This is a case study of Soviet foreign policy towards a Third World regional conflict over the past 40 years, from the Stalin era to the advent of the Gorbachev era. While dealing at length with Cold War, détente and postdétente phases of Soviet involvement in the ArabIsraeli conflict, some perennial questions relating to the nature and conduct of Soviet foreign policy have been poignantly addressed. The theme of its progressive deradicalization and eventual dedecolonization has been brought into bold relief. There is thus very little evidence to suggest that in this area the USSR has been consistently acting from an ideological grand design. Rather, its diplomacy most often appears to be reactive to events and responsive to opportunities. Soviet policy in this region appears to be conservative, ambivalent, shifting and compromising, rather than an adventurism or overtly revisionist policy. This synoptic but closely reasoned and lucidly written book will provide the reader with deep insights into the interventionist behaviour of a superpower in a Third World regional setting.

The book is a product of teaching interests and deals with the four significant case studies of postcommunist and developing states in historical, theoretical and empirical dimensions. The focus has been to look at their nature from the point of view of regime types and class essence, in other words on the margins of different social science perspectives. Theories dealing with state centric and society centric views have been examined in the historical internal and the international contexts. Speaking relatively, the State in India stands taller than Russia, peripheral Central Asia and authoritarian Pakistan with regard to its ontos and performance despite of emergency and current threats to its polity, if the latter does not mature. Militarism of Pakistan has been examined with reference to its lineages and international linkages. Unlike other case studies Pakistan is unique in representing a case apart on this score. Scholars, students and the ordinary reader will find this useful as a reading and as a input into further pursuits of issues of the nature of Statehood under the phase of globalisation. In that context again we notice that India has been able to deal with the related issues with more care to both autonomy within and sovereignty abroad. Challenges from the ordinary people, regional groupings and ethnicity have been highlighted. A book like this is always timely and need of the hour. It does not claim to offer the road map of the future except indicating the need of responding to the demands of the ordinary people.