New Thinking and Soviet Policy Towards South Africa

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Abstract
During the last few years, Mikhail Gorbachev's new thinking has stimulated a number of dramatic and largely unexpected shifts in Soviet foreign policy. In Southern Africa, its effects have been both immediate and quite profound. The two most publicised changes have been Moscow's growing support for negotiations as a method of resolving the region's conflicts, and the related reduction of its commitments to the régimes in Angola and Mozambique. In fact, there is evidence that the Kremlin has been putting pressure on both its allies to engage in a process of ‘national reconciliation’ with the armed movements trying to overthrow them. At the rhetorical level, at least, there has also been a marked decline in Moscow's enthusiasm for revolutionary upheavals in Southern Africa.

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