1968, Moscow could overlook U.S. protests ancl assert itself in Czechoslovakia- or, later, in Afghanistan (1979) and Poland (1981). The decline ofhesican power vis-a-vis the Soviets also meant that the United States would be "tested" more often smaller nations such as Iran and Nicaragua.
American responses to such "tests" have been hamstrung by a lack of domestic consensus on what U.S. interests are ancl how they can best be defended. Furthermore, the trauma of the 1965-1973...