Abstract
In the third period of Soviet expansion, 1975–1980, the pattern that emerged in the previous rounds of the cold war was repeated. Four steps taken by the Leonid Brezhnev and his colleagues in this period stand out: the joint Cuban-Soviet intervention in Angola in 1975, its sequel in the Horn of Africa two years later, the coup in South Yemen in 1978 and the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The first two occurred on a continent that had not, up to that point, been a focal point of the cold war and where neither power appeared to have vital interests; the last was, like those at the beginning of the cold war, on the Soviet border. Despite the geographical differences, it appears once again that the Soviets’ perception of the reputation of the United States played a key role in their decisions.
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Notes
Kenneth Maxwell, ‘Regime Overthrow and the Prospects for Democratic Transition in Portugal’, in Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead (eds)., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Southern Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) pp. 115–21, 126;
Tad Szulc, ‘Lisbon & Washington: Behind the Portuguese Revolution’, Foreign Policy 21, (Winter 1975–76) pp. 33–4.
Szulc, ‘Lisbon & Washington’, pp. 47–9, 57; Maxwell, ‘Regime Overthrow’, pp. 124–5, 129. Quotation from Joan Barth Urban, ‘Contemporary Soviet Perspectives on Revolution in the West’, Orbis 19 (Winter 1976) pp. 1383, 1391.
Robert Harvey, Portugal: Birth of a Democracy (New York: St. Martin’s, 1978) p. 76.
Kenneth Maxwell, ‘The Thorns of the Portuguese Revolution’, Foreign Affairs 54 (January 1976) pp. 265–8; Szulc, ‘Lisbon & Washington’, pp. 9, 45; Harvey, Portugal, p. 76.
Raymond Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1985) pp. 474, 485–6.
Bruce Porter, The USSR in Third World Conflicts: Soviet Arms and Diplomacy in Local Wars 1945–80 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) p. 152; Raymond Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp. 504–6.
Arthur Klinghoffer, The Angolan War: A Study in Soviet Policy in the Third World (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1980) p. 88;
Colin Legum, ‘Angola and the Horn of Africa’, in Stephen Kaplan (ed.), Diplomacy of Power (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1981) pp. 576–7, 583; Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp. 505–6; Porter, USSR in Third World Conflicts, pp. 162, 171.
William Durch, ‘The Cuban Military in Action in Africa and the Middle East: From Algeria to Angola’, Studies in Comparative Communism XI (Spring/Summer 1978) p. 64; Porter, USSR in Third World Conflicts, pp. 171–2; Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp. 509–11.
Nathaniel Davies, ‘The Angola Decision of 1975: A Personal Memoir’, Foreign Affairs 57 (Fall 1978) p. 121; Legum, ‘Angola and the Horn’, p. 585;
Jiri Valenta, ‘Soviet Decision Making on the Intervention in Angola’, in David Albright (ed.), Communism in Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980) pp. 111–12; Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp. 510–11; Durch, ‘From Algeria to Angola’, pp. 64–7.
Neil McFarlane, Superpower Rivalry and Third World Radicalism: The Idea of National Liberation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985) pp. 140, 175;
see also Daniel Papp, Vietnam: The View from Moscow, Peking, Washington (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1981), pp. 194, 208.
Richard Nixon, No More Vietnams (New York: Avon, 1985) pp. 191–2.
George Herring, America’s Longest War (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1979) pp. 258–61; Nixon, No More Vietnams, pp. 193, 199.
William Hyland, Mortal Rivals: Superpower Relations from Nixon to Reagan (New York: Random House, 1987) p. 143.
Porter, USSR in Third World Conflicts, pp. 183–4; Larry Napper, ‘The Ogaden War: Some Implications’, in Alexander George (ed.), Managing U.S.-Soviet Rivalry: Problems of Crisis Prevention (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1983) pp. 228–9;
David Korn, Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986) pp. 17–18;
Paul Henze, ‘Getting a Grip on the Horn’, in Walter Laqueur (ed.), The Pattern of Soviet Conduct in the Third World (New York: Praeger, 1983) pp. 159, 167.
Marina and David Ottaway, Ethiopia: Empire in Revolution (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1978) p. 167;
Stephen Hosmer and Thomas Wolfe, Soviet Policy and Practice toward Third World Conflicts (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1983) p. 90; Legum, ‘Angola and the Horn’, p. 627; Henze, ‘Getting a Grip’, pp. 169–70. The Dergue had refused to follow the standard Soviet prescription of creating a Marxist-Leninist party, out of fear that this might endanger their own power. Henze, p. 165.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Advisor, 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983) p. 184; Napper, ‘The Ogaden War’, pp. 232, 240; Porter, USSR in Third World Conflicts, pp. 184–6, 199–205; Korn, Ethiopia, p. 111; Legum, ‘Angola and the Horn’, pp. 622–3.
Alvin Rubinstein, Moscow’s Third World Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990) pp. 196–7. According to Legum, the Cubans and South Yemenis refused to join the fight on the grounds that they had they had supported the Eritreans in the past. Legum, ‘Angola and the Horn of Africa’, pp. 611–12, 625–7; Hosmer and Wolfe, Soviet Policy and Practice, pp. 92–3 and footnote 73 on p. 228; Ottaways, Ethiopia, p. 171.
Stephen Page, The Soviet Union and the Yemens: Influence in Asymmetrical Relationships (New York: Praeger, 1985) pp. 15–27;
Richard Nyrop (ed.), The Yemens: A Country Study (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1986) pp. 84–6, 281–4.
J. B. Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West (New York: Basic Books, 1980) p. 470; Page, Soviet Union and the Yemens, pp. 22–24.
Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West pp. 472–3; J. B. Kelly, ‘The Road to Kabul: The Kremlin and the Gulf’, Encounter LIV (April 1980) pp. 87–8; Page, Soviet Union and the Yemens, pp. 60–1, 76–79;
Robin Bidwell, The Two Yemens (London: Longman, 1983) p. 279;
Mark Katz, Russia and Arabia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) p. 92; ‘A Tale of Two Yemens’, Newsweek July 10, 1978, p. 39; New York Times, August 6, 1978, p. 11.
Fred Halliday, ‘Soviet Relations with South Yemen’, in B. R. Pridham (ed.), Contemporary Yemen: Politics and Historical Background (New York: St. Martin’s, 1984) p. 216.
Quoted in Fred Halliday, Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967–1987 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990) pp. 85–6.
Hosmer and Wolfe, Soviet Policy and Practice, pp. 170–1; Bidwell, Two Yemens, pp. 279–80; New York Times, June 27, 1978, p. 7; Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West, p. 473; Nyrop, The Yemens, pp. 286, 301; Page, Soviet Union and the Yemens, pp. 79–80. He, in turn, was disposed of in 1980 when his belligerence toward Yemen’s neighbours interfered with Soviet diplomatic aims, but that story need not concern us here. See Amos Perlmutter, ‘The Yemen Strategy’, New Republic (July 5–12, 1980).
Henry Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1983) p. 145.
Thomas T. Hammond, Red Flag over Afghanistan (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1984) p. 99; Bradsher. Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, pp. 179–84; Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp. 911–15.
Joseph Collins, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1986) p. 73;
Harry Gelman, The Brezhnev Politiburo and the Decline of Detente (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984) p. 146; Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp. 942–4.
Elie Krakowski, ‘Afghanistan: The Geopolitical Implications of Soviet Control’, in Roseanne Klass (ed.), Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited, (New York: Freedom House, 1987) p. 170.
William Griffith, ‘Superpower Relations after Afghanistan’, Survival XXII (July/August 1980), p. 147–9; Hammond, Red Flag over Afghanistan, pp. 132, 135.
Jiri Valenta, ‘The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: The Difficulty of Knowing When to Stop’, Orbis 24 (Summer 1980) pp. 205–6;
Zalmay Khalizad, ‘Afghanistan and the Crisis in American Foreign Policy’, Survival XXII (July/August 1980) p. 155; Siddieq Noorzoy, ‘Soviet Economic Interests and Policies in Afghanistan’, in Klass, Great Game Revisited, p. 77.
Edward Luttwak, ‘After Afghanistan, What?’, Commentary 69 (April 1980) pp. 43–4; Collins, Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, pp. 104–5; Soviet Military Power (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1981) p. 34. The MiG-23MF (Flogger B) is listed as having a combat radius of 600 miles in Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1980–1981, pp. 194–5.
Hannah Negaren, ‘The Afghan Coup of April 1978: Revolution and International Security’, Orbis 23 (Spring 1979) p. 101; Roseanne Klass and Anthony Arnold, ‘Afghanistan’s Communist Party: The Fragmented PDPA’, in Klass, Great Game Revisited, p. 145; Poullada, ‘Road to Crisis’, p. 55.
Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp. 939–40; Alvin Rubinstein, Soviet Policy toward Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan: The Dynamics of Influence (New York: Praeger, 1982) p. 163; Hyland, Mortal Rivals, p. 221–2; Khalilzad, ‘Afghanistan’, p. 155; Hosmer and Wolfe, Soviet Policy and Practice, p. 111.
Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp. 927–8, 930, 933; see also Anthony Arnold, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Perspective (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1985) pp. 128–9; Collins, Soviet Invasion, p. 165. Hammond, Red Flag over Afghanistan, pp. 114–15, 135–7, stresses the credibility factor; Garthoff discounts it.
Jiri Valenta, ‘From Prague to Kabul: The Soviet Style of Invasion’, International Security 5 (Fall 1980) p. 139.
Adam Ulam, Dangerous Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) pp. 252–3; Valenta, ‘From Prague to Kabul’, p. 129, 140; Hammond, Red Flag over Afghanistan, pp. 113, 139; Collins, Soviet Invasion, p. 129. Sakharov quoted in Valenta, ‘Difficulty of Knowing When’, p. 212.
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© 1992 John Orme
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Orme, J.D. (1992). The Road to Kabul. In: Deterrence, Reputation and Cold-War Cycles. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12794-8_4
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