Word: conflict
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Moscow decided to enter the conflict so strongly and publicly in support of the shaky Ethiopian regime is not clear. The Soviets have a history of miscalculation on the Horn: following the overthrow of Haile Selassie in 1974, Moscow saw a chance to weaken U.S. influence in the area and for some reason thought it could curry favor with its new friends in Addis Ababa without antagonizing Somalia's President, Mohamed Siad Barre, who had been the Kremlin's closest ally in northeast Africa. But angered by Moscow's growing involvement with Ethiopia, a traditional Somali enemy...
...from West Germany, partly out of gratitude for the decision to allow West German commandos to fly into Mogadishu and rescue 86 hostages in the Lufthansa hijacking last October. For the moment, the West is backing the OAU committee which is seeking a negotiated settlement to the Ethiopian-Somalian conflict. Says an African diplomat in Nairobi: "It's a difficult question but not insoluble. The important thing is to provide an alternative to the terrible bloodshed that is coming...
...tensions between the Vietnamese and the Cambodians mounted, the Chinese made the mistake of trying to head off a conflict while also maintaining their sponsorship of the oppressive regime of Premier Pol Pot in Phnom-Penh. But that could not work. Observes Don Tretiak, an American China watcher: "The Chinese should have been more careful about their Cambodian commitment. Supporting a weak but obstreperous ally is very bad politics." Now Peking fears that its deteriorating relations with Viet Nam will push Hanoi further into the embrace of Moscow. Worst of all, if the Vietnamese were to rout the Cambodians...
...tried to persuade Hanoi and Phnom-Penh to negotiate a ceasefire. Although each side accuses the other of aggression, the Chinese have been carefully ambiguous in apportioning blame. Teng Hsiao-p'ing's most recent remark on that subject was a masterpiece of inscrutability: "Whoever provoked the conflict will come to no good...
World War II gave nearly everyone the opportunity to be employed by the savior of his choice. Christian swords and Marxist sickles drew the blood of a common enemy. For many, the war was good for the soul. In a U.S. economically galvanized by the conflict, it was good for the stomach as well. Unemployment vanished, and the unspent wages of war work compressed like a powerful spring. The economy suddenly began to look like a jack-in-the-box poised for peace. When it came, the future sprang up in vistas of well-lighted suburbs and grinning grillwork...