ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the escalation dynamics in two strikingly different cases: the events that led to Soviet military intervention in the Egyptian-Israeli War of Attrition in 1970, and the low-level competition for escalation dominance in the Angolan civil war of 1975 that was climaxed by the decisive Soviet-assisted Cuban military intervention. The pursuit of a joint US-Soviet approach was not helped by the lack of coherence and consistent direction of US policy towards the Middle East in the first years of the Nixon administration. The Soviet Union provided substantial military supplies and diplomatic support to Egypt and Syria after the Six-Day War, but its aid was rather carefully limited to enabling the Arab countries to acquire a defensive capability. In his testimony Kissinger claimed that at first, in response to his diplomatic pressure, the Soviets had given some indication of being receptive to his proposed compromise solution.
