ABSTRACT
The United States was seemingly entrapped in Lebanon and on the verge of a serious conflict with Syria, even as the seizure of Grenada suggested the likelihood of an armed intervention against Nicaragua as well. The transition from the low point of US-Soviet relations at the year's beginning to the tentative improvement noted by its end was marked by sharply asymmetrical declaratory policies. When Soviet-American relations are intensive, other countries, and especially the allies of the United States, are under pressure to emulate the United States or to compete with it in seeking to develop their own relations with the Soviet Union. As a result, the Soviet Union's role in world affairs rises far above its transactional importance. The Soviet scene was dominated by the evident sclerosis of the inner party leadership, which left the Soviet Union without a plausible leader endowed with a presumptive longevity sufficient to consolidate a new leadership capable of long-delayed reforms.
