The crisis facing Soviet society as the union disintegrated came from several sources, but the economic problems, the growing crime rate, the inter-ethnic violence, and the political struggles all derived from the deep crisis rising questions about the legitimacy of Soviet political institutions and the identity of the Soviet people. Gorbachev brought about many changes in Soviet politics and society. The development of this national policy came as the Soviet Union spent more and more on defense and security while people had to wait in long lines for staples. The political regime began trying to reform the economic structure in the 1980s in the era of perestroika. Ronald Grigor Suny notes that official policies in the mid-1980s began to shift priorities in response to a perceived need, and at the time, socio-cultural demands by the people were being answered and were increasing the size of sections of the budget for the Soviet Union. At the time, it was projected that budgetary spending on the national economy would be decreased by 6%, while spending on socio-cultural issues would rise by 10.7%. This was seen as a major shift in priorities for industry and as a major shift in national spending. Gorbachev encouraged even more change as he called for a shift in priorities for military planning. He began to determine the consequences of spending so much on national security and found ways for his changes in doctrine to lead to economies that could benefit the budget. He then pressed for a different defense posture, less aggressive and more defense oriented. In '988, he announced unilateral reductions in Soviet forces by a considerable amount and pressed for negotiations with the West to reduce nuclear weapons (Suny 237). Of course, such changes could be argued as being political rather than economic, but had the soviet Union not spent as much as it did in previous decades,...

Graham Smith points out that in the 1980s, the nation was not able any longer to rely on an endless supply of indigenous capital and surplus rural labor, causing the leadership to begin to see the immediate need for technological innovation and increases in labor efficiency. Had the Soviets undertaken such a program much sooner, assuming they could have paid for and achieved it, they might have been able to weather the economic shifts that started in the 1980s. Smith points to the great need for the modernization of factories built during Stalin's era. He also finds that many of the political actions of the time, such as the push for detente and increased connections to the West, were spurred by the need for economic modernization, with the realization of the crippling nature of huge public expenditures on the military defense sector and with the very real need to invest instead in new factory technology and diversified production. Part of this was to meet the increasing demand for consumer goods on the part of the populace (Smith 28).
The process of globalization replaced the economic aspects of the bipolar world, and terrorism and the globalization of the conflict in the Middle East has taken the place of the Soviet Union as the major threat to the West. The older vision of the world was based on a clearer division between the antagonists, while the new world structure is based on greater uncertainty as to allegiances and threats alike.

Works Cited

May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound. New York: Basic Books, 1988.

Newhouse, John. War and Peace in the Nuclear Age. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.

Suny, Ronald Grigory. The Making of the Georgian Nation. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Smith, Graham. The Post-Soviet State. London: Arnold,…