The Third World War - August 1985

by John Hackett

  To what extent did this sort of reasoning still apply half a century later? It was true that oil was still both cause and means of conflict; it was true that sea power was still largely dependent on oil and on the shipping indispensable to its transportation; it was true that air power and oil were still inextricably bound together - for use, for protection, for movement. What was no longer true was that ‘we’ - the Western Allies - still had a monopoly of all of them.

  Every great nation which without the benefit of sea power had sought to humble others in inter-continental struggles had in the end been humbled itself by sea power. It was a lesson enviously learned by the Soviet Union and carelessly thrown aside by its once greatest exponent - Great Britain.

  The equation was now a very different one. The Soviet Union had some 8,000 registered merchant ships with a gross tonnage of 20 million; the USA less than 5,000 ships although a tonnage also of close on 20 million. The Soviet Union had 500 oil tankers, the USA 300. In reserves of crude oil the Soviet Union had some 6 1/2 billion tonnes as against 4 3/4 billion tonnes. The Soviet Union was the world’s leading crude oil producer, the United States the second. Yet the United States now imported 500 million tonnes of crude oil annually, nearly half of it from the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. The Soviet Union imported none. As if this were not enough, the Soviet Navy was the largest in the world, with some 250 major surface combat vessels and 300 submarines, of which 200 were nuclear-powered. Aircraft integral to the Soviet Navy totalled around 700. The Soviet Air Force had some 10,000 combat aircraft, including 1,000 bombers, of which one-fifth were inter-continental, 4,000 fighters in support of ground troops and about the same number for air defence. Air transports, including helicopters, amounted to more than 2,000. We summarize these resources here (though it must be remembered that a good part of them would be orientated towards China and the Pacific) as a reminder that it seemed to be the Russians, now, who had all the ingredients of Wavell’s recipe for victory.

  In the Second World War the struggle for Africa and the Middle East had been a sideshow. The power of the Wehrmacht had been broken in Russia, the power of Japan by United States sea and air power; only Italy had been knocked out by Allied efforts. Although the Middle East may have been subsidiary for the Germans in the Second World War, for the Allies it was a fulcrum. Moreover, it had been an excellent training ground. How did it appear forty years on with the Soviet Union powerfully established astride the Red Sea and in Southern Africa? Could her policy of denial seriously affect the West’s ability to wage war?

  The loss of all Middle Eastern oil, the oil lifeline of Western Europe, the loss of all Africa’s raw materials, the loss of the sea routes -and 70 per cent of NATO’s strategic materials were carried through the Cape route - the loss of a gigantic jumping-off point for naval and air operations elsewhere, the cutting of the world in half, would be a very serious matter. The West would be cut off from some 60 per cent of the world’s oil reserves, available to it only from the Persian Gulf. All the mineral wealth of a continent exceptionally wealthy in minerals would be totally denied to Western Europe. The United States would cease to be able to import nearly 50 per cent of the oil it used and would lose more than 60 per cent of its imports, which travelled around South Africa. If some 8 million barrels of oil a day, 90 per cent of Western Europe’s consumption, could no longer pass within a few miles of Cape Town it would be a grave situation indeed.

  The Soviet Union’s own policy of denial was a clear reflection of the position. For what else had the Soviet Union built up its navy? Why else had it established its influence in Yemen, Somalia, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola and Nigeria, except to deny these strategically important places to the West? No wonder they had taken such a keen interest in Southern Africa and the Horn in the 1970s. The Middle East was third only to the United States in her share of world exports, and Africa blocked the road from it. The total loss of influence in Africa and the Middle East, and of command of the sea, to be denied oil and material and to have to hand over great tracts of land to the undisputed authority of Soviet aircraft - such setbacks might not absolutely subjugate the United States, but would certainly reduce its ability to stand up to the Soviet Union. Africa and the Middle East were the key, not to winning, but to not losing a world war, as the events leading to the outbreak were to show.

  We must now consider the action of the United States in two particular areas which profoundly affected the operations in Africa and the Middle East. First, the American intervention in South Africa. If the United States were not to be elbowed aside in a part of the world of vital importance there was clearly no alternative to the establishment of a firm footing and a naval base in Southern Africa. In late July 1985 a brigade of US marines plus an air group of forty combat aircraft, supported by an aircraft carrier and a naval task force of twenty warships, positioned themselves in and around Simonstown.

  The base was occupied and put in a state of defence. The Soviet naval mission had quietly withdrawn. Whatever hopes this may have raised, the United States had not committed itself to the support of South Africa against CASPA. In the months to come no US forces were to operate in South Africa, except in defence of the Simonstown base. This was to become the foundation for the maritime supremacy and the ascendancy in the air which not only contributed to the defeat of the Soviet Navy in the South Atlantic but also played a major part in the development of operations in the Indian Ocean vital to the success of the American intervention in the Persian Gulf.

  When one important naval task force had positioned itself in the South Atlantic and Cape area, another was deployed in the Arabian Sea and the western part of the Indian Ocean. A brigade of US marines with their naval and air support was from the end of July at Bandar Abbas, beginning to fulfil the United States’ undertaking to Iran and to the Union of Arab Emirates to keep them clear of interference from either the newly formed United Arab Republic or the Soviet Union itself. It was a timely reinforcement, for the Soviet bases in Somalia and Yemen had also been strengthened in the previous months of false detente.

  This United States’ action on both sides of the continent was at once condemned by the Organization for African Unity, whose name continued as before to mock reality. A resolution confirming the African states’ determination to establish black majority rule in the Confederation of Africa South by force of arms - not just African arms but Soviet, Cuban, Jamaican and Arab arms as well - was reaffirmed.

  The battle for Southern Africa, without US intervention, was to be a slow and inconclusive affair. But what it was to lack in speed, concentration and decision, it was to make up for in variety, complexity and malignity.

  In the Middle East things were different. United States intervention there was decisive. The nature of the country, as well as of the conflict, enabled American firepower - land, sea and air - ranging far afield in reconnaissance and destruction, by sheer domination of communications to deter any serious counter-strokes by the UAR. It enabled Iran to remain free from invasion, it assisted the Arab Emirates to hold their own against somewhat half-hearted Saudi attempts to settle old scores, it facilitated the preparation in Oman of the counter-offensive forces which would sweep the Yemenis aside after one decisive battle.

  Another of the most notable differences between the fighting in Southern Africa and that in the Middle East was that whereas almost all the African participants had had recent and bloody reminders of what battle was about, in Arabia the only contestants who had any experience of war with modern weapons - Egypt, Syria and Israel - were involved either very little or not at all in the fighting.

  The Israelis had been continuously in a state of general alert, with reserves mobilized and the country on a war footing, since the time of the formation of the new United Arab Republic in November 1984, but they were not, in the event, surprising as it seemed to many, involved in any fighting. A Soviet guarantee of immunity from attack by her neighbours, within her frontiers as then established, in return
for a guarantee on the Israeli side of complete neutrality in any developments affecting the security of the Soviet Union, was offered in December 1984. On the advice of the United States Israel accepted. From that time on, through the world crises of the following summer and the general hostilities that ensued, Israel remained neutral.

  Egypt played, in the event, in spite of possessing considerable armed forces, no more than a small and ineffective part in the fighting in the Middle East. Syria played virtually none.

  In the Middle East, of course, the United States was simply allying itself with powerful indigenous forces in order to protect its own interests as well as theirs. Its firm base was Iran. Iran had 2,000 tanks, most of them Chieftains, an excellent armoury of ATGW, a huge infantry force which with reserves amounted to 200,000 men, more than 2,000 APC, 1,000 guns and all the paraphernalia of supporting weapons and aircraft, including 400 Cobra attack helicopters. Her navy boasted over fifty operational warships, including patrol boats, the air force 400 combat aircraft. Such strength enabled Iran to position in the UAE and Oman the best part of three divisions - one armoured, one infantry with APC and two special brigades - all fully supported with SAM, guns, helicopters, logistic units and tactical air squadrons. At the same time more than enough remained to secure Iran itself from the threat of Kuwaiti or Iraqi adventures, and this still left the bulk of Iran’s armoured formations with 1,000 Chieftains in reserve - an unattractive fact for the Soviet Union’s army commanders in Turkestan or Trans-Caucasia to contemplate. In addition, the Union Defence Force of the UAE was of no small size or competence, with its total of 25,000 men, tanks, SAM, ATGW, patrol craft, helicopters and Mirage fighters. Finally, Oman could deploy regular forces of some 15,000 including armoured cars, guns and ATGW, with ten fast patrol boats and fifty combat aircraft.

  The United States contribution was designed to fill the gaps. A strong Middle East naval task force was assembled mustering a total of two carriers and a dozen surface combatants. Ashore in Iran was the best part of a division of the US Marine Corps, a US airborne division and an air wing.

  On the side of the Soviet Union the new United Arab Republic’s armed forces were by no means negligible in numbers. It was in their deployment and immobility that they were at a disadvantage. Egypt had a large and well-equipped army, nearly 300,000 men making up the equivalent of some twelve divisions, half of them armoured or mechanized, and ten independent brigades. Their equipment was largely Russian and included more than 2,000 tanks, with 2,500 APC and over 3,000 guns and mortars. The Egyptian Air Defence Command and the air force between them could call on 700 combat aircraft and sixty transports. The relatively small navy had a dozen submarines, eight destroyers and escorts, and fifty smaller craft. The paramilitary forces totalled 120,000.

  But the Egyptian Army’s experience of operating in distant Arab countries was an unhappy one, and the bulk of their forces remained at first in the traditional deployment areas - Sinai, the Canal, the Western Desert, the Red Sea, and Southern and Central Districts. The Field Force was organized into three armies, all stationed on Egyptian soil, one east, one west, one south.

  Saudi Arabia, with her small population, had a small army - a mere five brigades, three of which were already deployed in Jordan, Syria and the Lebanon as part of the Geneva Conference arrangements; the rest, together with the National Guard, Frontier Force and Coastguard would be adequate for internal security and for looking after sea and air bases but little more.

  Kuwait’s efficient little army of about one division supported by some forty fighter aircraft and thirty patrol boats had neither the logistic resources nor the inclination to venture much beyond its frontiers.

  The Libyan Army of 20,000 had more than enough to do keeping an eye on its own people.

  To this prospect, the Soviet Union had little to add. Her sea and air bases in Eritrea, Socotra, Djibuti, Port Sudan, Suez, Jed-dah, Berbera, Mogadishu, Kismayu and Dhahran were manned by some 50,000 armed technicians; her air forces including transports amounted to about 500 aircraft of all types; her naval strength in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean was not great. For the Soviet Union it would be a matter of hanging on to what she had got rather than reaching out for more. If, however, the Soviet Union appeared to be adopting a defensive strategy in the Middle East, the same could not be said of Southern Africa, for here she had powerful and more adventurous allies.

  It had been laid down by the High Command of the Confederation of Africa South People’s Army that the invasion of South Africa should be carried out from all four front-line states: Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Largely because of the difficulties of supporting logistically any more sophisticated operations of war, the forces from Botswana and Zimbabwe would be essentially operating as guerrillas, though on a very large scale. The two main thrusts would come from Namibia and Mozambique, with the backing of west and east coast ports, air bases, better equipped armies both in combat and logistic units, and the opportunity for seaborne support. From Mozambique forces amounting to nearly 30,000 would take part, made up in the first place of the recently reconstituted Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) army, now swelled by more Makonde troops from the Mozambique United Front (FUMO). Second was the Somali contingent, a mechanized brigade with tanks, APC and guns. Third, there were the main regular forces of Zimbabwe, a strong brigade, to which Tanzania had added two battalions. The Cuban force amounted to no fewer than 10,000, and it was the Cubans who were charged with directing the operation, though under the nominal leadership of a Mozambique guerrilla general, the new strong-arm ally of FUMO’s head. General Chinde Inhambane (it was of course a nom de guerre) was a man who loved the petty details of military administration, who would have made a respectable quartermaster in a Stores Depot. He now determined to be not only commander-in-chief but also his own principal logistics adviser, with subsequently dire results for the whole expedition. The plan of campaign decided on by him and his Cuban advisers was nothing if not bold - an assault on the Transvaal aimed at Pretoria and Johannesburg, with a substantial diversionary push into Natal.

  The expeditions from Zimbabwe itself and from Botswana were to be essentially huge distractions for the South African security forces, to whom the excellent communications southwards from Mbizi and Gaborone were important. As Botswana had so few men to spare, Namibia was to draft in a force of 20,000 guerrillas. The Zimbabwe force would be about the same size.

  The other main operation would be the SWAPO, Angolan, Cuban and Nigerian attack from Namibia. One force was to head for Prieska, the other for Cape Town and Simonstown. The Nigerians had provided 30,000 men, the Cubans 10,000, the Angolan and SWAPO armies numbered 50,000 together - all in all a force not dissimilar in total to the eastern armies invading from Mozambique. Soviet ‘advisers’ and technicians were much in evidence.

  What sort of enemy would these various contingents be likely to meet? In the first place there was South Africa’s regular army, swelled by former Rhodesians and refugees from Namibia - with a growing number of volunteers from Australasia - to a force of 90,000. A US naval force at sea, even if no US formations were involved in the fighting on land, would in effect be holding the ring. Behind the regular South African army there was the Volkssturm, 200,000 strong, confident, well-trained and utterly dedicated to the idea of winning, or dying - a hard nut for CASPA to crack.

  There was some convergence of views, but far more divergence, between those variously involved on either side as to what the whole thing would be about. Over-simplified, it was this. The United States wanted to hang on to what she regarded as two of her strategic interests: Middle Eastern oil and the ability to bring tankers and other shipping round the Cape. For the USSR the requirement was to keep a grip on Southern Africa, which would give her dominance of the sea routes, and to control the Middle East and its oil. Those involved there had other ideas. The black African nations wanted to destroy the white hold on South Africa and have it for themselves, its ric
hes, its land, its influence, its strategic potential. The white South Africans were equally intent on keeping what they had. Neither cared greatly for the broader issues beyond their own horizons. In the Middle East, Iran was concerned to preserve her own integrity and influence, an influence extending to southern Arabia; the smaller states simply wanted to continue with their well-endowed development; the new UAR wished to become the centre and controller of the whole Arab world. For the time being the convergences of policy were sufficient to allow these sets of allies to work together. Their divergences would become more apparent as operations developed.

  Policy is one thing, method another. The United States’ concept of how to maintain her foothold in Africa and support her allies in the Middle East was clear, simple and within her capacity. It had four main features: first, to break Soviet air and sea power in those areas whose strategic control was necessary to the United States; second, to provide those elements of defensive power which her allies in the Middle East did not possess themselves and without which they would be unable to employ effectually the military power they did possess; third, to keep these allies supplied logistically and to give further training to their armed forces when practicable; fourth, to keep US forces out of the land fighting in Southern Africa except in so far as the security of Simonstown demanded.

  Everything the United States hoped to do depended on winning the war at sea, which itself demanded ascendancy in the air. The course of the battle for the Atlantic has been traced in Chapter 17. What matters here is its outcome. The Soviet Navy’s defeat had two important effects on the battle in Africa. First, the severance of maritime connection with the Caribbean meant that no Jamaican or Cuban reinforcements or supplies could come by sea to West Africa. Second, the blockade of West Africa from Conakry to Walvis Bay ensured that no support could come by sea to the belligerent countries from anywhere else. The battle for the Indian Ocean had been less intense and less costly than the battle for the Atlantic, but it had been important. The United States Navy now had a strong presence along the east coast of Africa from Mombasa to Port Elizabeth and in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and superiority in the Indian Ocean as a whole. The Red Sea remained under Soviet domination; so did the Eastern Mediterranean.