Negotiating with a declining power: The American – Soviet Diplomacy in the context of German reunification
Negotiating with a declining power: The American – Soviet Diplomacy in the context of German reunification

Summary/Abstract: The unexpected opening of the Berlin Wall on the evening of November 9, 1989, was a turning point in history, bringing the division of the Cold War to an end. Although the crumbling of the communist bloc seemed almost inevitable in the autumn of 1989, the reunification of Germany was still an outlying goal. But taking advantage of the opportunity that the wall's fall brought, the leaders of that time tried to accelerate history and bring German reunification to a fait accompli. The United States influenced the unification process through its effort to overcome the Allies’ suspicion of a reunited Germany and preserve the American role in the future of European and German security. The high-level talks between the United States and the Soviet Union in the period 1989-1990 reveal the shifting distribution of power and the beginning of a new security architecture. Drawing on records of conversations, memoranda of face-to-face and telephone conversations, speeches, public statements and memoirs, this paper examines the diplomatic interactions between Washington and Moscow during the process of German reunification. Over the ten months of negotiations, the official objectives of the The United States and the Soviet Union were widely opposed. With events slipping out of his control in Eastern Europe and with a weaker political position at home, Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to secure a gradual reunification and a neutral Germany, but the readjustments of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the economic assistance given by the Federal Republic of Germany made the Soviet leader accept the Western terms. The paper aims to discover how the United States and the Soviet Union found ways to cooperate in the final act of the Cold War, what were the motivations and the aims of the main political actors and why the questions raised during that period remain a source of tension and controversy in the relations between the United States and today’s Russia.

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