Gorbachev's statesmanship is sorely needed today

• 

  Mikhail Gorbachev waves from the Red Square in Moscow during a Revolution Day celebration in November 1989. AP

• 

  Gorbachev poses for a picture at the age of 19, wearing the Red Banner of Labour medal he received for driving a combine harvester on the plains of southern Russia. AP

• 

  Gorbachev led the Soviet Union from 1985 until its end in 1991. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan meet for the first time in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1985. Reuters

• 

  Gorbachev and East German communist leader Erich Honecker sing the 'The International', widely regarded as a communist anthem, in East Berlin in April 1986. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev and Francois Mitterrand wave during an official trip by the French president to the USSR, in July 1986. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev gives a speech in Moscow, during the 18th Congress of the USSR Trade Unions, in February 1987. AFP

• 

  British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Gorbachev before the start of talks at the Kremlin in March 1987. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev waves from the Red Square in November 1987, during celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. AP

• 

  Gorbachev and Reagan sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty at the White House in Washington in December 1987. Reuters

• 

  Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle at the end of the Soviet leader's visit to Britain in April 1989. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev and his wife Raisa take in the view during a tour of China's Great Wall, in Beijing, in May 1989. AP

• 

  Gorbachev and his wife are greeted by cheering crowds in Bonn, Germany, in June 1989. EPA

• 

  Pope John Paul II greets Gorbachev at the Vatican in December 1989. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev speaks at the Lenin monument in Vilnius, Lithuania, in January 1990. AP

• 

  Gorbachev attends a Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe summit in Paris in November 1990. AFP

• 

  US President George Bush and Gorbachev confer in Moscow in July 1991, after the end of a US-Soviet summit dedicated to disarmament. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev makes his first appearance after a failed military coup in August 1991. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev and British Prime Minister John Major pose for a picture after the Soviet leader's arrival at Lancaster House, London, in July 1991. PA

• 

  Gorbachev and his wife shake hands with Mickey and Minnie Mouse at the entrance of Disneyland, Tokyo, in April 1992. AFP

• 

  Reagan and Gorbachev with their wives at a farm owned by the Reagans near Santa Barbara, California, in May 1992. Reuters

• 

  Gorbachev meets former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger in Moscow in May 1992. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev announces his candidacy for the Russian presidency at a press conference in Moscow in March 1996. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev wipes his tears as his daughter Irina looks on during a ceremony in Moscow to pay tribute to his late wife Raisa in September 1999. AFP

• 

  U2 lead singer Bono, former US president Bill Clinton and Gorbachev attend a dinner hosted by the former Soviet leader at the Russian Embassy in New York in March 2002. AP

• 

  US Secretary of State Colin Powell shakes hands with Gorbachev in Washington in April 2001. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev and Russian President Vladimir Putin before the start of a news conference in Schleswig, Germany, in December 2004. AP

• 

  Bush, Gorbachev and former German chancellor Helmut Kohl hold the 'Point Alpha Award' at the former demarcation line between East and West Germany in June 2005. EPA

• 

  Former German chancellor Angela Merkel and Gorbachev talk during the 'Petersburg Dialogue' conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, in October 2007. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev meets British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in January 2008 at 10 Downing Street in London. PA

• 

  Gorbachev holds talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron in February 2011 at 10 Downing Street in London. PA

• 

  Former US President Jimmy Carter shakes hands with Gorbachev during the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Chicago, Illinois, in April 2012. EPA

• 

  Gorbachev and Bush shake hands during a commemorative event in Berlin in October 2009. AFP

• 

  Gorbachev attends the Moscow premiere of a film made by Werner Herzog and British filmmaker Andre Singer based on their conversations, in Moscow, Russia, in November 2018. AP

With tensions between Moscow and the West at an all-time high because of the Ukraine conflict, the death of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is a timely, if unfortunate, reminder of an era when global rivals could set aside their differences and work together in the quest for peace.

While Gorbachev will be remembered primarily for presiding over the collapse of the Soviet Union, he also played a significant role in ending the Cold War, a conflict that had begun with the division of Europe following the Second World War and which, on occasion, had brought the planet to the brink of nuclear catastrophe, especially during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

After then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher famously identified Gorbachev as someone “she could do business with”, the Soviet leader found himself involved in lengthy negotiations with the US and its allies aimed at reducing their stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Thatcher used her close relationship with then US president Ronald Reagan to persuade him that Washington should set aside its long-standing hostility towards the Kremlin and engage with Gorbachev.

This led to a series of summits between the two leaders who were committed to ending the modern menace of nuclear weapons, beginning with a meeting in Geneva in November 1985, where they discussed the Cold War-era arms race and the possibility of reducing their countries’ stockpiles. This initiated a dialogue that led to the ground-breaking Reykjavik Summit the following year, where both Reagan and Gorbachev agreed that nuclear weapons must be eliminated. They even came close to an agreement to eliminate their stockpiles by 2000.

The signing of the INF Treaty effectively brought the Cold War to an end

In the event, the military establishments in both countries shied away from undertaking such a deal. Instead, further negotiations led to the signing, in late 1987, of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, with both sides agreeing to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons, while restricting the deployment of both intermediate and short-range land-based missiles worldwide.

The signing of the INF Treaty effectively brought the Cold War to an end, as it laid the foundations for a major de-escalation in tensions between the two superpowers. The agreement was to last for more than three decades until the Trump administration, claiming that the Russians had breached the terms of the deal by developing a new generation of ground-launched, intermediate-range cruise missiles, withdrew from the agreement – a situation that continues to this day.

Looking back at those momentous events, it is hard to imagine today’s generation of leaders having the courage and imagination to take similar measures to de-escalate tensions between East and West. On the contrary, today, the US and Russia are engaged in a new arms race with the threat of mutual nuclear destruction once again becoming a major concern. The Cold War level of nuclear stockpiles may have been significantly reduced as a result of the INF agreement, but both countries still possess significant quantities of these weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stated that Moscow would resort to them “to defend its sovereignty".

The re-emergence of nuclear weapons as a threat to world peace is a regressive step. Unfortunately, a process to address this problem seems unlikely as long as relations between Washington and Moscow remain at their current low ebb.

The current level of hostility only serves to underline the extraordinary accomplishment of the Reagan-Gorbachev collaboration. In order to reach a deal with the US, Gorbachev had to overcome enormous resistance from within his own communist party leadership.

• 

  General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev (right) shaking hands with Syrian President Hafez Al Assad in Moscow on June 19, 1985. AFP

• 

  Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (right) and his Vice President Tarek Aziz in Moscow with Mr Gorbachev (left) and his Foreign Minister Edward Shevardnadze during their visit to Soviet Union in 1985. AFP

• 

  Mr Gorbachev with Yasser Arafat, President of Palestine Liberation Organisation, in East Berlin on April 17, 1986 during the 11th Congress of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany. AFP

• 

  Delegates attend the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference. The 1991 conference for the Middle East was the first time Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians all came together for negotiations. Pictured from left are Soviet President Mr Gorbachev, Soviet Foreign Minister Boris Pankin, Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, US President George Bush, US Secretary of State James Baker, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, Palestinian delegate Abdel Haidar Shafi, and Jordanian Foreign Minister Kamel Abu Jaber. Getty Images

• 

  Jordan's Queen Noor greets Mr Gorbachev in Amman in 1998. Mr Gorbachev is in Jordan to give a lecture on the UN Leadership Programme. AFP

• 

  World leaders and Nobel laureates participate in a conference, organised by the Peres Centre for Peace to add impetus to the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, join hands in January 1999 at the end of the two-day meeting in Ramallah. Pictured from left are Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Costa Rican president Oscar Sanchez, Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, ex-Soviet leader Mr Gorbachev and former South African president FW de Klerk. AFP

• 

  Former Soviet president Mr Gorbachev (right) is greeted by former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres after the latter's speech to the second annual meeting of the board of the Peres Centre for Peace in Tel Aviv in January 1999. AFP

• 

  Former Soviet president Mr Gorbachev shakes hands with UN official and former Egyptian minister Mervat Tallawy at the UN head office in Beirut in April 2003. Mr Gorbachev called on the US and Britain to end the "bloodbath" in Iraq and allow the UN to resolve the crisis. AFP

• 

  Former Russian Mr Gorbachev (left) meets Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in Beirut in 2003. AFP

• 

  Mr Gorbachev (centre) speaks with Iraqi boys Ali Ismael Abbas (right) and his friend Ahmed (left) during an awards ceremony where Dr Ahmed Al Shatti, representing Iraqi and Kuwaiti doctors, was honoured with the "Men of the year award" for work during the Iraq war at the World Awards gala in Hamburg on October 22, 2003. Reuters

• 

  Lebanese President Michel Sleiman (left) with Mr Gorbachev at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, on February 1, 2010. Gorbachev is on a private visit to Lebanon. AFP

• 

  Mr Gorbachev speaks to journalists at the Middle East and North Africa Cristal Festival at a hotel in Faraya, north-east of Beirut, on February 2, 2010. AFP

• 

  Mr Gorbachev speaks during the International Government Communication Forum (IGCF 2014) in Sharjah on February 23, 2014. The event, gathering international professionals from government, private and media sectors, has the theme "Different Roles...Mutual Interest. AFP

The so-called Nomenklatura, a category of officials who occupied key posts in the state and the economy in the Soviet system, were strongly opposed to Gorbachev’s novel concepts of more political transparency, or "glasnost", as well as his desire to introduce his "perestroika" reform programme to the union’s governmental and economic institutions. The Soviet leader also met with stiff resistance from Moscow’s military establishment, which was perturbed by his disarmament initiatives, seen as weakening the security of the Soviet Union.

To this day, there are many in Russia who still regret the changes undertaken during the Gorbachev era, which would explain the Kremlin’s reluctance to grant a man universally acknowledged as one of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century a state funeral. Speaking shortly after Gorbachev’s death had been announced, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that no decision had yet been made.

He also said that it wasn’t clear whether Mr Putin would attend Gorbachev’s funeral. They were never said to be close, with Mr Putin holding Gorbachev responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union, which took place soon after the signing of the nuclear deal.

Even so, Gorbachev will be held in high regard in the West, where his willingness to engage with his opponents demonstrated his statesmanlike qualities.

The deep bond, for example, he developed with Thatcher, who was no friend of communism, highlighted his ability to place pragmatism over ideology. On one occasion in the Kremlin, the two leaders are said to have argued for nine hours about the merits of their respective political systems, leaving Thatcher no time to change into an evening dress for the Kremlin banquet.

In the current geopolitical climate, it is hard to imagine today’s generation of leaders engaging in such a relaxed dialogue.