M. Mysl'. 1983. 303 p.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in interest - both at home and abroad - in the study of US foreign policy activities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This is caused by a natural need, on the one hand, to study the causes of the major military-strategic and socio-political defeats of American imperialism in the zone of national liberation movements, which seriously changed the balance of power at the global level and, accordingly, the political map of the world, and on the other, to understand what conclusions were drawn by the American ruling circles from

Among the monographic studies of Soviet authors on this problem 1

1 See for example: Kremenyuk V. A. USA and Conflicts in Asian countries (70s of XX century), Moscow, 1979; International Conflicts of Modernity and Developing countries in the 70s, Moscow, 1981; Borisov R. V. USA: Middle East Policy in the 70s-

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a prominent place will be occupied by the fundamental research of the State Prize winner, senior researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences V. A. Kremenyuk.

The author examines the general, most important directions of the post-war policy of the United States in relation to the national liberation movement, the process of its formation and evolution over four decades. The book reveals the objective reasons for the changes that took place in American politics, primarily related to the change in the balance of forces at the global level; traces the influence of the struggle within the ruling class of the United States on these changes. V. A. Kremenyukh reveals the mutual connection of economic, political, ideological and purely military aspects of US foreign policy activities in developing countries, characterizes the historical specifics, general and especially in the politics of the American ruling circles in various parts of the world. Considerable attention is paid in the book to international conflicts, crises and wars that have arisen in the liberated countries in the past and are continuing now, attempts to "use" and" control " these crises in the interests of American imperialism. The author skillfully fits all this diverse and complex picture into the general, global system of confrontation and struggle between two systems-socialism and capitalism.

Although the author focuses on US policy in the developing world, mainly during the Vietnam War and the "post-Vietnam era", a large part of the book is devoted to earlier subjects, because it is important for the author to identify the ideological" roots " of the main US foreign policy doctrines and their time dynamics and evolution. In this connection, the genesis of the concept of "pax Americana" is traced, some aspects of American foreign policy activities of the XIX - first half of the XX century are analyzed, in particular, the Monroe doctrine (1823), the colonialist ideas of "open doors" of the late XIX-early XX century, the American versions of the "world order" in the 14 points of W. Wilson (1918 and in certain provisions of the Atlantic Charter (1941).

V. A. Kremenyuk rightly notes that the Pax Americana concept was based on the idea of American imperialist hegemony over the entire non-socialist world, including the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. "Militant anti-communism, the Cold War, the creation of military blocs under the auspices of the United States, armed interventions against peoples defending their freedom and independence-these are the downsides of the American "world order" (p.5). The book analyzes objective patterns and real - economic, socio - political, and military-processes that led to the collapse of the American "world order" system. This was especially forceful and convincing in the historic defeat of the United States in the shameful colonial war in Vietnam.

We can agree with the author when analyzing this war, its causes and character, he comes to the important conclusion that it was, as it were, a "logical outcome" of the evolution of the US political course in the international arena in the 40s-60s, including their policy towards the national liberation movement (p. 39), which went from "selective decolonization" to a prolonged colonial war. The book examines the reasons for the gradual" involvement " of the United States in the Vietnam adventure, the escalation of American military efforts, and shows their inefficiency. Especially interesting and instructive are the pages where a wide range of material reveals how difficult and by no means ambiguous the process of understanding the results and causes of defeat was in the American ruling circles. "In relations between the United States and the national liberation movement, it was," writes V. A. Kremenyuk, " a stage of significant reassessment by the American ruling circles of their strengths and capabilities. For them, the collapse of the intervention meant that they needed to more seriously and carefully review their prospects for building an American neo-colonial empire" (p. 433). It is these problems that are put at the center of the study.

One of the important conclusions of the work is that during the 40-70th-

dy. M. 1982; Vostok: rubezh 80-ies. Developing Countries in the Modern World, Moscow, 1983; Sovremennaya vneshnaya politika SSHA. Vols. 1-2. M. 1984; Krutskikh A.V. US policy in the Indian Ocean. M. 1984; et al.

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However, the policy and views of the US ruling circles "have undergone a certain evolution "from" overconfidence in the ability to control the process of the struggle of former dependent countries for national liberation to an awareness of the complexity of the task, a forced reassessment of their capabilities, and even a desire to start from a "clean slate" relations with the liberated states" (p.32). The author shows that such "awareness", the struggle within the ruling circles for the choice of goals and methods of achieving them in relations between the United States and young states, continues to this day. Modern militaristic, expansionist policies are a manifestation of the prevailing approaches to this problem of the most conservative part of the American establishment.

The sections that show that for many groups of the most influential part of the US ruling circles, the collapse of the colonial system is not an objective process, but only a "crisis", the development of which can be stopped by "military force". Some of the most conservative concepts and actions of R. Nixon and G. Kissinger, D. Carter and Z. Brzezinski's actions are linked to the militaristic actions of R. Reagan, J. Schultz, and K. Johnson. Weinberger. The paper also describes the position of liberal advocates of the interests of the ruling circles of the United States (R. Barnett, J. Ball, etc.), who argued that there are "limits to the capabilities" of the United States, that the country is no longer able, despite all its preserved economic and military power, to solve the problems of relations with the national liberation movement by military means (pp. 67-68).

The book draws the reader's attention to the strategy of "intercepting the revolution" in the liberated countries, which was sought to implement by J. R. R. Tolkien. Kennedy back in the early 60s. The author convincingly reveals the collapse of the bourgeois-reformist attempts of the US administration, which already under Kennedy was deeply mired in the "Vietnam adventure", provided military assistance to the counter-revolution in Cuba, developed tactics of "subtle military intervention" in the liberated countries with the help of special formations of "green berets", etc. It is necessary to use rapid deployment forces for military suppression of processes objectionable to US imperialism in the liberated states, to US military actions in Lebanon, Grenada, and Nicaragua.

The chapters devoted to the analysis of the search by the American ruling class for "new approaches" to the liberated states in the post - Vietnam era-in the 70s, that is, during the period of defusing tension-emphasize the inextricable link between the deepening of detente and the expansion of the prospects for the national liberation movement, and show how the front was strengthened in the most conservative part of the no discharge. The author also traces the "offensive to detente" in the actions of the Carter administration in 1977-1979. (Camp David collusion in the Middle East, anti-Iranian actions, etc.), and in the "Carter Doctrine" (1980), and in the anti-Soviet hysteria around Afghanistan, and especially in the activities of the Reagan administration. The author rightly emphasizes that in the second half of the 1970s, under the influence of the energy crisis and the growing share of developing countries in world politics, "the tendency to consider the liberated states as an important factor in US global policy once again prevailed" (p.36).

Based on extensive and interesting factual material, the book examines the sharp clashes of two main trends - "classical", imperialist - conservative, and "compromise", "compromise". Both of them reflect the class positions of the ruling circles of the United States, although they differ in the methods of solving the problems of relations between the United States and the national liberation movement (pp. 88-97).

The paper traces the attempts of the United States to "rely" on feudal-clerical circles, comprador, bureaucratic-bourgeois strata, and finally, on the national bourgeoisie in conducting its policy in developing countries, and clearly shows the failures and dead ends of such a policy of "new approaches". All this gives the author the opportunity to come to an important and well-reasoned conclusion that the United States "failed to create a strong social pillar of its "world order" in the liberated states, which would, on the one hand, be strong enough to cope with the discontent of the masses, and on the other-

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goy is weak enough to succumb to Washington's dictates" (p. 97).

In terms of the search for "new approaches" to developing countries, great importance was attached to the implementation of the "Nixon doctrine" of "sharing responsibility" and "partnership" between the United States and the young states of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the concepts of" interdependence "and" selective favoritism " that were implemented during the Carter presidency. After the collapse of these neo-colonialist doctrines, it shows how a return to interventionism was formed, which was particularly pronounced in the actions of the Reagan administration, whose results indicate a deep crisis in the US approach to the problems of the national liberation movement. "The aggravation of contradictions between the United States and the liberated countries," the author concludes, "significantly narrowed the possibilities of Washington's propaganda and political maneuver in the zone of the national liberation movement, and the constant failures of the White House's successive strategies led the current administration to openly bet on intimidating young states and threatening to use military force against them" (p. 161).

Naturally, a number of provisions in the reviewed work cause a desire to argue with the author. It is hardly possible today to say that "the overwhelming majority of the liberated countries continue to remain an economic appendage of the world capitalist economy" (p.25). The 70s showed, as the book says, the growing independent economic role of young states. Of course, most of them are included in the world capitalist economy as a backward, exploited part of it, but the very term "appendage" smacks of the nineteenth century; now the situation is much more complicated. The problem of the American models of "dependent" and "independent capitalism" is controversial (p.92). The term "dependent capitalism" has already been convincingly objected to in the Soviet literature, both in terms of political economy and in terms of facts, although it is possible and necessary to speak of the dependent development of a particular country in Asia, Africa, and Latin America on the world capitalist centers. At the same time, the attempts of the US ruling circles to place a number of liberated countries where capitalist relations are developing into neo-colonialist dependence, as the author writes, are certainly crucial in the US strategy in the zone of national liberation movements. Apparently, questions about the" Chinese map " in Washington's politics in the 70s and the US-Japan alliance need to be described in more detail. Without a complex and in many ways extremely revealing history of the evolution of US-Chinese relations in the 70s and first half of the 80s, it is difficult to imagine a complete picture of US policy in Asia, and the stages of development of their strategic doctrines in relation to the national liberation movement. Much of the strategy of US imperialism in Asia would be revealed by an analysis of US-Japanese relations. The author's conclusions on the role of the CIA in the coups d'etat in Pakistan in 1959 (p.169), 1977 (p. 223) and others, as well as on the role of the State Department in the creation of ASEAN, need to be clarified (p. 174). Some vagueness and amorphous presentation makes the author return several times to the plots already developed by him earlier. In general, the monograph of V. A. Kremenyuk is a new step in the study of the most important problems of international relations in general and US foreign policy in the liberated world in particular.

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