ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union backed the Arab side in its fight with Israel and brought itself into a position as a veto–power in the Middle East. The Soviet quest for participation in cooperative military aid efforts met with different expectations and interests in the smaller Warsaw Pact countries. The German Democratic Republic's principal emphasis is on training of technical, administrative and medical personnel as well as the training of military cadres, security services and members of national liberation movements. Since the mid-1970s, a new pattern of collaboration among the member states of the Warsaw Pact has emerged: the division of labor in the field of military assistance for Third world states and liberation movements. Romania is an exceptional case, since it has sometimes flatly refused to participate in a military aid diplomacy that only supports the strategic designs of the Soviet Union in the Third World.
