ABSTRACT
An outline of what later was to be termed the "new all-around relationship" went to the principals for their consideration at the meetings later in the year in Moscow, where it received a stamp of approval. Sometimes in early January 1981, a delegation of senior Soviet military and economic aid officials sat down at a conference table in Hanoi across from an assemblage of their Vietnamese counterparts. The first characteristic of the evolving relationship is the determination to create a more institutionalized, more formal association, to make joint decisionmaking more systematic and less ad hoc, and generally to add structure to the association. The Vietnamese describe this new arrangement as an "all-around relationship," by which they mean a mutual interaction at all levels and in all sectors. The second characteristic of the evolving relationship is the joint effort to make the association more rational and more serviceable.
