How did U.S Foreign Policy in relation to thr USSR change at the end of the 1980's? Why did it change?

Question

more help =) always appreciated!!!

Answer 1

This is a very wrong assumption of many that soviet union folded by the Bluff of Ronald Reagan.The reason for folding was of many Islamic republics in Soviet union and they wanted to get rid of them after the loss in Afghanistan.Russians are xeno phobic people.Also thanks to bribe money.did you ever notice how oligarchs sprang up like Mushrooms overnight.But let me tell you there was no change in foreign policy rather the intent was to destroy them completely and the things got so bad in Yeltsin time that they sprang back like a spring.and Cold war is on again but this time China Iran and India are also with them.I wish the Americans would not have helped the Russian Mob so over whelmingly.

Answer 2

As the Soviet system broke down, the US lessened it's Cold War tensions with the USSR. After the USSR officially broke up in 1991, there was a short period of downright friendliness, especially between Boris Yeltsin and George Bush Sr. Trade restrictions all but disappeared and it briefly looked like the west might have created a Russian "Marshall Plan". Unfortunately, in 1993, Bill Clinton became president and, as he had campaigned, his administration turned to domestic politics. The much needed and hoped for (especially by the Russians) infusions of western capital never materialized. While relations with Russia remained cordial, a small but permanent new rift was created.

Relations between Russia and the US now could probably be best described as cool. Vladimir Putin has had to become more autocratic in order to keep any semblance of law and economic power in the hands of the state and people instead of the Russian mob. There is some resentment of the West's indifference to Russian suffering in the 1990s and I believe the Russians are beginning to see that they have to stand alone. They have always had an inferiority complex with regard to the west and lingering beliefs that we wish to keep them in a kind of backward, peasant state. This has served to create divisions between us when US/Russian cooperation would have brought a lot of order to the world. Now Russia acts in its own interest without regard to western sentiment and will likely become a rival again as time goes on.

Answer 3

The US saw the beginning of the end coming. It concentrated on keeping on the pressure until it's final collapse. After the smoke cleared, the US was right there, negotiating with the Russians to reduce it's stockpile of nukes, particularly in satellite country's where Russia no longer had control.

Following the collapse of the USSR, especially when Clinton came to office, the attitude in Washington was, we have no more enemies. The new administration became extremely relaxed, even to the point that Clinton once said, and I paraphrase, 'maybe we can use them in industrial sabotage", in reference to the duties of the CIA, once the cold war was over.

Answer 4

In contrast to the revolutionary spirit that accompanied the birth of the Soviet Union, the prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change. The long period of Brezhnev's rule had come to be dubbed one of "stagnation" (застой), with an aging and ossified top political leadership.

Two developments dominated the decade that followed: the increasingly apparent crumbling of the Soviet Union's economic and political structures, and the patchwork attempts at reforms to reverse that process. After the rapid succession of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, transitional figures with deep roots in Brezhnevite tradition, beginning in 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev made significant changes in the economy (see Perestroika) and the party leadership. His policy of glasnost freed public access to information after decades of government regulations.
The Soviet flag as it was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.
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The Soviet flag as it was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.

In the late 1980s constituent republics of the Soviet Union started asserting sovereignty over their territories or even declaring independence, citing Article 72 of the USSR Constitution, which stated that any constituent republic was free to secede. Many held their first free elections in the Soviet era for their own national legislatures in 1990. Many of these legislatures proceeded to produce legislation contradicting the Union laws in what was known as "The War of Laws." In 1989 Russian SFSR, which was then the largest constituent republic (with about half of the population) convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies. Boris Yeltsin was elected the chairman of the Congress. On June 12, 1990 the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the USSR's laws. The period of legal uncertainty continued throughout 1991 as constituent republics slowly became de-facto independent.

Answer 5

Because it was going towards a loss-loss situation fast. Chernobil showed that a nuclear war will not solve anything but make everything gone. Now US foreign policy has gotten wise enough to only pick on countries that can't retaliate :)

Answer 6

Ronald Reagan called there bluff and the USSR had to fold