Publisher's Synopsis
Using a great power-small power theoretical approach and advancing a supplier-recipient bargaining model, Jeffrey Lefebvre attempts to explain what the United States has paid for its relations with two weak and vulnerable arms recipients in the Horn of Africa.;Through massive documentation and extensive interviewing, Lefebvre sorts through the confusions and shifts of the United States' post-World War II relations with Ethiopia and Somalia, two primary antagonists in the Horn of Africa. He consulted State Department, Pentagon and AID officials, congressional staff, current and former ambassadors, and Ethiopian and Somali government advisers.;The story of US arms transfers to northeast Africa is tangled and complex. In 1953, 1960 and 1964-66, the United States entered into various arms provision deals with Ethiopia, spurred by the Soviet-sponsored buildup in the region. Policy changed in the 1970s: Nixon refused a large aid request in 1973, and in 1977 Carter ended Ethiopia's military aid on human rights grounds and denied aid to Somalia during the 1977-78 Ogaden War. Reversing this policy, the Reagan administration extended military aid to Somalia despite its aggresive moves against Ehtiopia. Recent changes in US-Soviet relations and the 1991 revolution in Somalia change the picture once more.;Jeffrey Lefebvre concludes that US diplomacy in northeast Africa has been overly influenced by a Cold War mentality. In their obsession with countering Soviet pressure in the Third World, Washington decision makers have exposed US interests to unnecessary risks and have given far too much for value received during four decades of vacillating and misguided foreign policy.;"Arms for the Horn" should interest all concerned with arms transfer issues, security studies, as well as specialists in Africa and the Middle East.
