"This is an exploratory essay on the most crucial aspect of contemporary international security, Soviet-US rivalry in the third world. It focusses on the varying policies and ideologies produced by each of the great powers to conduct that rivalry and the illusions which these have generated. The chapters that follow will examine these policies in their own right: they have, however, developed and are perceived within a broader context of cultural and political change."--From introduction.

One world, one myth -- The bipolar contest -- The third world in the 1980s : revolutions and their alternatives -- Intervention revived : the Reagan Doctrine -- Socialism on the defensive : Gorbachev's response -- Conflict and negotiation -- Bush, Gorbachev and third world options : agendas and chimeras.