Gorbachev became Soviet leader in March 1985 with little prior experience of international affairs. Conscious of this shortcoming, he turned to Alexander Yakovlev for an analysis of US policy under Reagan. Yakovlev's account started from the assumption that the USA would continue to be the world's strongest power for another quarter of a century. However, it would move from a position of dominance within the capitalist world towards one of dominant partnership and eventually relative equality. This transition gave the Soviet Union an opportunity to reorient its foreign policy ‘in terms of gradually and consistently developing relations with Western Europe, Japan, and China’. A potent factor in possible political pressure on the USA ‘is the interest of Europeans in a relaxation of tensions’. The tenth anniversary of the Helsinki Agreement (August 1985) would be a good opportunity to ‘revive the process of détente in the political as well as in the military sphere’.

The Kremlin was wary of trouble from Eastern Europe. Disturbances there would threaten Soviet domestic reform, since those opposed to change at home would point to them as the inevitable consequences. Mindful of the post-Stalin succession, they knew it could also destabilise their own positions. So the new leader stressed continuity of policy towards Eastern Europe and sought to strengthen intra-bloc institutions.