Dr Litwak offers a fresh and challenging interpretation of the Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy in both historical and conceptual terms. He focuses particularly on the relationship between its two central elements: the United States-Soviet detente and the Nixon Doctrine, which provided the basis not only for the subsequent American withdrawal from Vietnam, but also for United States security policy toward the Third World in general. After years of inconclusive fighting in Vietnam the Nixon Doctrine came at a time of increasing public sentiment for a less activist American posture in the Third World. Given this domestic imperative, the Administration hoped that US-Soviet d6tente, properly managed, could contribute to the stabilisation of important Third World regions. The establishment of such a favourable political relationship on the superpower level was seen as facilitating the orderly regional powers, such as Iran in the Persian Gulf.
