Foreign Policy and East Asia: Learning and Adaptation in the Gorbachev Era (Cambridge Russian Paperbacks, Series Number 10) - Hardcover

Ziegler, Charles E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521415470 ISBN 13: 9780521415477

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1993

Synopsis

In this book Charles Ziegler develops the concept of learning in foreign policy by exploring the link between Mikhail Gorbachev's domestic reforms and the radical transformation of Soviet relations with North-east Asia in the 1980s. He argues that, although international factors may have played a role, it was pressures for domestic change, and economic reform in particular, which had the greatest impact on Soviet thinking. The history of Soviet relations with North-east Asia is briefly traced, highlighting the extent to which ideology impeded foreign policy learning under Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev. The author then turns to Gorbachev's determined efforts to reverse thirty years of Sino–Soviet hostility, his mixed record on Soviet–Japanese relations, the turnaround in Soviet policy toward South Korea, and changing Soviet national security interests in the Far East and Western Pacific.

About this title

Review:

"...a detailed study of Soviet policy toward China, the two Koreas, and Japan during the Gorbachev era that shows Soviet application of a new approach to security issues toward a vitally important region. The chapters on particular areas or countries are interesting and well written." Choice

"Lucid and often persuasive arguments are mobilized to highlight the significance of learning and adaptation in the formulation of foreign policy." John J. Stephan, Slavic Review

"...an insightful book on Soviet policy toward East Asia in the 1980s." Wayne Patterson, Asian Affairs

Book Description:

This book is a study of Soviet relations with North-east Asia in the 1980s, focusing on the links between Soviet domestic reforms and fundamental changes in Soviet foreign policy. The author uses the concept of foreign policy learning to analyse the motives of Gorbachev's foreign policy reforms.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0521415470
• ISBN 13: 9780521415477
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 209