Introduction

Abstract

This is essentially a three-dimensional analysis of interaction between the United States and the Soviet Union regarding their relations with Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan; and the manner and style of relations of these three states with the superpowers; and finally, as neighbors of the USSR, the conduct of their relations with the Soviet Union, with each other, and the exogenous power, the United States. Despite the obvious dissimilarities in their political systems, (where the United States stands committed to free enterprise, multiple party system, and human rights and the Soviet Union espouses with an equal passion socialism, one-party rule, and classless social order), both superpowers have developed remarkable similarities in the conduct of their foreign policies.¹ Among the similarities or instrumentalities of foreign policy may be included economic and military aid, the right to articulate the strategic interests in other continents, and above all, the right to exercise intervention in the affairs of neighboring, as well as distant, states.