The Nation: Moscow's Own Viet Nam?

For 15 years, Moscow has been supplying military aid and training to pro-Soviet guerrillas, some of whom formed the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (M.P.L.A.). But some high officials in the Kremlin—and in Cuba as well—are growing increasingly skeptical about the wisdom of that commitment. The muted echoes of the debate that is now under way on the issue were picked up from Western intelligence and Soviet sources last week by TIME Diplomatic Editor Jerrold Schecter and Correspondent Strobe Talbott. Their report:

The Soviets have learned the hard way—in Egypt, Uganda and elsewhere —that military aid is an uncertain political...