How War Might Spread to Europe

Miroslav Nincic

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367627065
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000263039
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This book, first published in 1985, examines the Cold War risks of superpower confrontations, mainly in the Third World, resulting in war in Europe. European security is usually analysed in the context of East-West relations in Europe, where though tensions often ran high, actual war seemed remote. The risks of war were much greater in other parts of the world, where the United States and the Soviet Union confronted each other using proxies. This book analyses these proxy confrontations, and the risks that they posed to the security of Europe.

Chapter 1.
The background: East–West relations and the Third World

I. Introduction

The security and welfare of most European countries on both sides of the Cold War divide are highly sensitive to the quality of US–Soviet relations and to the activities which these two nations engage in beyond their own borders. There are, indeed, few actions or commitments that any European nation might undertake independently that could affect the fate of the continent to the same extent as the external entanglements and the mutual relations of the alliance leaders. Many of these entanglements involve Third World regions and the level of US–Soviet tensions is often determined by competing objectives in these areas.

These statements must, of course, be placed in their historical context before being developed. Each instance of US–Soviet confrontation influences the nature and conduct of subsequent involvements by shaping the circumstances in which they occur. Each confrontation provides a learning experience not only for the protagonists themselves, but also for other nations whose interests are affected by the manner in which the superpowers manage their bilateral relations. It will thus be useful to examine how East–West and North–South relations have interacted in recent decades and to study the issue of European security in this light. In particular, an attempt will be made to show that:

• 1. Superpower relations are largely, though certainly not exclusively, determined by their fluctuating rivalries in the Third World.
• 2. The security of many European nations is conditioned by the consequences of these rivalries.

II. Cold Wars, detente and the Third World

It would be wrong to suggest that rivalries in the Third World have been the sole cause of shifts in US–Soviet relations. Other forces, both international and indigenous, have also been at work. Fluctuating national moods and domestic politics, particularly in the USA, have had a significant impact. Events in Europe have also played a role. But to a large extent the history of US–Soviet relations has been conditioned by their competition in the Third World. Relations between the two superpowers have experienced three major surges in hostility since World War II (approximately 1945–52, 1957–63 and 1976 to the present), two plateaux with slight relaxations (1953–57 and 1963–68) and one extended and meaningful period of decreasing tensions (1969–75). This scheme can, in turn, be translated into three major waves of evolving relations: 1945–57, 1957–76 and 1976 to the present. Each shift has been characterized by a specific state of US and Soviet policies in the Third World.

Emergence and consolidation of the Cold War (1945–57)

Various factors have led each of the two wartime allies to regard the other as its most implacable foe. Though events in the Third World contributed to this deterioration in the early post-war years, incompatible objectives within Europe were more important. Differing interpretations of the Yalta agreements—particularly regarding the political future of Poland—appear to have provided the initial impulse for rising hostility. Moreover, the issues of ‘free elections’ and the form of government that East European nations were to have extended beyond Poland. They came to a head in Czechoslovakia where the forced resignation of President Benes, Jan Masaryk’s mysterious death and the consolidation of a Communist government in 1948 produced powerful shockwaves in the West.

Yet even these tensions were intensified by problems originating outside Europe. Iran provided the first major flash-point in the Third World. Iran was occupied by both the USSR and Great Britain during World War II. Towards the end of the war, the USSR refused to withdraw its troops until it, like Britain, had acquired local oil concessions. Under Western pressure Iran refused to grant oil concessions to the USSR and, in response, the USSR backed the creation of an independent republic of Azerbaijan with a pro-Soviet government buttressed by large concentrations of troops on the border. The threat of intervention by the UK and the USA caused Moscow to back down in 1946 but the resulting bitterness and mutual suspicion was to poison subsequent relations. Further strains in the same region grew from Stalin’s insistence—based on what he seems to have thought was a promise made by Churchill—on acquiring a Soviet base in the Dardanelles Straits. The USA reacted strongly and President Truman went so far as to dispatch an aircraft-carrier taskforce to Istanbul. The Soviet Union once more backed down while the Cold War was further fuelled. It was given a further boost by the civil strife in Greece as well as by the victory of Mao Tse Tung’s forces in China.

In this climate, the position of US statesmen who, like Stimson, Marshal, Hopkins and Byrnes, had argued against overstating the Soviet threat, was irretrievably weakened. By the same token, the hand of those most eager to place a predatory interpretation on all Soviet activities—Dean Acheson, for example—was considerably strengthened. Hostility towards the Soviet Union thus came to be a firm feature of the US leadership and political structure. The first wave of belligerence crested at the turn of the decade, following the Berlin blockade and the onset of the Korean War. (The Korean War first made a military clash between the two giants a real possibility.) Acheson’s failure to include South Korea in the ‘defense perimeter’ that he described in January 1950 may have emboldened North Korea to launch, six months later, a full-scale invasion. While subsequent evidence has shown that Moscow was probably not behind the decision to invade,^1* the mood in the USA at the time was beyond an objective assessment of the Soviet role.

* Superscript numbers refer to the list of notes and references at the end of the book.

Hostility between the superpowers peaked at this stage but levelled off on a temporary plateau or even declined slightly despitfe the blustering rhetoric of the time. Ideological diatribes continued but acquired a somewhat stale flavour and actual behaviour became more circumspect. Partly due to Eisenhower’s fiscal conservatism, the mid-1950s witnessed no major leaps in the arms race. This period saw no significant US–Soviet confrontation in the Third World. This may partly have been a consequence of, but certainly also contributed to, the hiatus in Cold War tensions.

It seems, in fact, that Stalin never had a very strong interest in the Third World.² Areas contiguous to the USSR were always much more important to the security-conscious Kremlin. Though the disintegration of colonial empires provided natural opportunities for expanding the Soviet sphere of influence, these opportunities were rarely taken. The military and economic significance of new nations may simply not have sufficed to interest Stalin seriously, and his view that nationalist leaders like Nehru, Gandhi and Sukarno were mere ‘imperialist lackeys’ may also account for Moscow’s apparent inactivity.

Stalin’s death in 1953 ushered in a change of attitude, a change that was consolidated by the Third World’s emergence as an independent political force after the Bandung Conference of 1955. Khrushchev embraced the non-aligned countries as part of a potential ‘zone of peace’ and recognized the significance of non-Marxist liberation movements. An increasing amount of Soviet military assistance and even economic aid were directed towards the Middle East (initially Egypt), Asia and, subsequently, Africa as well. The scope for clashing Soviet and US interests was thus expanded.

The second wave and the Third World (1957–76)

A new swell in hostility began to form around 1957. Several circumstances combined to revive a confrontational stance and the Third World played an important part in the process. The launching of Sputnik was a precipitating event. It created a feeling of vulnerability in the USA and a situation in which paranoia could readily thrive. This paranoia had already been aggravated by the Soviet invasion of Hungary. But once again, it was the Third World that furnished both the occasions and the arena for collisions and for the interventionism that this climate gave rise to.

As early as June 1958, 14 000 US troops landed in Lebanon to quell an allegedly Communist-led rebellion and to provide a display of force and will designed to impress Nasser and the United Arab Republic, whose regional influence was so distressing to Washington. The resurging tension was further increased by the approaching US election. Ambitious democrats—including Kennedy, Humphrey and Johnson—used Cold War themes to great advantage throughout their campaigns. They clearly considered that militant statements such as charges of ‘missile gaps’ and demands for ‘expanded deterrence’ would help their electoral chances.

Kennedy emerged as the victor and the Third World came to occupy an increasingly central position in US perceptions. Concern with revolutionary movements pervaded the foreign policy agenda and new emphasis was placed on force-projection capabilities. This emphasis included the creation of ‘special forces’ designed specifically for Third World contingencies.

The first and most important perceived threat originated in Latin America. Castro’s successful revolution, with its rapidly apparent Marxist character, was a major jolt to the Kennedy Administration. The United States, whose influence in that small country had previously prevailed, was rebuffed by the new Cuban leadership which moved decisively into the Soviet orbit. A near-obsession with the possibility of radical political transformations in Latin America emerged. This spectre was dealt with by various means, ranging from economic assistance (the Alliance for Progress) to overt military intervention (the Bay of Pigs; the Dominican Republic).

While the upheavals in the Belgian Congo brought the East–West confrontation to sub-Saharan Africa, the most profound consequences at the time were caused by US intervention in Viet Nam. Ever since France’s expulsion from the region, US leaders had made constant reference to the ‘domino theory’. Viet Nam, Kennedy said, was “the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia, the keystone of the arch, the finger in the dike…”.³ As the number of US troops climbed to half a million, North Viet Nam and the Viet Cong were materially supported by the USSR and, to a much smaller extent, by China. The bitterness associated with Viet Nam created an obstacle to a relaxation of superpower tensions throughout most of the 1960s.

Paradoxically, the most dramatic confrontation in the Third World also provided a major impetus for controlling the most perilous aspects of US–Soviet rivalry. The near-brush with nuclear disaster provoked by the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 initiated a halting movement towards arms control. It also laid certain foundations—such as the Hot Line Agreement—for managing future crises. Indeed, a modest retreat from the second peak of post-war hostility was initiated. Little progress was, however, made for several years. The issue of Viet Nam and, possibly, the Johnson Administration’s need to fend off challenges to its domestic programmes from the political right by demonstrating its resolute toughness abroad, hampered real progress until the end of the decade.

Richard Nixon’s election created unprecedented opportunities for improved relations. The US public’s weariness with foreign military adventures reduced the domestic political risks of a political withdrawal from Viet Nam and the President’s anti-Commuhist credentials protected him from charges of appeasement as he sought to chart a new course in superpower relations. These shifts were further facilitated by the Kremlin’s unwillingness to let events in south-east Asia jeopardize Nixon’s endeavours.

The two nations embarked on a promising, though ephemeral, period of detente. In addition to the achievements in arms control which the period registered (SALT I and the Vladivostok Accord) and the expansion of commercial and other exchanges between the two sides, a serious attempt was made to develop a basis for non-confrontational relations in the Third World.

As part of what was conceived to be a general road-map for better relations, Nixon and Brezhnev signed a document in May 1972 which was known as the Basic Principles Agreement (BPA).⁴ Not only did the agreement state that ideological and social differences should be the object of peaceful negotiations, but it also observed that “Both sides recognise that efforts to obtain unilateral advantages at the expense of the other, directly or indirectly, are inconsistent with these objectives”. This provision was taken to refer principally to each side’s policy in the developing world. It lacked specificity and its implications have been interpreted differently by the two countries, but it did represent a first attempt to lay the general ground rules for competition in third areas.

A new Cold War (1976 to the present)

It is difficult to identify a definite point at which the detente of the early 1970s yielded to the belligerence of recent years, but the initial impetus probably dates from late in 1973 at the time of the Six Day War. The United States suspected that the Kremlin had prior knowledge of the surprise attack by Egypt and Syria and had, by not alerting Washington, violated the spirit of detente as well as the BPA. This marked a first turning point in superpower relations. Real damage may not have been immediately visible—contacts between the two countries were expanded in 1974 and the Vladivostok Accord was signed in November of that year—but the foundation for continued co-operation had been shaken. This foundation was further undermined by internal political developments in the USA.

The anti-detente and neo-conservative movement that has subsequently shaped much of US foreign policy gained a firm foothold in the national political structure at this time. It included hard-line factions of the Democratic Party as w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Preface
• Contents
• Acronyms
• Chapter 1. The background: East-West relations and the Third World
• Chapter 2. The arenas: superpower disputes and the Third World
• Chapter 3. Allied dilemmas: dangers of European involvement
• Chapter 4. Two scenarios
• Chapter 5. On reducing the risks
• Notes and references
• Index