The Superpower Quest for Empire: The Cold War and Soviet Support for ‘Wars of National Liberation’

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Acknowledgements

An earlier draft of this paper was prepared for presentation at a conference on “‘Hot Wars’ in the Cold War,” the second in the series “‘Total War’ and ‘Small Wars’: Studies in the Societal History of the Cold War,” Conference Series at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Hamburg, Germany, 20–22 May 2004. It was published in German as “Die sowjetische Unterstűtzung nationaler Befreiungskriege” (Soviet Support for Wars of National Liberation). Mittelweg 36: Zeitschrift des Hamburger Instituts fűr Sozialforschung 14 (February–March 2005): 22–42. The current version of the paper differs appreciably from the original and is published here with the permission of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. The author wishes to express his sincere appreciate for the major contribution to updating and revising the manuscript provided by his research assistant Catherine Cottrell, an MA candidate in the Department of International Studies of the University of Miami.

Notes

 [1] For this argument see Kolodziej, “The Cold War as Cooperation,” and Kanet, “Superpower Cooperation in Eastern Europe.” The author does not wish to imply that US–Soviet efforts to retain or expand involvement and influence in the developing world began only after 1953 or so, but that the focus of the superpower competition shifted to the Third World after it became clear that confrontation in Europe would likely lead to nuclear devastation.

 [2] For a discussion of imperial overstretch, defined as an extension of commitments beyond the ability of a state to maintain or expand those military and economic commitments that eventually begins to undermine the power position of the state itself, see Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. A sampling of the more important studies of the extensive literature on Soviet policy, including military support, in the developing world includes Allison and Williams, Superpower Competition and Crisis Prevention; Bennett, Condemned to Repetition?; Carrère d'Encausse, Ni Paix ni Guerre; Fritsche, Rußland und die Dritte Welt; Groupe d'Études et de Recherches sur la Stratégie Soviétique, L'URSS et la Tiers-Monde; Hopf , Peripheral Visions; Hosmer and Wolfe, Soviet Policy and Practice; Kolodziej and Kanet, The Limits of Soviet Power; Krause, Sowjetische Militärhilfepolitik; MacFarlane, Superpower Rivalry; Odom, On Internal War; Schmid, Soviet Military Interventions; Rubinstein, Moscow's Third World Strategy; and Shultz, The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Warfare. Several important new analyses that draw upon Soviet documentary materials include Andrew and Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions; and, most importantly, Westad, The Global Cold War. The author wishes to note that, although his original manuscript was completed more than a year before the publication of Westad's superb analysis, his revisions have benefited greatly from this perceptive and comprehensive analysis.

 [3] Although the author shares many of the criticisms of realism and neorealism as the underlying theoretical approach in the analysis of international politics, he recognizes that any attempt to explain the Cold War relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union that downplays the significance of military confrontation and the global power struggle between the two states simply ignores a central component of that relationship and, more broadly, of international politics as they continued to play out in the second half of the twentieth century. However, the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union was more than a mere continuation, with new participants, of the struggle for power and dominance that had characterized the European and then the global system for more than four centuries, as Edward Kolodziej has argued most persuasively. The confrontation was also about the rules of the international system and about who was going to determine its general parameters. See Kolodziej, “NATO and the Longue Durée,” 1–16.

 [4] For a brief discussion of Wilsonianism and Leninism as competing worldviews see Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 46–54. See also Kissinger, Diplomacy, 52–5.

 [5] As other authors have noted, it is from this period that one can trace the evolution of what can be termed a hegemonic approach to the rest of the world by the United States. Chalmers Johnson is most explicit in his argument about the emergence of a US imperial relationship with the rest of the world. See The Sorrows of Empire. However, other authors, in effect, make much the same argument from different ideological perspectives. See, for example, Gaddis, Surprise, Security and the American Experience and Kagan, Of Paradise and Power.

 [6] This perspective is discussed briefly in Rieber, “Persistent Factors in Russian Foreign Policy.”

 [7] Of the many examinations of the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States in East-Central Europe two early publications remain among the very best treatments of the issue: Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution, and Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc. Immediately after World War II the interests of the United States and the USSR also clashed in Iran and in the Dardanelles. See Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East. Although Soviet support for Kim Il-sung's 1950 attempt to reunite Korea through military force shifted part of the focus of the emerging global conflict to East Asia, the centre of attention remained Europe.

 [8] Simmons, The Strained Alliance, remains one of the most perceptive studies of Soviet involvement in the Korean War.

 [9] For a discussion of the challenges to Soviet domination in Central Europe and the US response to them see Kanet, “Superpower Cooperation in Eastern Europe.”

[10] President Richard Nixon noted that the Soviets had achieved essential equivalence or what nuclear analysts referred to as mutual assured destruction. See Keylor, The Twentieth-Century World, 277 ff.

[11] Khrushchev's focus on peaceful coexistence, as well as his emphasis on the development of nuclear forces, give evidence of both of these concerns. See Nelson and Schweizer, The Soviet Concepts.

[12] In fact, the United States had already viewed as serious threats to long-term US interests many of the national liberation movements in Asia that were influenced by the experience of the Soviet Union and in which local communists played an important role – e.g., in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. For a discussion of these concerns see Westad, The Global Cold War, especially 110–57.

[13] See Kanet, “Soviet Attitudes toward Developing Nations since Stalin.”

[14] See Kanet, “Las Superpotencias y Africa.” In her study of competitive superpower intervention Karen Feste points to superpower intervention as a means of undercutting the position of the opponent and enhancing one's own. See Feste, Expanding the Frontiers, esp. 175–9.

[15] On the changing international correlation of forces see Bennett, Condemned to Repetition?, 132–7, and Shakhnazarov, “On the Problem of Correlation of Forces in the World.” Writing three years later in 1977 Shakhnazarov, a noted political analyst who represented official Soviet thinking, stated: ‘the correlation of world forces is no longer confined to the balance of the great powers’ military potentials and is formed, to a large extent, under the influence of all other states. This is connected, first and foremost, with the disintegration of the imperialist colonial system, the formation of new states, and the growing independence of former semi-colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America.' Shakhnazarov, “Effective Factors of International Relations,” 87.

[16] Still the most valuable treatment of Soviet–Egyptian relations during this period is Rubinstein's Red Star on the Nile. See also Andrew and Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way, 148–54, and Westad, The Global Cold War, 104–5. Westad's discussion of the impact of the Suez Crisis of 1956 on the expansion of US efforts to counter Soviet initiatives in the region, including the strengthening of ties with Israel, is revealing. Westad, The Global Cold War, 124–7.

[17] For the details on Soviet relations with the Arab countries see Freedman, Soviet Policy Toward the Middle East.

[18] For Soviet policy in Africa in the 1960s see , “Soviet Economic Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa” and “Soviet Attitudes toward the Search for National Identity.” See, also, Andrew and Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way, 431–9.

[19] For an examination of US–Soviet competition in newly independent Congo see Kalb, The Congo Cables. See, also, the excellent discussion in Westad, The Global Cold War, 135–43.

[20] For the Cuban–Soviet relationship see Lévesque, The USSR and the Cuban Revolution; Shearman, The Soviet Union and Cuba; Pavlov, Soviet–Cuban Alliance; and LeoGrande, Cuba's Policy in Africa. For the most perceptive treatment of the role of Cuba in Africa, in large part in cooperation with the USSR, see Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions.

[21] One of the best treatments of the Cuban Missile Crisis and its implications for US–Soviet relations is Dinersteim, The Making of a Missile Crisis. See also the articles by James G. Hershberg and Mark Kramer on “More New Evidence on the Cuban Missile Crisis,” in The Cold War in the Third World , 270–354. Soviet and US participants in the Missile Crisis, as well as analysts from both countries, met in a series of conferences beginning in 1987. The organization and results of the conferences are described in Blight and Welch, On the Brink, and Blight et al., Cuba on the Brink.

[22] See Keylor, The Twentieth Century World, 322. In fact, the Soviet decision to construct a blue water navy to challenge US dominance on the seas occurred prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which served to reinforce for the Soviet leadership the importance of developing naval capabilities. For a discussion of Soviet power projection capabilities see Thompson, Power Projection, 10–19. See also Kanet, “L'Union Soviétique,” 415–64.

[23] The predominant thrust of Soviet involvement in the developing world from the mid-1950s to the end of the 1980s was based on the Soviet ability and willingness to provide a growing list of client states with substantial amounts of military assistance. See , “Soviet Military Assistance to the Third World” and “African Youth.” See also Kanet, “The Evolution of Soviet Policy.”

[24] See “1969–1970: The War of Attrition,” Jewish Virtual Library. Available at http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/69iaf.html [accessed 16 March 2004]. See also Westad, The Global Cold War, 198–200.

[25] Westad discusses the Vietnam War in the context of the global superpower confrontation. See Westad, The Global Cold War, 180–87

[26] In a speech on the sixtieth anniversary of the October Revolution, for example, Brezhnev noted “The U.S. war against the people of Vietnam ended in a defeat that was too crushing and ignominious to kindle the desire to repeat such adventures.” Pravda, 3 November 1977.

[27] For an excellent discussion of the Soviet concept of the changing correlation of forces and its implications for world affairs, see Aspaturian, “Soviet Global Power.” For a discussion of the differing conceptions of détente in East and West see Wettig, “Entspannungskonzepte in Ost und West.”

[28] Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made clear his view that the Soviet leadership had, in effect, broken its commitment to cooperate with the United States in dampening regional conflict in return for US agreements to recognize the Soviets as an equal and to fulfil various Soviet initiatives that were codified in the Helsinki Agreements. Linkage, the term employed to describe the tying of US–Soviet relations in one area to Soviet behaviour in another, was a central component of President Nixon's policy toward Moscow. See Kissinger, Diplomacy, 733–61, and White House Years, 129–37. Westad makes clear the different interpretations of détente in Washington and Moscow in The Global Cold War, 194–206. Conservative critics of détente, such as Ronald Reagan and his supporters in the 1980 presidential election campaign, would assert that détente had in fact provided the Soviets precisely with an environment that made expansion in the Third World attractive and possible.

[29] For an assessment of Soviet policy in Angola see Klinghoffer, The Angolan War. Drawing upon Soviet documentary sources, Westad notes that KGB chief Yuri Andropov had presented a strong argument for the expansion of Soviet involvement in Africa based, in part at least, on a Soviet reading of US intelligence estimates that downplayed the likely expansion of Soviet involvement in the continent. Westad, The Global Cold War, 215–16. By far the most comprehensive treatment of Cuban policy in Angola, the Cuban–Soviet relationship, and the overall impact on US policy can be found in Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions.

[30] It should be noted that the Cubans and the Soviets were reportedly reacting to the attempt by the United States to shift the balance of forces in Angola after the Portuguese withdrawal in favour of the pro-Western groups by providing support to Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi. See former CIA agent John Stockwell's In Search of Enemies. But former Assistant Secretary of State Nathaniel Davis asserts that not until after the Cuban–Soviet intervention did the US send substantial support: Davis, “The Angola Decision of 1975.” Despite the massive direct involvement of the United States in Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s, the US intervened to maintain the existing power relationships, not to overthrow a regime that, de facto, was part of the other side in the global power competition. The same can be said for other US interventionary actions, such as the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 and that of President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala the next year. In both cases the United States feared that regimes it viewed as radical were about to shift local power relationships to the disadvantage of the United States and the Free World. For a discussion of US policy in Guatemala see Cullather, Secret History, esp. 38–73.

[31] For comparative analysis of Soviet and US policy in the Horn of Africa see Ottaway, Soviet and American Influence . See the articles by James G. Hershberg, Ermias Abebe, Paul B. Henze and Christian F. Ostermann in “Anatomy of a Third World Crisis: New Eastbloc Evidence on the Horn of Africa, 1977–1978,” in The Cold War in the Third World, 38–40.

[32] See Kanet, “The Soviet Union as a Global Power,” 7–8.

[33] Among the analyses of the Soviet invasion and initial occupation of Afghanistan the following are of special value: Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union; Collins, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan; and Hammond, Red Flag over Afghanistan. See the detailed analysis of the Soviet decision in 1979 to send in troops that draws heavily on Soviet documentary materials in Westad, The Global Cold War, 316 ff.

[34] In several earlier articles the present author demonstrated the growing emphasis on military support in Soviet policy. See, for example, Kanet, “Soviet Policy Toward the Developing Countries” and “L'Union Soviétique.”

[35] This point is well documented by Bennett in Condemned to Repetition?, 169–73. Note that Soviet optimism about the future ignored the collapse of close ties to the governments of both Egypt and Somalia. As Ted Hopf has demonstrated, Soviet successes in the Third World were matched by defeats: ‘From 1965 to 1990, the Soviet Union experienced thirty-eight gains and losses in the Third World. The eighteen victories involved the ascension to power by some group committed to Soviet positions on fundamental questions of foreign and domestic policy... The twenty losses involved either the removal of pro-Soviet governments, failed efforts to remove or destabilize pro-U.S. governments.’ Hopf, Peripheral Visions, 22.

[36] Kanet and Kempton, “Soviet Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Other important examinations of Soviet support for the establishment of Marxist regimes in the Third World can be found in Katz, The USSR and Marxist Revolutions; Albright, Vanguard Parties and Revolutionary Change; and Ottaway and Ottaway, Afrocommunism.

[37] For a discussion of the gradual deterioration of US–Soviet relations in the period leading up to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan see Kanet, “East–West Political Relations,” 49–52.

[38] Westad gives one of the chapters of The Global Cold War the title “The 1980s: The Reagan Offensive.”

[39] In fact, President Carter had already begun to expand US military expenditures to counter Soviet advantages in new intermediate-range nuclear weapons and conventional armaments in Europe and elsewhere. Moreover the reaction of China, Pakistan, and the Islamic states was far more hostile than the Soviets had expected. See Young and Kent, International Relations since 1945, 493–6.

[40] Cited in In fact, President Carter had already begun to expand US military expenditures to counter Soviet advantages in new intermediate-range nuclear weapons and conventional armaments in Europe and elsewhere. Moreover the reaction of China, Pakistan, and the Islamic states was far more hostile than the Soviets had expected. See Young and Kent, International Relations since 1945, 493–6, 563.

[41] Covert US support to Afghan insurgents virtually doubled each year from 1983 to 1987, from $80 million to $630. See Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, 157. The US military interventions under Reagan to overthrow a Cuban-supported government in Grenada and one charged with drug dealing in Panama reinforced the view of a new level of US assertiveness in the Third World. See Young and Kent, International Relations since 1945, 569–73.

[42] For this argument see Bennett, Condemned to Repetition? Bennett maintains that learning among Soviet government officials was the crucial element in the dramatic shifts in Soviet policy that led to an end of the Cold War. For a parallel argument about the importance of learning in the shift in Soviet policies see Breslauer and Tetlock, Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy.

[43] See Westad, The Global Cold War, 364.

[44] Among the many studies of Gorbachev's reform programmes several by key political figures involved in developing and implementing the reform program are especially valuable. See Gorbachev, Perestroika; Aganbegyan, The Economic Challenge of Perestroika; and Zaslavskaya, The Second Socialist Revolution.

[45] For a discussion of the implications of new thinking on Soviet policy in the Third World see Kanet, “Reassessing Soviet Doctrine.” For a more extensive analysis of the impact of new thinking on Soviet foreign policy see Woodby and Evans, Restructuring Soviet Ideology. A group of US analysts estimated that the costs of Soviet empire, including subsidies to European communist states and to Third World clients had reached somewhere between $35 and $46 billion annually by 1980. See Wolf et al., The Costs of Soviet Empire, 19.

[46] See Kanet et al., “The Third World in Russian Foreign Policy,” esp. 161–3.

[47] Soviet policy toward developing countries during the Gorbachev years went through three stages. From 1985 until early 1988, despite the new rhetoric, actual policy changed little. In fact, in Afghanistan the Soviet military expanded its efforts at achieving a military victory. During the second period, 1988 to mid-1990 or so, Soviet policy changed visibly, with a flurry of initiatives from Cambodia to Nicaragua. During this period the Soviets began to withdraw their support for long-term clients throughout the developing world, as well as in Europe. During the final year of Soviet existence internal divisions within the Soviet Union shifted Moscow's focus almost entirely to domestic political developments. See Kanet with Katner, “From New Thinking,” esp. 126–36.

[48] An extensive literature examines the importance of ideas and learning in the shift in Soviet foreign policy under Gorbachev. Several excellent examples are Checkel, Ideas and International Political Change; Mendelson, Changing Course; and Hopf, Social Construction of International Politics.

[49] ‘The Soviets played an important behind-the-scenes role in negotiating the settlements of civil wars in Namibia and Angola and withdrew its unconditional support for the Marxist regime in Ethiopia, when the latter refused to work out a negotiated settlement with its opponents; simultaneously, the Soviet Union was central to the negotiations that brought the UN-brokered peace settlement to Cambodia. The Soviet exodus from Angola began in early 1991, and by summer the number of remaining Soviet military personnel was negligible.’ Kanet et al., “The Third World in Russian Foreign Policy,” 162. Soviet support for the two remaining communist developing countries, Cuba and Vietnam, was also virtually eliminated at this time. See Rodriguez, “Kuba–SSSR/SNG,” 34; Hiebert, “Hammer Blow for Hanoi,” 45

[50] See Fuller, “Moscow and the Gulf War.” Westad discusses the withdrawal of the USSR from its commitments to clients throughout the Third World in The Global Cold War, 364–95.