Through experience, results of the Soviet-American summits were more apparent due to more or less added periods of time. The changes in Soviet policy in Eastern Europe dramatically altered the Americas’ perspective on the Soviet Union. The changes reflected a lot on survey research that were repeatedly done during the previous decade (1970s) showing the Americans’ attitude towards the USSR, which changed from once pessimism and hostile in the 1980s, after the Soviet invasion of the Afghanistan, to optimism in early 1990s. Currently, most of the Americans see the US-Soviet relation has improved over the years. This kind of mixed perceptions has resulted in the entire public’s need for a dual approach, towards the USSR with caution. Due to this mix of perceptions, the paper discusses the changes on Soviet- American relation during the 1980s.
Centered concerns of the military policy and Soviet foreign policy during the Word War II have been a common usual threat. The Soviet Union and the American differed over the de’tente relationship; in this case, the de’tente in the West was considered as nonhostile word. The Soviet invasion in the Afghanistan prompted numerous of trade embargos over the Soviet Union. This included restrictions on grain consignments to Soviet Union (Ross, 2008). The matter degenerated particularly during the Summer Olympics games. The 1980 Olympic games in Moscow was shunned by the Americans. These further shelved off the determinations of winning concessions in the America Senate of the Second (SALT) treaty exacerbated the situation. Under the helm of President Reagan in April 1981, U.S declared the lifting of the grain restriction.
In the year 1988, the summit came with substantial diplomatic and political results. The summit also did not fall out of the process of normalization of the American-Soviet relations (Ross, 2008). In addition, the preparation of the summit and the subsequent realization of the agreements, which were outlined cemented the constructive changes in the American-Soviet relations and gave them a new impact for development in the available spheres disarmament, improvement of bilateral relations and resolution of the problems. There was a serious undertaking, which resulted in a stabilizing beginning.
Nevertheless, the summit had unusual big ideological importance. Its result is the help it provided to America and the West in discovering the scale, the character and the meaning of the changes. The changes were kept in the Soviet Unions, which relates to the aspect of glasnost, perestroika, and democratization as well as the new thought of a sphere of foreign policy. The Moscow summit has all along been significant in most areas. One of them is the alignment of political forces in America and the West as a whole (Ross, 2008). What pushed the USA and society as a whole to the American elite was the normalization of the Soviet-American relation. The summit showed America and the rest of the world the overwhelming intellectual superiority of the Soviet policies.
The OPEC, especially Iraq and Algeria took the largest share of the Soviet Union unidentified exports. The balance was high because of arms sales though the Soviet statistics showed a low negative trade balance with the countries. Some OPEC countries like Iran and Iraq in the 1980s together with Syria exchanged oil for Soviet military equipment and arms. The oil was resold to the west for the hard currency. The Soviet and Iran finally agreed to increase Soviet nonmilitary sales in the May of 1986.
- Ross, B. (2008). Soviet-American relations in the 1980s. New York: GRIN Verlag
