Ronald Reagan explained his strategy was an arms buildup that would leave the Soviets far behind, with no choice but to negotiate arms reduction. Finally, displaying his characteristic optimism, he praised liberal democracy and promised that such a system eventually would triumph over Soviet communism. Reagan appreciated the revolutionary change in the direction of the Soviet policy with Mikhail Gorbachev, and shifted to diplomacy, with a view to encourage the Soviet leader to pursue substantial arms agreements. He and Gorbachev held four summit conferences between 1985 and 1988: the first in Geneva, Switzerland, the second in Reykjavík, Iceland, the third in Washington,
Foreign policy of the George H. W. Bush administration propose both the World Bank and IMF partner with the Soviet Union to grant the USSR a special association which would grant it access to "considerable financial and economic expertise of those institutions." Another summit was held in July 1991, where the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) was signed by Bush and Gorbachev in Moscow. The treaty took nine years in the making and was the first major arms agreement since the signing of the Intermediate Ranged Nuclear Forces Treaty by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987. The contentions in START would reduce the strategic nuclear weapons of the United