This book examines the lessons of the U.S.-Soviet experiment with detente in the 1970s, with particular attention to the effort to develop a basis for cooperating in crisis prevention.- The authors, less concerned with who was to blame for the failure of détente than with understanding the flaws in its conceptualization and implementation, have joined efforts to analyze the difficulties the two superpowers experienced in their attempt to avoid dangerous confrontations and crises that would damage the overall detente relationship. The book includes case studies of several Middle East conflicts, the Angolan crisis of 1975, the Rhodesian conflict, the Ogaden war of 1977-1978, the abortive U.S.-Soviet talks on limitation of conventional arms transfers to third areas, and the Soviet combat brigade in Cuba. It also provides an analysis of preventive diplomacy as a strategy for mediating third-area conflicts and avoiding superpower confrontations and offers guidelines for reshaping U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and for moderating competition for influence in the Third World.
