Foreign relations of the Soviet Union

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Soviet Union

This article is part of the series:

Politics and government of
the Soviet Union

Leadership[show]
Government[show]
Legislature[show]
Judiciary[show]
Communist Party[show]
History & politics[show]
Society[show]
Atlas
Soviet Union portal

view

talk

edit

At its founding, the Soviet Union was considered a pariah by most

governments because of its communism, and as such was

denied diplomatic recognitionby most states. Less than a quarter century

later, the Soviet Union not only had official relations with the majority of the
nations of the world, but had actually progressed to the role of
a superpower.
By 1945, the USSR a founding member of the United Nations was
one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, giving it the
right toveto any of the Security Council's resolutions (see Soviet Union and
the United Nations). During the Cold War, the Soviet Union vied with the
United States forgeopolitical influence; this competition was manifested in
the creation of numerous treaties and pacts dealing with military
alliances and economic trade agreements, and proxy wars.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs headed Soviet foreign policy. Andrei
Gromyko was Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs for nearly thirty years.
Contents
[hide]

1 Ideology and objectives of Soviet foreign policy

2 Before World War II

3 The aftermath of World War II

o

3.1 Europe

3.2 The Middle East

3.2.1 Relations with Israel

3.2.2 Relations with the Arab States

4 The 1970s onwards

5 Gorbachev and after

6 See also

7 Notes

8 Further reading
o

8.1 Primary sources

9 External links

[edit]Ideology and objectives of Soviet foreign policy

According to Soviet theorists, the basic character of Soviet foreign policy
was set forth in Vladimir Lenin's Decree on Peace, adopted by the Second
Congress of Soviets in November 1917. It set forth the dual nature of
Soviet foreign policy, which encompasses both proletarian internationalism
and peaceful coexistence. On the one hand, proletarian internationalism
refers to the common cause of the working classes of all countries in
struggling to overthrow the bourgeoisie and to establish communist
regimes. Peaceful coexistence, on the other hand, refers to measures to
ensure relatively peaceful government-to-government relations with
capitalist states. Both policies can be pursued simultaneously: "Peaceful
coexistence does not rule out but presupposes determined opposition to
imperialist aggression and support for peoples defending their revolutionary
gains or fighting foreign oppression."[1]
The Soviet commitment in practice to proletarian internationalism declined
since the founding of the Soviet state, although this component of ideology
still had some effect on later formulation and execution of Soviet foreign
policy. Although pragmatic raisons d'tat undoubtedly accounted for much
of more recent Soviet foreign policy, the ideology of class struggle still
played a role in providing a worldview and certain loose guidelines for
action in the 1980s. Marxist-Leninist ideology reinforces other
characteristics of political culture that create an attitude of competition and
conflict with other states.[1]

The general foreign policy goals of the Soviet Union were formalized in a
party program ratified by delegates to the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress
in FebruaryMarch 1986. According to the program, "the main goals and
guidelines of the CPSU's international policy" included ensuring favorable
external conditions conducive to building communism in the Soviet Union;
eliminating the threat of world war; disarmament; strengthening the "world
socialist system"; developing "equal and friendly" relations with "liberated"
[Third World] countries; peaceful coexistence with the capitalist countries;
and solidarity with communist and revolutionary-democratic parties, the
international workers' movement, and national liberation struggles. [1]
Although these general foreign policy goals were apparently conceived in
terms of priorities, the emphasis and ranking of the priorities have changed
over time in response to domestic and international stimuli. After Mikhail
Gorbachev became general Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985, for
instance, some Western analysts discerned in the ranking of priorities a
possible de-emphasis of Soviet support for national liberation movements.
Although the emphasis and ranking of priorities were subject to change,
two basic goals of Soviet foreign policy remained constant: national
security (safeguarding CPSU rule through internal control and the
maintenance of adequate military forces) and, since the late 1940s,
influence over Eastern Europe.[1]
Many Western analysts have examined the way Soviet behavior in various
regions and countries supports the general goals of Soviet foreign policy.
These analysts have assessed Soviet behavior in the 1970s and 1980s as
placing primary emphasis on relations with the United States, which was
considered the foremost threat to the national security of the Soviet Union.
Second priority was given to relations with Eastern Europe (the European
members of the Warsaw Pact) and Western Europe (the European
members of the North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationNATO). Third priority
was given to the littoral or propinquitous states along the southern border of
the Soviet Union: Turkey (a NATO member), Iran, Afghanistan, People's
Republic of China, Mongolia, the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea (North Korea), and Japan. Regions near to, but not bordering, the
Soviet Union were assigned fourth priority. These included the Middle
East and North Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Last priority was

given to sub-Saharan Africa, the islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans,
and Latin America, except insofar as these regions either provided
opportunities for strategic basing or bordered on strategic naval straits or
sea lanes. In general, Soviet foreign policy was most concerned with
superpower relations (and, more broadly, relations between the members
of NATO and the Warsaw Pact), but during the 1980s Soviet leaders
pursued improved relations with all regions of the world as part of its
foreign policy objectives.[1]

Before World War II

It is possible to detect three distinct phases in Soviet foreign policy between
the conclusion of the Russian Civil War and the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939,
determined in part by political struggles within the USSR, and in part by
dynamic developments in international relations and the effect these had
on Soviet security.
Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, once in power, believed their October
Revolution would ignite the world's socialists and lead to a "World
Revolution." Lenin set up the Communist International (Comintern)
to export revolution to the rest of Europe and Asia. Indeed, Lenin set out to
liberate all of Asia from imperialist and capitalist control.
The first priority for Soviet foreign policy was Europe, above all Germany,
which was the country that Lenin most admired and thought most ready for
revolution.[2] The historian Robert Service noted that Lenin and the other
Bolshevik leaders had a very idealized picture of Germany that bore little
relation to reality.[3] Lenin was most disappointed when, following the
October Revolution, a similar revolution did not break out in Germany as he
had expected and hoped for, forcing him to sign the Treaty of BrestLitovsk in March 1918 to take Russia out of World War I.[4] Brest-Litovsk
was an immense shock to the Bolsheviks, and afterwards a new policy
emerged of both seeking pragmatic co-operation with the Western powers
when it suited Soviet interests while at the same time trying to promote a

Communist revolution whenever possible.[5] In the immediate aftermath of

World War I, the Soviets encouraged Communist uprisings in Germany and
saw Bla Kun briefly establish the Hungarian Soviet Republic.[4] Had it not
been for the Russian Civil War, Lenin would had sent the Red
Army into Central Europe into 1919 to export Communism.[6] After the
failure of these efforts, Lenin, assuming that capitalism was not going to
collapse at once as he had hoped, made a major effort in the early 1920s
to lure German corporations into investing in the Soviet Union as a way of
modernizing the country.[7] Lenin's Germanophila was controversial within
the Bolsheviks, with many of his colleagues complaining that he went too
far with his liking for all things German.[7] As part of the effort to join a
German-Soviet alliance, the Soviets signed the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922.[8]
Lenin's plans failed, although Russia did manage to hold onto the Central
Asian and Caucasian domains that had been part of the Russian Empire.
[9]
The revolutionary stage ended after the Soviet defeat in the war with
Poland in 1921.[10] As Europe's revolutions were crushed and revolutionary
zeal dwindled, the Bolsheviks shifted their ideological focus from the world
revolution and building socialism around the globe to building socialism
inside the Soviet Union, while keeping some of the rhetoric and operations
of the Comintern continuing. In the mid-1920s, a policy of peaceful coexistence began to emerge, with Soviet diplomats attempting to end the
country's isolation, and concluding bilateral arrangements with capitalist
governments. Agreement was reached with Germany, Europe's other
pariah of the day, in the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922.[11]
There were, however, still those in the Soviet government, most
notably Leon Trotsky, who argued for the continuation of the revolutionary
process, in terms of his theory of Permanent Revolution. After Lenin's death
in 1924, Trotsky and the internationalists were opposed by Joseph
Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin, who developed the notion of Socialism in One
Country. The foreign policy counterpart of Socialism in One Country was
that of the United Front, with foreign Communists urged to enter into
alliances with reformist left-wing parties and national liberation movements
of all kinds. The high point of this strategy was the partnership
in China between the Chinese Communist Party and the
nationalist Kuomintang, a policy favored by Stalin in particular, and a

source of bitter dispute between him and Trotsky. The Popular Front policy
in China effectively crashed to ruin in 1927, when Kuomintang
leader Chiang Kai-shek massacred the native Communists and expelled all
of his Soviet advisors, notably Mikhail Borodin.
The following year, after defeating opponents from both the left (led by
Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev) and the right (led by Nikolai Bukharin), Stalin
began the wholesale collectivization of Soviet agriculture, accompanied by
a major program of planned industrialization. This new radical phase was
paralleled by the formulation of a new doctrine in the International, that of
the so-called Third Period, an ultra-left switch in policy, which argued
that social democracy, whatever shape it took, was a form of social
fascism, socialist in theory but fascist in practice. All foreign Communist
parties increasingly agents of Soviet policy were to concentrate their
efforts in a struggle against their rivals in the working-class movement,
ignoring the threat of real fascism. There were to be no united fronts
against a greater enemy. The catastrophic effects of this policy, and the
negative effect it had on Soviet security, was to be fully demonstrated
by Adolf Hitler's seizure of power in Germany in 1933, followed by the
destruction of the German Communist Party, the strongest in Europe. The
Third Way and social fascism were quickly dropped into the dustbin of
history. Once again collaboration with other progressive elements was the
key, in the form of the Popular Front, which cast the net still wider to
embrace moderate bourgeois parties. Soviet-German cooperation,
extensive until 1933, was now limited.
Hand-in-hand with the promotion of Popular Fronts, Maxim Litvinov, the
Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs between 1930 and 1939, aimed at
closer alliances with Western governments, and placed ever greater
emphasis on collective security. The new policy led to the Soviet Union
joining the League of Nations in 1934 and the subsequent conclusion of
alliances with Franceand Czechoslovakia. In the League the Soviets were
active in demanding action against imperialist aggression, a particular
danger to them after the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which
eventually resulted in the Soviet-Japanese Battle of Khalkhin Gol.
However, against the rise of militant fascism, the League was unlikely to
accomplish very much. Litvinov and others in the Commissariat for Foreign

Affairs continued to conduct quiet diplomatic initiatives with Nazi Germany,

even as the USSR took a stand in trying to preserve the Second Spanish
Republic, and its Popular Front government, from the Fascist rebellion of
1936. The Munich Agreement of 1938, the first stage in the
dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, gave rise to Soviet fears that they were
likely to be abandoned in a possible war with Germany. In the face of
continually dragging and seemingly hopeless negotiations with Great
Britain and France, a new cynicism and hardness entered Soviet foreign
relations when Litvinov was replaced by Vyacheslav Molotov in May 1939.
The Soviets no longer sought collective but individual security, and the Pact
with Hitler was signed, giving Soviets protection from the most aggressive
European power and increasing the Soviet sphere of influence

[edit]The

aftermath of World War II

[edit]Europe

Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson at

the 1967Glassboro Summit Conference.
The Soviet Union emerged from World War II as one of the two major world
powers, a position maintained for four decades through its hegemony in
Eastern Europe (see Eastern Bloc), military strength, aid to developing
countries and scientific research especially into space technology and
weaponry. The Union's effort to extend its influence or control over many
states and peoples resulted in the formation of a world socialist system of
states. Established in 1949 as an economic bloc of communist countries

led by Moscow, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON)

served as a framework for cooperation among the planned economies of
the Soviet Union, its allies in Eastern Europe and, later, Soviet allies in
the Third World. The military counterpart to the Comecon was the Warsaw
Pact.
Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a buffer zone for the forward
defense of its western borders and ensured its control of the region by
transforming the East European countries into subservient allies. Soviet
troops crushed a popular uprising and rebellion in Budapest,Hungary in
1956 and ended insubordination by the Czechoslovak government in 1968.
In addition to military occupation and intervention, the Soviet Union
controlled Eastern European states through its ability to supply or withhold
vital natural resources.
The KGB ("Committee for State Security"), the bureau responsible for
foreign espionage and internal surveillance, was famous for its
effectiveness. A massive network of informants throughout the Soviet Union
was used to monitor dissent from official Soviet politics and morals.
[edit]The Middle East
Main article: Soviet Union and the ArabIsraeli conflict
[edit]Relations with Israel
The first source of tension in relations between Israel and the Soviet Union
occurred on February 9, 1953, when the USSR severed relations with
Israel. The USSR used a bomb incident on Soviet Legation in Tel Aviv as
an excuse to end relations and claimed that the government was
responsible.[12] The Israeli government received this news with shock and
concern. This was the first breach in diplomatic relations that Israel had
experienced with a superpower. There is a general consensus that Israeli
charges against the Doctors' Plot and public want for improvement for the
Soviet Jews were deciding factors. Without Israels fierce hostility to the
false allegations of a Doctors Plot, the Soviet Union most likely would not
have ended relations. After the rupture, Israel continued to speak out
against the Doctors Plot, and successfully attracted international attention.
[12]

After the death of Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Unions foreign policy was less
hostile. The new Soviet Prime Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, presented a
new policy of openness and peacefulness. This new policy inspired Israel
to initiate relations with the USSR again, on condition that Israel would no
longer criticize the USSR publicly, especially regarding the Soviet Jews.
Moscow began to support the Arab states in the Arab-Israeli conflict in
order to use this conflict for its own confrontation with the West. [12]
On April 7, 1953 Egypt, Iraq, and Syria declared the establishment of a
common federation.[12] The destruction of Israel was their main goal. In
1955, the USSR made an arms deal with Egypt. [13] This angered Israel.
While Britain sided with the US and agreed to withhold further funding for
the construction of Egypt's Aswan Dam in July 1956, they were also furious
at the action and believed that America's withdrawal of aid had provided the
opening for Soviet penetration of Egypt. [14] Both Britain and Israel now saw
Egypt as a threat to regional stability.
The Suez Crisis occurred in the fall of 1956. At this time, Britain, France
and Israel invaded Egypt, claiming that they were protecting the Suez
Canal.[14] The USSR saw this event as a threat to its security and
international prestige by the West.[13] Britain and France lost prestige when
the United States opposed the invasion and forced a withdrawal. The Suez
Crisis was the first clash between Israels security interests and the
strategic interests of the USSR in the Middle East. [13]
On June 5, 1967 the Six-Day War commenced.[15] Immediately, the Soviet
Union went to the United Nations to stop the war and remove Israeli forces
from the border. The USSR threatened to break off relations with Israel.
The USSR never wanted a war to occur in the Middle East. By June 10, the
Soviet Union threatened to intervene militarily if Israel did not stop its
advance towards Syria.[15]
While Israel and the Soviet Union originally were working towards the same
goal, eventually, their interests became different, and the two nations drifted
apart. Israel focused on regional peace while the USSR focused on global
peace. The Soviet Union concerned itself with its own power and
domination while Israel was concerned with its own safety. Because these
two goals never coincided, the relations of the two dissolved.

[edit]Relations with the Arab States

The Soviet Union welcomes Nasser in 1958

In 1955, the Egyptians made an arms deal with Czechoslovakia. [13] This
was technically a deal between Egypt and the Soviet Union because
Czechoslovakia had Soviet arms. At this point, Egypt was neutral towards
the Soviet Union and made the deal to manipulate the United States into
giving it financial aid. The arms deal was the Soviet Unions first step in
creating relations with other Arab States and gaining a foothold in the
Middle East for expansion and domination. [13]
US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was deeply suspicious of
Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who he believed to be a reckless
and dangerous nationalist.[14] Following Egypt's arms deal with
Czechoslovakia, however, others in the Eisenhower administration
convinced Dulles that the American aid might pull Nasser back from his
relationship with the Soviet Union and prevent the growth of Soviet power
in the Middle East.[14] In December 1955, Secretary Dulles announced that
the United States, together with Great Britain, was providing nearly $70
million in aid to Egypt to help in the construction of the Aswan Dam on the
Nile River.[14] In response to Nasser's increasing attacks on Western
colonialism and imperialism and Egypt's continued dalliance with the Soviet
Union,[14] Britain and the United States withdrew funds for the Aswan
Dam in July 1956.[14] This action drove Egypt further toward an alliance with
the Soviet Union and was a contributing factor to the Suez Crisis later in
1956.[14] Nasser responded to the aid cut by nationalizing the Suez Canal
and the Soviets then rushed to Egypt's aid; [14] the Aswan Dam was officially
opened in 1964.[14]

During the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Soviet Union sided with Egypt. The USSR
viewed the nationalization of the Suez Canal as important to removing
Western influence from the Middle East.[12]Additionally, the Soviet Union
was willing to fund Egypt because in return, it received access to warm
water ports, which it desperately needed to spread its influence. Though
US PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower was also infuriated at the invasion and
had successfully brought an end to end to Suez Crisis by pressuring the
invading forces to withdraw from Egypt by early 1957, [14] the United States
continued to maintain good relations with Britain, France and Israel and
sought to limit Soviet ally Nasser's influence, thus damaging it's relations
with the Middle East for the next 35 years. [14] By continuing to side with
Egypt, the Soviet Union gained more prestige in the Middle East and
succeeded in intimidating its superpower opponent, the United States.
[12]
Nasser's pan-Arab influence spread throughout the Middle East and he
soon gained a popular image among those who resented Western
colonialism. In spite of his alliance with the Soviet Union, Nasser would not
sign a military alliance pact with the nation, made efforts to prevent the
spread of Communism and other foreign influences throughout the Arab
region by forming a civil union with Syria known as the United Arab
Republic (UAR)-a nation which he had hoped other Arab states would
eventually join as well- in 1958 and was a founding father of theNonAligned Movement in 1961; though the union with Syria collapsed in 1961,
Egypt would still be officially known as the United Arab Republic for a while
longer.
In 1966, a left wing party in Syria gained power and intended to cooperate
with the USSR.[16] The Soviet Union was willing to take every effort to
guarantee stability of the new regime in Syria in order to have support from
a Communist regime in the Middle East. Once this regime gained power,
the USSRs activity in the Middle East intensified. The USSR encouraged
the new Syrian regime and admonished Israel. The USSR wished to gain
more dominance in the Middle East, so it aggravated the Arab-Israeli
conflict. However, the Soviet Union did not want a war, so it prevented a
war by pacifying Israels policy towards Syria. The USSR desired to be the
sole defender of the Arab world, and so did everything in its power to
increase the Arab states dependence.[16]

On April 7, 1967, Syria executed terrorist attacks on Israel. The attacks

were directed at an Israeli tractor working land in the demilitarized area on
the Syrian-Israeli border.[15] Syria and Israel exchanged fire all day. At the
end of the battle, Israel had shot down seven Soviet made Syrian planes.
[15]
This was the first air battle between the two nations. The USSR
supported Syrian attacks and blamed the violent acts on Israel. Syria did
not hesitate to act because it believed that the other Arab states would
support it and Israel was not capable of defeating it. In the UAR, the USSR
motivated Nasser to have the UN forces leave Sinai and Gaza Strip and to
blockade the Straits of Tiran.[12] Like Nasser, the USSR didnt believe that
Israel would start a war on its own.[12] Even if Israel did attack, it was
unlikely that Israel would be capable of defeating the Arab states. Syria
believed that, with the help of the UAR, it could beat Israel. On May 11, the
USSR warned the UAR that Israel troops were gathering on the border with
Syria and that an invasion was planned for May 18 to May 22. At this time,
the USSR also began to publish accusations against Israel in order to
cement the defensive unity of the UAR and Syria. [15]
On June 5, 1967, the Six-Day War began. During the war, the UAR asked
the Soviet Union for more arms, but the Soviet Union denied its request
because it wanted the war to end. The war ended in the defeat of the UAR
and Syria on June 10. Once the war was over, though, the Soviet Union
was satisfied with the state of the Middle East and gave weapons to the
Arabs in order to repair relations with them. For the Soviet Union, defeat
meant that its position in the Middle East was impaired and its weapons
and military training were given a poor reputation. [15]
By 1969, Nasser had formed an alliance with Jordan's King Hussein and
started to move towards cementing peace with Israel in exchange for the
return of Sinai Peninsula and the formation of a Palestinian state in
the Gaza Strip and West Bank.[17] 0n September 28, 1970, Nasser died of a
heart attack and his vice president Anwar Sadat succeeded him. Though
Sadat sought to maintain good relations with the Soviet Union, he was also
willing to consider economic assistance from nations outside the Arab
region and the Eastern Bloc as well. In 1971, Sadat, hoping to help the
nation's economy recover from its losses in the Six-Day War, officially
changed the UAR's name back to Egypt and signed a Treaty of Friendship

and Cooperation with the Soviet Union. In 1972, however, the direction of
Soviet-Egypt relations changed dramatically when Sadat ordered Soviet
military personnel to leave the country.[18] Throughout the remainder of the
1970s, Sadat developed strong relations with the Western powers,
repealed Egypt's Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet
Union in March 1976, made peace with Israel in March 1979 following
the Camp David Accords-where it was agreed that Israel would depart from
the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for making the area a demilitarized zone
and that Egypt would not seek claims to a Palestinian state in the Gaza
Strip and West Bank in exchange for annual economic and military aid from
the United States- and distanced Egypt from the Soviet Union. The Soviet
Union now focused on building relations with its two other principal allies in
the Middle East, Syria and Iraq.[18]
Between the years 1958 and 1990, Soviet-Iraqi relations were very strong.
[19]
The Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of
Iraq on 9 September 1944.[20] The regime of King Faisal II was anticommunist and only established links with Moscow due its dependence on
the United Kingdom and the AngloSoviet Treaty of 1942. In January 1955,
theSoviet government criticised the Iraqi government decision to join
the Baghdad Pact, which led to Iraq cutting diplomatic relations with the
Soviets. After Faisal II was overthrown in a military coup on 14 July 1958,
the newly proclaimed Republic of Iraq led by General Abd al-Karim
Qasim re-established relations with the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union
began selling arms toBaghdad.[19][20] In 1967, Iraq signed an agreement with
the USSR to supply the nation with oil in exchange for large-scale access
to Eastern Bloc arms.[21] In 1972, Iraq, now arguably the nation's closest
Arab ally, signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet
Union.[22]
Since 1966,[16] Syria had obtained most of its military equipment from the
Soviet Union.[23] In 1971, when Air Force Commander Hafez alAssad became President of Syria by way of a coup, he elected to maintain
a strategic policy of close cooperation with the Soviet Union. [24] The same
year, Assad agreed to allow Soviet military personnel to keep a naval base
in Tartus. In February 1972, Syria signed a peace and security pact with the
Soviet Union as a means to strengthen its defense capability.[24] During the

year, Moscow delivered more than $135 million in Soviet arms to

Damascus.[24] In 1980, Syria signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation
with the Soviet Union.[23]
A secret protocol to the treaty reputedly detailed Soviet military obligations
to Syria and gave the USSR to power to mandate the dispatch of Soviet
troops to Syria in case of an Israeli invasion. [23] Syrian defense minister Tlas
warned in 1984 that the Soviet Union would dispatch two Soviet airborne
divisions to Syria within eight hours in the event of a conflict with Israel.
[23]
Tlas's has also stated that the Soviet Union would use nuclear weapons
to protect Syria.[23] Tlas' statements, however, were not endorsed by the
Soviet Union.[23] Syrian-Soviet nuclear cooperation was limited to a
February 1983 agreement for cooperation and exchange for peaceful
purposes.[23] In addition to Syria and Iraq, the Soviet Union also developed
good relations with Libya, the Yemen Arab Republic and South Yemen.
Following it's independence from Britain in 1962, the Soviet Union became
one of the first nations to recognize the Yemen Arab Republic. On
December 27, 1962, two treaties for setting up a study for economic
projects and using soil and ground waters between the two countries. [25] In
1963, the Soviet government appointed the first ambassador to Yemen
Arab Republic(YAR) in Sana'a.[25] In September 1963, Russians finished
constructing Arrahaba International Airport.[25] On March 21, 1964,
President of YAR Abdullah Assalal paid the first visit to Moscow.[25]The visit
resulted in signing friendship treaty between the two countries in addition to
conducting economic and military relations.[25]
In 1967, the Soviet Union would immediately recognize South Yemen after
it gained independence from Britain.[25] In 1969, South Yemen would
become the first and only avowedly Communist nation in the Middle East.
Unaccepted by Muslim nations in the region, South Yemen relied on aid
from Communist nations and allowed the Soviets to keep naval bases in
the country. In 1972, after a war broke out between the two neighboring
Yemen states,[26] the Yemen Arab Republic and South Yemen agreed to
eventually unify as one nation. In October 1979, [27] the Soviet Union and
South Yemen officially signed a Treaty of Friendship and
Cooperation[28] Despite the aid it now received from the United States
following a brief spat with South Yemen between 1978 and 1979, [27] the

Yemen Arab Republic would not break with the Soviets [27] and later
renewed it's Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the USSR in
October 1984.[28]
Although Libya was not as firm a Soviet ally as many Third World Marxist
regimes were, Moscow developed close ties with the anti-Western regime
of Qadhafi, who had overthrown Libya's pro-Western monarchy in 1969.
[29]
The number-two Soviet leader at that time, Aleksei Kosygin, went to
Libya in 1975, and Qadhafi visited Moscow in 1976, 1981 and 1985.
Soviet-Libyan trade volume during the 1970s and 1980s was approximately
$100 million per year[29] and relations between the two accelerated between
the years 1981 and 1982.[30] During this period, Moscow also supplied $4.6
billion in weaponry to Libya, providing about 90 percent of that country's
arms inventory,[29] and the Gaddafi regime assisted the Soviet Union by
playing a key role in preserving the Communist regimes in
both Angola[31] and Ethiopia.[32] According to Kommersant, "Libya was one
of the Soviet Union's few partners that paid in full for the military equipment
it purchased from the USSR,"[29] though the Gaddafi regime still maintained
good relations with the Western nations of France and Italy and refused to
sign a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union. [30] Libya,
however, did run up a debt to Moscow during these years. [29]
Throughout much of the Cold War, Syria and Iraq were each ruled by rival
fractions of the pan-Arab Baath Party and the two nations were often tense
towards one another despite their close relations with the Soviet Union.
Their relationship, which had been lukewarm at best since 1963, started to
change in a dramatic fashion when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of
Iran, wasoverthrown in February of 1979 and replaced with the pro-Islamist
regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. After seizing power, Khomeini
established a system of laws which required the mostly Shiite population of
Iran to follow strict adherence to the Twelver school of thought. Assad,
himself a Shiite, soon formed a strong alliance with Iran and sought to use
this new relationship to greatly weaken Israel's hold on power.[33] On July
16, 1979, Ahmed Hassan al Bakr, who had ruled Iraq following a coup in
1968, stepped down from power and appointed his cousin Saddam
Hussein, a strongly anti-Shiite Sunni, to be his successor and the Syrian
government officially closed it's embassy in Baghdad soon afterwards. [34] In

1980, relations between Iraq and Syria officially broke apart when Syria
declared it's support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq War and Hussein, hoping
to gain the advantage over Iran, expanded relations with the Western
nations and recanted Iraq's previous position towards Israel. [33]
In December 1979, relations between the Soviet Union and Iraq, though
still very strong in private,[22] soured greatly in public when Iraq condemned
the Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan.[22]After Iraq declared war on Iran in
April 1980, the Soviet Union, hoping to make Iran a new ally, cut off arms
shipments to Iraq (and to Iran) as part of its efforts to induce a cease-fire.
[22]
However, it also allowed Syria to continue to back Iran and also ship
Libyan and Eastern Bloc weapons to the country as well. [35] While Khomeini
was strongly anti-American and had demonstrated this sentiment by calling
United States "the Great Satan" and taking US embassy workers hostage,
he also strongly opposed the Soviet Union and labeled the Communist
belief a threat to Islam. In 1982, as it became clear that Iran would not align
with the USSR, the Soviets resumed regular arm shipments to Iraq, [22] but
relations would not became publicly strong again until early 1988. [22]
Since 1966, a large Soviet military presence developed in Syria. [23] Syria
eventually became not only the Soviet military's most favored client in the
Middle East, but throughout the Third World as well. [23] By mid-1984, there
were an estimated 13,000 Soviet and East European advisers in Syria.
[23]
Though relations still remained strong,[23] the Soviet's stance towards
Syria's support for Iran changed dramatically when Iran started making
progress in Iraq and drew strong ire from the Soviets as it continued to
suppress members of the pro-communist Tudeh Party of Iran.[36] As a
result, many of the Eastern advisers were withdrawn in 1985 and between
2,000 and 5,000 remained by 1986.[23] In February 1986, Iran
successfully captured the Al-Faw Peninsula and the Soviet Union's stance
in the Iraq-Iran War completely shifted towards Iraq.[36]
The Soviet Unions foreign policy in the Middle East was contradictory.
While the USSR first supported Israel, this relationship soon disintegrated
as the Soviet Union felt threatened by Israels need for security from the
United States. The USSR turned to other Arab states in order to gain
influence in the Arab world and to eliminate Western influence. The USSR
viewed the Arab states as more important than Israel because they could

help the USSR achieve its goal of spreading Communist influence. The
USSR chose to support Egypt and Syria with arms in order to demonstrate
its domination. The Soviet Union manipulated the Arab states against Israel
in order to increase their dependence on the Soviet Union and to
discourage Western powers from assisting Israel. The USSR hoped to be
the only superpower influence in the Middle East.
[edit]The 1970s onwards
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union achieved rough nuclear parity with the
United States, and surpassed it by the end of that decade with the
deployment of the SS-18 missile. It perceived its own involvement as
essential to the solution of any major international problem. Meanwhile,
the Cold War gave way to Dtente and a more complicated pattern of
international relations in which the world was no longer clearly split into two
clearly opposed blocs. Less powerful countries had more room to assert
their independence, and the two superpowers were partially able to
recognize their common interest in trying to check the further spread and
proliferation of nuclear weapons (see SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty).

Leonid Brezhnev meets with Gerald Ford in Vladivostok on November 1974

to sign a joint communiqu on theSALT treaty.
Elsewhere the Soviet Union had concluded friendship and cooperation
treaties with a number of states in the non-communist world, especially
among Third World and Non-Aligned Movement states. Notwithstanding
some ideological obstacles, Moscow advanced state interests by gaining
military footholds in strategically important areas throughout the Third
World. Furthermore, the USSR continued to provide military aid for
revolutionary movements in the Third World. For all these reasons, Soviet

foreign policy was of major importance to the non-communist world and

helped determine the tenor of international relations.
Although myriad bureaucracies were involved in the formation and
execution of Soviet foreign policy, the major policy guidelines were
determined by the Politburo of the Communist Party. The foremost
objectives of Soviet foreign policy had been the maintenance and
enhancement of national security and the maintenance of hegemony over
Eastern Europe. Relations with the United States and Western Europe
were also of major concern to Soviet foreign policy makers and, much as
with the United States, relations with individual Third World states were at
least partly determined by the proximity of each state to the border and to
estimates of strategic significance.
[edit]Gorbachev and after
When Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded Konstantin Chernenko as General
Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985, it signaled a dramatic change in
Soviet foreign policy. Gorbachev pursued conciliatory policies toward the
West instead of maintaining the Cold War status quo. The USSR ended its
military occupation of Afghanistan, signed strategic arms reduction treaties
with the United States, and allowed its satellite states in Eastern Europe to
determine their own affairs.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia claimed to be the
legal successor to the Soviet Union on the international stage despite its
loss of superpower status. Russian foreign policy repudiated MarxismLeninism as a guide to action, soliciting Western support for capitalist
reforms in post-Soviet Russia.