From Kabul to Managua

Library Journal

Halliday (international affairs, London School of Economics) has written a lucid and concise analysis that focuses on superpower relations in the Third World and also provides a coherent interpretation of the historical and economic roots of current U.S. and Soviet foreign policy in general. U.S. conflicts in the Third World have become increasingly decoupled from conflicts with Russia, Halliday argues, but the potential for American involvement in places like Nicaragua and Afghanistan has increased due to the consequently lower risk of superpower conflict, and to the well-developed ability of the United States to intervene without using its own combat troops. Writing from a social-democratic perspective, Halliday supplies a much more skeptical view of U.S. foreign policy than many other recent analyses written for a general audience.-- Robert Decker, Harriman Inst., Columbia Univ.