Abstract
Since the conclusion of the first arms deal between the USSR and Syria in 1955, the military sphere has constituted the pivot of Soviet-Syrian relations. During this period the value of Soviet arms supplies to Syria has exceeded $20 billion as compared with approximately $4 billion in economic aid.1 Moreover, since Asad’s rise to power in November 1970, Syria has developed into Moscow’s most prominent military client in the Middle East; Soviet military support for Syria during the first half of the 1980s was worth around $8 billion and surpassed that given to any other Middle Eastern country or, indeed, to entire regions such as Latin America, East Asia or sub-Saharan Africa.2
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Notes
This classification is borrowed from my chapter: ‘Peacetime Presence and Wartime Engagement: The Soviet Case’, in S. Spiegel et al. (eds), The Soviet-American Competition in the Middle East (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1988) pp. 145–58.
P. Jabber and R. Kolkowicz, ‘The Arab-Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973’, in S. Kaplan (ed.), Diplomacy of Power (Washington DC: Brookings, 1981) p. 449.
B. Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984) p. 134
J. Glassman, Arms for the Arabs (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975) p. 134.
B. Kalb and M. Kalb, Kissinger (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974) p. 470.
C. Herzog, The War of Atonement (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975) p. 136
G. D. Ra’anan, The Evolution of the Soviet Use of Surrogates in Military Relations in the Third World, with Particular Emphasis on Cuban Participation in Africa (Santa Monica: RAND, 1979) p. 37.
See, for example, G. Ofer, ‘The Economic Burden of Soviet Involvement in the Middle East’, Soviet Studies, vol. 24, no. 3 (January 1973) pp. 329–47.
E. Karsh, ‘Soviet Arms for the Love of Allah’, U.S. Naval Institute-Proceedings, vol. 110 (April 1984) p. 49.
A. Z. Rubinstein, Red Star on the Nile (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977) pp. 335–6.
On this issue see, M. Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (London: Collins, 1975) pp. 86–7
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© 1991 Efraim Karsh
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Karsh, E. (1991). Soviet-Syrian Relations: The Military Dimension. In: Soviet Policy towards Syria since 1970. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11482-5_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11482-5_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-11484-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-11482-5
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