ABSTRACT
The persistence of old patterns amidst new trends results in a kind of uncertainty as to the dominant direction of Mikhail Gorbachev's Third World policy. Most analysts who discuss the problems in US-Soviet relations arising out of their competing interests in the Third World may admit that the Soviet approach has some shortcomings, but their critiques are general, unfocused, and quick to attribute principal responsibility to the United States. Unlike previous Soviet leaders, Gorbachev acknowledged that there is indeed a contradiction between the USSR's projection of military power in the Third World and its attempts to improve relations with the United States. The shift away from heavy reliance on fostering the military instrument as a means of achieving political goals is the difference between Gorbachev's Third World policy and that of his predecessors. Gorbachev's policy of perestroika is the conviction that resources must be redirected from unproductive military-political purposes to the regenerative economic and social development of Soviet society.
