ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights issues of methodology and perception that should be kept in mind when analyzing Soviet relations with Latin America. It examines personnel changes within the Soviet foreign policy apparatus in order to assess the likely effect such changes might have on future Soviet policy in the region. The chapter aims to define Soviet interests in Latin America, including strategic, political, and economic concerns. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev’s new political thinking for the “interdependent and in many ways integral world taking shape,” has redefined Soviet priorities in foreign policy. Lower level personnel changes within the foreign policy apparatus also indicate a new Soviet approach to regional diplomacy. Soviet foreign policy analysts have been paying increasing attention to newly industrialized countries. The Soviet balance of trade is much more favorable with the poorer socialist oriented states, yet such trade, and especially the accompanying economic and military aid packages, represent an unwanted drain on the already strained Soviet economy.
