Superpower rivalry and regional conflicts in the Horn of Africa: Shifting alliances, strategic choice, and domestic politics

This dissertation examines the rivalry of the two superpowers and the pattern of their strategic interactions in the Horn of Africa in the 1970s. The dissertation argues that the two superpowers, in their quest to secure or maintain client states, and so create spheres of influence in strategic areas of the world, pursued policies dictated by Cold War imperatives. The decision by the Soviet Union to embark on interventionary policies in Africa at precisely the time of America's greatest reticence were crucial developments that significantly affected the pattern of superpower rivalry in the 1970s. By using the two-level game framework, these strategic interactions will be examined to determine to what extent domestic political factors and the constraints of the international system influenced the policies of the superpowers.; The dissertation analyzes these divergent defense and diplomatic policies of the superpowers, and how they were conditioned by the volatile internal politics of Ethiopia and Somalia, which required both minute modifications and radical improvisations. Such policies are more likely to be successful, the dissertation argues, if undertaken by an active rather than a reactive player.; The Soviet Union, free of all constraints imposed by the deliberative nature of a participatory democracy, was better situated to exploit to its advantage the conflict in the Horn of Africa; while the United States, obliged to justify its actions both to a dissatisfied public, weary of the dissension sown by Vietnam, and a Congress ever on guard against a policy it did not sanction, was necessarily prevented from exploiting fully what possibilities for opportunism were presented.; Although both superpowers exaggerated the region's intrinsic geopolitical and economic significance as a justification to intervene in the region, these policies turned out to be strategic blunders, however, as they led to the collapse of detente and exacerbation of regional conflicts.