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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Soviet Union
Index
Among the Third World regions, the Middle East was a central
concern of Soviet foreign policy. The region borders the Soviet
Union and therefore has a direct impact on national security. Also,
various ethnic, religious, and language groups existing in the
region are found also in Soviet border areas and thus constitute a
possible threat to Soviet control. The Middle East is also of
strategic concern because the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf
serve as waterways joining together Europe, Asia, and North Africa,
and the region contains oil resources vital to Western industrial
production.
In the post-World War II period, the main Soviet goal in the
region has been to reduce British and, more recently, United States
influence. Termination of the British colonial and protective role
in the Middle East by the early 1970s created a military power
vacuum in the region, which Iran sought unsuccessfully to fill with
United States backing. In the late 1980s, however, the growing
Soviet military presence in the region was underscored by the
belated United States commitment to protect shipping in the Persian
Gulf from Iranian attack, after the Soviet Union had already begun
its own efforts to protect such shipping at the behest of the
Kuwaitis.
Data as of May 1989
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