Abstract

Sovieticus

The greatest failure of American democracy today is the absence of a real national debate on U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union. No international or domestic issue is more important, and nothing in the foreseeable future, including the Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting, will change that fact. In the nuclear age, the nature of the U.S.-Soviet relationship is a matter of global survival. And as government defense-related spending soars toward $400 billion a year, cold war relations increasingly and inescapably erodes the quality of American life, from education and social security to urban housing and agriculture. Despite all these ramifications, U.S. President Ronald Reagan's cold war policy has gone essentially unchallenged in the political mainstream for almost five years. As a result, in contrast to wide-ranging controversies over other issues, mainstream discussion of U.S.-Soviet relations is narrow and superficial.