SOVIET POLITICAL AND MILITARY CONDUCT IN THE MIDDLE EAST

SOVIET POLITICAL AND MILITARY CONDUCT IN THE MIDDLE EAST

SOVIET POLITICAL AND MILITARY CONDUCT IN THE MIDDLE EAST Amnon Sella M

Amnon Sella 1981 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1981 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1981 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives thrpughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Sella, Amnon Soviet political and military conduct in the Middle East 1. Near East -Foreign relations -Russia 2. Russia- Foreign relations-near East 3. Near East-Politics and government- 1945-1. Title 956'.04 DS63.2.R9 ISBN 978-1-349-16514-8 ISBN 978-1-349-16512-4 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16512-4

Contents List of Maps and Tables viii Acknowledgements IX Introduction xi I THE WEST-EAST AND NORTH-SOUTH TURNTABLE I The Problem I Economic Problems 2 Problems of Infrastructure 2 The Emergence of China 4 West-East Axis-Summing Up 5 The Near and Middle East 6 Irnn 7 Iraq 9 Afghanistan 9 Politics and Economics II Iraq II Iran 15 North-South Axis-Summing Up: the Strategic View 17 The extended 'northern tier' 18 2 SOVIET POLITICAL AND MILITARY CONDUCT IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE INDIAN OCEAN 21 Detente-the Rules Laid Down for the Middle East Game 21 A limited and reciprocal arms race, characterised by technological rather than quantitative escalation 22 High-profile political involvement and low-profile military involvement 24 Mutual interest in maintaining the status quo and opposed interests in benefiting from change 26 v

VI Contents Imperceptible linkage between one theatre of conflict and another 27 Sadat's First Year-the Year of non-decision 28 Forward Deployment in the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean 42 The Mediterranean from 1970 to 1972 43 The Indian Ocean 45 Soviet naval doctrine for the Indian Ocean 48 The aims of Soviet involvement in the Indian Ocean 51 The forces available for pursuing these aims 65 Constraints 66 A link-up between the Black Sea and Pacific Fleets 68 3 THE OCTOBER WAR 72 The SALT Interim Agreement and the Expulsion of Soviet Advisers from Egypt 72 How Many Advisers Left, How Many Stayed-and the Reasons Why 76 A Change of Course or a Soviet Feint? 77 The Attitude of the USSR towards Possible War in the Middle East 80 Soviet-Egyptian Relations Patched Up 82 Soviet Doctrine and Arab Performance 83 Sources of Soviet Information 93 The October War as an International Crisis 96 Symmetrical Low-Profile Crisis-Management, 6-11 October 97 Symmetrical Involvement in Crisis-Management, 11-19 October 98 From Symmetrical Controlled Crisis to Nuclear Brinkmanship, 19-24 October 99 Conclusions I 02 4 THE SOVIET UNION IN THE MIDDLE EAST 1973-8 105 The Soviet Strategic Plan before 1972 105 The October 1973 War-a Regional Balance of Retaliation I 07 Post-War Dilemma: Soviet Military Support or American Diplomacy? I 09 An Intermezzo: the 1973 Geneva Conference Ill

Contents vii The Syrian Equation 113 The Emergence ofnew Relations between a Super-Power and a Client-State 117 Problems of Military Aid-the Ceiling of Sophistication 120 The Suez Canal 124 Disengagement of Forces on the Syrian-Israeli Border 127 Soviet Re-assessment-in Search of a Middle East Policy 130 Open Rift between Moscow and Cairo 134 A New Arms Supply Policy 138 Soviet Military Posture in the Middle East 144 Soviet Political Posture in the Middle East 148 The document of April 1976 148 The document of October 1976 149 The document of October 1977 151 Landmarks 152 Camp David and after 153 APPENDIX I Text of the Soviet Government's Statement on the Middle East, 28 April 1976 156 APPENDIX II Soviet Proposals for a Middle East Settlement 162 APPENDIX III The Joint US-Soviet Text 165 Notes 167 Bibliography 192 Name Index 197 Subject Index 201

List of Maps Map 1 Iran railway system 8 Map 2 Iraq railway system 10 Map 3 Range of American submarine-launched ballistic 76a missiles (SLBM) 50 List of Tables Table 3.1 Soviet satellites over the Middle East, 3-29 October 1973 95 Table 4.1 Egypt and Syria-weapon systems-1973-6 135 viii

Acknowledgements Many people have helped me with this book-i could not have written it without them. First and foremost, I want to thank the Director of the Davis Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Professor Nissan Oren. Professor Oren and the Institute were most generous and forthcoming with encouragement and help of every kind. I should also like to acknowledge my debt to Mrs Dafna All on, whose advice on matters of style did so much in giving the book its final shape. My thanks also go tor. Weinland ofcna, who read one section of the book and offered very pertinent comments; to D. Spechler, who read other sections and brought many points to my attention that I had overlooked; and, last but indeed not least, to Y. Bodensky for his invaluable aid on technology. A.S. IX

Introduction This book traces the political and military conduct of the USSR in recent years in the Middle East, an area roughly defined as extending from the southern borders of the USSR down to the Indian Ocean and from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. The Soviet Union's obvious concern with this region has been amply demonstrated since the end of the Second World War. Having withdrawn its troops from Iran in 1946, the USSR no longer had any foothold in the Middle East, nor did it exercise much influence there until1955. Recently freed, in that year, from the confines of Stalinist foreign policy, the USSR found Egypt still in a turmoil, with a new regime and new perspectives, already assuming the heavy burden of leadership of the Arab world and ready to accept outside aid. The Soviet Union was not well prepared for the role awaiting it in the Middle East. Two basic concepts determined the course taken by the Soviet leadership in becoming involved in the Middle East. The first postulate was, 'The potential force of the Arab countries far exceeds that of Israel'; and the second, 'A legitimate Soviet presence in the Middle East is necessary for USSR security on its southern borders'. Despite the ups and downs in Soviet-Egyptian relations before Nasser's death, Egypt remained the political and military mainstay of the USSR in the Middle East. When Sadat came to power, he at once tried to change direction in foreign policy. His first big step was taken in July 1972 with the expulsion from Egypt of most of the Soviet troops, which had been invited by Nasser at the beginning of 1970 to take over the anti-aircraft defence of the country. The USSR cultivated other states in the region as well as Egypt: Iran, Iraq and Syria in the northern Middle East, and further south the Yemen and later Somalia and Ethiopia. Manoeuvring in this extremely unstable area, the USSR had to devise policies flexible enough to deal with a plethora of psychological, diplomatic, economic and military demands from warring and quarrelling countries and political movements. Having invested very xi

xu Introduction large amounts of money in the region, the USSR found that its political influence was not directly correlated with the extent of the military aid it had willingly supplied on frequent occasions. Moreover, the very act of supplying more and more weapons of ever-increasing sophistication produced a risk of Super-Power confrontation. In a roundabout way, it was precisely the success of earlier Soviet 'penetration' into the Middle East that made it imperative for the USA to secure its own position in this oil-rich region. When a fruitless Arab-Soviet attempt was made to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict by force, the USA supported Israel in its war.. At the same time, the USA set about competing with the USSR in economic aid and in diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict peacefully, spheres where the USSR has so far proved illequipped to keep up with Western rivals. In building up its relations with Middle Eastern countries, the USSR started out as a state 'uncontaminated' by 'colonialism', at a time when national 'liberation movements' in many countries were fighting for independence. The USSR supported Zionism when it suited Soviet interests to do so for the sake of driving the British out of Palestine, and then reverted to traditional anti Zionism in order to promote Soviet interests in the Arab world. The lofty distinction of 'progressive' was bestowed on Egypt, Syria, the Sudan, Iraq, Libya and the PLO, regardless of their regimes, actions or ideology. The USSR made no display of hard feelings when the new governments turned against the Communist Parties in their countries or repudiated Communist ideology. The Kremlin eventually renounced any attempt at ideological compatibility and made do with a Super-Power-toclient relationship. When this did not work out satisfactorily in Egypt, the Sudan and Somalia, Moscow put its relations with several Middle Eastern countries on a 'normal' commercial basis. No country in the region is wholly dependent on the USSR nowadays, unless (like Ethiopia) it is at war. What is at stake today is not influence in the Arab countries as such but in the entire oil-rich Persian Gulf. The USSR is no longer as interested in the Arab-Israeli conflict as it used to be and consequently is less prepared to invest in the conflict, at least for the time being. Soviet resources are now allocated more on the periphery of the Middle East-the approaches to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa and the 'extended northern tier'-afghanistan and Pakistan.

Introduction Xlll Meanwhile, as the USSR is well aware, a nuclear threat is coming into being all along its southern borders. It suits the Kremlin propaganda apparatus to claim that Israel is the nuclear culprit and to direct its criticisms at the Israeli government. Little appears in the Soviet media about nuclear development in India and Iraq, though it was the USSR itself that helped Iraq with its experimental reactor. The Indian, Iraqi and Iranian nuclear efforts present no immediate threat to the USSR but they may yet turn the Middle East into a nuclear zone fraught with dangers as yet unknown. The Soviet position in the Middle East has suffered a marked deterioration over the last decade. Soviet policies have undergone many modifications, and will have to change a great deal more if Moscow intends to try and compete with the West in a region that is constantly growing richer but without any proper adaptation in its political structures.