ABSTRACT
Soviet commentary and behavior toward the Arab-Israeli dispute continued to reflect awareness of the dangers inherent in superpower confrontation in the Middle East. A durable settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute might well undermine the limited basis of Soviet influence in the region. There are three basic sources from which people can draw inferences about the objectives of Soviet foreign policy: official statements, the Soviet secondary military and international relations literature, and Soviet behavior. The principal distinguishing factor of the Middle East as a specific region in Soviet strategy is the extent to which rather nanowly defined security and military considerations appear to dominate Soviet doctrine and behavior, outweighing other possible motivating factors. In the first place, it is a region from which the United States can directly threaten Soviet territory. Soviet deployments in the Indian Ocean give the Soviets a strong military interest in the Suez Canal and the littoral of the Red Sea.
