely a matter for each people to decide. Any interference in the internal affairs, or any attempt to limit the sovereignty of another state, friend, ally, or another, would be inadmissible." A month earlier, on
4 June 1989, elections had taken place in
Poland and the communist government had already been deposed.
Moscow's abandonment of the Brezhnev Doctrine allowed the rise of popular upheavals in
Eastern Europe throughout 1989, in which
Communism was overthrown. By the end of 1989, revolts had spread from one
Eastern European capital to another, ousting the regimes built in Eastern Europe after
World War II. Except in
Romania, the popular upheavals against the pro-Soviet regimes were all peaceful (see
Revolutions of 1989). The loosening of
Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe effectively ended the Cold War, and for this, Gorbachev was awarded the
Otto Hahn Peace Medal in
Gold in 1989 and the
Nobel Peace Prize on
15 October 1990.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev
- published: 05 Aug 2015
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