ABSTRACT
Soviet military activism in the Third World since the early 1970s has become a cause of growing concern to Western policy-makers. Force projection is one of an array of policy instruments available to Soviet policy-makers in the pursuit of the USSR's interests in the Third World. Party statements on the question of the Soviet role show little change since the early 1960s. Soviet party spokesmen have voiced their support for wars of national liberation. While Moscow has also deployed force in the Middle East, where major interests overlap, the dimensions of the involvement in Egypt and Syria have been clearly limited and defensive. The experience of the past decade and a half provides little support for the contention that the USSR is moving towards a policy of indiscriminate and aggressive use of force throughout the Third World. The effort to restore conventional deterrence should be supplemented by a willingness to recognize the Soviet right to a say on regional issues.
