ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Soviet conceptions of the USSR's political and military relationship with the United States between 1971 and 1980, the so-called period of detente. Soviet leaders assumed that the United States' adherence to the Basic Principles Agreement formally marked Washington's renunciation of a policy that, until the late 1960s, had been based upon the existence of superior and more numerous nuclear forces. The realization by the Soviet Union of military equality with the United States therefore had much wider and more concrete implications for Kremlin leaders than their US counterparts seemed able to comprehend at the time. The Kremlin regarded environments such as the Middle East as especially unsatisfactory, insofar as the maintenance of the USSR's position in the area rested upon continuous tension and conflict among regional actors. The Soviet leadership preferred to believe that Western countries both understood and accepted its position on this issue.
