From Library Journal
The author, a special assistant to President Reagan and National Intelligence Officer for Latin America at the CIA, is still fighting the Cold War. He analyzes five conflicts in the context of American-Soviet relations--Afghanistan, Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua--arguing that, "the USSR has been more effective than the United States in achieving its foreign policy objectives." Nonetheless, he suggests that the modest successes of anti-Communist movements in these countries may have encouraged the Eastern European revolutions of 1989. Menges wants the U.S. government to encourage democratic reform yet maintain a deterrent posture to win these "twilight struggles" and totally end the Cold War. Informed laypersons will find his thoughts of interest.
- John Yurechko, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Synopsis
Despite glasnost and other positive steps, the Soviet Union continues to try to spread communism. In five wars on four continents - in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, and Nicaragua - the USSR is committed to defeating armed resistance to new Communist regimes, established during Detente in the 1970s. A new historical phenomenon, armed anti-Communist movements like UNITA in Angola, challenge the basic belief of Marxism-Leninism - that the Communist world revolution will triumph. To stop these movements, the USSR uses diplomacy and propaganda as well as force to isolate them from the free world. This book offers the most thorough account of these struggles.