New Releases by Francis Fukuyama

This report considers the ways policy toward the toward the Third World has been a factor in Soviet civil-military relations. It pieces together what we know about evolving Soviet military views on the Third World, and tests the hypothesis that the military as an institution was in some way an advocate of intervention after the early 1970s. The author (1) provides a brief overview of the mechanics of Soviet decisionmaking on the the Third World and of how the military fits into the picture; (2) traces the ascending curve of military interest in the Third World, beginning with the Soviet Navy''s pursuit of bases in the 1960s and the development by the early 1970s of the concept of a liberating mission for the Soviet armed forces as a whole; (3) discusses the subsequent downplaying of the liberating mission under the military leadership that took over in 1976; (4) analyzes the effect of the invasion of Afghanistan on the military''s view of intervention in general and on civil-military relations; and (5) provides an overview of the evolution in military thinking about the Third World. The author concludes that the Soviet military''s views of the Third World are complicated and do not fit a simple pattern. The Soviet military has a point of view on Third World issues distinct from that of the political leadership. (Author).

"This report analyzes the reassessment of policy toward the Third World that has been taking place in high Soviet leadership circles since the end of the Brezhnev era. It is divided into two main parts: (1) a survey of the theoretical discussion that has been taking place in speeches by Soviet leaders, official statements, articles in journals specializing in Third World issues, and elsewhere; and (2) a comparison of what the Soviets have been saying about the Third World with their actual behavior over the same time period, and a discussion of the potential consequences of the current reassessment for future Soviet policy. The report identifies three primary themes running through recent Soviet discussions of the Third World, all of which imply the need for a retrenchment from the activist policies of the mid- to late 1970s: (1) the pressure of economic constraints and the need to attend to the Soviet Union''s own economic development; (2) an awareness of the damaging effect of past Soviet Third World activities on U.S.-Soviet relations, and the fact that increased superpower tension inhibits Moscow''s ability to support progressive forces in the Third World; and (3) a critique of the Marxist-Leninist vanguard party as a solution to the problem of securing long-term influence in the Third World."--Rand Abstracts.

"While it is comforting for the superpowers to think that they can have influence abroad merely on the strength of the positive example they set at home, this is only true in the long run. In the short run, Third World states, regimes, and individual leaders need to survive long enough to build their domestic institutions, and therefore need security in the form of external military aid, weapons, advisers, training, and, in the last extreme, direct superpower military intervention. Because military matters are important not only to an understanding of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry in the Third World, but to the larger U.S.-Soviet relationship as well, this paper reviews the superpowers'' military objectives, the history of their use of military power as a means to an end, and the likely role of military power in future U.S.-Soviet interactions. The author suggests that the United States must address the problem of military security in the short run if it is to exert its influence in the social and economic spheres in the long run."--Rand abstracts.

If one were to survey the full range of Soviet clients in the Third World in the mid-1980s and contrast them with those of a generation earlier, say in the mid-1960s, perhaps the single most salient difference that emerges is the proliferation of regimes claiming Marxism-Leninism as their governing ideology. In the earlier period there were only three: North Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba. Moscow''s other major Third World clients at that time were a heterogeneous collection of left-leaning states like Egypt under Nasser, Syria, India, Indonesia, Mali, Ghana, and the like. Each one professed a vaguely socialist ideology tailored to the country''s specific national and cultural traditions, maintained an equally vague non-aligned and anti-imperialist foreign policy, and disavowed any adherence to orthodox Marxist-Leninist principles. Twenty years later, by contrast, the three Communist regimes had not only survived (and in case of Vietnam substantially expanded), but were joined by at least six others: Afghanistan, the People''s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua. In this report we analyze the similarities of the six new Marxist-Leninist regimes more closely in terms of four categories--internal structure, foreign policy, military policy, and internal opposition, and conclude with some observations about their place in the Third World more broadly.

In many ways the Middle East/Persian Gulf region is one of the most likely places in which a U.S.-Soviet conflict could ultimately escalate into nuclear war. The combination of high mutual superpower stakes in the region, endemic political instability among its states, and the presence of strong military forces in close proximity guarantees that crises in the Middle East/Persian Gulf will continue to have the potential to trigger direct U.S.-Soviet military conflict and consequently the use of nuclear weapons. Within the region, which stretches from Morocco to Pakistan, there is a wide variety of local conflicts and corresponding many ways in which the superpowers could conceivably be drawn into war. Of these regional conflicts, two stand out as serious enough to raise the possibility of nuclear war between the superpowers: a possible Soviet invasion of Iran and other parts of the Persian Gulf, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

By a rather unfortunate coincidence, a consensus has been reached among Western observers on an analytical framework within which to view Soviet foreign policy in areas of the Third World like the Middle East, at the very moment when the rules of that game, it would appear, are being rewritten rather drastically. The decade of the 70s has seen a steady erosion of Soviet influence in the region as a result of an active diplomacy on the part of the United States and some of its European allies. The precedents shattered by the recent Soviet intervention in Afghanistan have come as a surprise to many, but it is in fact only the logical culmination of a shift in tactics begun by the Soviets over the last four or five years, designed precisely to overcome the generally-recognized weaknesses in their earlier position. This paper will begin with an overview of the traditional mode of Soviet behavior in the Middle East as it evolved in the two decades between 1955 and 1975, with special reference to its difficult experience in Egypt and Iraq. It will then analyze the steps that the Soviets have taken over the past half-decade to ensure that their expulsion from Egypt would not be repeated elsewhere, and will conclude with a discussion of the implications of this shift for the Western alliance.