The Sinatra Doctrine is the humorous name of a foreign policy course officially adopted by the Soviet Union in the fall of 1989 and characterized by the refusal to hold at any cost in the sphere of its influence Eastern European and other countries dependent on the USSR.
This name, the most popular in the United States , goes back to the speech of the representative of the USSR Foreign Ministry Gennady Gerasimov in the popular American television program "Good Morning, America" on October 25, 1989 . Gerasimov commented on the speech made two days earlier by Eduard Shevardnadze [1] , in which the USSR Minister of Foreign Affairs proclaimed the intention of the Soviet Union not to interfere further in the internal affairs of other states, including the Warsaw Pact states . In his comments, Gerasimov jokingly called the new foreign policy doctrine of the USSR the doctrine of Frank Sinatra , referring to the famous Sinatra song “I did it in my own way” ( eng. I Did It My Way ), and so will other countries continue to live on their own fret The Shevardnadze Declaration and Gerasimov's commentary, which sounded at the very beginning of the successive fall of the communist governments in Eastern Europe, became for the whole world evidence of the refusal of the USSR from keeping these countries in its sphere of influence at any cost.
- " Sinatra Doctrine at Work in Warsaw Pact, Soviet Says" , Los Angeles Times , 1989-10-25