role of the United Nations in structuring negotiations between
some – but, crucially, not all– of the parties to the conflict, and
offers an assessment of the importance of this example of ‘Good
Offices’ mediation. The third examines some specific develop-
ments during the course of the Soviet withdrawal itself. The previ-
ous chapter, of course, has dealt with some of the main military
events of the withdrawal period; this chapter rather is concerned
with the politics of the withdrawal itself.
THE SOVIET DECISION TO WITHDRAW
The foreign policy process under Gorbachev
During the Brezhnev period there developed a semi-convention on
the need for consultation as part of the foreign policy-making
process. This was to a significant degree shaped by the damage
that the USSR had suffered on account of two decisions taken
without widespread consultation: the October 1956 decision to
invade Hungary, and the June 1962 decision to deploy SS-4 and
SS-5 missiles to Cuba, a decision which led directly to the October
1962 Cuban missile crisis. By the time of the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968, a much more consultative process had
come into play. This in part reflected Brezhnev’s penchant for
consensus-building, but also the fact that he had not yet established
a position of secure dominance within the leadership. The ill-
considered decision to invade Afghanistan was a departure from
the earlier model, in part because Brezhnev’s position in the lead-
ership had altered, but also because Afghanistan specialists were
not prominently represented amongst the foreign policy specialist
community, the so-called mezhdunarodniki.
The advent of Gorbachev brought a number of significant
changes to the foreign policy process. Apart from ideological
innovation, and the sidelining of Andrei Gromyko, significant
personnel changes occurred. Of particular importance was the
retirement of Boris Ponomarev, the octogenarian party secretary
The Road to Soviet Withdrawal 127