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The Soviet Union's international relations, 1976-1984
The death of Leonid Brezhnev marked a major shift in how the USSR saw other countries and itself. For years the Soviet Union had been struggling economically,and also its relations with the US and allied countries hadn't been all that great. Alexi Kosygin sent the message that he planned to change the Soviet Union,and for the better. In 1977,Kosygin and US vice president Nelson Rockefeller met in Athens and took several steps to improve relations in Europe. As mentioned above,one such step was renewing the US-USSR space co-operation treaty signed in 1972 by Nixon and Brezhnev. Other results of the Rockefeller-Kosygin Summit were:
-Rudolf Hess was freed from Spandau Prison on grounds of time served (31 years since 1946,and his health was starting to go). Hess retired to Erfurt, where he would die in 1984.
-The Soviet government would contribute technical and personnel expertise to a notional joint oil pipeline
-The USSR would only send military observers to USSR-aligned countries,and never more than 20 at a time (1).
-Cultural and political exchanges would be determined at a later date

The 1980s saw new progress in US-USSR relations. If Ronald Reagan had been elected when Leonid Brezhnev was in office,then it is likely that space cooperation would've been reduced,and the SDI space defense program expanded (2). However,with Kosygin in power,the need for such a program was reduced although not totally eliminated. In 1988,computer electronics mogul George Fowler praised Reagan's space policies (3) as "indicative of a new era".

(1)-And thus the invasion of Afghanistan is butterflied away. OBL will meet his fate (28 years earlier than OTL) in a subsequent entry
(2)-ITTL SDI is more of a technology demonstration program,with A LOT of its technology applied for civilian uses, such as the ALSV
(3)-No spoilers,mind you..........

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