Soviet Foreign Policy in the Early Eighties.

This memorandum examines the orgins of detente in the 1970s and the reasons for its collapse at the end of the decade. The author focuses on four crises which will dominate Soviet foreign policy in the early 1980s the succession struggle economic vulnerabilities US-Soviet relations and, polycentric trends in the Socialist camp. He concludes that Soviet tendencies toward expansion are to some extent balanced by factors working toward stability in East-West relations.