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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Horn of Africa: US foreign policy in an altered Cold War environment |
Author: | Schraeder, P.J. |
Year: | 1992 |
Periodical: | Middle East Journal |
Volume: | 46 |
Issue: | 4 |
Pages: | 571-593 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Ethiopia Somalia United States |
Subject: | foreign policy |
External link: | http://search.proquest.com/pao/docview/1290851104 |
Abstract: | This paper examines the evolution of US foreign policy toward Ethiopia and Somalia from 1988 to 1992. In the case of Somalia, the United States at first occupied an uneasy middle ground that neither completely supported nor opposed the Somali regime, while hoping that political conditions in Somalia would improve. The evolution of US foreign policy toward Ethiopia during 1988-1990 similarly was marked by a congressional-executive deadlock that essentially resulted in the continuation of status quo policies. As it became increasingly clear during 1991 and 1992 that the Cold war for all practical purposes had come to an end, events within the Horn provided the backdrop for a significant change in US foreign policy toward the region. In less than six months, pressures within the national security bureaucracies and Congress for a closer relationship with Ethiopia, Washington's historic ally in the Horn, were realized as a result of the overthrow of the Mengistu regime. The renewal of these ties was accompanied by a significantly altered official stance that supported Eritrean independence. Similarly, growing pressures to downgrade security ties with Somalia, a country historically distrusted and disfavoured within the national security bureaucracies, reached their apogee with the overthrow of the Siad regime. Notes, ref. |