UDC

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Abstract

This article discusses in detail the diplomatic, economic, cultural and other sanctions imposed by the United States on the Soviet Union immediately after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as well as their consequences both for the USSR and the United States. It was not the first time the US used sanctions against the Soviet Union, but it was this set of sanctions that became the most comprehensive of all other anti-Soviet sanctions, both of earlier and later periods. The author actively used American documents of the period under study, in particular the Department of State Bulletin and Congressional Records. A special place in the article is given to the facts of diplomatic condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, expressed from the rostrums of various international organizations. The author also focuses on US efforts to engage their NATO allies into supporting US sanctions against the Soviet Union. The paper dwells on such sanctions as the grain embargo and the attempt of the US to organize a massive boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. In almost all anti-Soviet sanctions the US got (or tried to get) involved their allies; each of the cases was studied here. The author emphasizes the fact that, although sanctions had been intended to punish the Soviet Union for the unacceptable (according to the US) behaviour in a regional armed conflict in a Third World country, at the same time, the sanctions harmed not only Soviet, but also US interests.

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