The European Community
Concern with the implications of west European military integration has been one aspect of the broader Soviet concern with the process of West European integration generally. For many years the USSR regarded the EC as little more than an instrument to strengthen the European pillar of NATO. Soviet attitudes toward the EC, however, have undergone a significant evolution under Gorbachev. Since the mid-1980s, Soviet analysts have shown an increasing appreciation of the growing role of the EC as an economic and politic actor in international affairs. In particularly, analyst have pointed to a marked evolution toward formulating common EC positions on foreign policy.