Abstract
If Nasser pursued a policy in his last years of ‘leaning to one side’ in favour of firmly cementing his ties with the Soviet Union, one of Sadat’s major objectives after becoming President was to redress what he considered to be a basic imbalance in Egypt’s foreign policy. As a result, Egypt’s relations with the West witnessed a marked improvement and her relations with the Soviet Union a corresponding deterioration. Egypt accepted America’s preeminent role in the settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute and also re-established both diplomatic and economic relations with the West.
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Notes and References
Ibid., pp. 115–16. Also see Glassman, op. cit., p. 87; Strategic Survey 1971 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1972), pp. 35–6; Yair Evron, The Middle East: Nations, Super-powers and Wars ( London: Paul Elek Ltd., 1973 ), pp. 208–12.
Quoted in Jaan Pennar, The USSR and the Arabs. The Ideological Dimension, (London: C. Hurst and Company, 1973), p. 85. Also Pravda (12 December 1970).
Boris Ponomaryov, ‘Under the Banner of Marxism-Leninism and Proletarian Internationalism: The 24th Congress of the CPSU’, World Marxist Review, Vol. 14, No. 6 (1971), p. 3.
A. Mikhailov, ‘Kto oslozhnyaet sovetsko-egipetskiye otnosheniya’, Agitator, Journal of the Central Committee of the CPSU, No. 9, (1976), p. 24;
D. Vol’skiy and A. Usvatov, ‘Kair-Moskva, fakty i tol’ko fakty’, Novoye vremya, No. 14 (1976), p. 18.
Robert Stephens, ‘The Egyptian-Soviet Quarrel in 1972: Russia, the Arabs and Africa’, in Colin Legum, ed., Africa Contemporary Record: Annual Survey and Documents 1972–1973 Vol. 5, ( London: Rex Collings, 1973 ), p. A25.
See Ye. Primakov, Pravda (5 June 1971);
V. Kudryavtsev, ‘Indestructible Friendship’, New Times, No. 23 (1971), p. 10; Pravda (13 June 1971); Izvestiya (15 June 1971 );
E. Dmitriev, ‘Soviet-Arab Friendship: A New Stage’, International Affairs, Moscow, No. 8 (1971), pp. 66–8. For the reaction of the military press, see Chapter 7.27. Sadat interview with Arnaud de Borchgrave, Newsweek (9 April 1973). For an account of the period from October 1972 to July 1973, see Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Red Star on the Nile, The Soviet-Egyptian Influence Relationship Since the June War (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1977 ), pp. 209–47;
For the reaction of the military press, see Chapter 7.27. Sadat interview with Arnaud de Borchgrave, Newsweek (9 April 1973). For an account of the period from October 1972 to July 1973, see Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Red Star on the Nile, The Soviet-Egyptian Influence Relationship Since the June War (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1977 ), pp. 209–47;
Galia Golan, Tom Kippur and After, The Soviet Union and the Middle East Crisis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 36–42.
The question of whether the USSR and the USA started the resupply first is still a controversial and unresolved point. Varying interpretations are offered by Heikal, The Road to Ramadan pp. 215–18; Glassman, op. cit., pp. 130–1; Freedman, op. cit., p. 129; G. Golan, op. cit., pp. 84–90; Rubinstein, op. cit., pp. 267–8; Peter Mangold, Superpower Intervention in the Middle East (London: Croom Helm, 1978, pp. 127–8);
and William Quandt, ‘Soviet Policy in the October Middle East War-II’, International Affairs, Vol. 53, No. 4 (1977), PP. 590–3.
Matti Golan, The Secret Conversations of Henry Kissinger ( New York: Bantam Books, 1976 ), pp. 74–6.
Marvin Kalb and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1974), PP. 4934;
F. Kohler, L. Goure, M. L. Harvey, The Soviet Union and the October 1973 Middle East War: The Implications for Détente (Miami: Center for Advanced International Studies, 1974), p. 65; and Nixon’s interview with David Frost (12 May 1977 ).
G. Golan, op. cit., p. 123; Quandt, ‘Soviet Policy… II’, op. cit., p. 598; Heikal, The Road to Ramadan, pp. 251–3; and Brezhnev’s own admission that they had sent ‘representatives’ into the area, following Sadat’s request for a joint force, Pravda (27 October 1973 ).
G. Mirskiy, ‘The Middle East-New Factors’, New Times, No. 48 (1973), pp. 18–20. These arguments were reiterated in a later article by Hannes Adomeit, ‘Soviet Foreign Policy-Some Contradictory Trends’, in Peter Jones, ed., The International Yearbook of Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 1 (London: Croom Helm, 1976). Another Soviet analyst of Middle Eastern affairs listed further advantages which had accrued to the Arabs, and to the USSR, as a result of the war: Israel had been isolated following the war when 24 African states broke off diplomatic relations, a rift in the NATO alliance had been produced by American actions, and the Palestinians had gained international recognition of their cause, especially in the UN (Ye. Primakov, “‘Sbalansirovannyy Kurs” na Blizhnem Vostoke iii staraya politika inymi sredstvami?’, MEIMO, No. 12 (1976), pp. 46–50.
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© 1979 Karen Dawisha
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Dawisha, K. (1979). Soviet—Egyptian Relations under Sadat, 1970–78. In: Soviet Foreign Policy towards Egypt. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04187-9_4
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