THE LIMITS OF SOVIET POWER IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD

Also by Edward A. Kolodziej

FRENCH INTERNATIONAL POLICY UNDER DE GAULLE AND POMPIDOU MAKING AND MARKETING ARMS: The French Experience and its Implications for the International System THE UNCOMMON DEFENSE AND CONGRESS: 1945-1963 Also edited by Roger E. Kanet

BACKGROUND TO CRISIS: Policy and Politics in Gierek's Poland THE BEHAVIOURAL REVOLUTION AND COMMUNIST STUDIES ON THE ROAD TO COMMUNISM SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN FOREIGN POLICY SOVIET ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH THE DEVELOPING WORLD SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY AND EAST-WEST RELATIONS SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY IN THE 1980s THE SOVIET UNION, EASTERN EUROPE AND THE DEVELOPING STATES

The Limits of Soviet Power in the Developing World Thermidor in the Revolutionary Struggle

Edited by

Edward A. Kolodziej

Research Professor of Political Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

and

Roger E. Kanet

Professor of Political Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

M

MACMILLAN PRESS

© Edward A. Kolodziej and Roger E. Kanet 1989 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989 978-0-333-46207-2 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1989 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data The limits of Soviet power in the developing world: thermidor in the revolutionary struggle. 1. Developing countries. Foreign relations with Soviet Union 2. Soviet Union. Foreign relations with developing countries I. Kolodziej, Edward A., 193511. Kanet, Roger E., 1936327' .09172'4 ISBN 978-1-349-10148-1 ISBN 978-1-349-10146-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-10146-7

Contents Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Preface

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PART I

1 2

THE SOVIET UNION AND THE DEVELOPING WORLD: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE The Diffusion of Power within a Decentralised International System: Limits of Soviet Power Edward A. Kolodziej

VII

The Evolution of Soviet Policy toward the Developing World: From Stalin to Brezhnev Roger E. Kanet

PART II THE SOVIET UNION AND THE DEVELOPING WORLD: A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE Latin America 3 Cuban-Soviet Relations: Directions of Influence W. Raymond Duncan

4 5

6

7

3

36

65

The Soviet Union, the Caribbean, and Central America: Towards a New Correlation of Forces Howard J. Wiarda

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The Soviet Union in South America: Accent on Argentina, Brazil, and Peru Juan M. del Aguila

121

East and Southeast Asia The Soviet Union and Southeast Asia: The Vietnam Connection Sheldon W. Simon

149

The Soviet Union and East Asia Thomas W. Robinson

171

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Contents South and Southwest Africa The Soviet Union and South Asia Stephen P. Cohen

201

The Soviets in Afghanistan: Risks, Costs, and Opportunities Marvin G. Weinbaum

227

Middle East and North Africa The Soviet Union, the Persian Gulf, and the Iran-Iraq War Jerrold D. Green

255

11

The Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Augustus Richard Norton

275

12

Soviet-Maghribi Relations in the 1980s I. William Zartman

301

Sub-Saharan Africa The Soviet Union, the Horn, and Tropical Africa F. Seth Singleton

333

Soviet Prospects in Southern Africa: Great Opportunity or Growing Frustration? John Seiler

361

PART III CONCLUSIONS 15 Reassessing Soviet Doctrine: New Priorities and Perspectives Roger E. Kanet

397

8 9

10

13 14

16

Soviet Prospects in the Developing World: Implications for US Policy Edward A. Kolodziej

426

Selected Bibliography compiled by Daniel R. Kempton and Kanti Bajpai The USSR and the Developing Countries The United States and the Developing Countries

463 486

Index

514

Acknowledgements The editors wish to express their sincere appreciation to all of those who have made the project and the resulting study possible. An important element in the preparation of the study was a Soviet-Third World Workshop, held at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign on 25-7 September 1986. Contributors and invited participants met to address the topic of US-Soviet Competition in the Third World: Probable Developments in the 1990s. In a series of sessions covering the global aspects of Soviet Third World policy, the policies of principal regional actors, and their implications for US policy, the fourteen primary contributors presented the first drafts of their papers for discussion and review. In addition to the primary contributors, revised copies of whose papers comprise the present volume, invited participants in the Workshop included: Formal commentators: David E. Albright, Air War College Robert S. Wood, Naval War College Invited observers: Robert Grey, Grinnell College George E. Hudson, Wittenberg University and Mershon Center Michael McGinnis, Indiana University Robin Alison Remington, University of Columbia-Missouri Dina Rome Spechler, Indiana University M. Crawford Young, University of Wisconsin-Madison Rapporteurs: Terry D. Clark, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Daniel R. Kempton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The editors wish to express their appreciation to all of these participants whose perceptive criticisms and suggestions resulted in greater clarity and precision in the final drafts of the individual papers. Moreover, they wish to give special thanks to David E. Albright, Robert Grey, George E. Hudson, Stanley Kochanek and Patrick Morgan for the detailed written comments they provided on vii

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Acknowledgements

revised drafts of portions of the manuscript and to Daniel R. Kempton and Kanti Bajpai who prepared the selected bibliography. The editors are grateful, as well, for the financial support provided for the Workshop by the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security, the Department of Political Science, and the Russian and East European Center, all of the University of Illinois, and especially for the support of the US Department of Defense under contract no. MDA903-86-C-0112. Without this financial backing the project and the resulting study would have been impossible. However, the views, opinions, and findings contained in this book are those of the authors and should not be construed as an official Department of Defense position. The editors also wish to thank all of the other authors for their willingness to revise their chapters, taking into account recommendations from Workshop participants and others. They also are grateful to Antje Kolodziej for final proofing and editing of the book. Finally, they wish to acknowledge the fact that without the essential role of Mary Hoffman the book would likely never have been completed. Not only has she managed the logistics of completing the volume, she has also rendered major assistance as a perceptive and demanding copy editor. EDWARD

A.

KOLODZIEJ

ROGER E. KANET

Notes on the Contributors Juan M. del Aguila is Associate Professor of Political Science at

Emory University in Atlanta and Director of the Emory Center for International Studies. Included among his publications are Cuba: Dilemmas of a Revolution (1984), 'Cuba and the Soviet Union: Fishing in Troubled Waters', Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies (1985), and 'Central American Vulnerability to Soviet/Cuban Penetration', Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs (1985). He is currently working on a second edition of Cuba: Dilemmas of a Revolution (1987). Stephen P. Cohen is Professor of Political Science at the University of

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He served as a member of the Policy Planning Staff of the Department of State during 1985-87. Dr Cohen is the author or co-author of six books, including: The Indian Army (1971), The Pakistan Army (1984), and (ed.) The Security of South Asia: Asian and American Perspectives (1987).

W. Raymond Duncan is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York, College at Brockport. During 1984-86 he was Scholar-in-Residence with the Central Intelligence Agency, where he worked on Soviet-Third World relations. Included among his publications is his most recent book, The Soviet Union and Cuba: Interests and Influence (1985). He is currently co-authoring a book on Soviet policy toward the Third World under Mikhail Gorbachev, while teaching at SUNYBrockport and at Georgetown University. Jerrold D. Green is Director of the Near East Center and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona. Among his publications is Revolution in Iran: The Politics of Countermobilization (1982). At present he is at work on a study ofthe relationship between ideology and politics in the Middle East. Roger E. Kanet is Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Included among his publications are: (ed.) Soviet Foreign Policy and East-West Relations (1982), (ed.) Soviet Foreign Policy in the 1980s (1982), and (ed.) The Soviet Union,

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Notes on the Contributors

Eastern Europe and the Developing States (1987). His current research interests focus on Soviet foreign policy in the Third World. Edward A. Kolodziej is Research Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research and teaching interests focus on two interrelated concerns: the role of military force and threats in international relations and the arms control and security problems of the Atlantic Alliance. Among his major publications are: The Uncommon Defense and Congress: I945-I963 (1966), French International Policy under De Gaulle and Pompidou: The Politics of Grandeur (1974), and Making and Marketing Arms: The French Experience and Its Implications for the International System (1987). Augustus Richard Norton is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Social Sciences, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. Included among his publications are: Moscow and the Palestinians (1974), Amal and the Shi'a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon (1987), and (ed.) The International Relations of the PLO (forthcoming). Thomas W. Robinson is Director of the China Studies Program at the American Enterprise Institute, Professor at Georgetown University, and Course Chairperson for China and Northeast Asia at the Foreign Service Institute. He is completing manuscripts on Chinese foreign policy, Soviet Asian policy, and Asian security, and has published over one hundred writings in these and the allied fields of Chinese politics, Korean politics, international relations theory, and the Strategic Triangle. John Seiler is presently teaching courses at Mercy College and Dutchess Community College. His publications include (ed.) Southern Africa since the Portuguese Coup (1980). He is currently writing about the changing role of the military in the South African government and about the Namibian political situation. He is also completing a book on Kennedy-Johnson administration policy toward Southern Africa. Sheldon W. Simon is Professor of Political Science and Director of Arizona State University's Center of Asian Studies. He also consults with the US Information Agency and the Department of Defense. He

Notes on the Contributors

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has written extensively on Asian foreign and security policies and is the author or editor of five books, including The ASEAN States and Regional Security (1982). Most recently, Professor Simon completed a book length study titled The Future of Asian-Pacific Security Collaboration. F. Seth Singleton is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Pacific University. His academic interests include Soviet foreign policy and the Soviet Union, Africa, and international security affairs. He has written extensively on these topics, including 'From Intervention to Consolidation: The Soviet Union and Southern Africa', in The Soviet Impact in Africa, R. Craig Nation and Mark V. Kauppi (eds) (1984). Marvin G. Weinbaum is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program in South and West Asian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Among his recent publications are 'Afghanistan, International Responses and Responsibilities', in Ralph Magnus (ed.) Afghan Alternatives (1985) and Egypt and the Politics of U.S. Economic Aid (1986). He is currently working on a study of Soviet influence on the Afghan resistance movement and penetration into the refugee community in Pakistan. Howard J. Wiarda is Professor of Political Science and of Comparative Labor Relations at the University of Massachusetts/ Amherst, and Resident Scholar and Director of the Center for Hemispheric Studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He is the author or editor of thirteen books, including (with Harvey Kline) Latin American Politics and Development (1984), (ed.) Rift and Revolution: The Central American Imbroglio (1984), Dialogue on Central America (1985), (ed.) New Directions in Comparative Politics (1985), and (with Mark Falcoff) The Communist Challenge in the Caribbean (1987). He is currently working on a book on American foreign policy making. I. William Zartman is Professor of International Politics and Director of the African Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of a number of books on North Africa: Government and Politics in North Africa (1963); Destiny of a Dynasty (1964); Man, State and

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Society in the Contemporary Maghreb (1974); Elites in the Middle East (1980); and (ed.) The Political Economy of Morocco (1987). Dr Zartman has also written extensively on African politics and relations, with his latest work Ripe for Resolution: Conflict and Intervention in Africa (1985), and, as editor, The Political Economy of the Ivory Coast, The Political Economy of Nigeria (1983), and The OAU after Twenty Years (1984).

Preface This volume has two principal objectives: to evaluate Soviet penetration of the developing world and to identify the implications of Soviet success and failure for US security and foreign policy. The two aims are linked since United States behaviour is a partial determinant of Soviet expansion or containment, although it is by no means the sole or in many instances the critical factor affecting Soviet choices. The constraints imposed by developing states, as this volume argues, must be given greater weight than they have until now in explaining Soviet policy toward the Third World. Two general conclusions are reached. First, the divisions within the world society, composed of divergent religious and secular communities, of clashing nation-states, and of competing socioeconomic interests (cutting across ideological and national rivalries) inhibit significant Soviet expansion in the developing world. The global and regional diffusion of economic and military power further reinforces barriers to easy extension of Soviet influenCe in the near term. A decentralised world society, with autonomous centres of power and political initiative, also restrains, if not precludes, the Soviet Union from using force or coercive threats to promote its aims. Second, the external limits on Soviet power and internal imperatives pressing for socioeconomic and political reform within the Soviet Union favour a strategic Thermidor in the Soviet Union's quest to become a global power and to revolutionise the international system to suit its preferred values, needs, and interests. LIMITS OF SOVIET POWER AND POLICY DILEMMAS Soviet domination of the developing world is neither imminent nor inevitable. Notwithstanding the dramatic success of the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s within the developing world, several constraints limit further Soviet expansion. In addition to the increasing ability of the developing states to resist subordination to Moscow and, conversely, to manipulate the Soviet Union for their advantage, Soviet influence is checked by the countervailing military and economic power of the United States and its Western allies, by the divisions within the socialist camp - most notably the Sino-Soviet split, by the receding relevance of the Soviet model to many Third World

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problems, and by the necessarily scarce economic and technological resources commanded by Moscow to project its power and purposes abroad. There appears to be little likelihood that these limitations will be fundamentally relaxed in the remainder of this century, however much the saliency of one factor or another may change in relative value. Soviet planners and policy makers appear increasingly aware of their dim prospects, witnessed by the questions raised in the Soviet policy debate about the heavy costs, high risks, and dubious benefits of many Soviet commitments abroad. The mixed results of these efforts have bolstered doubts and reservations. The developing and developed worlds have not been as responsive to Soviet threats and blandishments as earlier Soviet regimes had hoped. The shortcomings of Moscow's policy instruments, which rest primarily on military power, have become progressively evident in the failure of the Soviet Union and its socialist partners in Eastern Europe and in the developing world to meet either their own modernisation and socioeconomic needs or, much less, those of the Third World. The Soviet Union will confront a host of hard choices in the coming decade in the developing world. To which regimes should it commit its scarce resources? At what level and in what areas should these resources be committed? Where should previously extended commitments be revised to conform to limited Soviet power and competing aims? The latter are currently centered on internal socio-political and economic reform and on keeping pace in the arms competition with the United States, particularly in offensive and defensive nuclear systems. Here the dilemmas facing Soviet leaders are well known: to liberalise the economy and to decentralise resource allocation decisions risk weakening internal party control and downgrading military priorities, moves likely to be resisted by the party apparatus as well as by the military and elements of the civilian bureaucracies; to widen Soviet and socialist state economic ties and socio-cultural and diplomatic exchanges with Western capitalistic states threatens to increase demands for greater economic choice within the Soviet bloc, as well as to heighten pressures for greater political independence by bloc partners- after the Romanian example- and for the expression of greater political freedom within particular communist states, including the Soviet Union itself. These choices are acutely felt in the developing world. At a global level, should the Soviet Union focus most of its attention and resources on socialist states within the Soviet camp? Or, should it widen its

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relationships with non-Marxist states, at the risk of dampening and dissipating revolutionary fervour and of weakening the incentives of Marxist-Leninist states to remain within the Soviet fold? Soviet leaders also face a new dilemma in the developing world that compounds those with which we are all familiar. The choice is more complex than simply choosing between intra-party and state-to-state priorities. The choice confronting the Soviet leaders is whether to remain isolated within their own socialist system or to draw on the greater resources and stimulus of the non-socialist world to spur internal economic and technological reform and (what is likely to be more difficult) to accommodate themselves to a world in which the Soviet model of socialism appears fading - more for socioeconomic than for narrow military and internal security reasons. Soviet leaders are being forced to limit the extension of Soviet commitments and resources to the developing world. Moscow is undergoing a fundamental reorientation toward the Third World as the object and instrument of its long-term policy. Whatever may be the attachment of Soviet planners to a revolutionary mission or to the goal of making the Soviet Union the equal of the United States as a global power, they have to define their aims in terms of the limitations of Soviet power. Regarding the object of Soviet policy, Moscow appears prepared to devote whatever resources are necessary and to maintain and even increase its level of strategic and foreign policy commitments to keep what it has achieved in presence and influence in Cuba, Vietnam, and Ethiopia. These states appear to be integral parts of the Soviet bloc. As the focus shifts from these communist enclaves, the commitments of the Soviet Union appear less clear and certain between the superpowers. At this writing, Moscow has agreed to withdraw its military forces from Afghanistan, but resists defining the terms of political compromise to ensure its complete disengagement. The level of resources to be devoted to areas currently in dispute between the superpowers, principally Nicaragua and Central America as well as Angola and southern Africa, appears to be presently under serious examination, as the regional chapters suggest, with no fixed Soviet determination about the priority that they should or ultimately will be assigned in Soviet Third World policy. The Soviet Union's costly successes- impressive when considered historically but still quite limited if global standards of influence are applied - and the intractability of the international environment, stubbornly resistant in a host of bewildering ways to Soviet designs,

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have introduced a new scepticism and soberness in Soviet thinking about creating a socialist world order. The conflicting needs and demands of Third World states advise a broader, more patient and pragmatic, and longer-term strategy toward the developing world than was once believed necessary or desirable. Soviet policy makers appear simultaneously more sensitive to the diverse and potentially insupportable claims of developing states on Soviet resources and commitments and more aware, partly informed by recent experience, that the states of the developing world are far less susceptible to Soviet manipulation or rapid modernisation than was previously believed, even in those cases where Soviet assistance has been substantial, as in China, Egypt, and Indonesia. The developing world is increasingly being viewed more as an instrument than as an object of Soviet global policy. In the post-Brezhnev period, it has been progressively subordinated to Soviet needs for socioeconomic and technological development, to the exigencies of the US-Soviet arms competition, and to the requirements of better relations with developed states, especially those in Western Europe. Stronger ties with the West Europeans have the twin virtues of assisting the economic development of the Soviet Union and its bloc partners and of promoting greater independence in Western capitals from US leadership. These priorities are linked to the creation of a broader base of economic and political relations with the developing world to gain access to raw materials, trade outlets, and concessions needed for the modernisation of the Soviet economy as a prerequisite for long-term successful competition with the United States and the West. These shifts in Soviet thinking and policy toward the developing world should not obscure the fact that Moscow or its partners have used force to get their way. Nor does this analysis suggest that they will forego armed intervention or support for revolutionary movements bent on overthrowing governments with which the Soviet Union may have formal diplomatic ties. The cases of Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan argue otherwise. But the limits of military force also appear apparent to Soviet decision makers. Marxist rule in Afghanistan, Angola, Mozambique, and Nicaragua has elicited greater resistance than appears to have been initially anticipated by Moscow. In Grenada, the Cuban-sponsored New Jewel Movement was overthrown and replaced by a US-backed regime committed to liberal principles of government. In addition, the Soviet experience in Southeast Asia, where ASEAN and China now contain Vietnam,

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suggests the lesson that too rapid an expansion of Soviet presence and influence can prompt countervailing responses which may eventually reverse short-run gains over the long-term, a kind of 'falling dominoes' in reverse. Third World states are also acutely aware of the limited utility of Soviet arms in addressing their rising socioeconomic needs as much an imperative of survival as of the suppression of domestic opponents. There is, finally, a heavy burden placed on the Soviet Union in maintaining high defence expenditures and costly, not to mention risky, foreign military and security assistance programmes. These calculations and constraints cannot be - nor are they being ignored by Soviet decision makers. THERMIDOR IN SOVIET GLOBAL STRATEGY At this juncture in the history of the international system and, specifically, in the evolution of the developing world, it would appear that Soviet leaders would prefer what might be termed a Thermidor in their competition with the West and the United States. It would appear that the Soviet Union cannot keep pace by relying on its existing military and economic base, including that of its bloc partners, nor, given the questionable attractiveness of segments of the developing world, does it have much incentive to try. Moscow needs time and better relations with the West to reform its outmoded and inefficient economic system, weighted down by excessive centralisation and bureaucratisation. Social ills - alcoholism, absenteeism, national and ethnic tensions - also need to be addressed. An unresponsive party structure needs to be revitalised, and tired personnel, attached to outmoded political notions and commitments, replaced. In response to a period of Thermidor, the United States and its Western allies have an opportunity to affect Soviet choices in the developing world in ways, to be discussed in the final chapter of the volume, that are not only in their own interest but compatible in many areas with that of the Soviet Union. The East-West struggle will surely go on along a North-South axis - in deadly earnest and often with lethal consequences- but conceivably at less costly and risky levels, if both sides learn that, without any lessening of distrust, they can mutually moderate their aims, contain if not curtail their current levels of military and security commitments, and yet expand their competition in non-coercive ways within the developing world - without

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necessarily decreasing their own security or that of their closest partners. Moving to more competitive, but less coercive, levels of conflict will not be easy, nor in some instances even desirable where concrete interests are at stake in key locales, as in the Middle East, but the conditions for a Thermidor and for a transition to more cooperative superpower relations are emerging if the superpowers wish to avail themselves of the opportunity. Neither side alone can effect such a transition; only in tandem will it work, since the benefits in shifting to lowered coercive conflict in the developing world are a partial function of superpower cooperation, not merely the result of unilateral initiatives which are not matched by corresponding confidence building measures from the other adversary. APPROACH AND ORGANISATION The principal findings and conclusions of the volume are the product of several complementary lines of systemic and regional analysis. First, the superpower conflict, however multifaceted and complex, is placed in the larger context of the international system within which this dynamic competition is viewed as the principal but not the only or, in many instances, the most significant force defining the global political community. Chapter 1 argues that no state, including the Soviet Union, has the military power, will, or incentive to impose unilaterally its preferred values and interests on the international system. The developing states, moreover, have sufficient military forces and economic resources at their disposal in many cases to define regional security agendas, to determine the outcomes of intrastate and interstate conflicts, and to help or hinder efforts by the Soviet Union to create a global environment congenial to its opposing values and interests. Chapter 2 outlines the evolution of Soviet policy toward the developing world. It stresses the Soviet perception of its revolutionary role in the international system. It underlines the determination of Soviet leaders to make the Soviet Union a global power and, ultimately, to organise a socialist-dominated world system. Sketched are successes of the Soviet Union in expanding its presence and influence abroad as well as the growing debate within policy-making circles of the limitations of Soviet power and that of its socialist brethren and the costs and risks of for~ign adventures.

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Part II, Chapters 3 to 14, adopts a regional approach. The primary focus is on those states in the developing world with which the Soviet Union has created special ties and commitments. The regional and Soviet specialists invited to contribute to this volume have been asked to address the following set of questions to facilitate comparison of Soviet behaviour across regions and to assist in generalising about the operational objectives and preferred instruments of Soviet policy: (1) Who are the principal actors in the region with close ties to the Soviet Union? (2) What are their principal aims, and how is the Soviet Union viewed as an instrument to facilitate the accomplishment of their objectives? (3) What overall strategy, if any, are these actors pursuing to elicit favourable Soviet responses? (4) What are the instruments used to manipulate Moscow? (5) How successful have the regional actors been? (6) What is their assessment of the costs, benefits, and future expectations of their relationship with the Soviet Union? (7) What are the principal problems and regional actors that are obstacles to the achievement of actor aims? and (8) To what extent is the United States a help or a hindrance? Drawing on the answers to these questions and on the analysis of Part I, the final section elaborates on the two principal conclusions of this volume: the limits on Soviet power imposed by the international system and Moscow's need for a period of Thermidor in its competition with the West. Chapter 15 identifies current and emerging trends in Soviet thinking about the developing world. Chapter 16 summarises the constraints on Soviet behaviour, its tenuous position in the principal regions of the globe, and the incentives for the Soviet Union and the West to cooperate in a period of Thermidor. It also outlines a long-term strategy for the West to meet the Soviet challenge and to moderate the superpower struggle in the developing world. As an aid to the hurried reader, the gist of this volume can be garnered from reading the summary introductions to all of the chapters. Each author has been asked to summarise his major arguments and conclusions. Within the limits of consistency and coherence, the editors have tried to retain as much as possible of the original style and substance of each contribution to preserve the richness of thought and insight brought to the volume by each regional expert. If we encouraged each flower to bloom in its own way, we felt obliged as editors to insist that each plant be seeded in the same conceptual field of analysis. Only the reader can judge whether we have struck the right balance. The editors assume full responsibility for Parts I and III. While Roger Kanet is the principal author of Chapter

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15 and Edward Kolodziej of Chapter 16, both concur in the findings of these chapters. The contributors, however, should not be held personally responsible for these chapters, although the editors believe that their analyses of Soviet regional policy support the contributors' evaluations and recommendations. EDWARD

A.

KOLODZIEJ

ROGER E. KANET