The Third World War: August 1985

CHAPTER 23: The Vital Peripheries: Middle East and Africa

Almost fifty years ago General Wavell, when contemplating from the Middle East the stakes involved in an earlier world crisis, summed up the strategic balance in a statement remarkable alike for its brevity and its prescience. Oil, shipping, air power and sea power, said Wavell, were the keys to the war against Germany and Italy. They were dependent on each other. Air and sea power required oil. Oil had to be moved about in ships. Ships themselves required the protection of naval and air power. Wavell went on to argue that since the British Empire had access to most of the world’s oil, as it had to most of the world’s shipping, and since it was well endowed with naval power and potentially with air power — ‘we are bound to win’.

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 riches, 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.

Mastery of the sea and air, as the United States had discovered in both Korea and Vietnam, did not necessarily mean mastery on land, but it helped a good deal, particularly in the Middle East. Here there were four main areas of operations for ground forces. One was supremely important; the rest were sideshows. The first was a joint operation by the United States and Iran, supported by the Union of Arab Emirates and Oman, to seize complete control of the Persian Gulf. It involved the elimination of Kuwait and the destruction of all Soviet and UAR forces in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia. To start with, Kuwait was edged out of the game. The tacit neutrality of Iraq, whose relations with Syria had deteriorated almost to the point of military hostilities, enabled Iran to remove any threat from Kuwait without a fight. In the summer of 1985, powerful Iranian amphibious and air forces, poised for invasion, together with an unequivocal ultimatum, obliged the Kuwaiti ruling council to announce the severance of their new relationship with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It was a volte face as total as that of Italy in 1943. From being the integrated ally of their UAR partners, the Kuwaitis suddenly became their declared enemies. Better, the ruling council had decided, a change of sides and a chance of survival than the certainty of destruction by Iran supported by US naval and air power. The UAR was without the means of arguing the toss.

The next phase was less one-sided and resulted in a prolonged, though not very bloody, campaign. The Soviet base at Dhahran was subjected to heavy attack by US ships and aircraft. A US marine force then captured and occupied it. Kuwaiti and Iranian forces established a cordon sanitaire between Dhahran and the Saudi Arabian forces, whose purpose was to guarantee the integrity of Riyadh. Skirmish and counter-skirmish continued, but the Soviet and UAR sea and air units had now been removed from the scene, and the ‘Gulf — no matter what the UAE might think about it — could again be called Persian. For it was Iranian sea and air power, backed by that of the USA, which called the tune there. United States land forces occupied Dhahran and secured and ran the base and its communications.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Ahmed Medilatif el Kasemy was a helicopter pilot of the Union Defence Force, the Army of the United Arab Emirates. He had been loaned by its Commander to take charge of a mixed air regiment equipped with French Lynx and Gazelle helicopters, which had itself been allotted to support the Kuwaiti forces helping to keep Dhahran free from Saudi interference. For a week they had had little to do except patrol, and he was beginning to agree that three-quarters of a soldier’s life is spent hanging about doing nothing. He didn’t mind hanging about, but he’d much rather do it from his air-conditioned house in Abu Dhabi than in the desert. Soon after dawn one day early in September, however, there occurred one of those incidents that made the whole thing memorable.

He was listening to the Gazelle patrol leader’s report in his Landrover with his Operations Officer beside him. It was still being transmitted when he pressed the horn of the vehicle to alert the Lynx squadron for imminent action.

“At 0512 hours, at position 738492, mixed force of AMX tanks, Greyhound armoured cars and APC, estimated total thirty vehicles, moving east-south-east,” went the message. “If they continue present direction and speed will reach minefield gap at 850431 between 0600 and 0630. Am continuing to observe, but have fuel for only 40 minutes more on station.”

The Colonel heard his Operations Officer acknowledge the message, then switch channels and report it to HQ, as he seized his map and did some quick markings with a chinagraph pencil.

“Tell HQ I’m going to engage as soon as possible and suggest moving the Scorpion tank squadron to just this side of the minefield gap in their prepared positions. I’m going on this mission myself. And tell the Gazelle patrol to look out for us and guide us in!”

He dismounted from the Landrover and walked rapidly towards the twelve Lynx helicopters with their business-like HOT missiles slung three per side near the skids. The Squadron Commander, with his three troop leaders, was waiting in a group. Rotor blades were turning, mechanics and armaments-men checking. All other crews were mounted. Quickly he gave his orders, adding that he would accompany the squadron in the second-in-command’s Lynx.

“But it’s your show,” he added to the Squadron Commander.

Within minutes they were off, swooping over the desert very low in four groups of three. Twenty minutes later he sighted two helicopters, soon identified as the Gazelles he was looking for. There was a quick interchange of information between the Squadron Commander and the Gazelle patrol leader, then the Squadron Commander gave his orders.

“Bearing 240, three columns armoured vehicles. We attack from north-east in two waves, my group and Alpha first, taking leading vehicles; normal drill of target choice; Bravo and Charlie attack five minutes later taking rear vehicles; return to base for replenishment immediately after attack. Acknowledge.”

The time was exactly 0555 hours.

Shortly after 6 a.m. a part of the Saudi Arabian desert was a shambles of burning vehicles and dead and wounded men. There were still fitful explosions. As the Lynx squadron headed back for replenishment, the two relieving helicopters of the Gazelle patrol appeared. There was more exchange of information, more reports to base and to headquarters, which was anxious to learn whether there was any need for support from the mobile column with its guns and British Scorpion light tanks, now standing-to. The Colonel ended his own report with the words: “I don’t think the Scorpion squadron will have much more to do now.”

“I wonder if we will, either,” he added to his Operations Officer. “Anyway, it was good while it lasted.” “

Taken from Mirage in the Desert: The Overthrow of Soviet Power in its Challenge to Islam, a collection of reminiscences by officers who took part in the fighting. Amman 1986, trans, and pub. SOAS, London 1986.

The third phase of this principal operation — aimed, as we have seen, at seizing complete control of the Persian Gulf — consisted of further reinforcing Oman with Iranian and UAE forces. These, in co-operation with the Sultan’s own not inexperienced or inconsiderable army, once more began to cudgel the dissident tribesmen into obedience and to make the Yemeni ‘volunteers’ begin to wonder whether the game was worth the candle. But the elimination of Yemenis and the rehabilitation of the tribes was to be a lengthy affair.

In Southern Africa, the first real blows were struck with the simultaneous advance of four armies from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia into South Africa in the summer of 1985. The expedition from Mozambique fared worst, that from Namibia best, and the two guerrilla incursions from Zimbabwe and Botswana, although destructive and elusive, had little impact on the outcome of the general battle. In its drive through the Transvaal, the composite army of FRELIMO, Zimbabwe, Cubans and Somalis deployed a respectable force of all arms with proper air, but poor logistic, support. But the attacking forces greatly misunderstood and underestimated their enemies. They had learned nothing from their easy victories over the Portuguese and their battles with Rhodesians. Not only did the South African Volkssturm defend their homelands with skill, savagery and success, not only did the regular South African forces operate with disturbing suddenness and speed, but, much to CASPA’s consternation, the special forces of South Africa’s army took the battle into CASPA’s own base areas, mounting deadly attacks on its airfields and supply depots, on its lines of communication, even on the city of Maputo itself. They had not bargained for this.

The resistance both in the Transvaal and in Natal of the South African Kommandos was fanatical — but it was a fanaticism tempered with cool measuring of the military odds. The Afrikaaners fought with a ferocity which shocked and dismayed both the cynical mercenaries and the dedicated guerrillas of the invading forces. They were not always successful.

“2/Lt Pieter Van der Horst had just finished setting up his first ambush. He had received information over the radio two hours earlier that a column of some fifty mixed Mozambique and Zimbabwe guerrillas, supported by two T-34 tanks, were expected to reach his patrol area about now, and it had taken him every bit of the time available to get ready. In his platoon he had thirty-two men, four French medium machine guns, two anti-tank launchers of the Karl Gustav type and two 81 mm Malaysian mortars. They were completely mobile in eight Japanese Landrover-type vehicles and had rations for a week. Two Landrovers with trailers were separately loaded with ammunition and petrol. His men carried 100 rounds each. He had chosen a disused farm which offered excellent cover and superb ambush positions. Through it the main dusty track ran on towards Lesotho. The ambush was laid out over a distance of 300 metres: the first killing group of ten men with the anti-tank weapons and two machine-guns at the front, or southern, end; the rear group with mortars and two machine-guns at the entrance to, or northern part of, the ambush; and his own HQ and support group in the centre with some ten men and plentiful supplies of grenades. His own HQ men had the flamethrowers. Everyone was out of sight, the anti-tank and anti-personnel mines laid, the detonating charges ready for distracting or deceiving the enemy.

Van der Horst’s radio crackled. It was a helicopter pilot reporting. “Column now within two miles your position, two tanks leading; remainder of force in two parties, approximate strength twenty-plus each party. Some carrying supplies. No heavy weapons.” Van der Horst gave swift and low confirmatory orders through his walkie-talkie to the two NCOs in charge of killer groups. It was to be done broadly as planned. First enemy party with tanks to be allowed to proceed unmolested to Point A; then as second enemy party reached Point B or on his order or by his opening fire, this latter party to be destroyed by machine-gun and automatic rifle fire; immediately fire to be opened by own rear group, leading group to detonate anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, engage enemy tanks with recoilless launchers and destroy enemy foot with machine-guns; his own group to use flamethrowers against tanks. All enemy weapons and ammunition to be secured. If detonating charges required for deception — under his control. If for any reason enemy column does not enter ambush, further orders on radio.

When they came in sight, the guerrilla forces did not appear to be expecting any opposition. As they advanced, they barely bothered to adopt tactical formation at all, but trudged along behind the tanks, weapons slung over shoulders, talking, chewing, laughing, the gap between the two parties a mere 100 metres. As he watched them coming, Van der Horst was thinking that his plan should work.

As a plan, it was good. But military plans, as von Moltke observed, rarely survive contact with the enemy. In this case the seemingly unwary enemy suddenly took the whole affair into their own hands. When the guerrilla column was no more than 800 metres away from the ambush, the two tanks deployed to either side of the track and opened fire, first with machine-guns, then with high-explosive shells, on the derelict farm buildings. They were well out of range of Van der Horst’s rocket launchers. The guerrilla foot soldiers rapidly dispersed on either side of the tanks and went to earth. Van der Horst gave a quick order over his radio: “Keep in cover and return fire with mortars and machine-guns. Leading group at five minutes’ notice to move back to get behind them.”

The tanks kept up a steady fire and seemed quite impervious to the machine guns now engaging them. Meanwhile, to Van der Horst’s concern, the enemy guerrillas seemed to be crawling through the bush to the north of them in an obvious attempt to outflank his own position. It would be foolhardy to try to outface tank fire and allow his force to be pinned down while the guerrillas crept ever closer. He still had one advantage over the enemy — speed. He spoke into the radio again. “Cancel last order. Rear group prepare to mount in Landrovers and move south in fifteen minutes; leading group prepare to give covering fire; my group will follow rear group, covered by leading group, and we will leapfrog back to agreed rendezvous Charlie. Maximum covering fire throughout move. Mortar fire to switch now to Hill 102. Leading group to withdraw when my group established at Charlie. Move on my orders.”

From a concealed position of great strength, with the expectation of gaining both surprise and success, Van der Horst was obliged to resort to defence, evasion and retreat. And all because he had no anti-tank weapons of sufficient range. It was a lesson well learned, and would not have to be relearned, as before long his unit and others like it would be equipped with the longer-range Milan-type anti-tank guided missiles, also now coming in from Japan. And the helicopters would have a new missile too. For the time being, it was necessary to run away in order to fight another day. After all they had plenty of space. And plenty of time. It was usually shortage of those two commodities that lost wars. Meanwhile Van der Horst, noticing with satisfaction that none of his men had been hit, used a little time to put a respectable space between his command and those T-34 tanks. “[7]

Even when the invading columns from Mozambique did meet with some success in their advances, they threw away their advantage by their savagery to the black inhabitants they claimed to have come to deliver. The Cuban proxy leaders of the FRELIMO bands were men to whom the death or mutilation of wholly innocent men and women was of no moment. Such was the short-sightedness and vindictiveness of the invading army’s leaders that they were ruthless where they should have been conciliatory, and — in the case of their own members who revelled in excesses — tolerant where they should have been stern.

The invasion from Mozambique was held, but CASPA would not lightly give up the battle. Guerrilla forces from Botswana were advancing deep into enemy territory, reinforced by incursions from Zimbabwe. But what was rapidly becoming clear was that South Africa was holding on.

Long before it was all over, the USSR had wholly ceased to be in control of anything that was happening either in the Middle East or in Southern Africa. Orders from Moscow, growing in confusion and inadequacy in the last few days of August 1985, had, by the end of the month, virtually ceased.

The United States now faced a huge new problem. This was not wholly unforeseen, but in the event it was greater, and came to a head sooner, than had been expected. Very considerable forces of all arms of the Soviet Union, disposing of immense masses of war material, with hordes of technicians, advisers and civilian operatives of every sort, were now spread over vast areas with no coherent purpose and no further reason for being where they were. Some units and formations went on fighting, for a while at least, wherever they happened to be, to whatever local end seemed to their commanders sensible. Others sought the earliest opportunity to surrender to the nearest American headquarters, at any level. One startled US captain signalled to his superiors that he had at his disposal two Soviet generals, an acre of officers and ten acres (approximately) of Soviet rank and file, all now disarmed, and he requested orders. Local belligerents made a beeline for Soviet weapons, equipment and stores, and more than one Soviet unit, compelled to defend itself against raiders, found itself in action with the support of some microcosm of the US forces to which it had surrendered. Soviet ships usually made for port and tied up. Many aircraft simply flew home, or as near to it as fuel allowed. Many thousands of men drifted away, leaving heavy weapons, equipment and stores where they lay for whoever chose to take them away.

To tell the story of the mounting of the United Nations Relief and Repatriation Organization (UNRRO), which soon took over from the United States in the concentration and maintenance of the remnants of Soviet forces deployed in Africa and the Middle East, and then set in hand the long and complex business of getting the men (and women too) back to their homes, is no part of our present task.

The operation still goes on as we write, having had to face many more difficulties than those confronting the United Nations Displaced Persons Organization, set up at the same time in Europe. No history of the time, however, would be complete without reference to one of the least tractable problems to emerge in the immediate aftermath of the war. There will be traces of its impact in Africa and the Middle East for a long time to come. It will be many years, for example, before the last weapon brought by the Soviet Union into Africa and the Middle East in the chapter of the world’s history which ended so abruptly in 1985, ceases in one hand or another to serve a purpose.

The elimination of Soviet support, direct or by proxy, heralded the end of any further external intervention. The security of South Africa was assured by the success of her own armed forces in resisting and defeating tactical attack, with some help from the efforts of the US Navy. These efforts, though aimed directly at the peripheral operations of the Soviet Union, also had the result that both the Soviet proxy fighters and the indigenous guerrillas were largely cut off from the sinews of war. The end to the strategic external battle was far indeed from bringing to an end the only sort of struggle of enduring concern to the Africans — the internal one. Bitter battles between Angola and her neighbours, and within Angola, were matched by frontier incidents in Zaire and a renewal of the disruption of Mozambique. South Africa, though everywhere penetrated, held firm at the core. Her front-line adversaries, while clinging to the idea of confrontation, began to look to their own internal welfare. Far from a Confederation of Africa South coming into being and flourishing, a de-federation of those dedicated to set it up was already in progress.

The impotence of the Soviet proxies in Southern Africa had been demonstrated. The success of Iran in the Persian Gulf and southern Arabia had been such that even before the nuclear exchange in Europe precipitated the end she was already concentrating forces on her northern borders for the invasion of the Soviet Union. The aimless manoeuvrings of the Egyptian Army on the shores of the Red Sea signified little. Soviet initiatives on the outskirts of the main battle had been stifled and a great strategic prize retained firmly in the grasp of the United States. If this success did not in itself ensure that the Western Allies would win the war in Europe against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact it made two important contributions. By stabilizing a situation in the Middle East to the advantage of the West, and securing the oil flow along the sea routes, the US had already gone some way to ensuring that the war, particularly if it were to be prolonged, would not be lost. By setting up a situation in which Soviet initiatives on the periphery were almost from the beginning seen to fail it hastened the general realization that the military might of the USSR was very far indeed from being invincible, and thus added to the growing weight of encouragement to its enemies nearer the centre.