Soviet Affairs

The stationing of Soviet warships at Port Said and Alexandria and regular visits by Russian naval units in Algiers and the Syrian port of Lakadia presumably are part of the price some Arab countries, Egypt chief among them, have agreed to pay for continued Soviet military and political support. The presence of Soviet naval units in the Mediterranean now means that the USSR can deploy naval strength as an instrument of political and propaganda pressure. This Russia seemed on the point of doing in the mid-Fifties with the development of naval bases in Albania, but that stratagem collapsed when Enver Hoxha opted to throw in with Peking in the heightened Sino-Soviet conflict. What the Soviet Union failed to accomplish a decade ago it may now be on the verge of pulling off as a consequence of the Arab-Israeli war of June, 1967.

Gentlemen’s Agreements

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L. M. Taubinger

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The stationing of Soviet warships at Port Said and Alexandria and regular visits by Russian naval units in Algiers and the Syrian port of Lakadia presumably are part of the price some Arab countries, Egypt chief among them, have agreed to pay for continued Soviet military and political support. The presence of Soviet naval units in the Mediterranean now means that the USSR can deploy naval strength as an instrument of political and propaganda pressure. This Russia seemed on the point of doing in the mid-Fifties with the development of naval bases in Albania, but that stratagem collapsed when Enver Hoxha opted to throw in with Peking in the heightened Sino-Soviet conflict. What the Soviet Union failed to accomplish a decade ago it may now be on the verge of pulling off as a consequence of the Arab-Israeli war of June, 1967.

Gentlemen’s Agreements