IS COLLISION INEVITABLE?:
Jr, Ramsdell Gurney
IS COLLISION INEVITABLE? RAMSDELL GURNEY, JR. Soviet-American relations and the Middle East Four times since World War II and twice within the past decade the Arabs and Israelis have engaged in...
...How did this transpire...
...For example, in the wake of the more than quadrupling of the per barrel cost of oil since the war, the Arabs will probably use some of these additional profits to restock their arsenals with purchases from the USSR —totaling several billion dollars...
...As events turned out, the Egyptians failed militarily, yet obtained most of their objectives anyway at the conference table as a Soviet-American-supported step toward a general Arab-Israeli settlement...
...The Secretary, who believed himself on moral crusade, proceeded to shape a one-dimensional policy directed at combating Communism or alleged Communism throughout the world...
...The Soviet Union and the United States became involved in Middle East affairs because they perceived this action to be in their respective national interests...
...Yet without substantial political influence in the Middle East, there would be no Soviet flotilla in the Mediterranean...
...Moreover, as Khrushchev well knew, a successful entry into the Middle East would realize for his country all those benefits so coveted by his predecessors as far back as Peter The Great...
...And to make matters worse, the Dulles legacy with all its anti-Arabic ingredients continued to be the basis of American policy until into the 197O's...
...Each of the last three conflicts has precipitated a serious diplomatic confrontation replete with the seeds of a military showdown between the world's two superpowers—the Soviet Union and the United States...
...Stalin, for example, showed strong interest in the Middle East and initiated in 1945 two bold but unsuccessful strokes to acquire Soviet footholds at the expense of Iran and Turkey...
...Nevertheless, the country was still excluded from the vital Mediterranean area since its fleets would have to pass through the Turkish straits, an avenue blocked by Turkey with the enthusiastic support of the Russo-phobic Western powers, England, France and Austria...
...The next serious crisis was the June War of 1967...
...The latter, of course, was surrogating for the Soviet Union, and the following year Nasser admitted he had actually concluded the transaction with the Kremlin...
...But the point is that no evidence exists that the Kremlin had precipitously undertaken a new and reckless approach...
...Fortunately, the fighting ended before the Soviet Union and the United States had become inextricably and perhaps fatefully involved...
...The circumstances here are particularly instructive because they underscore the potential in Middle East politics, a potential still existing, for igniting global conflict...
...And third, despite the fact that the USSR is currently a net exporter of oil (primarily to its East European satellites), it is estimated that by the 1980s the rate of oil consumption in the Soviet Union will outstrip that of oil production...
...To them the Soviet Union must become both a model of social progress and a generous benefactor...
...An unrelenting quest to acquire some sort of control over these straits as well as eventual access to warm-water ports therefore became cardinal Russian policy...
...It is worth noting though, that unlike the Soviet Union, the active American entrance into the Middle East was entirely a post-World War II development...
...But that the USSR benefited from its influence in the area and also stands to gain considerably in the long run is not open to question...
...While it cannot be tangibly demonstrated that either the United States or the Soviet Union wanted another war, a defensible case can be made that Moscow approved—if not encouraged—the Egyptian attack...
...long-standing, going back at least to the reign of Peter the Great (1689-1725...
...In other words, decisions are reached largely in light of perceived actual or potential exterior threats, although geopolitical and power factors are certainly important...
...Secretary of State Kissinger's peripatetic diplomacy in the first half of 1974 resulting in disengagement accords between Israel and Egypt (January) and Israel and Syria (May) followed in June by former-President Nixon's ceremonial excursion through the Middle East, perfectly illustrate the changing American approach...
...Nevertheless, the high stakes elicted by superpower maneuvering in the Middle East were again manifested when the United States government, citing concern over possible Soviet intervention in the fighting, ordered its military forces on worldwide "precautionary alert" (Oct...
...The disruptive effects of the recent oil embargo and price elevations by the Arab governments graphically underscore the dangers inherent in any permanent Western reliance on Middle East oil...
...Recently, both President Ford and Secretary Kissinger went so far as to warn that food, including related technical assistance, might become an instrument of retaliation...
...Although the size of the soviet Mediterranean flotilla is small (but growing), it is important to Moscow as a symbol of expanding global potential, as a means to add credibility for Soviet support of the Arabs, and as a burgeoning counterweight to the traditional Western hegemony there, now represented by the U.S...
...Sadat confirmed the last point when he announced in April that Egypt was committed to non-alignment and has decided to end more than 18 years of sole dependence on the USSR for arms supplies...
...For example, challenging the oil producing nations to define their needs "without imposing unacceptable burdens on the international monetary and trade system," Ford declared in an address to the United Nations on September 19 that "it has not been our policy to use food as a political weapon despite the...
...Since the only area where such alliances might be found in the postwar world existed among the emerging third-world nations, especially in the Middle East, these would become Khrushchev's main target...
...In a strict sense, then, the Middle East was not vital to American national interests but rather a convenient area for profiteering in oil and combating Communism...
...Why should a local quarrel in the Middle East, an area of seemingly little intrinsic value to Moscow or Washington, carry such high stakes as to place mankind periodically on the brink of nuclear holocaust...
...But at the same time, American relations with the Arabs remain clouded due to the oil price issue...
...The Soviet Union's interest in the Middle East is ramsdell gurney, jr., is assistant professor of history at the University of Santa Clara in California...
...Moscow, for example, immediately commenced restoring the Egyptian arsenal, and soon thereafter became a regular supplier of weapons to Syria and Iraq...
...It provided Khrushchev with a vehicle for entering and exerting influence on the Middle East and it determined that the Soviet Union would soon be the main supplier of weapons to the Arabs and the United States to the Israelis, thus triggering an arms race continuing through the present day...
...All available evidence suggests that the war developed independently of the Soviet Union and the United States...
...Washington has already made it clear that henceforth oil will be an important factor in policy-making toward the pertinent Arab states...
...The U.S...
...And, as the history of the Middle East evidences, the real danger of one of these collisions exploding into nuclear war derives from the possibility of Moscow and Washington miscalculating and falling prey to a vortex of events they neither comprehend nor can control...
...The consequences will likely include the weakening of NATO since only financially viable nations can support a sound security system as well as a compensatory acceleration of detente which means more Western technology for the Soviets...
...This assumes one vital premise: that Egypt's objective was limited...
...Beyond this, it seems safe to say that the Soviet Union will certainly protect its Middle East foothold, a foothold desired by Russian rulers for over two centuries and which has paid the kind of handsome dividends befitting an ambitious, global superpower...
...This would suggest that Moscow would accept a political solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, contingent of course on the non-exclusion of the USSR from the area and a prudent American diplomacy which takes cognizance of Soviet security concerns...
...No direct complicity on the part of the Kremlin can be proven—though the Soviets apparently did urge the Arab governments not to terminate the boycott or cut back prices...
...Even the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, despite an early governmental renunciation of all territorial claims, did not for long sidetrack the country from pursuit of this by then well-established objective...
...Te begin with, the situation Krushchev faced upon securing power in early 1955 was an untoward one indeed...
...For the Israelis the acquisition of arms was somewhat more complex...
...The weapons offered for purchase were usually of high quality but not, until recently, the first-line equipment of the Soviet armed forces...
...My purpose here is briefly to review the origin and nature of the Soviet and American involvements and thereby shed light on the entire Middle East question and its impact on global affairs...
...The United States remained initially cautious in its arms commitments, but gradually enlarged them and finally became Israel's principal supplier after the June 1967 war...
...the Israeli assault was a pre-emptive one decided solely in Tel Aviv...
...Politically, the United States still seeks to reduce or check Soviet influence and increase its own, but now no longer by the previous, unsuccessful method of indiscriminate support for the Israelis...
...Then, with Egypt holding both banks of the Canal, that important waterway could be reopened...
...A viable "limited objective" thesis could be constructed as follows: Egypt's purpose was to capture and secure the East Bank of the Suez Canal and if possible to extend the perimeter at least 5-10 kilometers inland...
...decision...
...Five months later, in September, Colonel Abdel Nasser, who had seized power in Egypt in 1952, startled the Western world with his announcement of a military and technical assistance agreement with Czechoslovakia...
...Second, the new, high oil prices have contributed to severe dislocations (e.g., inflation) in the economies of Europe, the United States and Japan...
...Translated, this means that the NATO countries of Western Europe and Japan are paying the Soviets to supply the Arabs with the weaponry and equipment necessary to fight Israel...
...The role of the superpowers in this affair, specifically the USSR, appears somewhat more ambiguous...
...This moved the United States increasingly into the Israeli camp as many of the Arab-States were identified with the Soviet Union, and left no room for neutralism which Dulles contemptuously described as an "immoral and shortsighted conception...
...the Middle East) at least until the vast reserves in Siberia can be exploited...
...Over the past few years and especially since the Yom Kippur war, the United States has learned that its political and economic objectives can better be served by a regional policy encompassing the broad interests of both Arab and Jew...
...Role For its part, the United States began to involve itself in Middle East affairs partly in response to Stalin's aggressive moves against Iran and Turkey immediately after World War II and partly to gain access to oil reserves...
...In short, the "Six Day" war and concomitant tension between Moscow and Washington was more a consequence of both powers losing control of a situation than in instigating it...
...The Soviet Union was virtually surrounded by an American-led military glacis—NATO, SEATO, and a burgeoning parallel organization in the Middle East to be known as METO or simply the "Baghdad Pact...
...Sixth Fleet...
...Ports on the Baltic, however, are accessible for a limited time during the year because of the area's extreme cold, and therefore Peter also attempted to push south to obtain warm-water ports on the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Persian Gulf...
...First of all, probably the most significant accomplishment in the Middle East since Khrushchev has been the presence of the Soviet navy in Mediterranean waters...
...Therefore, the Soviet government would now assume a "positive attitude" toward those Middle East countries seeking "to strengthen their national independence and to promote peace and friendly cooperation among peoples . . ." In short, Khrushchev had made it undeniably clear that Russia was resuming its historic attempts to penetrate the area, only now under a Marxist-Leninist-Khrushchevist banner...
...recent oil...
...Furthermore, a victory of this sort, besides entailing few military risks, would boost flagging Arab morale as well as legitimize the Soviet advisers whom Egyptian President Sadat had reinvited after expelling them in 1972 over Moscow's hesitancy to deliver promised arms and equipment...
...and fear of Soviet expansionism...
...Over the next two centuries and a half, Russia was able to extend its natural boundaries east to the Pacific Ocean and south to the Black and Caspian seas...
...The term "Middle East," as used in this article, includes the following countries: the non-Arab states of Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Kuwait, Yemen, South Yemen, U.A.R., Muscat, and Oman, and the Federation of Arab Gulf Emirates...
...Moscow conspicuously threw its full support behind the Afro-Asian Bandung Conference, also meeting in April, which took a strong stand against Western colonialism...
...Moreover, realizing old Russian historical goals, Soviet warships now regularly pass through the Turkish straits with almost automatic Turkish permission, and then dock at recently acquired port facilities in the eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, along the Red Sea, and northward into the Persian Gulf...
...However, the particulars of these interests and how they were determined are far more difficult to ascertain...
...The economic interest centers on the desire to maintain a sufficient flow of Arab oil at a tolerable price until the United States achieves energy independence, a goal set for 1980...
...Global crises were the inevitable product...
...Khrushchev attacked the problem by conjointly updating ideology and taking new policy steps...
...The broad answer is simple enough...
...It was Nikita Khrushchev, however, a practical and ambitious man anxious both to advance his country's interest and to strengthen his own political position, who finally put the Russians into the Middle East...
...Ironically, therefore, Washington's approach to the Middle East was premised on the kind of futile Manichean outlook which Stalin had embraced but which Khruschchev had discarded...
...The first global crisis in the Middle East, of course, erupted in 1956 with the "Suez War...
...Yet, and this needs to be emphasized, both Soviet and American Middle East policy are formulated with each other very much in mind...
...Nonetheless, Washington's commitment was adamant: in 1947 the Sixth Fleet was placed on continuous duty in the Mediterranean and the Truman Doctrine, a massive economic and military aid program to Turkey and Greece for the purpose of containing Communism, was announced...
...In realistic terms, the best way to neutralize this Cordon Sanitaire was to forge a counter-alliance system which would help redress the balance of power...
...Still, despite the obvious risks and obligations, involvement in the Middle East for the Soviet Union, has reaped considerable rewards with future prospects even brighter...
...To begin with, straightforward national security considerations are probably the prime determinant of Soviet actions in the region...
...Although the United States retains special ties with Israel, as does the Soviet Union with the Arabs, the new diplomacy has already borne fruit: the oil embargo has been lifted, U.S.-Arab relations in general (particularly with Egypt, Syria, and Algeria) have markedly improved, and Moscow's overall Middle East influence has been at least slightly diminished...
...Peter, following a long and enervating war against Sweden, succeeded in gaining a port on the Baltic and with it a "window into Europe...
...Furthermore, it was also in the Dulles-Khrushchev years that the Middle East became a major international "hotspot...
...Khrushchev's new policy rapidly gathered momentum —and successes...
...During the 1950s, in marked contrast to Khrushchev's Middle East policy, American diplomacy lapsed into a paralyzing malaise...
...To appreciate the stake, one needs only look at examples of what the Middle East has come to mean in the Soviet scheme of things...
...Although the fighting was quickly terminated, the certainty that more and worse crises would follow was guaranteed by the sharp acceleration of the area arms race in the Suez aftermath...
...Another admittedly more hypothetical criterion for assessing the value Moscow attaches to its Middle East presence can be found in the effects of the oil embargo and price hike imposed by the Arab states following the Yom Kippur War...
...Ideologically, he proclaimed that Stalin's "capitalist encirclement" had been replaced by a large "zone of peace," in which "national bourgeoisie" regimes—such as existed in some Middle East states—could play a significant role both in liberation movements and in the evolution toward socialism...
...For Khrushchev, these interlocking alliance systems constituted a kind of Cordon Sanitaire which not only posed a serious threat to Soviet security, but also weakened Moscow's diplomatic stance on all global issues...
...They also elucidate the liabilities of a single track, pro-Israeli diplomacy...
...If this estimate is accurate, then it seems logical that Moscow would seek to assure itself and its allies an alternate oil source (viz...
...The other major and most recent crisis was the 1973 Yom Kippur War...
...Because Russia was, and is, largely a land-locked, continental power, the rulers realized that if Russia were to expand its influence and hegemony, it needed access to the seas...
...A fitting commentary on the ultimate success of Khrushchev's efforts in the area was later provided by none other than Brezhnev and Kosygin, who, after deposing Khrushchev in 1964, not only retained his basic policy but expanded it...
...He went on to say that should these nations persist in their approach, they would become victims of their own actions...
...At the same time, he announced that the Soviet Union could no longer remain "indifferent to the situation taking shape in the Near and Middle East" which had a direct and harmful "bearing on the security of the USSR...
...Moreover, it enabled the USSR to leap-frog the western military glacis assembled along the Soviet southern extremities and to outflank NATO in the process...
...Much of the problem rested with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1953-59), who had been allowed a virtual free hand in conducting foreign policy by President Eisenhower...
...As for the United States, Washington continues to frame its Middle East policy on the basis of relatively fixed economic and political interests...
...Peter did not achieve his objectives, but his reign established the precedent: an "urge to the sea" in the Middle East...
...This would bring obvious economic benefits to Egypt while facilitating Soviet naval ingress to the Indian Ocean, cutting the supply route now originating in Vladivostok by 9,000 miles...
...To a large extent, this involvement was motivated by two specific fears: fear of the rising momentum of Arab nationalism which appeared to threaten Western economic interests, especially since England and France were too exhausted to sustain their presence...
...In the final analysis, then, what can be said about the present course of Soviet policy and rivalry with the United States in the Middle East...
...Likewise, Israel's sudden, devastating air strikes which annihilated the air forces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq in less than 24 hours and determined the military outcome, were not cleared with Washington...
...For so long as the region continues to be largely polarized and viewed as some sort of proving ground between the Soviet Union and the United States, then the stakes will automatically appear critical and render periodic superpower collisions inevitable...
...The importance of the Egyptian arms deal cannot be exaggerated...
...But through ingenuity and persistence, they were able to buy aircraft from France and other weapons from England, West Germany and the United States...
...The provocative closing of the Straits of Tiran by Nasser, for instance, was not coordinated with the Kremlin beforehand, just as the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956 was not given prior approbation by Khrushchev...
...From Peter's time forward the allure of warm-water ports for Russia in the area known today as the "Middle East" has been so great as to occupy a central position in both Tsarist and Soviet foreign policy...
...This was brought about by the steady growth of Soviet-American rivalry in a region already volatile because of the deep-rooted and passionate enmity of Arab and Jew...
...Soviet-American relations and the Middle East Four times since World War II and twice within the past decade the Arabs and Israelis have engaged in full-scale war...
Vol. 101 • March 1975 • No. 16
