The Soviet Union as "Threat"

We have seen in Chapter 6 that the post-Vietnam mood of the U.S. people and the absence of a clear polarization of issues directly threatening the United States make major involvement of our military forces in overseas combat operations, as in Korea or Vietnam, highly unlikely in the near future—over the 1980s, perhaps, in the absence of strong provocation. We have thus concentrated our attention on the military problems closest to our most vital interests, and these are not separable from our interactions in all spheres with the USSR.