Changing course : ideas, politics, and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan / Sarah E. Mendelson.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface: Encounters with a Declining Power -- Ch. 1. Introduction: How the New Thinkers Beat the Old Thinkers -- Ch. 2. Explaining Change in Soviet Foreign Policy: Three Competing Arguments -- Ch. 3. Escalation in Afghanistan, 1979-1980: A Case of Old Thinking -- Ch. 4. The Groundwork for Change, 1982-1984: Old Thinkers Rule but New Thinkers Are Mobilized -- Ch. 5. Changing the Political Agenda, 1985-1989: New Thinkers Gain Control of Political Resources -- Ch. 6. Conclusion: The Importance of Ideas and Politics in Explaining Change.

In Changing Course, Sarah Mendelson demonstrates that interpretations which stress the impact of the international system, and particularly of U.S. foreign policy, or which focus on the role of ideas or politics alone, fail to explain the contingent process of change. Mendelson tells a story of internal battles where "misfit" ideas - ones that severely challenged the status quo - were turned into policies.

She draws on firsthand interviews with those who ran Soviet foreign policy and the war in Afghanistan, and on recently declassified material from Soviet archives, to show that both ideas and political strategies were needed to make reform happen.