ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the political-military terrain of the Horn of Africa influenced superpower decisionmaking. It also discusses factors that inhibited serious US-Soviet crisis-prevention efforts. The chapter describes the attitudes, patterns of behavior, and analytical and intelligence shortcomings that were major factors in the failure of the superpowers to reach a crisis-prevention understanding in the Ogaden conflict remain major impediments to future crisis-prevention efforts. The outbreak of the Ogaden War in July 1977 should have surprised no one who was acquainted with the international politics of the Horn of Africa. The relations of the superpowers with Ethiopia and Somalia were in a state of flux on the eve of the Ogaden War. The short but violent Ogaden War had a profound effect on international political alignments in the Horn of Africa and a significant adverse impact on the entire fabric of US-Soviet relations.
