<P> Elsewhere the Soviet Union had concluded friendship and cooperation treaties with a number of states in the non-communist world, especially among Third World and Non-Aligned Movement states . Notwithstanding some ideological obstacles, Moscow advanced state interests by gaining military footholds in strategically important areas throughout the Third World . Furthermore, the USSR continued to provide military aid for revolutionary movements in the Third World . For all these reasons, Soviet foreign policy was of major importance to the non-communist world and helped determine the tenor of international relations . </P> <P> Although myriad bureaucracies were involved in the formation and execution of Soviet foreign policy, the major policy guidelines were determined by the Politburo of the Communist Party . The foremost objectives of Soviet foreign policy had been the maintenance and enhancement of national security and the maintenance of hegemony over Eastern Europe . Relations with the United States and Western Europe were also of major concern to Soviet foreign policy makers and, much as with the United States, relations with individual Third World states were at least partly determined by the proximity of each state to the border and to estimates of strategic significance . </P> <P> When Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded Konstantin Chernenko as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985, it signaled a dramatic change in Soviet foreign policy . Gorbachev pursued conciliatory policies toward the West instead of maintaining the Cold War status quo . The USSR ended its military occupation of Afghanistan, signed strategic arms reduction treaties with the United States, and allowed its satellite states in Eastern Europe to determine their own affairs . Post World War II issues about the status and borders of Germany were addressed in 1990, when the Soviet Union, along with the USA, Britain and France, signed a treaty on German reunification with the two German governments . </P> <P> After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia claimed to be the legal successor to the Soviet Union on the international stage despite its loss of superpower status . Russian foreign policy repudiated Marxism--Leninism as a guide to action, soliciting Western support for capitalist reforms in post-Soviet Russia . </P>

Which of the following was a goal of the soviet union