All About Mikhail Gorbachevs 1988 UN Speech

Questions: 1. Why did Gorbachev choose the United Nations as his forum for this speech?2. What did Gorbachev mean by "de-ideologizing relations among states? What implications did this have for superpower relations?3. Why did he say that "force no longer can...be an instrument of foreign policy"? What implications did this have for the Soviet bloc?4. What did he foresee as the future role of the superpowers in the world and the future relationship between them? Answers: 1. In 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev, the USSR president at that time delivered a revolutionary and extraordinary speech at the United Nations General Assembly. He chose this forum for some specific reasons. The most fundamental and important reason was that the UN was promoting the global cooperation and peace at that time. This international organization was fully focused on repairing the damaged international relations between the countries and ensure peace and security for everyone around the globe. Gorbachev's speech also concentrated on the necessity of modest foreign policies and better international relations especially between the United States and the USSR (Walker, 2012). Moreover, the year of 1988 proved to be one of the most successful phases in the UN history in its attempt to promote global peace and security. Therefore, there could not be any better platform other than the UN assembly to convey the revolutionary notions that Gorbachev held. 2. During his speech, Mikhail Gorbachev demanded that the countries across the globe should reanalyze and re-evaluate their notions and perceptions because the paradigm of international notions has been shifted and therefore, it would be better to respond in accordance with that change (Gorbachev, 1988). Gorbachev realized that bitter international relations are results of the nations' tendency to stick to their traditional and outdated perceptions and fully disregard the notions of the other states. But the time had changed and the situation demanded that the states should not ideologize their own perceptions, rather they should try to cope up with the shift and adopt the positive changes as required. Gorbachev asserts that de-ideologization is a great factor in improving the relations between the states. This de-ideologization has a number of barriers but the most important one is the attempt to ensure the implementation of own notions and self by a state. But this cannot be soluti on. If the superpowers do not adopt to this view, then it would be very difficult to establish peaceful international relations because the militarism would not decrease and the whole world will continue to get threatened. Therefore, the superpower countries should redesign their notions and imply them properly. 3. Mikhail Gorbachev also asserted no problem can be solved by the help of force. He went on to say that force can never help the human civilization to progress towards prosperity in a peaceful and harmonious way. Acquisition of force is necessary to solve some problems but not all and in the changing scenario of the international relations, the exercise of force could only worsen the situation (Nedzarek, 2012). In order to establish a harmonious international relation with other nations, irrational framework of force acquisition should be sacrificed and excluded. Gorbachev stated that in order to be the pioneer of this path, the USSR will significantly decrease its armed mi litary installations along the borders of Eastern Europe and China. He also mentioned that the UUSR armed forces would decrease by about half a million soldiers by the year of 1990. Gorbachev also stated that the USSR will reduce the acquisition of nuclear powers so that the force can no longer be a threat to the global relations.4. Mikhail Gorbachev said that the superpowers have to come forward to show the world that an atmosphere of harmonious international relations can be established throughout the globe. He said that every superpower has to reassess their ideologized views, decrease the acquisition of power and force, and show respect toward the peaceful international relations so that the international rivalry can be turned into sensible competition (Gorbachev, 1990). Every nation should be given the freedom of choice. Most of the smaller countries tend to follow the notions of the superpower nations. Therefore, these steps should be implemented in order to improve the intern ational relations not only between the superpowers but also among all the countries across the world. References Gorbachev, M. (1988) Gorbachevs Speech to the U.N. December 7, 1988. Available at: https://astro.temple.edu/~rimmerma/gorbachev_speech_to_UN.htm (Accessed: 15 June 2016). Gorbachev, M. (1990) Perestroika and Soviet-American relations. Madison: Sphinx Press. Nedzarek, R. (2012) A critical evaluation of Mikhail Gorbachevs role in ending the cold war. Available at: https://www.e-ir.info/2012/07/30/a-critical-evaluation-of-the-role-of-mikhail-gorbachev-in-ending-the-cold-war/ (Accessed: 15 June 2016). Walker, M. (2012) From the archive, 8 December 1988: Gorbachev puts paid to Europes fears. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2012/dec/08/archive-1988-gorbachev-europe-fears (Accessed: 15 June 2016).