The first part of this book is a balanced but quite condensed narrative of the course of Soviet-Egyptian relations since 1955, adding little if anything to the previous studies by Laqueur, Smolansky, Carrère d'Encausse, Freedman, Rubinstein, and others. The second part, an exploration of Soviet policymaking for the Middle East, is a worthy effort, searching for good evidence, stating some of the possibilities regarding interest groups and "bureaucratic politics," but not taking off into the blue.