Introduction

Abstract

Geopolitical factors constitute the main point of reference for any analysis of Soviet policy towards the Middle East. To Russia, latterly the Soviet Union, the Middle East is not just another Third World area; it is the area, for no reason other than it is the only part of the Third World immediately adjoining Russian territory, and as such a vital component of the USSR’s rimland, posing both grave risks and considerable opportunities to its national security and economic well-being.¹ The USSR’s fundamental interest in the Middle East has therefore been essentially identical (though less intense) with the one held in its immediate European neighbours — Finland, the Baltic states, the Balkans before the Second World War, and Central Europe since then — namely, the attainment of a stable and safe frontier in order to minimize potential threats emanating from all these contiguous territories. Stability in this context means both the prevention of external great-power intervention and the preservation of a benevolent local environment. In the case of the Middle East, this interest was further reinforced by Russia’s long-standing desire to control the straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles in order to provide an outlet for its naval activities in the rest of the world as well as to block the passage of European warships into the Black Sea.²