The Third World War (4 page)

4 Rival factions and states in the former Indian Union may start appealing separately to the Soviet Union and China. There might be civil war again in this whole area of India-Pakistan- Bangladesh.

But the biggest threat to peace may lie in the troubles of the Soviet Union and its satellites. This is discussed in the Ex-Secretary’s report on the rich North of the world.

President-elect Thompson received the Think-Tank’s report at the same time as he was presented with the Ex-Secretary’s report, which dealt with subjects closer to his heart.

THE
EX-SECRETARY’S
REPORT
ON
THE
•
RICH
NORTH’,
NOVEMBER
1984

The principal instabilities in the rich North of the world between 1977 and 1984 have come in old-fashioned countries or blocs which have failed to adapt in time to the new basis of survival. Soviet Russia has shown the least ability to adapt to a changing world, and Moscow is now beset by crises to its west, east and south.

Poland and Yugoslavia, for different reasons, are the two most dangerous flashpoints in the West.

Poland has diverged significantly from the norms of communist society. Comecon-decreed exports to the
USSR
are interfering with its standard of living, while political dogma is preventing the introduction of free enterprise systems in Polish industry. Polish workers much prefer employment by multi-national companies, when these operate in their country, to employment by the Polish stale. The state, though the most powerful employer, is also the most disliked. As Poland goes tomorrow, Czechoslovakia and Hungary are liable to go the day after.

East Germany is bound to seek a greater political role, proportionate to its economic superiority in Eastern Europe. East Germany now has a
GNP
per head of $4,000 a year, twice European Russia’s $2,000 a year. Neighbouring West Germany has a
GNP
per head of $ 11,000 a year, and the East Germans know they could have something like this too if they could ever throw off the yoke of the
USSR
.

The successful participation by the Italian communists in government since 1982, and a Popular Front government in France, have frustrated further advance towards European union and have weakened
NATO
. But the Italian experience has also bred unexpected dangers for the Soviet Union, because it has shown in practice the success of other roads to ‘socialism’. and thus provided encouragement for Poland.

This is a model more likely to be followed than that of the weak new regime in post-Tito Yugoslavia, which has not been able to resist the establishment of pro-Soviet cells in.Serbia. But Yugoslavia is another very possible flashpoint, precisely because it is so weak. If there are near-revolts in Poland or East Germany, 1 do not think the Soviet Union will be eager to send in its own troops to put them down. But they might well engineer (and accept) an invitation from communist cells in Serbia to put down a so-cailed capitalist counter-revolution in Slovenia or Croatia.

This would be the cheapest Soviet intervention, designed to show the Poles and others that the Red Army still can. and will, move quickly and aggressively when it must. It is therefore all the more dangerous that
NATO
has left its policy towards Yugoslavia so vague. At present the Russians probably feel that a reassertion of their power in Poland might lead to reaction from the West (perhaps from West Germany?), but that a new assertion of power over Yugoslavia would probably bring no Western response more powerful than protests.

West Germany has been somewhat disillusioned by the disappointing progress of the
EEC
and of
NATO
. TheCDU-led opposition is playing for power in Bonn by reviving hopes of reunification with East Germany. Internal revolts in Poland and East Germany might now bring a more positive response from Bonn—a prospect which fills the Soviet Union with alarm.

The Soviet Union itself is ruled by the last of the Second World War generation, believing in power for the regime. austerity for the masses and a foreign bogey to encourage obedience. The government in Moscow is said to be beginning to be somewhat worried about the possibility of disaffection in the Red Army; the present generation of educated youth has no great enthusiasm for three years’ conscripted service under arms-Moscow is even more worried about the growth of nationalism in the Asian republics of the Soviet Union, which are looking enviously at the increasing prosperity of Japan and China.

The fastest economic growth in the years 1977-84 has occurred in Japan, China and the countries with close trading links with them. Already in 1950-73 Japan had led the industrial growth league, and it should probably have been foreseen that China would follow it. China and Japan share many characteristics. These include traditions of subordination of the individual to the group in a search for group harmony; an incredible vitality, which is very different from the attitude in •India, and owes less to material incentives than that in the West;

and a capacity for hierarchical self-organization. China under Chairman Mao had already provided the goundwork for economic take-off by creating almost full employment in the countryside. Chairman Hua then opened the door to the import of foreign technology. It was natural that the main technology to How in (including that for increased production of Chinese oil) should be Japanese.

The China-Japan economic alliance is leading to a sort of political alliance as well. Although China calls itself communist. it now looks like becoming a Swedish version of Japan. This is providing a degree of security in that quarter of the world.

There is no degree of security in the other three-quarters of the world. Some part of the blame for this must be laid on continuing Soviet-US military rivalry. Strategically, after eight years of Democratic Administration in the US and the ineffectual ity of
SALT
, your incoming Republican Administration must decide how to react to a situation of Soviet nuclear superiority and an established Soviet capability to destroy surveillance and communications satellites. The remaining US superiority is now in long-distance intervention capability, in technology in general and in electronics in particular.

Mutual deterrence is further complicated and weakened by nuclear proliferation among the feuding Third World countries. Some of these are going to go nuclear anyway, and both the
USSR
and the US might see advantage in providing know-how and intelligence to potential clients (e.g., ‘unstable left-wing’ and ‘unstable right-wing’ governments) in order to gain new positions of strength and in the belief that this will give a better chance to control a nuclear outbreak.

I would strongly counsel the new Administration against such proliferation, and indeed against any deliberate baiting of the worried Russian bear at this juncture. It is possible that a third world war could be started by mistake, though probably only if two or more of the main points of instability around the world become critical at the same time.

Reserves of crisis management have dealt satisfactorily with Cuba in 1963 and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War in isolation, and even with the combination of Suez and Hungary in 1956, but none of these directly involved both superpowers. Our present systems for containing crises could be overstrained in a multifarious mess in which the superpowers saw their vital interests engaged on several fronts at once. Simultaneous crises in, say, the Middle East, Southern Africa and Poland (or Yugoslavia) would cause just such overstrain.

ft is possible that there will be such multiple crises if the Soviet empire starts to crack under its own pressures. There might even be important developments in the eleven weeks before your Inauguration Day.

The final words of the Ex-Secretary’s report proved to be prophetic.

Middle East and Africa

When asked by his major what history would say about all his comings and goings. General Burgoyne replied without hesitation, “History, sir, will lie!’ Gentleman Johnny knew what he was talking about.

Historians seem likely to fix the beginning of the Third World War as a day in 1985, but as far as the people of Africa and Arabia were concerned it had already been in progress for more than a quarter of a century. By the summer of 1985 the war was being conducted in a score of countries with a variety of motives, methods and participants which was remarkable even in a continent renowned for variety. Nowhere were the participants so divided, the results so inconclusive or the military operations so bizarre as in the Horn of Africa.

Events there hinged round Ethiopia. The Soviet Union’s plan for a federation had of course come to nothing. There was too much to quarrel about. In Addis Ababa the Soviet puppet General Madkushu had succeeded in retaining power, but very little else. He presided over anarchy. He had had his greatest rival Colonel Abnatu executed and in this way had secured his position within the Dergue. But his position in the country as a whole had never been more insecure. It was no more than his just deserts. Sudden in his judgements, a revolutionary for the sake of revenge, a military leader for the sake of oppression, he was singularly well qualified to fulfil the role of dictator and devastator of his homeland. He had been given arms and assistance enough by the Soviet Union, but had succeeded in tittle more than the terrorization of the central area around Addis Ababa. He had failed in the prosecution of operations against Eritrea and Sudan, and Kenya’s support, more real than visual, availed him nothing. Madkushu could not even reassert the central government’s authority over the dissident provinces of Tigre and Bagemder. Soviet troops, and Cuban advisers, training teams and troops might advise, train and assist, but they could not overcome sloth, indifference, tribal rivalries and sheer incompetence.

In spite of deep divisions within the various factions of the Eritrean Liberation Front, one figure continued to stand up as the only one likely to command support general enough to be able to forge some unity—the veteran leader Suleiman Salle. His strength lay in the support afforded him by the Sudan. Training, weapons, ammunition and, if necessary, refuge—these were powerful magnets. The other Eritrean separatists, while no doubt playing their own waiting games, could see no one else whom they could use to paste over the cracks. Suleiman Salle became the first President of Eritrea. Elderly he might have been, but the world abounded with encouraging instances of longevity at the seat of authority. Madkushu may have condemned him and sworn all sorts of vengeance, but the distractions of Dj ibuti and the further separatist movements in Tigre and Bagemder were enough to prevent his mounting anything other than murderous guerilla sorties into Eritrea. Even after Ethiopian reoccupation the Ogaden continued to provide a threat to his security. How, Madkushu asked himself, could the Soviet Union first support Somalia, when they themselves were such implacable enemies? The answer, of course, was that it was because they were implacable enemies. If you back both sides there is a better chance of winning: heads, I win; tails, you lose—it worked very well.

Once the French garrison had been withdrawn in 1977, and with the compliance of HassanGuptidanand his Issa supporters, the Somalis had no difficulty in establishing themselves at Djibuti. In spite of disagreements, the temporary expulsion of Soviet and Cuban advisers, the capricious fluctuations of support—in spite, even, of helping Ethiopia against them—the Soviet Union had returned to Somalia in strength and had continued to supply arms and aid. In return the
USSR
exacted absolute security for their air and sea bases at Berbera and Kismayu. If this was an important requirement in a period of what the world called detente, it may be imagined with what speed and decision the Russians fastened their grip upon the Horn of Africa in war. With 10,000 of their own troops -and some 2,000 Cubans redeployed in Somalia, this was not difficult. Equally total was their control of the other side of the Gulf of Aden, where we shall shortly make our way-Apart from West and North-west Africa, the quietest part of the continent, sandwiched between two large areas notable for their turbulence, was East Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi were enjoying not only tolerably harmonious relationships with one another, but also a degree of internal placidity unknown since the days of British guardianship. While Tanzania continued to support
FRELIMO
and to deploy troops in northern Mozambique, the others did not allow this harmony to be disrupted by what was happening in Mozambique or to interrupt their own assistance to the enemies of
FRELIMO
. It was a game that every one played—on both sides. The succession in Kenya of a military council after Kenyatta’s disappearance from the scene, some years before, was matched in smoothness by the skillful manipulative powers of Tanzania’s ruler, who, while accepting Cuban military assistance in the training of his armed forces, resolutely refused to accept the political advice which was offered with it. Malawi went its own way, and since the demise of the tyrannical Field Marshal Omotin, even Uganda, under its newly designed federal government, was beginning to re-establish a degree of confidence and prosperity, with plentiful Western aid.

The last rash actions of Omotin in the first years of the eighties had left their scars, of course. His decision, in a fit of pique and desire for that military glory which had evaded him in Zaire, Zimbabwe and the Sudan, to invade Kenya, was disliked by all those of his senior advisers whose experience entitled them to an opinion. But such hostile unanimity did not deter the Field Marshal from embarking on his own chosen form of Blitzkrieg. At the same time the admirable and ubiquitous intelligence service built up by the Kenyan armed forces enabled them to bring about the dissipation of Omotin’s forces and hopes alike. Omotin based his stroke on the supposed invincibility of his Soviet aircraft and tanks. The tanks were reduced to flaming dustbins by the skilfully operated Milan anti-tank guided weapons, the MiGs plucked from the sky by Kenya’s Rapier and Blowpipe missile systems.