in 1979 he became a senior fellow of the brookings institution, the highly respected think-tank in washington dc, usa. it was here, at a time when the 'second cold war' was underway, that mccgwire wrote "military objectives in soviet foreign policy". this was a seminal work, as it focused on the soviet viewpoint and way of thinking, based on extensive analysis of russian sources of information; whereas soviet policy was usually analysed in terms of western interests and vulnerabilities. it was published in january 1987, the same month as gorbachev's speech to the communist party (cpsu) plenum pushing glasnost and perestroika. the book traces the causes of this monumental reorientation of soviet policy back to the bankruptcy of established soviet policies, autonomous new rethinking, and concern about the danger of war, explaining the influence of military requirements on soviet foreign policy.