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Gorbachev's Retreat: The Third World

Melvin A. Goodman
Reviewed by Robert Legvold
Winter 1991/92
Gorbachev's Retreat: The Third World
Melvin A. Goodman
Praeger
1991
206 pp.
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Goodman has been one of the U.S. government's most experienced and measured students of Soviet policy in the Third World. His rich experience echoes throughout this thoughtful recounting of the revolution Gorbachev brought to Soviet involvement in these regions. Most of the analysis concentrates on the dramatic shift in the Soviet approach to regional conflicts (from Central America to Southeast Asia, with Afghanistan featured), including the concomitant adjustments in military behavior. The book is best in describing the great changes in Soviet thinking and doing. It is less energetic in explaining from where these came.

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