According to Brooks et al. it was the changing economic circumstances that shaped Soviet-American relations and policy initiatives. The economic issues suffered by the Soviet Union included a stagnant economic growth that was exacerbated by the extreme militarization of the economy. Brooks et al. states “An economic growth lag of 1-2 per cent per annum below the United States would have had devastating effects on the Soviets’ ability to keep up with their Cold War competitors” (1). As a consequence, this inability to compete with the United States economically meant that Gorbachev had to reshape Soviet foreign policy in order for Gorbachev to create economic reforms to revitalise the Soviet Union’s domestic economy Cold war competition between …show more content…
This argument is supported by Pechatnov who claims that the West had a better model “Capitalism, i.e., markets and democracy, proved to be more productive in guns and especially butter (consumer goods) than Soviet-type socialism” (2). Pechatnov is justified in saying this as the Soviet Union’s system of command economics where the government controls all major aspects of economic production has some major flaws contributing to the economic inferiority of Russia to the USA. These limitations led to an increase in black markets which then led to problems such as loss of revenue for the government and created a lack of competition as there was no incentive for individuals to compete due to the governmental control which is why many command economies often evolve to become mixed. As a result the crisis that the Soviet economy created was out of Gorbachev’s control. As a consequence it led Gorbachev’s policy direction to improve relations between Russia and the USA. This was demonstrated during the Reagan and Gorbachev summit meetings in which Pechatnov demonstrates that the two sides could reach an agreement “A new arms control regime was created in the early 1970s to reduce the danger of a nuclear war and make the nuclear arms race more …show more content…
However, this view is challenged by Raymond L. Garthoff who argues that it isn’t the Economic crisis that the Soviet Union faced that shaped Gorbachev’s new identity for the Soviet Union it was Gorbachev who came into office with intentions of ending the Cold War paired with changing attitudes from the US from viewing the Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire’ to viewing it as a different system to the West, this is supported by John Lewis Gaddis who states “ By the end of the decade, many of them had come to agree with Reagan that the regime under which they lived was, if not evil, certainly illegitimate”. Garthoff claims “I believe that Gorbachev’s intention to end the Cold War was clear in his own mind when he entered office, and there are many indications of this from the open record of 1984-86” (4). Therefore, this suggests that Long term economic Problems in the Soviet System were not the deciding factor in ending the Cold War it was Gorbachev’s Policy initiative as Garthoff the goes onto stating “No one in Washington (Or among the Politubro colleagues who selected him) expected that he would prove to be ready to discard the Marxist-leninist worldview that underlay Soviet foreign policy and the Cold war, and ultimately abandon the Brezhnev doctrine” (5) the Cold War was a series of reactions by either side in response to aggressive foreign policy, therefore by putting an end to the Marxist-Leninist foreign policy which advocated the expansion of communist ideology it meant