Fred Halliday’s thesis is that the sources of turmoil in the ‘Arc of Crisis’—from Afgha¬nistan through Iran and the Arab Middle East to the Horn of Africa—lies as much in factors operating within these countries as they do in US provocations and interven¬tions, and less in Soviet aggres¬sive interests.
Comparing US and Soviet policies in the area, the author seeks to prove the point that the latter were primarily gov¬erned by concerns like self-defence, stability in the region and a permanent working rela¬tionship with the West ‘to avert war, to manage crisis situations, and to derive maxi¬mum support for their own (the Russian’s) economic deve-lopment programmes’. The US, on the other hand, Halliday argues, directly contributed to the upheavals in the countries of the ‘Arc’ by supporting despotic regimes with econo-mic and military aid, over¬throwing nationalistic regimes by CIA-aided coups, and driv-ing by its intransigence in¬dependent regimes to seek Soviet help.