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The British are fairly hopeful that the Russians will realize that if they push too hard in Africa, they will imperil U.S. Senate endorsement of any SALT II treaty—and London is convinced that Leonid Brezhnev wants to reach such an agreement, and his time is running short. They also think the Russians are as uneasy as either the Americans or the British themselves would be at the thought of being drawn into an African military quagmire, be it in Shaba, Eritrea or Timbuktu.
Unless their African hosts insist that the Russians and Cubans go home—an unlikely prospect—or unless Moscow and Havana see it in their self-interest to reduce tensions on the continent, the West will continue to face an ideological war for influence in Africa. In what amounts to a new scramble for the continent, the Russians and the Cubans have been devising their own rules for the game of African political influence. To offset such influence in so fragile a setting, the U.S. and its allies must do some contingency planning of their own.