In the last episode we talked about how the American half of the Cold War was established in Saudi Arabia. Today, we’re shifting our focus to the other half of that epic conflict: the Soviet Union. What were the Soviet Union’s designs on the Middle East? Or were their forays into Middle Eastern geopolitics simply countermoves in a Cold War chess game, attempts to wrongfoot their American opponent? And now, as the spectre of war between Russia and Ukraine hangs over Europe, to what extent can Soviet history, and indeed the earlier history of imperial Russia, help us to understand what’s going on?

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