4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST approach to international relations, Moscow's determination to deprive the enemy image in the West, and the economic compulsions in both Washington and Moscow are the factors ensuring the longevity of the new detente. While Gorbachev deserves much of the credit for transforming the international situation, he has been open in acknowledging the intellectual debt in formulating the 'new thinking'. In an interview to the American media in mid-1988, Gorbachev has stated that the nonaligned movement has been a major influence in the shaping of his wo rid view.1 By an unprecedented readiness to absorb and integrate relevant principles from schools of thought other than Marxism-Leninism, Gorbachev has sought to enrich the Soviet political thought. As he pointed out at the 19th All-Union Conference of the CPSU, intensive contacts with the outside world gave the Soviet leadership the chance to obtain a better picture and understanding of the world around us, to take part in discussing its problems and in searching for ways of solving them, of extracting whatever is useful from ideas originating in other cultures and spiritual traditions, as was reflected for example in the 1986 Delhi Declaration. . .this has imparted a dynamism to Soviet foreign policy and made it possible to come forward with a whole series of major initiatives.2 If the concept of non-violence is extracted from the Indian tradition, the idea of defensive defence has been drawn from the European peace movement, the vision of a Common European home is an improvement on de Gaulle's concept of Europe from Atlantic to the Urals, and the concept of common security is from the Olaf Paime Commission. The 'new thinking' in Soviet foreign policy is remarkable not only for integrating ideas from other schools of thought but also for jettisoning some traditional concepts of the communist worldview. These concepts include the relationship between war and revolution, the perceived link between imperialism and war, the division of the world into two camps, and the understanding of peaceful coexistence as a form of class struggle. Gorbachev's emphasis on placing universal human values above narrow class interests, removing the ideological edge from interstate relations, making peaceful coexistence an absolute norm of international relations, the new importance of morality and law in the conduct of world politics, and on replacing confrontation with cooperation have been bold departures from the orthodox communist worldview in the post-war years. While there is much in the international context today that generates hope and optimism, a note of caution is in order. The positive processes that have surfaced in the last four years are not entirely irreversible. The dead Weight of the Cold War philosophy is still upon us. The ideological certitudes and claims to monopoly of truth, the hangovers of a bygone era are as yet influential both oh the right and left of the international political spectrum. The notions of absolute