The Soviet Union and the Arab World

Abstract

It has by now become virtual doctrine for many American analysts of Soviet foreign policy that and ideological goals are of relatively low priority for Soviet policy makers, and in opinion of some scholars simply irrelevant. The prevailing mode of analysis today is to examine Soviet policy more or less entirely in terms of national interest, bipolar or tripolar rivalry with United States and China, or more behavioral conceptions of state behavior in international political system.' The consequence of these efforts has been fruitful discovery that Soviet Union, as a state, shares attributes and political processes typical of states, including interests which it pursues in more or less rational and responsive interaction with its environment. This less than astonishing discovery, in itself a commentary on insularity and conceptual inadequacy of earlier Sovietology, has brought Soviet Union closer to normal range of human political behavior and promoted a beneficial interchange between Soviet specialists and rest of discipline. The purpose of this essay is thus not to revive old, sterile ideology debate, which more than anything rested on argumentation over which among assertedly exclusive single motives or causes was the key to Soviet behavior. Rather, it is to urge a more careful examination of character and significance of Marxism-Leninism as a major influence on Soviet foreign policy behavior. This will be done through a survey of Soviet policy in Arab world aimed at simply making point that ideological dimension of Soviet policy cannot be as facilely dismissed as might appear to be case on surface. Before doing this, however, it is necessary to comment on some shortcomings in treatment of in much of Western literature on Soviet Union. Briefly, ideological or specifically Communist dimension of Soviet behavior has been dealt with quite simplistically, especially by those who find it philosophically or conceptually distasteful and are thus prone to disregard it a priori. The recent application of general political science concepts and methodologies to study of Soviet Union has intensified an overly simplistic approach to since it involves a frame of analysis which is still rather firmly, and at times somewhat parochially, rooted in Western nation-state tradition. The difficulty with this is that Soviet Marxism-Leninism, however much it is linked to Soviet statehood, is significantly trans-national, both conceptually and operationally. This trans-national character of is probably at base