PROLONGED WARS

A Post-Nuclear Challenge

Edited by

Karl P. Magyar, PhD

Constantine P. Danopoulos, PhD
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Prolonged wars: the post-nuclear challenge / editors, Karl P. Magyar, Constantine P.

Danopoulos.

 p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Prolonged war. 2. Protracted conflicts (Military science) 3. Africa—History,

Military. 4. Asia—History, Military. 5. World politics—1945– I. Magyar, K.

P. (Karl P.) II. Danopoulos, Constantine P. (Constantine Panos)

U243.P76 1994

355 +.027 +09045—dc20 94-32131

CIP

ISBN 1-58566-056-6

First Printing October 1994

Second Printing July 2001

Disclaimer

This publication was produced in the Department of Defense school environment in the interest

of academic freedom and the advancement of national defense-related concepts. The views

expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position

of the Department of Defense or the United States government.

This publication has been reviewed by security and policy review authorities and is cleared for

public release. 

ii
Contents

Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Essays

Introduction: The Protraction and Prolongation

of Wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Karl P. Magyar

Iran-Iraq: Protracted Conflict, Prolonged War . . . . . . . 17

M. A. Shahriar Shirkhani and

Constantine P. Danopoulos

The Longevity of the Lebanese Civil War . . . . . . . . . . 41

As’ad AbuKhalil

The Arab-Israeli Wars: A Conflict of Strategic

Attrition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Stewart Reiser

Prolonged Conflict in the Sudan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Ann Mosely Lesch

Fire in the Horn: Prolonged War in Ethiopia and

Eritrea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Cobie Harris

Chad: The Apparent Permanence of Ethno-Regional

Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Frédérick Belle Torimiro

iii
Liberia’s Conflict: Prolongation through Regional

Intervention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Karl P. Magyar

The Rhodesian Conflict: 1966–79 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Herbert M. Howe

Civil War in a Fragile State—Mozambique . . . . . . . . 225

Christopher Gregory

The War Over Angola and Namibia: Factors of

Prolongation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Garth Shelton and Karl P. Magyar

Cambodia: Prolonged War, Prolonged Peace? . . . . . . 291

J. Richard Walsh

El Salvador’s Prolonged Civil War . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Steffen W. Schmidt

Nicaragua’s Prolonged Contra War . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Charles L. Stansifer

The Prolongation of the United States in Vietnam . . . . . 371

Earl H. Tilford, Jr.

The Soviet War in Afghanistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Stephen Blank

Northern Ireland: A Prolonged Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Benjamin Kline

Tentative Observations and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . 449

Constantine P. Danopoulos with Rebecca R. Ruelas

Page

iv
Preface

This book was conceived on the battlefields of Vietnam,

where the term Vietnam became more than a geopolitical or

cultural designation and came to denote a phenomenon.

Vietnam is today a euphemism for getting mired in a war, for

getting bogged down, for being drawn into a guagmire. Since

that war, the US has not entered any military engagement

without the fear of encountering another Vietnam. Nor are we

alone. The Soviets met their Vietnam in Afghanistan; the

South Africans experienced theirs in Angola; and the Nigerians

encountered theirs in Liberia. In these cases, the problem

concerned the usual expectations of a war of brief

duration—the “short, sharp strike” and the realities of

subsequent military involvement which came to be measured

in terms of years.

Histories have been written of such long wars. Indeed,

Thucydides offered the first masterful account of a prolonged

war, recording the vicissitudes of battles as they changed the

fortunes of societies locked in a struggle which could not be

anticipated when the first spear pierced the last moment of

peace. Since then, there have been short wars, but they are

the exception. More often, wars have bogged down and

produced results hardly anticipated by the conflicts’

perpetrators. The general term for such conflicts has been

protracted war.

We argue, however, that wars may be long for two reasons

and that these reasons are so antithetical that to call both

protracted wars is analytically misleading. Some wars are at

the outset planned around a protracted war strategy, usually

by an insurgent force which realizes that a quick victory

against a superior enemy will not be gained on a conventional

battlefield. Hence, protraction is preferred by one of the sides.

The other long wars are those in which both protagonists

expect quick victory, but for a variety of reasons, they are

frustrated in their expectations. These should be termed

v
prolonged wars. Understanding protracted war is easier than

arriving at wide acceptance of why wars become prolonged.

Because so many wars are prolonged, they leave an

unanticipated wake of death and destruction. Their results

rarely allow either side to claim a victory that justifies the

human and material expenses incurred. Yet, apart from the

histories of such wars, few analytic energies have been

expended to understand the generic phenomenon.

Occasionally, certain dimensions, such as the expansion of

war aims or of the number of participants, have been

examined, but few have studied the wider, overarching

concept. In view of the prevelance of prolonged wars, surely it

is time to undertake systematic analytic efforts to learn about

them.

Our objective is modest: to establish the distinction between

protracted and prolonged wars, to present a number of case

studies of prolonged wars drawn from mostly contemporary

examples, and to offer the rudimentary outline of a proto

theory of prolonged wars. The introductory chapter was sent to

all contributors to this volume, along with a list of about 30

factors which we suggest may play a central role in prolonging

wars. We encouraged the contributors to consider these

factors as relevant variables but also to identify other items

unique to their cases. We did not attempt to impose a straight

jacket on the authors. The concluding chapter synthesizes the

findings of the case studies and provides an outline of a theory

of prolonged wars which subsequent researchers may use as a

guide to probe the prolonged war phenomenom in greater

depth. Certainly, our own speculations should be subjected to

more rigorous scrutiny.

However, we are confident that ultimately analysts will offer

more than theory to explain prolonged wars. They may aspire

to develop guidelines for anticipating in the early stages of a

new conflict those conditions which lend themselves to

becoming prolonged wars. Additionally, by divining the

character of prolonged wars, it might be possible—and

productive—to know at which stage a particular war is. This

vi
new knowledge should enable them to prepare for strategic

responses and determine whether to terminate a conflict or

face another Vietnam.

This project has received the full support and official

backing of Col Dennis Drew, then head of the Airpower

Research Institute, Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research,

and Education, a unit at Air University, Maxwell Air Force

Base. We appreciate his support. Later, at the Air University

Press, we benefited greatly from the support of Mr Thomas E.

Mackin and Mr John E. Jordan, Jr. We are most grateful also

for the hard work and professional expertise of our editor, Dr

Richard Bailey.

Karl P. Magyar, PhD 

Constantine P. Danopoulos, PhD

vii
About the Contributors

As’ad AbuKhali, born in Lebanon, holds a doctor of

philosophy degree from Georgetown University. He has taught

at Georgetown University, Tufts University, Randolph-Macon

Woman’s College, Colorado College, and George Washington

University. He was scholar in residence at the Middle East

Institute in 1992. He currently teaches political science at

California State University, Stanislaus, and is research

associate at the University of California, Berkeley.

Stephen Blank has been a national security affairs specialist

at the US Army Strategic Studies Institute since 1989. Previously,

he was associate professor of Soviet Studies at the Center for

Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education at Air University.

Dr Blank holds masters and doctoral degrees in Russian History

from the University of Chicago. He has published numerous

articles on Soviet military and foreign policies.

Constantine P. Danopoulos teaches political science at

San Jose State University. He received his doctorate from the

University of Missouri, Columbia, and has written extensively

on international security and civil-military relations. Dr

Danopoulos has also served as associate editor of the Journal

of Political and Military Sociology.

Christopher Gregory was senior public affairs officer, AngloAmerican Corporation of South Africa. Previously, he taught

African politics in the Department of International Relations,

University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. His research

and publications focus on southern African affairs. He currently

resides in the United Kingdom.

Cobie Harris received his doctor of philosophy degree in

political science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Currently, he teaches African politics at San Jose State

ix
University. Dr Harris’ research interests include constitutional

development in postcolonial East Africa.

Herbert M. Howe has served as director of African studies at

Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service since 1988.

Professor Howe specializes on southern African’s political and

strategic affairs and has travelled extensively throughout the

region. His present research focuses on civil-military relations in

South Africa. Professor Howe received his doctorate and masters

degrees from Harvard’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Benjamin Kline holds a master’s degree in modern

European and African history from San Jose State University

and a doctor of philosophy degree from University College,

Cork, Ireland. Dr Kline has taught at the University of Alaska

and California State University of Sierra Leone. His research

interests include British imperial policy.

Ann Mosely Lesch teaches Middle Eastern politics at

Villanova University. She has worked for the American Friends

Service Committee in Jerusalem and the Ford Foundation in

Cairo. Dr Lesch has written extensively on Middle Eastern

affairs, especially on the Sudan, which she has studied with a

grant from the US Institute of Peace.

Karl P. Magyar is professor of national security affairs at

the US Air Force Air Command and Staff College. He has held

academic and professional positions in the US and Africa. His

research interests focus on strategic developments in the third

world and US foreign policy. Dr Magyar holds a doctoral

degree from The Johns Hopkins University.

Stewart Reiser is a faculty associate at the Center for

Middle Eastern Studies and Committee on Degrees in Social

Studies at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He

is the author of The Politics of Leverage: The National Religious

Party of Israel and Its Influence on Foreign Policy (1984); The

x
Israeli Arms Industry: Foreign Policy, Arms Transfers, and

Military Doctrine of a Small State (1989); and various articles

on the Arab-Israeli conflict and Middle Eastern politics.

Rebecca R. Ruelas is the Technical Processing Coordinator

for the Government Publications Department at San Jose State

University (SJSU). She is completing her masters in Political

Science with a concentration in International Relations at SJSU

where she also serves as a graduate research assistant.

Steffen W. Schmidt is professor of Political Science at Iowa

State University. He is also director of research for the

Master’s Degree Program in Municipal Government at the

Universidad Externado de Columbia. Dr Schmidt holds a

doctoral degree from Columbia University. He has written

more than 70 publications in political science, and he has a

Latin America area interest.

Garth Shelton is a lecturer in the Department of

International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand,

Johannesburg, South Africa. He teaches strategic studies and

international relations of East Asia. He has conducted

research in Germany and the United Kingdom and recently

completed a doctoral dissertation on South Africa’s nuclear

weapons program.

M. A. Shahriar Shirkhani received his undergraduate

education in Iran and his doctorate from the University of

Idaho. His research interests include political movements in

Middle Eastern societies and civil-military relations. Dr

Shirkhani is teaching at the University of Tehran, Iran.

Charles L. Stansifer received his doctoral degree in Latin

American History at Tulane University. He has taught at the

University of Kansas and is currently chairman of the

Department of History there. He was director of the Center for

Latin American Studies at the University of Kansas from 1974

xi
to 1989. During 1989–90 he was visiting professor of Latin

American Studies at the Air War College. His research focuses

on Central America, the Caribbean, and United States-Latin

American relations.

Earl H. Tilford, Jr., is professor of military history at the

US Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College. He is the

author of two books on the Vietnam War, the latest being

Setup: What the Air Force Did in Vietnam and Why. Dr Tilford

is at work on a book examining how the Vietnam War affected

the mind of the American military. He teaches courses on the

Vietnam War at the Air Command and Staff College and at

Auburn University in Montgomery.

Frédérick Belle Torimiro is assistant professor of political

science and coordinator of the International Studies Program

at Ferrum College, Virginia. He has received grants for

program development from the Association of American

Colleges and from the Faculty Scholars Program of the

University of Kentucky.

J. Richard Walsh is a foreign service officer with the US

Department of State. Prior to joining the foreign service, he was

professor of Asian studies at the Air War College. Dr Walsh has

published on topics ranging from China’s foreign policy to US

foreign policy in East Asia.

xii
Introduction

The Protraction and Prolongation of Wars

Karl P. Magyar

Studies of war focus decidedly on the conduct of wars.

These studies examine doctrines, strategies, and tactics to

learn what went wrong—or right—and for whom. They count

casualties and assess physical damage. But the bulk of what

is published concerns what may be physically observed or

quantified.

They also examine causes for the outbreak of hostilities but

in a much more speculative vein. Doing this presents a much

more challenging task. It is tempting to argue simply that an

inverse relationship exists between the gravity of the wars and

the agreement on the explanations of their causes. Leaders on

each side portray an obvious single enemy or offense, while

each allied power participates for reasons often distantly

removed from the major rationale for the conflict. With the

causes being complex, and the reasons for the participants’

involvements far from clear, the “fog of war” soon yields to the

“mud of war”—as the rationale for the conflict becomes

distorted and, most of the time, they get bogged down.

Lesser analytic attention has been given to the original

perceptions of impending wars at the time of their planning.

Invariably, the duration of the wars is projected to be short,

“from a few weeks to a few months.”1 Some examples include

the American Civil War, Europe’s two world wars, and a

potential war with the Soviets which, considering the nuclear

prospect of it, was usually projected in yet shorter terms.

Certainly America’s war in Vietnam was not expected to last as

long as it did. Nor is this situation unique to the United States.

Napoléon never envisioned his Russian debacle in 1812, when

he encountered a moderately capable match in Kutuzov’s

forces and the harsh environmental elements that should have

been accounted for in the planning of what was foreseen as a

short campaign.2

1
More recently, the Soviets got bogged down in Afghanistan,

and, as in the case of the United States in Vietnam, a new

Soviet administration inherited the conflict with different

perceptions of cause, objective, and strategies. Iran and Iraq

also fought a long war of attrition during the 1980s, employing

full-conventional weapons and tactics in their battles. And

early in 1990, Charles Taylor’s rebel forces made surprisingly

rapid advances against the highly vulnerable government of

Samuel K. Doe in Liberia. But Taylor also encountered the

mud of war as the prolonged conflict widened to include

another opposition rebel group and then other external

intervenors. The Gambia, a weekly newspaper, commented:

“The Liberian nightmare has gone on for so long that the

distinction between rebel and government soldiers is

beginning to blur.”3

There are short conflicts and wars. Examples include the

Soviet Union’s armed confrontation against Hungary in 1956

and the British war against Argentina over the Falklands in

1982. Other examples include the American invasions into

Lebanon in 1958, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and

Grenada in 1983. The US raid on Libya in 1986 and the ouster

of Gen Manuel Noriega from power in Panama in 1989 are

other examples. These interventions concerned clearly stated

and limited objectives and were against comparatively weak

opponents. The preponderant power easily won each of these

battles.

However, when facing the uncertain and far more capable

forces of Saddam Hussein across the borders of Kuwait

(1990–91), the concept of “Vietnam” permeated the cynical

appraisals of the war’s likely course of events. In sharp

contrast to those who held that the US had not learned the

essential lessons of Vietnam, President Bush centered his war

policy on avoiding a situation which would become

progressively a war of attrition and would cause heavy military

casualties. Due mainly to the lessons of Vietnam and a less

menacing physical terrain, planners decided to invite a

well-managed air campaign along with a cautious ground

offensive—cautious in that the single objective of ousting Iraq’s

forces from Kuwait was to determine the length of the

confrontation. This was not to be a prolonged war. Still, to

PROLONGED WARS

2
prepare the US public for all contingencies, Gen A. Gray, Jr.,

commandant of the United States Marine Corps, cautiously

estimated on the eve of the war that American forces “might

have to stay in it for six months or longer.”4 Hussein had

warned that his people would fight six or more years—and that

his credibility was buttressed by his eight-year battle against

Iran.5 But Air Force Gen Andrew Dugan’s controversial

comments, made while inspecting troops in Saudi Arabia,

projected a short, sharp resolution of the conflict with an

attack on key central targets, should the war break out.6 He

was right.

The ground war lasted 100 hours and ended abruptly. Not

surprisingly, many observers criticized this quick end, arguing

that another four hours or one more day could have allowed

for the attainment of a few more objectives. Before long,

pressures emerged for the US and its allies to intervene on

behalf of the Kurds in Iraq’s north and on behalf of the Shias

in the south for an assault on Baghdad to remove Saddam

Hussein from power. Limited intervention on behalf of the

Kurds and the Shias was in fact introduced, but here again, it

was done most cautiously so as not to lose the ability to

expand intervention on the allied powers’ terms. To the analyst

of prolonged wars, the debate between demands and

resistance to escalation raised the altogether familiar

components of conflicts which introduce new objectives,

actors, tactics, and perceptions as these conflicts become

bogged down.

Observers may be tempted to make a distinction between

the length of conflicts fought among the great powers or the

industrially developed states and those fought in the third

world. Most European wars were hardly short, and

interventions in the third world are not necessarily quick and

decisive. Certainly, internal conflicts within third world

countries are usually of long duration as are the wars between

third world states. But these too count exceptions among

them. By African standards, Nigeria’s Biafran secessionist war

may be viewed as a relatively short and concisely defined war,

especially in light of its vast scale. Tanzania’s ouster of

Uganda’s Idi Amin was a short, intense affair, even if Uganda’s

internal conflict continued. And numerous border skirmishes

MAGYAR

3
have flared up in Latin America and in Africa or between the

Soviet Union and China. These conflicts may be part of much

longer conflicts that fester but rarely erupt into full-shooting

wars. But these comparatively rare cases of short, active

hostilities are contrasted by the numerous lengthy conflicts

which generally characterize the wars of the third world.

A distinction needs to be made between conflicts and wars.

For our purposes, we define a conflict as an established

attitude of contention between two or more groups, within one

or among two or more societies. Hostilities will break out

periodically but the disagreement is not quickly resolved. A

conflict is more than mere spirited competition. Certainly there

are nonviolent conflicts, but these will not concern us. More

specifically, a conflict results in at least some casualties over

an extended period of time.

Wars may be an integral part of such conflicts. In the

wording of Air Force Manual 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of

the United States Air Force, “War is a violent struggle between

rival societies to attain competing political objectives.”7 A war

is a more intensively fought engagement in which at least one

side engages its full civilian and military resources. When part

of a prolonged conflict, a war is not necessarily resolved—as in

the case of Sudan, to cite one of many available examples. But

when a war is fought as part of an extended conflict, it will

either conclude without a clear victory, as in the case of the

Iran and Iraq War, or with one side clearly victorious, an

example of which is Britain’s victory over Argentina.

There are different types of war; they may be classified as

nuclear, full- or limited-conventional wars, or low-intensity

conflicts or wars, or their illegitimate cousin, unconventional

wars. These wars are all violent means for resolving conflicts

instead of negotiated resolutions. The distinction between

wars and conflicts often becomes obscured when analyzing the

reasons for their prolongation. Both wars and conflicts in fact

may get bogged down, especially when judged by the

standards of the planners’ initial expectations. An unresolved

war may well become a conflict—if active hostilities break out

again. That development, of course, ensures prolongation,

which is far more damaging than if the war been fought to a

clear, quick conclusion. Further subtle distinctions could

PROLONGED WARS

4
occupy an entire volume, but the focus of these introductory

comments is one of the reasons for prolonging

hostilities—whether wars or conflicts. Hence, the distinction

between the two can receive only limited treatment.

One may argue that a conflict by its innate nature is

extended and that prolongation is to be expected. Wars, on the

other hand, are the more interesting phenomena, since they

appear in the planning stages to be much shorter than they

usually turn out to be. Initially, the cost of prolonging a

conflict seems cheaper than waging an all-out risky and

aggressive war. But conflicts too are often prolonged beyond

initial expectations; hence, they may be just as devastating.

Conflicts may constitute the prolonged and less-intensive

portion of unresolved wars. Facho Balaam, leader of Chad’s

Patriotic Front, expressed the entire phenomenon concisely

when he referred to his country’s 20-year-long conflict:

“Frankly speaking, we think that this is a war without any

result.”8 A prolonged war or conflict can degenerate into

purposelessness when judged by the results—yet a war or

conflict can take its toll in social devastation. This observation

is not a recent one. Writing more than two thousand years ago

in The Art of War, Sun Tzu noted: “In all history, there is no

instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can

realize the supreme importance of rapidity in bringing it to a

close.”9

A further distinction needs to be made between the terms

protracted and prolonged. Protracted may well be an

appropriate term for conflict, while prolonged may be a more

appropriate one for war. Most wars are usually planned for

short duration, although hostilities exercised over a long time

are often an integral strategy of insurgent forces when they

confront a conventionally equipped superior enemy. This line

of reasoning deliberately pursues a violent, protracted conflict

in place of a standard, quick war—whose outcome would

certainly favor the superior enemy. Time, terrain, and tactics

are fused; therefore, there is no initial misassessment of the

length of a conflict which extends beyond the usual short

duration. A protracted conflict is planned and hence expected,

but a prolonged war is not pursued as a matter of course.

MAGYAR

5
Mao Tse Tung has popularized the concept of a protracted

war, although this sophisticated military strategy had a rich

history, especially in China. Mao recorded his thoughts on the

subject in the 1930s while fighting the Japanese occupation of

China and while his insurgent forces also opposed the

Kuomintang government. He presented his analysis of this

subject in On The Protracted War, a synopsis of speeches he

made in 1938.10

With respect to fighting government forces in the civil war,

Mao’s strategy recognized two phases. The first of these phases

employed guerrilla warfare; the second phase, regular warfare,

was regular “only in the concentration of forces for a mobile

war and a certain degree of centralization and planning in

command and organization.” He recognized that this did not

rank with wars fought by foreign armies or even by the

Kuomintang: “It was in a sense only guerrilla warfare at a

higher level.”11

Against the Japanese, he also formulated two similar phases

of conflict. The first, the strategic defensive period, utilized

guerrilla strategies. In the second, the strategic

counteroffensive period, Mao relied on regular warfare, as by

then, he claimed to have developed a more regular armed force

capability which had acquired modern weapons. The second

phase also showed evidence of centralization and a higher

degree of organization. Mao believed there is little innate value

in retaining a guerrilla strategy if the capability to wage

conventional warfare is developed. Against the Japanese, he

wrote, “regular warfare is the principal and guerrilla warfare

the supplementary form.”12 Regular warfare is decisive, while

guerrilla warfare is utilized while preparing for a

counteroffensive.

Mao is the best-known exponent of the protracted war

concept, but one may argue that he should have been credited

with expertise on the subject of prolonged conflict. The Chinese

civil war lapsed into a national war and reverted into a civil

war, one occasionally interspersed with intense conventional

warfare. Such caprice characterizes a classic prolonged

conflict. Semantics aside, whether conflict or war, the object

remains final victory. He warns that the theory of a quick

victory is wrong: the “enemy is strong while we are weak.”13

PROLONGED WARS

6
This observation calls for a “strategically protracted war.”

During the course of a protracted struggle, Mao counts on the

enemy’s position to weaken and his own to strengthen in

three, somewhat obvious stages. Each stage requires a

different form of fighting: mobile warfare, guerrilla warfare

(which is a supplementary form), or positional warfare. Mao

refers repeatedly to the factors that contribute to the success

of a protracted war: the decline of the enemy’s morale, tactics,

finances, war-fighting ability, and optimism.14

Mao also considers important the support a nation receives

from the international community. One may consider this an

interesting point as it underscores the fundamental political

nature of prolonged conflict, which, by engaging the superior

enemy via guerrilla strategies, demonstrates at least a credible

liberationist performance. In reality, as an integral tactic,

international pressures help to resolve the conflict for the

insurgents. This scenario was manifested more recently in the

Southwest Africa People’s Organization’s (SWAPO) feeble

efforts on behalf of Namibia’s independence. At no time did

SWAPO effectively threaten South Africa’s defensive

capabilities, but changing international configurations

ultimately led to a diplomatic settlement with SWAPO

emerging victorious in Namibia. Mao admits this point

unequivocally when he observes that China “cannot win

without utilizing the aid of international forces and the change

within the enemy country.”15

Mao divides the protracted struggle and terrain along

Wei-ch’i lines: a classic board game played by Oriental peoples

for thousands of years. The game is won through the slow,

progressive accumulation of advantages as opposed to the

capture of a single king in the cataclysmic finale of chess.

Scott A. Boorman considers this Sinic tradition of waging war

when mixed with Marxist-Leninist elements as “its use of fluid

operational methods and yet its reliance upon relatively stable

base areas; its emphasis on efficiency and yet its tolerance of

protraction; and its delight in complexity in contrast to the

simplicity of Western warfare.”16

Mao stresses the spaces to be gained by guerrilla tactics. He

elaborates on the political advantages of protraction in a

passage reminiscent of America’s frustration in Vietnam. He

MAGYAR

7
suggests that “Japan’s military and financial power will be

heavily consumed by China’s guerrilla war, her home

population will become more discontented . . . and her

international position will become more isolated.”17 Superior

weapons alone are inadequate he stresses and continues by

arguing that “it is man and not material that counts.” With

reference to Mao and Vietnam, one may speculate that modern

weapons actually limit the war-making options of a

better-equipped force because the effective employment of

modern weapons favors a quick, short war, but the innate

composition of such forces handicaps them against a

lesser-equipped force that still relies on men—whose effective

utilization will be in a protracted situation. The 1991 Gulf

War, in which both sides relied on modern high-tech weapons,

amply illustrated this lesson.

Mao weaves an interpretation of his own strategic thoughts,

fused with Clausewitz’s teachings, which describe the

contemporary third world revolutionary environment: “When

politics has developed to a certain stage beyond which it

cannot proceed by the usual means, war breaks out to sweep

away the impediments in the way.”18 This statement suggests

that the more normal condition prevailing in third world states

is protracted conflict, something utilized for the development

of effective and legitimate political institutions.

Adda Bozeman expresses the same concept: “Few modern

theorists in the field of international relations or conflict

resolution have bothered to explore the value content of

conflict, war and violence.” And, she continues, “Human

dispositions towards stress, violence and death are by no

means everywhere the same. . . . Nowhere outside North

America and Northern Europe does one encounter the

overriding desire to avoid armed conflict and to seek peaceful

settlement of disputes that leading peace-minded scholars in

our society assume to be generally present.”19 Conflicts, which

concern the problems of national consolidation more than

challenges to international strategic balances, will prevail in

the developing areas. Expecting a much better-equipped

external force to pave a path to victory through short, sharp

strikes is a naive and possibly disastrous notion. Mao’s vision

of protracted conflicts envisions innate value in waging

PROLONGED WARS

8
“innumerable but indecisive battles.”20 This is, of course,

anathema to short-war doctrines.

Mao’s legacy influenced subsequent generations, who came

to look at protracted conflict as the predominating

characteristic of the communist strategy for world domination.

But where Mao had been concerned only with his particular

dilemma against his own government and against the

Japanese enemy, the new perspective elevated much of Mao’s

reasoning and strategy to global levels. Even such a militarily

well-equipped power as the Soviet Union was expected to

incorporate the advantages of the protraction rationale on the

march to total victory. A quick, decisive, short-war showdown

could defeat socialist gains, as the socialists of the world had

not yet consolidated sufficiently to confront the superior

capitalist enemy. Hence, insurgent fires would be kept burning

around the world; peace would not be tolerated; the capitalist

offensive would be neutralized; and eventually, victory would

belong to the liberated peoples.

One of the more notable elucidations of this theme at the

global level was the book, Protracted Conflict, by Robert

Strausz-Hupe, William R. Kintner, James E. Dougherty, and

Alvin J. Cottrell.21 The publication of this volume was

preceded by the testimony of Strausz-Hupe, Cottrell, and

Dougherty at a hearing of the House of Representatives’

Committee on Un-American Activities in 1958.22 At the

hearings, Strausz-Hupe postulated that the communist

strategy had never been a strategy of limited war but a

protracted conflict.23 This strategy, he said, “prescribes the

annihilation of the opponent by a long series of carefully

calibrated operations, by feints and maneuvers, by

psychological and economic warfare, and by diverse forms of

violence.” The weaponry employed ranged from seemingly

innocuous political activities to the megaton bomb. The

communist strategy of protracted conflict was an “organic

scheme of conflict” aimed at the one goal of total victory. There

was no difference between hot and cold war, nor between

military and political means. The communists “hope to make

small, steady gains and yet avoid the all-out conflict they do

not want,” according to Dougherty.24 An important ingredient

in this strategy was psychological warfare and its continuous

MAGYAR

9
use of threats of an all-out war. This strategy was dangerous

brinksmanship, one in which the communists retain the

offensive in true Maoist fashion.

Echoing Mao, Strausz-Hupe and his colleagues held that the

choice of conflict mode was a matter of tactical expediency.

Preferably, the communists would attain their goals without

warfare. But a general war would be employed if they thought

themselves capable of delivering a knockout blow. The conflict

would be built up and revolutionary tensions increased. For

this, the newly emerging third world states were opportune

battlegrounds. Communists were counterrevolutionaries in

that they captured revolutions made by others. Their

participation would of course lead to the protraction of all

conflicts and elevate history’s inevitable class warfare within

societies to a global level.

This was the stuff of classic cold war analysis. From the

vantage point of the next three decades, it describes the

Marxist image rather than the attained reality, as the fatal

fissure in the Marxist world was developing at the time

Strausz-Hupe and his colleagues were writing. But they must

be credited with having identified communist strategies as

protracted conflict and not as protracted war, as Mao had it.

In their volume on that subject, the authors further

elaborate Mao’s deliberate ambiguity between war and peace,

which suggests that Western statesmen must appreciate a

greater degree of analytic sophistication. A protracted conflict

postpones the decisive battle until revolutionary forces are

favored. The Russians and the Chinese “thrive upon conflict as

the normal condition of the twentieth century.”25 The doctrine

of protracted conflict includes the total objective; shifting

battleground; and weapons and tactics which confuse the

opponent, keeping him off balance and wearing down his

resistance. The strategies for attaining these objectives should

not be done by Europe’s style of limited warfare. A conflict

strategy gradually lapses into full war, if and when the

opportunity arises. Global conflicts tend to be interlinked;

regional conflicts are multifaceted but may well be an integral

component of a specific conflict elsewhere. Strausz-Hupe and his

colleagues noted that “the current struggle for the mastery of the

globe has been waged for five decades.” They also noted that “the

PROLONGED WARS

10
festering sores on the international body politic cannot be

healed by pious homilies on the blessings of peace.”26

The implications for the Western strategic policy maker were

obvious: We cannot counter this menace by being prepared

only for war. Countering conflicts requires a new approach.

But, their counsel did not make a sufficient impact before

Americans escalated their involvement in Vietnam. Writing in

1959, they observed that the West had neither a doctrine of

protracted conflict—nor a desire to produce one. To provide

one would be to resort to the tactic of our enemy.27 The

communists had accepted the central formulation of

Clausewitz regarding the interchangeability of military and

political instruments. The communist doctrine of protracted

conflict integrates war, politics, law, diplomacy, psychology,

science, and economics in the conduct of foreign policy.28 In

short, the modern communist strategy of protracted conflict is

a successful fusion of Clausewitz and Mao—perhaps the

supreme synthesis of West and East.

Strausz-Hupe and his colleagues focused on the protracted

global conflict as a centrally directed conspiracy by

communism to take over the world. They did not, of course,

appreciate modern third world liberation struggles which

sought to exploit the opportunities that Moscow offered to

them in their own conflicts for emancipation from colonial

domination. Strausz-Hupe, et al., also did not appreciate the

greater historical context of many conflicts, such as those in

the Middle East, Africa, and East Asia, which preceded

Marxism by several centuries. Many of these conflicts had

been fought almost continuously.29 Nor did these analysts

investigate the nature of prolonged conflicts in the third world

which were more than wars for independence. Many conflicts

in Asia and in Africa concerned internal consolidation more

than liberation from colonial rule. In the former case, conflicts

of consolidation broke out simultaneously with the approach

or attainment of independence. Many countries did not even

have to fight wars for independence, yet they have been

engulfed in conflicts ever since independence. Most of these

countries had only national objectives and were not an integral

component of global communist conspiracies.

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11
More recent analyses of long, violent struggles continue to

focus on protracted conflicts but not on prolonged wars.

Edward E. Azar, Paul Jureidini, and Ronald McLaurin present

a sociological perspective in their systematic study of conflicts.

They define protracted conflicts as “hostile interactions which

extend over long periods of time with sporadic outbreaks of

open warfare fluctuating in frequency and intensity.”30

Conflict stakes are high; they involve whole societies, and they

define national identity and solidarity. As they linger in time,

they have no point of termination.

For the contemporary strategic policy maker, Azar and his

colleagues maintain that these conflicts cannot be terminated by

explicit decision; they will end by cooling off, transformation, or

withering away. Protracted conflicts are characterized by

duration, fluctuation in intensity of interaction, and spillover in

all domains. They contain equilibrating forces which keep the

interactions within established levels of conflict boundaries. Azar

and his coauthors also recognize that strong forces operate to

undermine attempts to bring about settlements: “It is the nature

of the dynamics of protracted social conflict that the many

benefits accruing from an institutionalized conflict are clearer or

more immediate than those developing from peace.” A current

manifestation of this is evident in South Africa’s rural,

Zulu-based, long-term conflict against more radical opposition

groups which are posturing to take over the leadership of South

Africa under an African National Congress (ANC)-centered united

front. Eventually, the institutionalization of the conflict becomes

necessary to participants who find it in their interest not to

resolve the dispute early.

Another more contemporary dimension of political

protraction concerns the interrelation between conflicts and

crises. Michael Brecher and Jonathan Wilkenfeld characterize

conflicts by their lengthy duration, fluctuation in the intensity

of interaction from violence to near accommodation and back

to violence again; intense animosity among participants; and

spillover into other issues. They were also characterized by the

absence of discernible termination.31 Crises within protracted

conflicts emerge from violence, which itself is a response from

one of the participants to a prior perceived threat. To

understand protracted conflicts, they search for the triggers

PROLONGED WARS

12
that spark the violence that leads to crises. Nonprotracted

conflicts such as wars are probably easier to bring to a

peaceful resolution than are protracted conflicts.

The work by Azar and his colleagues contrasts with the

perspective offered by Strausz-Hupe and his team in one

important respect. The former view protracted conflict as

primarily a sociological phenomenon emerging from internal

cleavages. Their “protracted social conflicts” focus on religious,

cultural, and ethnic communal identities. Hence, terrorism

and low-intensity warfare are common practices. Military or

balance-of-power means cannot manage such conflicts.32

Strausz-Hupe and his colleagues, however, stress the external,

or global, dimension of the protracted conflict—of which local

conflicts are likely to be an integral part.

These two perspectives need to be combined for analytic

purposes. For example, where we may discount the grand

conspiratorial nature of a centrally planned, global-level

conflict today, we would err in glossing over the importance of

the extensive international interactions which characterize so

many prolonged conflicts. The Irish Republican Army has on

occasion been tied to New York, Libya, and the Marxist world;

Israel has been engaged in several conflicts in Africa to weaken

the soft underbelly of Egypt; Saudi Arabia’s financial largesse

has reputedly financed wars from the Western Sahara to

Mozambique and perhaps even in Nicaragua; and the

legendary Carlos from South America operated from bases in

north Africa and struck in Vienna as easily as at targets in the

Middle East. Even the Japanese Red Army faction had a global

mission. Though internationalized, these instances reveal no

discernible centrally planned nature. Traditionally, protracted

conflicts may have been almost purely parochial concerns, but

today the internationalization of such conflicts may well form

the central ingredient.

So far, this analysis has focused mostly on the identification

and elaboration of protracted conflicts. Their nature has been

developed by analysts, who have left us written legacies as well

as substantial histories to ponder. A cursory review of history

will no doubt verify that the weak pursued protracted

conflicts. They would much rather wage full conventional

wars, but in the absence of sufficient strength, a protracted

MAGYAR

13
struggle must serve as a supplementary strategy—in the

formulation of Mao Tse Tung.

However, numerous struggles are in evidence which may

properly be labeled as prolonged conflicts and prolonged wars. The

former suggests conflicts of long but unplanned duration. In fact,

they may follow the unsuccessful resolution of a war, but the key

element is that prolonged conflicts should not be mistaken for the

sophisticated strategic formulations of Mao and of other modern

guerrilla organizations. Prolonged conflicts best characterize the

numerous conflicts in Africa, most of which were not formulated

according to a long-term plan. Military leaders like E. Mondlane in

Mozambique and A. Cabral in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde

implemented strategies of protracted conflict against the

Portuguese colonial forces—hence, they are the exceptions. But

one can’t trace most of Africa’s ongoing conflicts to strategically

formulated protraction.

In the case of wars, one would be foolhardy purposely to wage

them in protracted fashion, for that would then imply that they

are in fact conflicts. However, wars may certainly be prolonged,

as they tend to be the result of gross miscalculation by one or

both sides. Should such a war continue as a series of related

battles in which neither side clearly predominates, the war will

continue until it results in mutual annihilation or it lapses into a

prolonged conflict. Few of these, as Azar stresses, are

conclusively terminated. Another alternative suggests that a

prolonged war can terminate by mutual agreement, with no side

being victorious; it may not be followed by a prolonged conflict.

This was the case in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, and it raises

the prospect that a prolonged war is one fought continuously but

with no clear victor emerging on the battlefield. The Cambodian

war and the war between National Union for the Total

Independence of Angola (UNITA) and governmental forces in

Angola may be other examples.

Identifying reasons for a protracted conflict is relatively

easy, as that strategy is one deliberately chosen by one side in

a conflict. The weak rely on protraction as a calculated policy

when they seek to exploit the advantages of time. But

identifying the reasons for the prolongation of a conflict or war

is much more difficult. A number of factors contribute to this

difficulty, and no doubt each particular instance produces a

PROLONGED WARS

14
unique combination of reasons. Yet, considering the numerous

unresolved wars and conflicts in the world, agreement on the

reasons for prolongation is notably absent; as a generic

phenomenon, little academic insight has been offered.

Histories and statistics of such wars abound, each attesting to

unbelievable horror. Nevertheless, the phenomenon is

repeated in virtually every region of the third world.

Although developed countries today manage to escape wars

at least within their own boundaries, their frequent

involvements in such conflicts attest that those conflicts are

not only peripheral concerns. These prolonged wars and

conflicts have the innate capability of considerable global

involvement, disturbing regional balances, introducing new

expansionists, impeding access to vital resources, and

realigning political relations. In other words, such conflicts

can’t be ignored, and merely recording their histories hardly

addresses the requirements for global stability. Understanding

the reasons for prolongation of wars and conflicts may well

rank as a major security concern on a par with the attempt to

understand their causes in the first place.

In the emerging new world order of the postcontainment era,

we may consider the termination of armed conflicts as a noble,

but terribly naive, objective. In fact, most third world states

fighting wars have pursued their own agendas apart from

those of the cold war adversaries. However, the present

political terms of the new world order allow for the isolation of

these conflicts from global strategic concerns; therefore,

understanding the prolongation phenomenon allows

introduction of strategies for reducing the gravity of such wars

by limiting their damage and by enhancing their prospects for

an early peaceful resolution.

Notes

1.-Maj Robert W. Hambridge, “World War I and the short War

Assumption,” Military Review, May 1989, 36.

2.-Owen Connelly, Blundering to Glory: Napoléon’s Military Campaigns

(Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1987), 173.

3.-Reported in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), Africa, 13

August 1990, 1.

4.-Atlanta Journal, 27 September 1990.

5.-Atlanta Constitution, 21 September 1990.

MAGYAR

15
6.-Air Force Times, 1 October 1990; New York Times, 18 September 1990.

7.-Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United

States Air Force, vol. 1, 1992, 1.

8.-FBIS, 15 December 1988, 3.

9.-James Clavell, ed., Sun Tzu, The Art of War (New York: Delacorte Press,

1983), 13.

10.-Reproduced in Mao Tse-Tung, Selected Works, vol. 2, 1937–38 (New

York: International Publishers, 1954).

11.-Mao Tse-Tung, Problems of War and Strategy (Peking: Foreign

Language Press, 1960), 18.

12.-Ibid., 22–23.

13.-Mao Tse-Tung, On the Protracted War, 179.

14.-Ibid., 185.

15.-Ibid., 187.

16.-Scott A. Boorman, The Protracted Game: A Wei-ch’i Interpretation of

Maoist Revolutionary Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 4.

17.-Ibid., 190.

18.-Ibid., 202.

19.-Adda Bozeman, “War and the Clash of Ideas,” Orbis 20, 1, (1976):

63–65.

20.-Boorman, 242.

21.-Robert Strausz-Hupe et al., Protracted Conflict (New York: Harper and

Brothers, 1959).

22.-85th Congress, Second Session, 20 May 1958, Washington, D.C.,

United States Government Printing Office, 1958.

23.-Ibid., 1.

24.-Ibid., 2.

25.-Robert Strausz-Hupe et al., 1–6.

26.-Ibid.

27.-Ibid., 28.

28.-Ibid., 33.

29.-Adda Bozeman presents a compelling case for this phenomenon. See

Bozeman, 63–65.

30.-“Protracted Social Conflict: Theory and Practice in the Middle East,”

Journal of Palestine Studies, no. 1 (1978): 50.

31.-Crisis, Conflict and Instability (Oxford Pergamon Press, 1989),

188–89.

32.-Edward E. Azar, The Management of Social Conflict: Theory and Cases

(Aldershot, N.H.: Dartmouth Publications Co., Ltd., 1990), 2.

PROLONGED WARS

16
Iran-Iraq

Protracted Conflict, Prolonged War

M. A. Shahriar Shirkhani

and

Constantine P. Danopoulos

Centuries of historical rivalry, ethnic particularity, religious

and ideological differences, and boundary disputes have been

among the major forces contributing to a protracted conflict

between Iran and its western neighbors—the Ottoman Empire

from 1517 and Iraq since 1920. One or a combination of these

factors have caused numerous military hostilities and many

full-scale wars. The recent Iran-Iraq war (1980–88) was but

the contemporary phase of the old conflict. Though bloody,

none of the previous wars between Iran and its neighbors

continued unabated for as long as eight years and were fought

with such intensity as the Iran-Iraq war. While centuries of

rivalry generated the potential and the psychological setting

for this war, the Iranian revolution and the danger it posed to

the interests of the two superpowers (US and the former

USSR) and certain countries in the Middle East created a

context which contributed to the length of the war. This

chapter examines the factors that contributed to the

prolongation of the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq war.

Historical Background

The Iranian plateau, the cradle of Persian civilization, was

occupied in the seventh century by the Moslem Arabs. Their

occupation set the stage for a long rivalry between Persians

and Arabs. Mesopotamia (the land between the Tigris and

Euphrates rivers) was annexed by the Ottoman Empire in the

early part of the sixteenth century. The empire was dominated

by political and economic elites drawn from the Sunni sect of

Islam. At the same time Shah Ismail, founder of the Safavied

Empire (1501–1722), adopted Shiism as the state religion in

17
Persia. The sectarian division between Sunni and Shiaa

Moslems was used by both states for mass mobilization to

support wars against each other, which took place in 1555,

1568, 1590, 1613, and 1618. Eventually, in 1636, a treaty for

the first time laid down a vague border between the two

empires.1 This treaty secured relative peace for 200 years and

remained the foundation for future treaties.

Hostilities resumed in 1722. Yet in spite of five wars and

additional agreements, the 1636 treaty remained, for the most

part, intact. In 1821 hostilities broke out again. The war ended

with the First Treaty of Erzurum in 1823, which basically

confirmed the previous treaties. The Second Treaty of Erzurum

was signed in 1847 under the mediation of Great Britain and

Russia. While it confirmed the 1823 treaty, the treaty of 1847

also made some adjustments to future disagreements. Iran

ceded its claims on the Suleimaniya region (part of modern

Iraq) to the Ottomans, and in return the Ottoman government

formally recognized the unrestricted sovereignty of the Persian

government on the left bank of the Shatt-al-Arab.

Furthermore, Iranian vessels gained the right to navigate

freely the Shatt.2 The discovery of petroleum in Khuzistan in

1908 increased the economic value of Iranian ports on the

Shatt for Tehran and its oil contractor, the United Kingdom.

To secure the free navigation of oil tankers, Iran demanded a

precise delineation of the borders on the Shatt. The

Constantinople accords of 1913, and their modification in

1937, procured Iranian maritime access to the entire Shatt.

These accords did not fully satisfy Iranian demands, as they

mainly drew the boundary at the low-water mark line on the

Iranian shore of the Shatt.

In spite of this, Shatt disputes remained dormant, as

internal matters preoccupied both sides. Iran was facing an

economic crisis, a political disorder caused by the Allied

occupation of the country during World War II, and the forced

abdication of the powerful monarch Reza Khan. His departure

created a power vacuum which his young son was not ready to

fill. Iraq, a new political entity carved out of the disintegrating

Ottoman Empire, was in the first stages of state building.

Following the British mandate, the dominant Sunni political

elites in Baghdad were struggling to create a sense of

PROLONGED WARS

18
nationhood and to establish a central authority in a country

with ethnic and religious diversity. The Kurds concentrated in

the north and the Shiaa in the south resented the authority of

the minority Sunni Arabs of central Iraq. Lack of strong

central control during the monarchy (1921–58), periodic

political instability following the 1958 coup, and the

establishment of a republic relegated the Shatt issue to a

secondary concern in Iraq.

However, as the mid-1960s approached, the old disputes

resurfaced again. Two factors contributed to their

reemergence. First, increased support for Arab nationalism in

Iraq was fueled by the nationalist movement in Egypt, led by

the charismatic Gamal Abdul Nasser. The logic outcome of

Arab nationalism was pan-Arabism, which helped to rekindle

Baghdad’s territorial expansion. The coming to power of the

nationalist/socialist Baath party in 1968 strengthened

Baghdad’s claim over the entire Shatt. Hostilities with Tehran

increased, and the probability of finding solutions based on

mutual interests declined. Second, the modernization process

in both Iran and Iraq improved the strategic importance of the

Shatt and its ports on the east and west banks. Invoking

international law, Iran demanded the establishment of a

demarcation along the median or the thalweg line. Iraq

objected and demanded sovereignty over the entire Shatt,

basing its claims on previous treaties. Finally, in 1975, after

Iran established itself as the hegemonic power in the Persian

Gulf, Baghdad was forced to sign the Algiers accord in which it

accepted the thalweg principle and settled for joint sovereignty

of the Shatt.

Later events indicated the Algiers accord (1975) could not

put an end to the long and deep-seated rivalry between Iran

and Iraq. Then Iraqi Vice President Saddam Hussein, one of

the followers of Nasser and a devoted Arab nationalist, felt

personally humiliated when forced to give in to a determined

adversary and to share sovereignty of the Shatt, which he

considered to be an Arab waterway.3 This psychological factor

played an important role in Saddam Hussein’s subsequent

decision to attack Iran (1980) to terminate the Algiers accord,

which he himself had signed.

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

19
Origins of the Recent Conflict

The Islamic Revolution and the turmoil it created provided a

propitious opportunity for Iraq to gain the upper hand in its

competition with Iran. The revolution’s religious orientation

imposed a threat to the ruling socialist/nationalist Baath

party in Iraq. It questioned the legitimacy of both modern

secular regimes as well as traditional monarchies in the

region. The Islamic republic also potentially endangered the

interests of the United States, Western European countries,

and the Soviet Union by pressuring other Islamic nations to

break off political and economic ties with these countries.

Furthermore, the Iranian revolution alienated other countries

by calling for tighter control over national resources, including

oil. It also challenged OPEC (Organization of Petroleum

Exporting Countries). The aim was to increase Tehran’s

revenues by driving up the price of oil.

The uncalculated consequences of these policies strained

Iran’s relations with its neighbors and isolated the Islamic

republic from the world community. In this context, the

prevailing view in the world community was to contain radical

Islamic fundamentalism within the borders of Iran and to

replace Tehran’s theocratic regime with a secular and

moderate government.

Alarmed by the threat Khomeini’s fundamentalism

represented to the Baghdad government, Iraqi policymakers

felt they had the military muscle to bring down the Iranian

regime. Besides the historical rivalry with Iran and Saddam’s

leadership ambitions, the Iraqi strongman feared his Shiaa

and Kurdish population would be vulnerable to influence and

manipulation by its Iranian brethren. Tehran was politically

isolated, its military was in disarray, and there was

considerable political disunity. Furthermore, the American

hostage episode had deprived Iran of its major military

supplier, the United States. All these factors combined to give

Saddam Hussein a golden opportunity to strike. Even though

Baghdad accused Iran of initiating the war, a recently

completed United Nations investigation puts the blame

squarely on Baghdad.

PROLONGED WARS

20
Like many other leaders, who decided to commit their

nation’s civilian and military resources to war, Saddam

Hussein felt that, given Iran’s problems, his forces would

achieve a quick and decisive victory. Despite the Iraqi

strongman’s optimistic calculations, the Iran-Iraq war lasted

eight years and earned the dubious distinction as “the longest

conventional warfare of this century.” More than one million

people lost their lives and the direct and indirect cost of the

conflict reached the “astronomical figure of $1,190 billion.”4

Although the Islamic revolution in Iran and the threat it

represented to Arab nationalism was clearly the fundamental

and overriding factor, additional considerations also

contributed to the prolongation of the war. These included: the

beneficial and unintended consequences of the war in terms of

regime consolidation in both Iran and Iraq, regional leadership

considerations, and international involvement. The remainder

of this essay analyzes in detail the role played by each of these

factors in making the Iran-Iraq confrontation a long and

bloody war.

The Iranian Revolution

The factor most responsible for the prolongation of the war

was the Islamic orientation of the Iranian revolution, with its

religious psychology, and the messianic zeal of its leaders and

their followers, all of which created an environment hostile to a

rational cost-benefit analysis of the war. The Iranian

leadership’s behavior and rhetoric were steeped in Islamic

theology. Much like Christianity, which distinguishes between

just and unjust war, Islam requires male Moslems to take part

in the defense of Islamic soil. This holy war (Jihad fee Sabille

Allah), often referred to as simply jihad, is the only legitimate

type of war sanctioned by Islamic theology.5 Ayatollah

Khomeini, a faghih (jurisprudence) and the undisputed and

charismatic leader of the revolution, pronounced Saddam as

the enemy of Islam and identified the war as a jihad against

Saddam’s aggression. Khomeini announced that regardless of

the final outcome of the war, Iran would be the real victor, as it

was fighting for the sake of Islam. Moreover, Ayatollah

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

21
Khomeini refused to negotiate with Saddam Hussein, for he

considered him an infidel and an agent enforcing the

East-West conspiracy against Islam. Talking peace was

regarded as blasphemous and counterrevolutionary.6

Saddam’s actions reinforced Khomeini’s beliefs. The

execution of Ayatollah Mohammed Bagir Sadr, an eminent

leader of Iraqi Shiaa, and his sister Fatemeh Benteh Hoda and

the brutal treatment of the late Ayatollah Ozma Hakim’s

(grand ayatollah) family were seen by Khomeini and the ulema

(scholars of Islamic law) to indicate the deep-rooted animosity

the Baathist leadership harbored against Islam. At the same

time, restrictions imposed on Shiaa Moslems in Iraq were seen

in Tehran as an effort by Baghdad to suppress the

establishment of an Islamic government in that country by the

Shiaa majority. The zealous, devoted followers of Ayatollah

Khomeini, known as Hizbollah, felt that a cease-fire would

thwart their desire to see the establishment of an Islamic

government in Iraq. Under the circumstances, cessation of

hostilities was considered a retreat from religious duties.

Khomeini was in a strong position to carry out the fighting.

His vehement refusal to negotiate with Saddam received popular

support among Iranians, at least in the early years of the war.

Iraq’s initial successes, occupation of Iranian territory, the

relatively low casualties, and destruction suffered by Tehran

contributed to popular approval of Khomeini’s position. With the

exception of a few secular radical organizations—like Peykar, the

Fedaiis, and the Organization of Communist Unity—many

Marxist and other rival groups, who otherwise had ideological

disagreements with the clergy, supported the Islamic republic’s

defense efforts. Iraq’s full-scale war, atrocities committed against

civilians, virulent anti-Iranian propaganda, and protection of

Iran’s territorial integrity sufficed to mobilize strong support

behind Khomeini’s jihad.

Moreover, revolutionary ferment and turmoil had

transformed Iran into a highly politicized society “given to

making sacrifices and adopting an ethic of social cooperation,

so essential to waging a long war.”7 In this respect, the war

became a prolonged contest between the national will of an

Iranian community committed to preserve the nation’s

political unity and independence, and a well-equipped and

PROLONGED WARS

22
supported Iraqi state apparatus threatened by the emergence

and possible success of Islamic revivalism.

From 1982 onward, the outcome of military operations

turned in Tehran’s favor, further reinforcing Khomeini’s

willingness to continue the war. Iranian units overran Iraqi

military bases, penetrated into Iraqi territory, and occupied

the Majnoon islands, Fao peninsula, and strips in the

northern section of the border. Tehran’s successes occurred

despite military support and intelligence information Iraq

received from the Soviet Union and the United States. In the

religiously charged atmosphere, these advances were

interpreted as God’s will. Iranian revolutionary leaders

meanwhile increasingly entertained the belief that a final

victory over Iraq was possible. Thus, it became even less

justifiable to negotiate with Saddam, who they felt was

attempting to enforce satan’s will.

Under the circumstances, the numerous peace overtures

pursued by a variety of third parties—including Pakistan,

Turkey, Sweden, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and

the Islamic Conference Organization—failed in their mission to

persuade the warring parties to agree to a negotiated

settlement.8 The efforts ran aground because Iran questioned

their intentions and because neither of the two warring sides

was willing to agree on conditions set by the mediators. The

Gulf Cooperation Council offered Iran $10–25 billion as war

reparations in 1982 to entice Khomeini to agree to a cease-fire,

but that offer did not appeal to the Ayatollah, either.9 He did

not view it as a genuine attempt to make peace, but rather as

a ploy to save the Baath regime. Tehran argued that Saddam

would use the time to reorganize his forces and would renew

his attack against Iran when he saw fit.

The gradual victory Tehran hoped to achieve was not

necessarily based on the Maoist notion of a protracted conflict,

which would result in a victory sometime in the future. Iran’s

human and material commitment was designed for a full-scale

conventional war. Accordingly, once Iranian troops overran

Iraqi defenses and penetrated into enemy territory, Tehran

stated that the “final” offensive would take place that year—an

announcement repeated at the beginning of each of the

following five to six years. This belief suggested that Tehran

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

23
saw each annual campaign as the concluding round of the

war. Iran’s inability to achieve a decisive victory in part could

be attributed to the fact that the theocratic leadership

misjudged the determination of the international community

to contain Islamic radicalism inside Iran. This issue will be

discussed later in the chapter.

Despite the seemingly logical posture of the theocratic political

elites, it is arguable that if the Iranian leaders could have

predicted the outcome of the war, they would not have insisted

on its prolongation. As the chances of a decisive victory became

less and less remote, some members of the clergy voiced openly a

distaste toward continuation of the war. For instance, Ayatollah

Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khomeini’s designated successor,

expressed his doubt about the benefits of prolonging the war.

Khomeini reacted fiercely. He publicly denounced Montazeri and

forced his resignation within a few days after Montazeri had

aired his views.10 Even though some members of the Iranian

ruling circles may have shown some willingness to look at the

war from a more realistic and cost-benefit point of view, the

hard-liners, led by Khomeini, were firmly committed to their

religious conviction. For them Saddam and his regime had to be

eliminated regardless of the price.

The War and National

and Regime Consolidation

Although unintended, the war provided a favorable

opportunity for both regimes to consolidate their power.

Baghdad presides over a country which is ethnically diverse

and lacks a common political culture. Saddam exploited the

war to send many Iraqis of Iranian origin back to Iran, and to

relocate Kurds and non-Arab minorities from the northern

mountainous areas to the predominantly southern Arab desert

regions of the country. The resettlement policy was aimed to

uproot the Kurds and to disperse them among the Arab

majority to break down their solidarity and desire for regional

autonomy. The settlements were located in harsh desert areas

with scarce agricultural lands, far removed from urban

PROLONGED WARS

24
centers. The aim was to put Kurds against the local Shiaa

Moslems. Clashes between Sunni Kurds and the Shiaa Arab

majority, Baghdad reasoned, in the short run would redirect

frustrations from the political discrimination the ruling Sunni

Arabs exercised against them. The strategy was designed to

exploit the ethnic and religious diversity of Shiaa Arabs and

Sunni Kurds in favor of the minority Sunni political elites in

Baghdad. The Iraqi Baath party presumed Arab nationalism in

time would overcome religious diversity and in the long run

would create cultural homogeneity. The Iraqization of the Arab

population, both Shiaa and Sunni, was one of the major goals

toward state building the ruling Baath party pursued.

Islamic fundamentalism was represented in Iraq by the Daawa

party. Ever since the revolution, Tehran had urged the

oppressed Shiaa Moslems in Iraq, excluded from the nation’s

economic and political centers by the minority Sunni political

elites, to rise up and seize control of their own destiny. Ayatollah

Khomeini continuously called on the people of Iraq to topple

Hussein’s regime, and advised the Iraqi military not to obey the

president’s orders, calling Hussein and his supporters “the foes

of Islam.”11 Furthermore, the Iraqi city of Najaf, the citadel of the

Shiaa theology, as was the burial place of the first imam of the

Shiaa, was considered sacred. The shrine of Hossein, third imam

of Shiaa Muslems and sayyed-ol shohada (master of the

martyrs), was also located in another Iraqi city, Karbala. Saddam

feared that Shiaa fundamentalists in Iran would collaborate with

the Daawa Shiaa militant party in Iraq to establish an

autonomous Islamic government in these key cities. This fear

convinced him that his socialist/nationalist regime was the

prime target of Islamic Iran.

Saddam perceived the Ayatollah’s aim of stirring up the

oppressed, quiescent masses of the Shiaa Moslem majority of

Iraq and feeding them with revolutionary values as a

fundamental threat to his rule and his hope of creating a

homogeneous secular political culture loyal to Arab

nationalism. According to the New York Times, “Never in the

12-year history of the Baath regime in Iraq has the rule of the

Saddam Husayn [Hussein] come under such a threat as it did

since Khomeini came to power.”12 Therefore, it was natural for

Saddam to resist his own demise by attacking Iran to cause

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

25
the downfall of the Islamic regime. This was supported by an

Iraqi Baathist in exile, who stated the single goal behind

Hussein’s attack on Iran was “to topple Khomeini.”13

The war demonstrated that an external threat could

overcome religious loyalties, as the Baath party successfully

mobilized its Shiaa majority population in the war effort

against the Islamic republic. Iraqi Shiaa did not switch sides

and did not support their Iranian brethren in the war as

expected. Interestingly enough, the recent Persian Gulf crisis

had the opposite effect. The costly Iran-Iraq war deprived

Saddam’s ability to buy off his Shiaa subjects by doling out

substantial monetary benefits as he had done before. Iraq’s

defeat by the coalition forces and the partial disintegration of

its central government provided an opportunity for politicized

Iraqi Shiaa to demand political recognition from Baghdad.

One of Tehran’s conditions for cease-fire was the removal of

Saddam from power. Such a demand could not realistically be

achieved through peaceful means. Saddam had been the key

leader in the Baath party and Iraqi politics since the 1960s. He

has been ruling with remarkable authority and control, albeit

ruthlessly, for over 12 years. Saddam’s townsmen (from Takrit)

and kinsmen had been instruments of control in the Baath

party and military and the Iraqi military governmental

structure. The authoritarian, sultanic, semifascist system of

Baghdad heavily relies on fear and coercion, and ties the

survival of the Iraqi state on the presence of Saddam Hussein.

Under the circumstance, a political or military coup to topple

Saddam was unrealistic simply because the Iraqi ruling elites

realize his removal could bring peace but might also mean the

end of their own political supremacy. Only a military victory by

Iran could put an end to Saddam’s rule. Khomeini’s

statements that Tehran intended not only to eliminate Saddam

but the entire Baathist political structure as well did little to

encourage Iraqi political and military elites to desert their

leader, and provided good reason for them to rally behind

Saddam’s war effort.

The task of power consolidation was probably an

unintended consequence of the Iraqi attack on Iran, but since

it worked, it ended up contributing to the prolongation of the

war. The Iranian clergy’s drive to consolidate their rule also

PROLONGED WARS

26
benefited from the war. At the beginning of the revolution, the

popularity and charismatic appeal of Ayatollah Khomeini

prevented even secular radical forces from attacking the clergy

openly. However, by the end of the summer of 1979, less than

six months after the Islamic revolutionary regime assumed

power in Iran, it began losing popular support. A number of

factors contributed to the disillusionment with the Mollahs,

including a controversy surrounding the nature of the new

political systems; autonomy demands in Kurdistan,

Turkomn-Sahra, Baluchistan, Khusistan; and an economic

crisis, which left two million people unemployed.14 The new

regime and its extremist Islamism alienated many of the social

and political groups who found fundamentalism unbearable

and those sectors who had benefited through economic trade

with the West.

The takeover of the US Embassy raised the possibility of an

American military attack and helped to mobilize people behind

Ayatollah Khomeini. Documents seized from the embassy were

skillfully used by such supporters of the clergy to discredit

opponents of the Islamic regime as Velayat-e Faghin (the

government of jurisprudence), attacking them as sycophants

or lackeys of American imperialism. Liberals suffered the

most. Prime Minister Medhi Bazergan resigned, Abbas amir

Entezam, deputy prime minister, and Moghaddam Maraghei,

one of the founders of the Moslem People’s Republican party,

both went underground. The hostage crisis helped the

fundamentalists to strengthen their position against the left

and the liberals.

Despite these developments, the official candidate of the

Islamic Republican party (IRP) pulled in less than 6 percent of

the vote in the presidential election of 26 January 1980.

Bani-Sadr with Khomeini’s tacit support was elected president

of the Islamic republic.15 He reorganized the army but failed to

evict the Iraqi army out of Iran’s territory. The well-organized

IRP proved instrumental in mobilizing the masses against Iraq

and created a new military organization composed of

volunteers called Basij-e Mostazafin (the Mobilization of the

Oppressed). The fundamentalists perceived Islam as the

driving force behind the Iranian revolution and saw the war as

a unique opportunity to imbue the masses with revolutionary

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

27
values like shahadat (martyrdom), political independence, and

xenophobia with regard to the West.

Their efforts proved successful. The masses mobilized

behind the defense effort, and the regime’s foreign policy of

nonalignment, under the slogan: “no East, no West, Islamic

Republic,” gained support among the people. Ironically,

Saddam’s attack on Iran “changed the situation drastically on

behalf of the fundamentalist mollahs.”16 Fighting the war

received top priority at the expense of political reform, and

helped to turn the balance of power overwhelmingly toward

the Islamic Republican party. It became the vehicle of control

and cohesiveness for Ayatollah Khomeini’s supporters and

established the religious fundamentalists as the dominant

political group among the heterogeneous, divided forces of the

revolution.

This served the IRP well in the first round of parliamentary

elections, held on 14 March 1980. Its candidates won a

majority of the seats. Using its strength in the Majlis, the IRP

forced President Bani-Sadr to accept its candidate,

Mohammad Ali Rejaii, as prime minister. The ensuing power

struggle between Bani-Sadr and the IRP dominated domestic

Iranian politics. Eventually, Bani-Sadr called for a referendum

on the future course of the country, which put him in direct

conflict with the Ayatollah Khomeini. The Ayatollah sided with

the IRP and dismissed Bani-Sadr as commander in chief of the

armed forces. IRP deputies in parliament “voted for the

removal of Bani-Sadr from the presidency,” which paved the

way for his dismissal on 19 June 1981 by the Ayatollah

Khomeini.17 This strongly signaled that the fundamentalists

had gained supremacy in postrevolutionary Iran.

Khomeini’s charisma and sufficient mass-based support,

along with the state’s repressive capabilities inherited from the

monarchy, were harnessed for power-consolidation purposes.

These were further assisted by the numerous organizations

that mushroomed after the revolution. They proved

instrumental in policing citizen activity and potential

antiregime plots from within the state security apparatus.

Under these conditions, none of the regime’s possible

opponents could develop sufficient mass-based organizational

strength to challenge the Islamic Republican party. Their

PROLONGED WARS

28
inertia strengthened the hand of those who supported the

continuation of the war. For instance, when Iraq accepted the

appeal of the Islamic Conference for a cease-fire and return to

the internationally recognized border, Tehran simply rejected

the proposal. Although almost all radical, secular, and liberal

organizations expressed antiwar positions, they remained

weak, divided, and unable to press for an early end of the war.

By making the state bureaucracy the dumping ground for

the unemployed, the Islamic regime compensated for the

negative consequences of the war and at the same time

pacified any potential for antiwar sentiment. In short, the

Iran-Iraq war contributed to the durability of the system of the

Valayateh Faghih in Iran, while fundamentalism contributed

to the prolongation of the war.

Regional and Leadership Considerations

The secular and nationalist orientation of the regime in

Baghdad and the personal aspirations of its leader were in

direct conflict with the Islamic government in Tehran. Robert

G. Neumann, a former US ambassador to Morocco,

Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia, noted that “quite apart from

the long historical roots of the conflict, Iraq also aspired to

regional leadership” that would put it in a direct conflict with

Iran.18 Simultaneously, the Islamic republic portrayed

Ayatollah Khomeini as the leader of the Islamic brethren,

which included the Arab world. Khomeini and other

revolutionary elites perceived Islam as the motivating force

behind political movements in the region and argued that only

Islam could bring unity, glory, and real independence to

Islamic countries. Traditional Moslems viewed nationalism as

a negative force responsible for the fragmentation and division

of Islamic society along ethnolinguistic lines. Baathist

nationalism was condemned on those grounds, and Tehran

advocated the overflow of the Iraqi regime.

In contrast, the Baath perceived nationalism as the driving

force behind political movements in the region and strove to

establish a united political entity, which would include all

Arab states. Nationalism is viewed as the vehicle to revive the

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

29
past glories of the Umayyad (A.D. 661–750) and Abbasid (A.D.

750–1258) dynasties and the caliphdoms, which at once ruled

most of the Middle East. Saddam Hussein was a devoted

follower of Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, the undisputed

leader of Arab nationalists in the 1950s and the 1960s.

Secular nationalism advocated by Nasser was followed by

Baath nationalism/socialism in Iraq and Syria and gave rise to

authoritarian populist regimes in these countries. Anwar al

Sadat, who succeeded after the death of Nasser in 1970, broke

away from Nasser’s Pan-Arabism and signed a separate peace

treaty with Israel at Camp David in 1979. This isolated Egypt

from the Arab world, undermined Cairo’s historical role as

leader of the secular Arab nationalist movement, and created a

power vacuum in regional politics.

Saddam Hussein, considering himself the legitimate political

heir of Nasser, attempted to fill the vacuum and continue the

latter’s mission. To establish himself as the leader of the Arab

world, Saddam had to “orchestrate successfully an event or a

series of events that would validate beyond all doubt his bid to

be the Arab world’s chief spokesman.”19 The

government-controlled radio of Baghdad portrayed Jews and

Iranians as the historical enemies of the Arabs. The military

power of Israel and its geographic distance from Iraq made

Iran the prime target. Saddam Hussein assumed that a quick

military victory over Iran not only would regain Iraqi

sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab waterway but would

establish him as the leader of the Arab world. Sovereignty over

the entire Shatt was especially important to Saddam, as he

himself had signed the Algiers accord in 1975.

In the same vein, Hussein presumed a speedy military

victory could bring him control of the three islands in the

Persian Gulf that Iran had occupied one day before the British

withdrew from them in 1971. Occupation of these islands

would give Iraq control over the Strait of Hormuz and

supremacy in the Persian Gulf. Finally, Hussein assumed that

a military victory would put Iraq in a position to demand

autonomy for the Arab minorities living in the Khuzistan

Province of Iran and thus portray himself as a defender of Arab

rights. He even went as far as to change the name of the

Khuzistan Province to Arabistan.20 Saddam and his colleagues

PROLONGED WARS

30
hoped that a “quick victory on the battlefield, coupled with

increased support for the anti-Khomeini forces inside Iran,

would further weaken the regime in Tehran, and thus force the

Iranian government to accept Iraqi demands.”21

The fall of Mohammad Reza Shah and the turmoil that

followed eclipsed Iran as the dominant power in the region.

Saddam believed that the time had come to realize “Iraqi

aspirations to become the neighborhood’s new primary power

and protector” and to fill the vacuum created by Iran’s

weakness.22 By attacking Iran, Hussein let it be known that a

peaceful coexistence with an Islamic Iran was less desirable

than the risk of an all-out military conflict. Hussein’s drive for

leadership of the Arab world and for regional power, coupled

with the advantages gained from a victory over al-Ajam

(non-Arabs), were powerful incentives.

Political events, Saddam’s ambitions, and his psychological

frame of mind made compromise and consensus with Iran

difficult. None of these, however, meant that Baghdad was

interested in a prolonged war. Although Hussein’s personal

ambitions were the underlying cause of the war, he called for a

cease-fire followed by a negotiated settlement when it became

apparent than an all-out victory was not likely. A cease-fire

satisfied Hussein as it could be sold as a victory to the Iraqi

public. He could claim he had contained Persian expansionism

and had stopped Tehran’s aggressive designs. Saudi Arabia

and other moderate oil-rich Arab states were also apprehensive.

They feared fundamentalism and Khomeini’s strident rhetoric.

Gulf state governments counteracted by calling the revolution

in Iran a Shiaa revolution, hoping this sectarian categorization

would restrict its mass appeal.

Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Middle East had

been a minority movement with marginal social and political

impact until 1979, when the popular uprising in Iran gave it a

boost. For the past two centuries, reformist Islamic governments and secular nationalism were the dominant ideological

traditions in the region. However, conflicts among the Arab

states and their inability to secure a homeland for the

Palestinians had dealt a severe blow to Arab nationalism/

socialism and the dream of Arab unity. A new generation of

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

31
Arabs, disappointed with Arab nationalism, saw in Islam the

only vehicle to achieve Arab aspirations.

Pan-Arabism was being replaced by Pan-Islamism. The

Islamic Republic of Iran hoped to capitalize on this sentiment

by pushing the idea of a united Islamic state.

The Iranian clerics believed “that their revolution had

stemmed from the universalist idea of Islam. They saw the

change in Iran as the first step towards the recreation of the

Domain of Islam of the seventh century.”23 Tehran wanted to

radically change the political structure of the region along the

lines of an Islamic model. Khomeini and his colleagues

planned to export the revolution and to achieve fundamental

changes through a mass uprising. Ayatollah Khomeini used

his religious authority and issued a fatwa (a decree or religious

declaration), making it a religious duty for Shiaa Moslems to

refrain from sectarian rivalry. He encouraged his followers to

work toward unity with Sunni Moslems. In a similar vein,

Tehran designated a Moslem unity week (Hafteh-e Vahdat),

issued stamps, and presented cultural programs to convince

Sunni Moslems that the Iranian revolution was not exclusively

a Shiaa affair. Khomeini believed that popular revulsion

against the pro-Israeli stance of the United States and the

failure of the moderate Arab states to secure unity would

“become powerful enough to sweep across the region beyond

the Sunni-Shiaa divide.”24

The Islamic revolution initiated fundamental and profound

changes in the Middle East region. It replaced the secular

hereditary and Western-oriented Pahlani regime with an

Islamic republic. The latter aimed to reverse the penetration of

Western values into Iran and other Islamic cultures.

Revolutionary leaders viewed the Islamic values of the

revolution in sharp contrast to both communist and Western

values. Khomeini and his colleagues regarded secularism as

evil and as such antithetical to the ordinances of Islam. The

United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and

France were pronounced Shaytan-e Bozorg (Great Satan).

Accordingly, Iranian leaders felt that there was a joint

East-West conspiracy to undermine and destroy the Islamic

revolution. Saddam Hussein was portrayed as a puppet agent

PROLONGED WARS

32
carrying out foreign satanic orders when he launched his

attack against the Islamic government.

These beliefs helped the revolutionary leaders to develop and

propagate a set of values and attitudes, which defined the

political behavior of the elites and their followers and in turn

contributed to the prolongation of the Iran-Iraq war. The core

of the orientation of the revolutionary leaders and their

devoted followers could best be identified as Hizbollahi

(members of the Party of God). The Hizbollahis were inspired

by the Third Imam and the Prophet’s grandson, who refused to

surrender to Omayyad Caliph Yazid (683 A.D.), the symbol of

Zolm (tyranny and injustice), and stated “death is better than

life under an oppressor.” The imam and his disciples were

massacred. Since that time shahadat (martyrdom) has become

an important aspect of the political culture of Shiaaism.

Khomeini exemplified his belief when he rejected Saddam’s

cease-fire offer stating, “we cannot compromise with ‘Hussein’

a perpetrator of corruption, . . . we [are] bound by our religion

to resist as much as we [can].”25 These utterances prompted

Tehran to cast the Iran-Iraq war as a battle between Islam and

“Satan.” Death in the defense of Islam was honored as

shahadat. To the Hezbollahi, the highest honor of martyrdom,

the key to Heaven, could not be compensated by worldly,

material well-being. Shahadat remained the motivating force

for millions of Hizbollahi, who made up the backbone of

support for the Islamic regime during the war.

Associating Saddam Hussein with the West and East served

a number of other purposes. First, it provided a legitimate

reason for Islamic fundamentalists to continue the war as a

war between Islam and “The Great Satan.” Second, it served as

a mobilizing force and created stronger ideological resistance

among ordinary Moslems against Western infidels. Third, it

minimized and rationalized the inability of the military and the

Revolutionary Guard to win the war against a smaller country,

Iraq, in a short period of time. Beneath all that, Tehran

assigned itself the role of the regional leader striving to free the

region of foreign domination and to unify the “House of Islam”

against the infidel.

Tehran’s strident rhetoric and its efforts to export its

revolutionary values to the neighboring countries frightened

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

33
many moderate Islamic regimes. Ayatollah Khomeini’s

declaration that the liberation of Karbala and Najaf (Shiaa holy

cities in Iraq) would pave the way for the liberation of

Jerusalem did little to allay negative impressions regarding

Tehran’s intentions. The Islamic republic claimed that it,

alone, represented “Islam-e Mohammandi” (the true righteous

Islam), while other Islamic regimes were actually the enemies

of Islam and agents of the West. These regimes represented

“Islam-e Americaee” (false alarm). Stephen R. Grummon wrote

in 1982 that “the Khomeini regime in Iran adheres to a

particular brand of theology that denies the legitimacy of most

of the current governments in the Islamic world.”26

Less radical Iranian leaders like Ali Akbar Hashemi

Rafsanjani, then speaker of parliament, played down these

declarations as presented only for public consumption and

intended to generate public support, did not reassure

governments in neighboring countries. According to

Christoper C. Joyner,

Save for Syria, Libya, and (what was then) South Yeman, all the Arab

governments supported Iraq in its war effort, politically and

rhetorically if not materially or militarily. In large part this pro-Iraqi

attitude stemmed from anxieties that Iran’s Islamic fundamentalism

might spread throughout the region, infecting neighboring Gulf states

with domestic unrest.27

Saddam sought and obtained support from fellow Arab

states, including oil-wealthy Persian Gulf states and Saudi

Arabia. Though fearful of Khomeini’s fundamentalism, most

Arab regimes also viewed Baghdad’s brand of Pan-Arabism

and Saddam’s personal ambitions with considerable concern.

Arab governments, minus Syria and Libya, rushed to

Saddam’s side, providing him with money and diplomatic

support to prevent an Iranian victory. But support for the Iraqi

dictator was never enough to score a decisive defeat against

Khomeini’s forces. Arab leaders did not want either side to win

and seemed to have reasoned that prolonging the war would

weaken the warring sides and would force Khomeini and

Saddam to shelve their respective expansionist and hegemonic

designs. Ironically, stalemate and bloodshed appeared more

desirable to a clear victory by either side, as far as neighboring

Arab regimes were concerned. Tehran’s provocative policy

PROLONGED WARS

34
denied Iran access to the financial and diplomatic resources

necessary to break the stalemate.

International Factors

If external intervention had not altered the expected payoff

matrix for the dominating parties, the Iran-Iraq war would

have continued until one side decisively won or both sides

collapsed. The two superpowers (US and USSR), France, and

to a lesser extent the United Kingdom played a major role in

preventing the war from proceeding along that path. It is

reasonable to argue that the war would have ended sooner if

Iraq had not received generous financial, military, and

diplomatic support after 1982; Iran had not been subjected to

an economic blockade and diplomatic isolation; and arms

suppliers had given Iran free access to military hardware so

that Tehran could score a military victory. The existence of the

external factors caused the stalemate and contributed to the

prolongation of the war.

The West perceived Islamic fundamentalism as a reaction to

modernity. European and American policymakers saw Islamic

revivalism as inherently opposed to science and reason.

Politically, the theocratic regime in Iran was perceived as an

ideologically totalitarian system, bent on indoctrination,

antithetic to pluralism, and contemptuous of rational

discourse and electoral politics. The Iranian revolution

undermined America’s once powerful influence in Iranian

domestic developments. The takeover of the US Embassy in

Tehran by Khomeini’s supporters and the hostage ordeal that

followed altogether suspended relations between the two

countries. Iran became increasingly isolated and

anti-American. Uncertain and shaken, Washington feared that

Tehran may overthrow pro-Western regimes in the area, which

“contained more than half of the world’s known oil reserves.”

Such an outcome would have amounted to “an unprecedented

catastrophe,” and Washington was not about to let it happen.

By 1983 the Reagan administration began making overtures

toward Saddam at a time when Baghdad was facing an “acute

crisis” due to significant losses in the battlefront. Washington

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

35
had few options and considered “an Iraqi defeat . . . as a blow

to U.S. interests.” And, despite protestations to the contrary,

the Reagan administration set in motion “plans to shore up

Iraq morally and materially.”28

Washington’s posture appeared to be driven by

considerations similar to those of the Arab states. Saddam

received intelligence information and enough supplies, which

helped him gain enough ground to force Khomeini to accept a

cease-fire in August 1988, but not score an outright victory.

Washington’s stand seemed ambivalent: the Reagan

administration wanted Khomeini defeated but did not wish to

see Saddam emerge as the clear victor. Moreover, the fate of

Western (including American) hostages by the Hizbollah in

Lebanon prompted the Reagan administration to give arms to

Tehran secretly, hoping that the Khomeini regime would use

its leverage to obtain their release. Information of the deal

leaked out, becoming an embarrassment to the Reagan

administration and did little to end the war.

West European governments reacted in a similar manner,

throwing their support behind Iraq. Having invested heavily in

the Iraqi economy, Paris took the lead. By 1983 “France

emerged as a vitally important military-cum-financial prop for

Iraq’s long term war efforts.” While the Mitterrand government

backed Saddam to the “hilt,” French and other European

defense contractors clandestinely provided Tehran with “huge”

amounts of explosives and other war material.29 Needless to

say, this behavior made it possible for the Khomeini regime to

satisfy its war-making needs and added substantially to the

prolongation of the war.

The anti-American and, to a lesser extent, anti-European

climate in Iran appeared at first to benefit the Soviet Union,

which had long sought to have a say in Iranian political

developments. However, the Islamic revolution broke “the

chain of anti-Soviet forces [in the area] surrounding the

U.S.S.R.”30 Moscow’s efforts to play the role of a neutral

arbiter met with little success. The Kremlin maintained its

pro-Iraq position throughout the war.

A number of factors contributed to this situation. First,

Islamic revivalism had spilled over into the southern republics

of the Soviet Union, creating the possibility of ethnic conflicts.

PROLONGED WARS

36
The Kremlin feared that Iranian leaders would stimulate the

consciousness of the 40 million Moslem minorities living in the

Soviet Union. Second, Iran took an uncompromising position

with respect to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Tehran

supported the Mujahedin against the Soviet-backed Kabul

government. Third, Moscow had signed the Friendship and

Cooperation Treaty with Baghdad in 1972, which committed

the Kremlin to protect Iraq’s security. The supply of military

equipment to Iraq by the Soviet Union played an important

role in Baghdad’s ability to prolong the war. Finally, Arab

socialism, the ideology of the Iraqi ruling Baath party, had

more in common with Soviet official ideology than it did with

Islamic fundamentalism. In due course, “the Kremlin lost any

hope of furthering its ties with Iran [and] came to perceive the

possible fall of the Baathist regime as an unmitigated strategic

loss offering nothing in compensation.”31

Summary and Conclusion

A combination of domestic, regional, and international

factors was the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran and the

threat it presented to regimes in the Middle East as well as in

the world community. Islamic fundamentalism coupled with

Arab nationalism created the conflict of interest that led to

intolerance and eventually to war. Then the uncompromising

positions of their leaders prolonged the war. While Saddam’s

personal ambitions were the main reason the war broke out,

the fundamentalist line of reasoning adopted by the

revolutionary leaders of Iran and their refusal to agree to a

negotiated settlement caused the war to go on for eight years.

However, the war had unintended but positive effects for each

of the two regimes. It provided the opportunity for Saddam and

especially for the Iranian clerics to further penetrate their

respective societies and to consolidate their power.

The involvement of the regional and international actors also

added to the prolongation of the war. Although most Middle

Eastern countries, European states, and the two superpowers

lined up behind Iraq, their support was enough to create a

stalemate and eventually to tip the scales slightly in favor of

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

37
Baghdad but not adequate for the Iraqi dictator to score an

outright victory. Clandestinely or otherwise, Iran, with a

population three times the size of Iraq’s, received enough war

material from North Korean, Chinese, French, German, and

Austrian corporations as well as Western goods to make up for

its isolation and to hold its own against a better-supplied and

-equipped enemy. It should also be noted that neither

superpower had an overriding interest in stopping the fighting.

At no time did the Iran-Iraq war increase the likelihood of a

direct US-Soviet confrontation. In fact, both superpowers

benefited from the war. Iran and Iraq were dependent on the

international military market and had oil revenues to finance

the war. Both superpowers were among the major suppliers of

sophisticated military hardware to third world countries.

The war ended when a much-weakened Iran felt the US was

about to become directly involved in the conflict on the side of

Baghdad. The downing of an Iranian airbus on 3 July 1988

convinced the reluctant Khomeini that further prolongation of

the war would lead to Iran’s defeat and would destroy the

revolution. He accepted United Nations Resolution 598

unconditionally, and a cease-fire went into effect shortly

thereafter. This century’s longest conventional war came to an

end without resolving any of the issues that brought it about.

Notes

1.-Barry Rubin, “Iran’s Revolution and Persian Gulf Instability,” in Shirin

Tahir-Kheli and Shaheen Ayubi, The Iran-Iraq War, New Weapons, Old

Conflicts (New York: Praeger Publisher, 1983), 13.

2.-Quoted in C. J. Edmons, Kurds, Turks, and Arabs (London: Oxford

University Press, 1957), 132.

3.-M. S. El Azhary, ed., The Iran-Iraq War, An Historical, Economic and

Political Analysis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984). The approach of the

book, especially chapter three, is beneficial to readers who are interested in

an Arab nationalist’s point of view toward the Shatt-al-Arab dispute.

4.-Dilip Hiro, The Longest War, The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (New York:

Routledge, Clapman, and Hall, Inc., 1991), 1.

5.-Mohammad-Reza Ziaee-Bigdelli, Islam and International Rights (Islam

va Hoghoghe Beinolmelal), in Persian, second edit. (Tehran: Inteshar, 1987,

1366 H. S.).

6.-Rouhollah Khomeini, Islam and the Revolution, trans. Hamid Algar

(Berkeley, Calif.: Mizan, 1981); R. Khomeini, Selected Messages of Imam

Khomeini Concerning Iraq and the War Iraq Imposed Upon Iran (Tehran:

Ministry of Islamic Guidance, 1981).

PROLONGED WARS

38
7.-Hiro, 225.

8.-Christopher C. Joyner, ed., The Persian Gulf War: Lessons for Strategy

(New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), 9.

9.-Fred Lawson, “Using Positive Sanctions to End International Conflict:

Iran and the Arab Gulf Countries,” Journal of Peace Research 20, no. 4,

311–28.

10.-Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr, My Turn to Speak, Iran the Revolution, and

Secret Deals with the U.S. (New York: Brassey’s Inc., 1989), 219.

11.-New York Times, 10 April 1980.

12.-Ibid., 26 October 1980.

13.-Ibid.

14.-Mohammad Amjad, Iran, From Royal Dictatorship to Theocracy (New

York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 140.

15.-Ibid., 142.

16.-Ibid., 144.

17.-Ibid., 145.

18.-Stephen R. Grummon, The Iran-Iraq War, Islam Embattled (New York:

Praeger Scientific Studies, 1982), vi.

19.-Ibid., 11.

20.-Nicola Firzli, Nassim Khoury, and Elias Dib, eds., The Iran-Iraq

Conflict (Paris: Editions du Monde Arabe, 1981), 48–54.

21.-El Azhary, 2.

22.-Rubin, 126.

23.-Hiro, 255.

24.-World Press Review, November 1991.

25.-Khomeini, Selected Messages, 68.

26.-Grummon, vi.

27.-Joyner, 9.

28.-Hiro, 119.

29.-Ibid., 123–28.

30.-Ibid., 265.

31.-Ibid., 122.

SHIRKHANI AND DANOPOULOS

39
The Longevity of the Lebanese Civil War

As’ad AbuKhalil

The only observation one can make with certainty about

Lebanon is that it is too early to declare the end of the

Lebanese civil war, although the Lebanese government has

succeeded in ending armed combat in most parts of the

country. The Syrian military intervention in October 1990

against the army of Gen Michel ‘Awn, who was defiantly

resisting the central Lebanese government, helped to spread

the authority of the Lebanese government over areas that have

not seen government troops since at least 1975. The war that

has raged since 1975 has claimed the lives of more than

144,000 people and has injured nearly 200,000 between 1975

and 1990.1 And, as much as the Lebanese people want to

believe that this bloody chapter of their history is over, there is

evidence that many of the conflicts that have manifested

themselves in violent eruptions throughout Lebanese history

have not been decisively resolved. The accords reached at Ta’if

in Saudi Arabia in 1989 only devised a formula for internal

reforms. These reforms cannot guarantee the end of hostile

sentiments and frictions among the various Lebanese

confessional communities.

This paper examines the underlying causes of conflict and

the reasons for the prolongation of the Lebanese civil war. No

blow-by-blow account is provided here, as numerous books

and articles have adequately documented the chronology of

the conflict. Instead, the emphasis is on the factors that made

an early resolution of the Lebanese war impossible and which

allowed for the perpetuation of the Lebanese war beyond the

intentions of some of the protagonists themselves.

The Emergence of the Lebanese Political Idea

In establishing the nature of the Lebanese conflict, one must

outline the general features of the Lebanese civil war. It is

41
clear that Lebanese society has been riddled with conflicts and

tensions since before the creation of the Lebanese state in

1920 under French mandate auspices.2 The nineteenthcentury history of Lebanon chronicles massacres, communal

bloodshed, foreign intervention, and displacement of

population. The two major protagonists at the time, the Druzes

and the Maronites, dominated the area of Mount Lebanon,

which was designated as the Lebanon area.3

The major problem in Lebanese history and politics is that

the idea of Lebanon is relatively new, an idea born early in this

century primarily of Maronite lobbying efforts directed towards

the Western colonial powers and French regional interests.

There was no consensus among the various groups inhabiting

the area that is today Lebanon about the identity of the new

state or about the formula for power sharing in government.

There was substantial opposition among the Lebanese Muslim

faction to the creation of a state called Lebanon because it

would lead to the fragmentation of the Arab world.

Furthermore, the creation of a Greater Syria was deemed

desirable at the time, particularly with the efforts of Prince

(later king) Faysal of Iraq to create an independent Syrian

princedom based in Damascus.4

France created the Lebanese state in 1920 by adding to the

historic area of Mount Lebanon the four other provinces:

Beirut and its surroundings, the Biqa’, the South, and the

North. This new entity became known as Greater Lebanon,

and the annexation of the new provinces was intended to

provide the new entity with economic viability. The system was

consolidated in 1926 with the promulgation of the Lebanese

constitution, which established the juridical legitimization of

the sectarian system according to Article 95 of the constitution

which stated (before its amendment in 1990): “As a provisional

measure and for the sake of justice and concord, the sects

shall be represented justly in public posts and in the

formation of the cabinet without harming the interest of the

state.” This vague stipulation became the cornerstone of the

Lebanese political system and was used to justify the

distribution of political power on a purely sectarian basis.5

French mandate authorities clearly wanted a system that

would impose Maronite political supremacy on the political

PROLONGED WARS

42
system since the Maronite community was regarded by them as

the “protected community” and since that community always

viewed France as “the tender mother.” Since the new state of

Greater Lebanon had a substantial Muslim majority, the French

authorities needed to justify the Maronite political privileges by

establishing demographic evidence. A 1932 census (often

described—and rightly so—as “highly dubious”)6 revealed that

the Lebanese population was split almost evenly between

Christians and Muslims and that Christians enjoyed a slight

edge, with the Maronites constituting the single largest sect. The

census remains the only official source for the sectarian

distribution of the Lebanese population. The Christian

establishment in Lebanon has consistently refused over the

years to conduct another census; the high birth rate of the

Muslims (particularly the Shi’ites) would have quickly

guaranteed them a comfortable majority. A 1986 estimate by the

United States Central Intelligence Agency of the confessional

distribution of the population showed 27 percent Sunnis, 41

percent Shi’ites, 7 percent Druzes, 16 percent Maronites, 5

percent Greek Orthodox, and 3 percent Greek Catholics.7

The census results were used—and continue to be used—to

justify a system of government that affixes sectarian tags to all

official posts and offices with a clear advantage to the Maronite

community. This system was officially set on foot in 1943

when the National Pact was reached. The pact, an unwritten

agreement, came into being in the summer of 1943 because of

numerous meetings between Bishara Al-Khuri (a Maronite and

the first president after Lebanese independence in 1943) and

Riyad As-Sulh (a Sunni and the first prime minister after

independence). The Christians’ fear of Arab/Muslim

domination of Lebanon and the Muslims’ fears of Western

hegemony lay at the heart of the negotiations. In return for the

Christian promise to forego foreign (Western) protection and to

accept Lebanon’s “Arab face,” the Muslim side agreed to

recognize the independence and legitimacy of the Lebanese

state in its 1920 boundaries and to renounce any Arab (or

Syrian) national aspirations that could compromise the

viability of the Lebanese entity.8

The pact also formalized the confessional distribution of

high-level posts in the government on the basis of the 1932

ABUKHALIL

43
census and a six-to-five ratio favoring Christians over

Muslims. The most notable formula of the pact was the

stipulation that the presidency should be reserved for the

Maronites, the speakership of Parliament for the Shi’ites, and

the prime ministership for the Sunnis. This formula, as well as

the idea of sectarian distribution of power, remains at the

heart of the Lebanese problem.

Origins and Evolution of the Lebanese War

While observers regard the Lebanese political system as the

most democratic in the entire Middle East, they also note that

the contemporary history of Lebanon—even before the

outbreak of the civil war in 1975—has been marred by

tensions and conflicts in society and in the body politic. The

system functioned according to the sectarian structure of the

National Pact and of the much publicized Article 95 of the

Lebanese constitution. The degree of satisfaction with the

political system and with the economic life of the country was

an integral function of one’s sectarian affiliation, as there was

an imbalance in socioeconomic justice based on the sectarian

formula for the distribution of political power and economic

benefits. The most serious crisis occurred in 1958, when thenpresident Kamil Sham’un intended to amend the constitution

to allow himself another term of office.9 Sham’un’s political

ambitions triggered an internal rebellion—with its external,

regional, and international dimensions—and eventually led

Sham’un to request the military intervention of US Marines,

thereby violating a major principle of the National Pact.10

The increase in the percentage of Muslims in the Lebanese

population and the stagnation of the Lebanese political

system, coupled with the opposition by the Maronite political

establishment to any meaningful political or economic reforms

to accommodate the rising demands of the Muslims, augmented

the stresses on the political system. The Palestinian presence

in Lebanon and the rise of their armed groups also increased

pressure on the system and presented angry Lebanese with a

model of armed resistance. The resentment of many Lebanese,

particularly the Shi’ite faction, whose region in the south

PROLONGED WARS

44
became a battleground for Palestinians and Israelis,

increasingly manifested itself in strikes, armed attacks, and

the proliferation of political parties and organizations.

The rising opposition in Lebanon articulated a variety of

issues: improving the military abilities of the Lebanese army,

resisting Israeli military actions in the south, and vitiating the

need for radical socioeconomic reforms in the Lebanese

system. Lebanese President Sulayman Franjiyyah (1970–76)

initially attributed the social turmoil in the country to a

Palestinian-Soviet conspiracy; he subsequently began an

unprecedented arming of Maronite right-wing militias in

Lebanon to help suppress Palestinian military forces in

Lebanon. Franjiyyah and his right-wing allies failed in 1973

when the Palestinians received wide popular support from

many Lebanese who did not want the Lebanese army to repeat

what the Jordanian army did to the Palestinian Liberation

Organization (PLO) forces in Jordan in 1970–71. The failure of

the Lebanese army campaign strengthened the resolve of the

Lebanese president and Pierre Gemayyel, the leader of the

main right-wing militia, the Phlanges party, which was

modeled after Spanish fascist youth organizations.

The continued deterioration of the situation in South

Lebanon, the worsening economic crisis plaguing the entire

country, the continued conflict between the president and the

prime minister, or in other words between the Maronite and

the Sunni political elites, the frustration and mounting

radicalization of the Palestinians and Shi’ites, and the

intervention of Arab states (particularly Syria and Iraq) and

Israel in internal affairs of Lebanon led to the eruption of the

civil war in the spring of 1975. The first phase of the Lebanese

war lasted from 1975 until the fall of 1976, when Syrian

military forces were deployed in most places in Lebanon under

the umbrella of the League of Arab States and with the

support of the US and France. The first phase of the civil war

was fought between Maronite militias supported by some

brigades of the Lebanese army, on the one hand, and

Palestinian forces supported by left-wing and Islamic militias,

on the other. Syria intervened just when the Palestinian/leftist

coalition was about to prevail in Lebanon and was close to

defeating the right-wing forces. The Syrian intervention saved

ABUKHALIL

45
the Maronite establishment from an unsalvageable defeat, if

not outright extinction.11

After a few years of friendship between the Syrian regime

and the right-wing militias, Israel became an important player

in the south, where the Israeli Defense Forces set up their own

military centers and began arming and financing a surrogate

militia. Israel also began cultivating close relationships with

the right-wing militias in East Beirut. Lebanon then became

subject to Syrian and Israeli political interests, although the

local militias were able at times to continue to influence events

according to their own interests.

The next phase of the Lebanese civil war shifted the network

of alliances as the right-wing militias (then under the

leadership of the youthful and charismatic Bashir Gemayyel,

who headed the Lebanese forces) severed their ties with Syria

and consolidated their relationship with Israel. Syria in turn

moved to improve its ties with the PLO and the left-wing/

Muslim coalition. Numerous rounds of fighting between those

enemies continued between 1978 and 1982 in various parts of

Lebanon. In 1978 Israel invaded Lebanon to drive the PLO

from Lebanon, but was forced by the administration of

then-president Jimmy Carter to withdraw and to accept the

deployment of UN forces (known as UNIFIL) to separate the

Israeli and the Palestinian forces. Israel insisted, however, on

maintaining its troops in the southern strip of south

Lebanon.12 The continued hostilities created the context in

which the Israeli invasion of 1982 took place.

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 in the wake of the attempted

assassination of its ambassador in London by the anti-PLO

Abu Nidal organization. The invasion was intended to expel the

PLO from Lebanon and to install a pro-Israeli government in

Lebanon under the leadership of Bashir Gemayyel. Militarily,

Israel swept through south Lebanon and imposed a siege on

predominantly Muslim West Beirut to put pressure on the PLO

to evacuate and to influence the results of the presidential

elections. Eventually, Bashir Gemayyel was elected president,

and the PLO agreed to leave Lebanon under international

guarantees. Nevertheless, Israel’s chief ally Gemayyel was

assassinated before he assumed his constitutional

responsibilities, and his armed men entered the Sabra and

PROLONGED WARS

46
Shatila Palestinian refugee camps and engaged in brutal

vendettas against Palestinian civilians, an event that shocked

the world at the time and forced then-president Ronald

Reagan to redeploy US forces to Lebanon. Bashir was

succeeded by this brother, Amin, another major figure of the

Phalanges party.13

In the administration of Amin Gemayyel (1982–88) economic

and political conditions became worse than they were in

1975–76. Gemayyel relied on the military powers of the US

Marines to crush any domestic opposition, and he dragged the

US into participation in the civil war, which resulted in the

bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983.14 But the withdrawal

of the Marines in 1984 helped the Lebanese opposition,

supported by Syria (which had been strategizing for the defeat

of the Israeli plan for Lebanon), to take control of West Beirut

and other areas formerly dominated by Gemayyel’s forces.

From 1984 to 1988 Lebanon witnessed yet another violent

chapter of the civil war, with car bombs and indiscriminate

shelling being the favorite weapons of the militias, none of

whom refrained from brutal and savage acts.15 In 1988

Gemayyel’s term ended and he refused to allow the Muslim

prime minister to take charge while Lebanon prepared for a

presidential election. Instead, he appointed Gen Michel ‘Awn,

the Maronite commander in chief of the Lebanese army, the

prime minister in charge of the affairs of the country. However,

a Sunni prime minister remained in power in West Beirut, and

the country was officially split into two contending governments, each claiming full constitutional legitimacy. Arab

states intervened with US blessing to sponsor a national

accord to establish a central government. Lebanese parliamentarians were invited to Ta’if in Saudi Arabia to work out a

formula for political reforms and presidential elections to end

the civil war. General ‘Awn ignored these developments and

launched his war of “national liberation” against the Syrians

and their allies.

The accords of Ta’if were received positively in Lebanon and

the rest of the world, although General ‘Awn rejected them and

continued his war against his enemies, considering himself

the savior of Lebanon.16 After Rene Muawwad was elected

president and then shortly thereafter assassinated, the

ABUKHALIL

47
parliament elected Ilyas Hrawi president in the fall of 1989.

‘Awn was finally ousted in October 1990 by Syrian troops

while the world was preoccupied with developments in the

Persian Gulf.

Underlying Causes of the Prolongation of War

The complexity of the Lebanese civil war rendered all

mediation attempts ineffective during its course. As of 1992 it

is still too early to determine whether the stability that was

brought about by the accords of Ta’if will last and whether the

civil war has ended. The situation in the south continues to be

violent; Israel still maintains its military presence there; and

its surrogate militia (the south Lebanon army) still operates

under Israeli aegis. Furthermore, various Shi’ite militias still

roam south Lebanon and insist on remaining armed until

Israel leaves the country.

Multiplicity of Dimensions

A main reason for the prolongation of violence in Lebanon, a

conflict which produced the civil war and which could produce

more bloodshed and strife in the future, lies in the many

dimensions of the conflict. Reference to the conflict focuses on

centuries-old tensions between the various confessional

groups that have sought refuge in Lebanon. The war, of

course, refers to the savage civil strife that erupted in 1975

and continued in various forms and shapes until 1990 when

General ‘Awn suffered defeat and expulsion from Lebanon.

The many causes for the civil war resulted from the

connection between the various internal and external factors

that have perpetuated the war.17 The source of tension remains

the failure of peaceful solutions to address simultaneously the

external and internal factors behind the war. While the

external factors in the Lebanese war always have been

exaggerated by the Lebanese to absolve themselves from any

responsibility for the war, outside parties and powers have

played crucial roles in abetting (but rarely in solving) the

conflict.18 Even in the nineteenth century, European powers

PROLONGED WARS

48
and the Ottoman Empire had given themselves the right to

intervene in the most minute affairs of the country, and

several powers assigned to themselves the role of protectors of

some sects.

The Lebanese participants, on the other hand, must accept

responsibility for sometimes allowing outside powers to

intervene in Lebanon “on their side.” Lebanese factions have

thereby legitimized foreign intervention in their affairs to

bolster their local standing or to strengthen their military

postures during the war.19 The link between the internal and

the external dimensions of the war has obstructed

reconciliation attempts, as outside powers have insisted on

ostensible “neutrality” to distance themselves from problems

in Lebanon they helped to create or to maintain. Thus, both

Syria and Israel, the two regional powers most responsible for

sponsoring clients in the country to further their own agendas,

have pursued policies in Lebanon while maintaining their

innocence by promising to refrain from intervening in the local

affairs of Lebanon.20

The multiplicity of causes for the war has obfuscated the

Lebanese reality; it has confused observers who want one

simplistic reason for the breakdown of the political system. It

has also confounded observers who want to promote an

economic explanation for the civil war. For example, providing

a class analysis of the Lebanese civil war that still explains the

intensity of hatred and conflict between Maronite and Shi’ite

workers is problematic. Ignoring the sectarian consciousness

of the Lebanese people and its impact on political mobilization

obscures the origins of political movements in Lebanon.

The intensity of conflict and the prolongation of war in

Lebanon stem not only from the multiplicity of cleavages in

Lebanese society but also from the overlapping of the various

cleavages. There is evidence that socioeconomic cleavages, for

example, tend to overlap with sectarian cleavages: most

Shi’ites tend to occupy the lower stratum of Lebanese income

groups.21 The overlap, however, is not complete; there are

some wealthy Shi’ites and some poor Maronites. Peaceful

reforms in Lebanon have tended to focus on one of the two

important dimensions by either looking at the issue of

sectarian injustices or by treating the problem as one of

ABUKHALIL

49
income distribution. The inability to analyze the connection

between sectarian frictions and economic injustices has

rendered most attempts at reform obsolete.

On the question of foreign intervention, outside powers

interested in solving the Lebanese problem have tended to

attribute the ills of Lebanese society to external factors; Israel

believed Lebanon’s problems were produced by the

Palestinians’ presence in Lebanon, while Syria focused on the

role of Israel in Lebanon without looking at the reasons that

led some right-wing forces to seek an alliance with Israel.

When opposition was mounting against the pro-US government

of Amin Gemayyel, the US government insisted that opposition

to his government was merely Syria’s way of furthering its own

narrow political interests in the region. In reality, Syria did use

the opposition for selfish purposes, while the Muslim/leftist

opposition used Syria in turn for the opposition’s agenda. In

Lebanon a convergence of interests always cements the

relationship between a local player and an outside actor.

Lebanon as an Arena of Foreign Conflicts

Notwithstanding the inherent problems in Lebanese society

and economy, regional and international powers have

historically used the open and free environment of Lebanon as

an arena for settling scores and for foreign intrigues. Many

Lebanese tend to resort to conspiratorial scenarios to explain

the protracted nature of the war. While the conspiracy theory

underestimates the impact of the internal dynamics of conflict

in Lebanon, the evidence suggests that outside powers have—

before and during the war—exploited the Lebanese scene to

promote various agendas and policies.22

While the phenomenon of foreign sponsorship of Lebanese

clients did not start in the present century, the intensity of

conflict and hatred among the various Lebanese sectarian

groups and their desire to impose their will against the wishes

of members of the “other sect” has invited intervention in the

past few decades. The strategic location of Lebanon and its

uniquely open socioeconomic environment have made it a

tempting place for foreign intelligence services. Beirut became

a place to direct foreign intrigues at the Middle East: coup

PROLONGED WARS

50
d’états in the entire Arab world were plotted in Lebanon, and

international intelligence services operated in the Middle East

out of Lebanon. Moreover, the spread of socialist regimes in

the Arab East and the influx of capital into Beirut, which had

banking secrecy, made Lebanon a perfect place for Arab

dissidents. Its free press reflected the opinions and views of its

foreign financial patrons rather than the views of local actors;

a Lebanese president once welcomed members of the press syndicate by saying, “Welcome to your second country, Lebanon,”

to remind the press of its allegiance to non-Lebanese patrons.

The most damaging result of the exploitation of Lebanese

politics was the intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict on Lebanese soil. Consequently, the painful longevity

of the Arab-Israeli conflict was mirrored in the prolongation of

the Lebanese conflict. It was less costly for both the PLO and

Israel to fight their bitter wars and conflicts in Lebanon rather

than somewhere else. This is not to say that the Lebanese

conflict is primarily a by-product of the Arab-Israeli conflict,

but it is clear that this intractable problem has prolonged the

conflict. Yet, the evacuation of PLO forces from Lebanon in

1982 proved that those who insisted that the PLO presence in

Lebanon was responsible for the eruption of the civil war were

wrong. Some of the most brutal and savage battles of the

Lebanese civil war were fought between Lebanese groups

(primarily Druzes and Maronites) without the direct

involvement of PLO forces.

But there is another repercussion of the Arab-Israeli

conflict; Arab states engage in fighting one another either

through their propaganda outlets in Beirut or through their

client militias operating in Lebanon. The Syrian-Iraqi conflict,

for example, has always been manifested in armed

confrontations between pro-Iraqi and pro-Syrian Lebanese and

Palestinian forces in Lebanon. Furthermore, the Egyptian and

Syrian governments have utilized the Lebanese arena for their

own purposes since as early as the 1950s. Lebanon became

the stage from which Arab government asserted—often in

bizarre fashions—their alleged dedication to the solution of the

Palestinian cause. Lebanon provided Arab governments with

elements for foreign policy that they lacked in their own

countries. The Lebanese press could, for example, engage in

ABUKHALIL

51
debates and discussions that the Syrian and Iraqi press could

never print by virtue of the strict control of the press in those

two countries.

Furthermore, the Lebanese arena also allowed non-Arab

players to engage in regional bidding for power. The Iranian

revolution was quickly reflected in Lebanon not only because

Iran valued the strategically important location of Lebanon but

because the Shi’ite population in Lebanon was receptive to the

ideas of Khumayni and was willing to be used by Iran for its

own regional ambitions. The Iran-Iraq was fought on Lebanese

territory in the late 1970s before the real war erupted on the

Iranian-Iraqi front. Similarly, Armenian groups fought Turkey

on Lebanese soil, while Kurdish groups have found Lebanon

the only nonrestricted environment as far as their own

political and guerilla activities are concerned. All these

dimensions have compounded the Lebanese problem and

made a solution more remote even if the internal (purely

Lebanese) dimension were adequately addressed.

Absence of the “Neutral” Mediator

A peaceful resolution to any prolonged conflict requires the

assistance of a neutral observer—someone trusted by all sides.

Peace proposals for Lebanon and the numerous reconciliation

missions to Lebanon by foreign mediators failed because they

represented interests linked to Lebanese players; their

agendas were often partially or fully reflective of the interests

of their local allies and clients. Of the non-Arab players,

American, French, and Vatican authorities were the most

frequent mediators. But those parties had close ties to various

Lebanese militias and politicians, and their intentions were

distrusted by the other side. The US, for example, was closely

allied to the Lebanese right-wing coalition in the 1975–76

phase of the war and became closely associated with the

government of Amin Gemayyel (and with the militia of his

brother Bashir before his assassination); all of whom had a lot

of enemies inside and outside Lebanon. As the US was

regionally allied to Israel, the US faced a huge credibility gap

in the eyes of many Lebanese and in the eyes of those Arab

states involved in Lebanese affairs.

PROLONGED WARS

52
Similarly, the Vatican, which took on several mediation roles

in the course of the Lebanese civil war, while highly trusted by

the Maronite establishment, is regarded as an adversary by

the Muslim establishment due to the long tradition of

religio-political ties between the Holy See and the Maronite

church in Lebanon. Many Muslim politicians suspected that

the Vatican was interested in undermining the Arab/Muslim

influence in Lebanon to bolster the position of the Maronite

establishment and the Maronite church in Lebanese life.

France, which also dispatched several mediators to Lebanon

during the course of the war, was not popular among the

Muslim population because of the traditional French-Maronite

alliance and because the French socialist government openly

supported the Maronite establishment. Moreover, the French

expressed sympathy with the highly controversial Gen Michel

‘Awn and granted him asylum (along with perks usually

reserved for heads of states and monarchs) after he was

expelled from Lebanon.

The two most important players in the Lebanese arena are,

of course, Syria and Israel. Syria has always portrayed a

neutral role in Lebanon, a role that seeks to end bloodshed

and restore stability and order to the country. But the Syrian

role in Lebanon is one of shifting alliances and feuds; Syria

aligned itself with the left-wing/Palestinian coalition in 1975,

then switched to the Maronite/right-wing side in 1976, and

was later embroiled in bloody confrontations with the

right-wing forces between 1978 and 1982. One could argue

that the nature of the Lebanese conflict and the highly charged

emotional issues that split the Lebanese along sectarian,

geographic, and socioeconomic lines make it impossible for

any one party to be acceptable by all sides with the same

enthusiasm. It is not possible to identify with the positions of

all sides.

As for Israel, it never attempted to play the role of the

mediator simply because Israel has never claimed neutrality

about Lebanon and has consistently argued that “Palestinian

terrorism” was responsible for the breakdown of the Lebanese

political system. Israel’s unpopularity among most Lebanese

also would negate any Israeli mediator’s role. When PLO forces

were evacuated from Lebanon and Israeli occupation of parts

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53
of Lebanon intensified Lebanese popular antipathy towards

the government of Israel, Israel then insisted that the rise of a

South Lebanese resistance movement against the Israeli

presence was simply the product of a “Shi’ite terrorist” movement and thus a legitimate target of Israeli strikes and

incursions.

One could argue that only such an international body as the

United Nations could play a neutral role acceptable to all sides

in Lebanon. However, the Syrian government was adamant in

its rejection of a UN role in Lebanon because it fears a

diminution of its influence there. Syria has always persuaded

and urged its Lebanese allies to reject a UN role (aside from

the limited role in South Lebanon in the wake of the 1978

Israeli invasion of Lebanon) from fear of losing its leverage in

the country’s domestic affairs. Syria even discouraged the

League of Arab States from taking any serious mediation role

in Lebanon because Syria sought to monopolize Arab influence

in Lebanon.

Rise of the War Elite

One of the most damaging factors as far as Lebanese

civilians are concerned is the rise of the war elite in the wake

of the 1975–76 phase of the war. While the historical system of

zuàma’ (political bosses) was maintained in some of the

communities (primarily Maronite and Druze communities), the

war has led to the emergence of a new breed of leaders who

spoke for the war activists or for the street thugs, as most

Lebanese came to refer to the salaried combatants of all sides.

The Lebanese civil war resulted in a loss of popularity for

many members of the old families who have monopolized

political representation in Lebanon for almost two centuries.

Those families were associated with the rampant corruption of

the government and Parliament and were blamed for the

inefficiency of the Lebanese administration. The decline, and

in some communities the total demise, of the role of the

traditional elite led to the rise of a new generation of leaders

who sought to replace the old guard. The new elite was

produced by the various militias that were born in the various

communities. The new leaders tended to be youthful and

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54
experienced on the battlefield. They were trusted by their

fighters and were close to the average people on the streets.

The new elite represented the militancy of the civil war, a

militancy responsible for the brutality and savagery that

characterized the war.

As the war progressed, the new elite developed a

sophisticated bureaucracy within the structure of the militias

to cope with the rising needs of the thousands of fighters and

families of “martyrs” for whom the militia leadership was

responsible. Furthermore, the militia leadership had to inherit

state responsibilities in various regions of the country. In

many cases, the militias deliberately disrupted the governmental process to cripple the state bureaucracy so that the

militia could fill the vacuum. The militias—those of the right

and the left—developed their own economic networks that

relied on revenues from narcotics and arms smuggling. The

revenues from the underground economy and from the looting

of state funds provided the militias with large fortunes. The

continuation of the war and the continued paralysis of the

Lebanese state guaranteed the militias their precious sources

of income. One can assert without exaggeration that militia

leaders were the most stubborn opponents of any reconciliation, for an end to the war would have divorced the new

war elites from their basis of financial and material support

and from resources that enabled them to impose their political

will. In other words, the war became necessary both politically

and financially for militia leaders. An end to the war would

have revived the civilian (nonmilitary) leadership that had

been competing for political leadership with the war elite since

1975.

Syria’s Belief in the Efficacy of “No Victors,

No Vanquished”

The best elaboration of Syrian policy towards Lebanon has

been a famous speech made by Syrian President Hafidh

Al-Asad in June 1976. Speaking at Damascus University,

Al-Asad promulgated publicly his belief in the notion of “No

Victors, No Vanquished.” This principle has guided politics in

Lebanon since at least 1958, when the Lebanese political elite

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decided the resolution of the brief civil war of that year would

be based on the rejection of domination of one group by

another. The politicians argued that this principle would

maintain social harmony accord; any victory by one party

would tear the nation apart.

The Syrian government has pursued its objectives in

Lebanon under this slogan, but for different reasons. While the

Maronite elite was fearful in 1958 of a Muslim takeover of the

country, the Syrian intervention in Lebanon was genuinely

motivated by Syria’s rejection of domination by any of the

sectarian groups or militias. The Syrian military intervention

in 1976 crushed the PLO/Lebanese leftist alliance, which was

about to control all Lebanese territory. The Syrian government

opposed the victory of the Muslim/leftist coalition because

Lebanon under Muslim/PLO control could drag Syria into an

unwanted confrontation with Israel. Moreover, a radical regime

in Lebanon could pose an ideological challenge to the Syrian

regime, the legitimacy of which is predicated on the notion

that Syria represents the most pro-Palestinian, pro-Arab

nationalist regime in the entire Arab world. The victory of the

Lebanese left in Lebanon could have undermined Syria’s

propaganda claims. Syria was also concerned that the defeat

of the Maronites in Lebanon could aggravate the already

critical problem of minorities in the region, which could, in

Asad’s mind, lead to futher fragmentation in the Arab East

and in Syria, in particular. A member of a minority sect

himself, Asad has been especially sensitive to the minority

question in the region.

Without addressing the politico-ethical implications of a

leftist victory in 1976, the Syrian intervention in that year

undoubtedly prolonged the war and prevented a decisive,

albeit a violent, resolution of the civil war. One could argue

that Syrian intervention (as an external factor) was one of the

most important reasons behind the prolongation of the

Lebanese civil war. In other words, Syria did not allow the

contradictions in Lebanese society and policy to clash to

produce a radical change in the social and political order. Had

Syria remained unengaged, the civil war could have ended as

early as 1976, although the price of a decisive end might have

been exorbitant. The price could have been especially high

PROLONGED WARS

56
with respect to the well-being of Christians in Lebanon and

even with respect to the Christians of the Middle East.

Following its military intervention in 1976, Syria pursued a

policy that allowed Lebanese factions and militias to combat

one another without allowing any side to achieve total victory.

While the end of the war in 1976 would have been costly in

human life, prolongation of the war beyond the first phase

increased the suffering of all Lebanese. The individual

Lebanese will have to decide whether an early end of the war

in 1976 would have been more desirable than the current

situation in which the motto of “No Victors, No Vanquished”

has not been entirely abandoned.

Sectarian Agitation and Mobilization

One of the weapons that has been effectively used by

Lebanese politicians—whether they belong to the traditional

elite or to the war elite—is sectarian agitation and mobilization. In time of crises, Lebanese politicians have often

resorted to sectarian agitation of the masses to bolster their

own standing within their respective communities. Unfortunately for Lebanon, the Lebanese people have always proved

susceptible to sectarian mobilization. The argument that

blames members of the other sect for the problems facing

different confessional communities tends to appeal to the

masses; people in all cultures cling to easy answers even if the

answers are rooted in prejudice and bigotry. The demonization

of the other sect has helped traditional leaders in presenting

themselves as champions of the interests of the community.

The narrow electoral districting in Lebanese elections has

promoted sectarian agitation and mobilization, and the

Lebanese political system itself was the product of a sectarian

arrangement. The level of sectarian agitation and mobilization

during the civil war was the highest it had been since the

sectarian wars of the nineteenth century. The agendas and

outlooks of the various sectarian leaders and parties were

different, which accounted for the fragmentation in the

Muslim and Christian communities. The Shi’ite agenda was

different from the Sunni agenda, and there were divergent

interests between the Maronite and the Greek Orthodox

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communities. Unlike previous situations in Lebanese history,

no monolithic Muslim and Christian blocs existed. Ambitious

sectarian leaders found it convenient to agitate the masses in

a narrow, sectarian fashion to advance their political careers.

Claims of narrow sectarian concerns are almost always

rewarded among the Lebanese communities, and much of the

war elite is comprised of individuals who rose to power

because of hateful, sectarian agitation.

It is, of course, economic and political frustrations and

resentments that allow for the exploitation of the religious

factor in Lebanese politics. Lebanese political leaders and

post-1975 war leaders have found engaging in narrow

sectarian argumentation too tempting, because the Lebanese

have always felt that the other sect harbors hostile intentions.

The multiplicity of political identities and the “fragmented

political culture,” to use the language of Michael Suleiman,

have promoted political representation according to sectarian

affiliation. Members of a sect assume that genuine

representation of their interests requires the election of leaders

who champion the interests of the sect. Because socioeconomic standards vary in Lebanon among the sects and

since there are regional imbalances in economic development,

the lines between class and sectarian oppression have become

blurred. This blurring leads people to attribute their dissatisfaction to the tyranny or misguidedness of the other sect.

While the tendency of the war elite to engage in sectarian

agitation and mobilization to perpetuate their dominance has

obstructed the resolution of the Lebanese conflict, the

relationship between the length of the conflict and the intensification of sectarian agitation is dialectical. The Lebanese

people themselves have become more willing to receive and

adopt sectarian arguments after their long years of civil strife.

The war elite cultivated what was already a fertile ground. This

situation then led to the demonization of the enemy, which

makes compromise unacceptable.

The time factor, however, proved to be crucial in this case;

evidence suggests that by the late 1980s, with the

intensification of the armed conflict and material destruction,

many Lebanese reached a point of exhaustion. There came a

point during the Lebanese civil war when most Lebanese were

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58
simply fed up with the situation. They became increasingly

impatient with the enthusiasm that members of the war elite

exhibited towards the continuation of the war. By 1990 many

Lebanese became physically and psychologically fatigued, and

political considerations (and sectarian considerations as well)

became irrelevant. In other words, sectarian agitation worked

up to a point in the course of the civil war, but the people

proved that there was a saturation point as far as mobilization

behind the slogans of hate and demonization.

Fear of the Return to the Status Quo

Another factor that helped to prolong and intensify the war

in Lebanon was the fear among many political/militia leaders

and among Lebanese that emanated from the nonresolution of

the Lebanese conflict. Some peace plans were dismissed

because they were not regarded as comprehensive enough to

address the roots of the Lebanese problem. There were fears

that some of the peace plans, if implemented, would not

resolve the Lebanese war. Past historical experiences were too

unacceptable for many Lebanese; the tendency of the

traditional political leaders to accept the tribal-style entente

(sulh), based simply on embraces between the individuals

themselves, made many Lebanese (particularly the young

fighters in the militias) suspicious of the motivations of the

peace proposals. The youth of Lebanon considered the price of

the war itself too much in terms of human life and physical

destruction to justify a return to the status quo ante. Had

there been a peace proposal to be accepted—some Lebanese

argued—it had to have the depth and the scope to deal with

the Lebanese problem from all its aspects. An incomplete or

partial peace plan would result in a cease-fire and not offer

finality to the war according to many demanding Lebanese

skeptics.

The experience of the 1958 conflict, which ended in the

formula, “No Victor, No Vanquished,” was too fresh in the

memory of the Lebanese. Many Lebanese argued that had the

1958 mini-civil war led to a rearrangement of the power-sharing

formula and to a real rectification in the socioeconomic

imbalances in the country, the war of 1975 could have been

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59
avoided. Many Lebanese feel obliged not to accept a solution

that would serve as a prolonged cease-fire rather than a final,

definitive solution—if there is such a thing—to the protracted

conflict.

Militia leaders in Lebanon have said to the Lebanese people

that solutions that would not address the deep, underlying

causes of the Lebanese war were not worth considering. They

argued persuasively that unless someone addressed the root of

the Lebanese problem, the war was destined to recur. Militia

leaders, of course, had their own reasons for blocking peace

proposals, as these proposals would undermine their positions

of prominence. But the Lebanese people themselves were

unwilling, at least in the early phase of the war, to accept a

mere prolonged cease-fire for fear of a renewal of the civil war.

The Ta’if accord which—officially at least—ended the civil

war was accepted by most Lebanese, since it came at a time

when the people were fatigued by the protracted conflict. Some

observers believe the accord represents a disguised return to

the status quo. Therefore, one must not proclaim an end to the

Lebanese civil war; the Syrian-sponsored accord may merely

provide a respite for the war-torn country and its people.

Arab Official Antipathy to the Lebanese

Model of Democracy

While Arab governments have consistently paid lip service to

the necessity of restoring peace and tranquility to Lebanon,

they have without exceptions long resented the Lebanese

system of political pluralism and the press freedoms that

Lebanon enjoyed. Arab governments have used the civil war in

Lebanon to argue against democracy; they claim that the civil

war is itself the direct result of the Lebanese democratic

experience. The Arab regimes found that the political system

in prewar Lebanon threatened the despotism that had been

imposed on the Arab citizen. Lebanon presented the Arab

citizen everywhere in the region with an alternative model

that, despite its weaknesses and imperfections, was admired

by Arab intellectuals and ordinary people alike.

The second element in the Lebanese prewar system which

presented a danger to Arab officialdom was the press and

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60
publishing freedoms in Lebanon. Before the Lebanese civil

war, Arab publications in Lebanon served as mirrors of Arab

public opinions at large; they also served as voices against

many of the regimes. Additionally, Lebanon before 1975 was a

haven for Arab dissidents expelled from their countries

because of opinions they expressed or activities in which they

participated. It was also a place where Arab capital was

concentrated due to Lebanon’s excellent banking system and

its unique (within the region) banking secrecy. Arab dissidents

in Lebanon constituted a nuisance to the regimes that did

not—and still do not—tolerate criticism. Thus, the end of the

Lebanese civil war, which discredited the idea of democracy

according to the thinking of Arab despotic regimes, was not a

priority for the regimes. The end of the civil war posed a

challenge to many Arab governments, a challenge that none of

the Arab governments were willing to tolerate at a time when

domestic opposition was rising because of the emergence of

the Islamic factor in popular politics.

The Politics of the War Generation

The continuation of the Lebanese civil war brought about a

generation of Lebanese, many of them who have served in the

various militias, who have known only the politics of violence.

The present generation of Lebanese have been insulated from

the pluralistic experience of prewar Lebanon, where Lebanese

from various sects at least met one another, even if they did

not get along with one another. At the cessation of the fighting,

many in this generation had never even met a member of

another sect; this group was more susceptible to sectarian

agitation and mobilization than other groups in Lebanon.

Demonization of the other sect was easier among youths who

had never interacted with members of other sects due to the

separateness of the Lebanese communal existence in the wake

of the war. And these youths had a say in issues of war and

peace, as they constituted the fighting backbone of the

militias.

The group of militia fighters also was salaried, thanks to the

largess of the patrons of the various militias. And many of the

fighters were unskilled and uneducated; a situation of

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normalcy would have meant a sharp decline in their living

standards, particularly with the extensive use of narcotics

among many of the armed youths. Lebanese leaders were fully

aware of this factor when the Ta’if accords were being

negotiated and foresaw that thousands of Lebanese would

need rehabilitation desperately. The Lebanese government

decided to absorb the armed youths in its armed forces. The

process already has met some success, although it is

shortsighted to assume that a few months of training within

the Lebanese army would erase the traces of militia agitation

of hate and discord as well as financial security.

Conclusion

In analyzing the cause behind the prolongation of the

Lebanese war, one must make the early distinction between

the Lebanese war and the Lebanese conflict. The Lebanese

conflict began as early as the nineteenth century, when the

two major groups occupying the area of Mount Lebanon (the

Druzes and the Maronites) fought over the domination of the

small piece of land. The creation of Lebanon in the twentieth

century expanded the Lebanese conflict to include the

numerous sectarian communities that have been separated by

geographical lines and by fear and suspicion. The Lebanese

conflict—or more accurately conflicts—was not resolved with

the creation of the new state, nor even with the Lebanese

republic after independence in 1943. Rather, the Lebanese

political system seemed to incorporate these outstanding

social conflicts into the Lebanese polity, thereby perpetuating

the tradition of hate and hostility.

The Lebanese war refers to the strife that began in 1975.

This strife was produced by the conflicts among the Lebanese

and by the external stresses on the Lebanese system, which

exacerbated the already existing tensions and hostilities. I

have emphasized that the Lebanese war resulted from internal

dynamics and socioeconomic schisms within the Lebanese

society; the idea of the war as an external conspiracy—an idea

that is still popular among the Lebanese politicians who wish

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62
to absolve themselves from any responsibility for the war—has

served to obfuscate the Lebanese reality.

The Ta’if accord has certainly helped to end the blood and

destruction in Lebanon, although there is still a part of the

country (the south) where combat between the Israeli army

and its surrogate militia and the Lebanese groups who wish to

rid Lebanon of Israeli occupation still takes place. The

presence of the Syrian army, however, has been legitimized by

the comprehensive Lebanese-Syrian treaty that was signed in

the wake of the Ta’if accord. The Syrian presence, however, is

still preferred by the Lebanese to the oppressive, thuggish rule

of the militias, who terrorized the population. The resentment

of the Lebanese people against the various militias served to

give the Syrian presence the popular legitimacy that it needed,

although a substantial section of the Christian community in

Lebanon still opposes on principle the presence of the Syrians

in Lebanon. The support of the Lebanese presidency for Syrian

military presence makes any withdrawal of Syrian troops from

Lebanon unlikely. Syria also uses Lebanon as a valuable

bargaining chip in regional negotiations.

Finally, we can assume the Lebanese conflicts have not been

resolved. As for the Lebanese war, there is a possibility that

the prolonged cease-fire the Lebanese people have been

enjoying could be transformed into a real end to the war. But

this possibility requires radical internal political and economic

reforms in Lebanon and a curtailment of regional (primarily

Syrian and Israeli) interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs.

The administration of President Hrawi does not seem,

however, willing or even able to lead Lebanon out of its long

conflict and to put a final end to the war.

Notes

1.-These figures represent the most reliable, official estimates of the

Lebanese government. The figures were published in the Beirut daily

An-Nahar and reported in the New York Times, 10 March 1992. The figures

exclude some 6,630 people who were killed and about 8,000 wounded in

conflicts involving Palestinians. Also, the report stated that some 17,415

people remain missing.

2.-For the history of Lebanon, see Meir Zamir, The Formation of Lebanon

(London: 1965); M. Daher, L’Histoire Sociopolitique de la Republique

Libanaise sous Mandat Francais: 1926–1943, 2 vols. (Paris: 1980); and Adel

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Ismail, ed., Documents Diplomatiques et Consulairs Relatifs a L’histoire du

Liban (Beirut: 1979).

3.-For the nineteenth-century history, see Samir Khalaf, Persistence and

Change in 19th Century Lebanon: A Sociological Essay (Beirut: A. U. B.,

1979); and Antoine Khair, Le Moutacarrifat du Mon-Liban (Beirut: 1973).

4.-See Q. Qarqut, Tatawwur Al-Harakah Al-Wataniyyah Fi Suriya:

1920–1939 (The Evolution of the National Movement in Syria: 1920–1939)

(Beirut: 1975).

5.-For the constitutional development of Lebanon, see Edmond Rabbath,

La Formation Historique du Liban Politique et Constitutionel (Beirut:

1973).

6.-See Tabitha Petran, The Struggle over Lebanon (New York: Monthly

Review Press, 1987), 31.

7.-This author received the data through the Federal Research Division of

the Library of Congress. It was printed in As’ad AbuKhalil, “The Society and

Its Environment,” Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress,

Lebanon: A Country Study (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,

1989), 48.

8.-The classic study of the National Pact is Basim Al-Jisr, Mithag 1943

(The Pact of 1943) (Beirut: Dar An-Nahar, 1978).

9.-For Sham’un’s views, see Camill Chamoun, Crise au Moyen Orient

(Paris: Gallimard, 1963); for the views of his critics, see Isma’il Musa

Al-Yusif, Thwrat Al-Ahrar Fi Lubnan (The Revolution of the Free in Lebanon)

(Beirut: Manshurat Az-Zayn, 1958).

10.-For a discussion of the 1958 crisis, see Michael C. Hudson, The

Precarious Republic: Modernization in Lebanon (New York: Random House,

1968).

11.-For the 1975–1976 phase of the war, see Kamal Salibi, Crossroads to

Civil War: Lebanon 1958–1976 (New York: Caravan, 1976); and Marius

Deeb, The Lebanese Civil War (New York: Praeger, 1980).

12.-For events in the south and the developments within the Shi’ite

community, see Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi’a (Austin:

University of Texas Press, 1987).

13.-For the 1982 invasion, see Ze’ev Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari, Israel’s

Lebanon War (London: Allen and Unwin, 1985); and Rashid Khalidi, Under

Siege (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).

14.-For an account of the Marines’ role, see Michael Petit, Peacekeepers

at War: A Marine’s Account of the Beirut Catastrophe (London: Faber and

Faber, 1986).

15.-For this phase of the war, see Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation (New York:

Atheneum, 1990).

16.-For an analysis of the reforms, see Augustus Richard Norton,

“Lebanon after Ta’if,” The Middle East Journal 45, no. 3 (Summer 1991).

17.-For the external dimension of the war, see P. Haley and L. Snider,

eds., Lebanon in Crisis: Participants and Issues (Syracuse: Syracuse

University Press, 1979).

18.-For this point, see As’ad AbuKhalil, “Arab Intervention in the

Lebanese Civil War: Lebanese Perceptions and Reality,” The Beirut Review 1,

no. 2 (Fall 1991).

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64
19.-See, for example, B. J. Odeh, Lebanon: The Dynamics of Conflict

(London: Zed Press, 1985).

20.-For a treatment of sectarian consciousness, see As’ad AbuKhalil,

“Druze, Sunni, and Shi’ite Political Leadership in Present-Day Lebanon,”

Arab Studies Quarterly, Fall 1985.

21.-As’ad AbuKhalil, The Politics of Sectarian Ethnicity: Segmentation in

Lebanese Society (PhD dissertation, Government Department, Georgetown

University, 1988).

22.-For a well-informed, journalistic account of the involvement of foreign

intelligence services in Lebanese affairs, see Said K. Aburish, Beirut Spy:

International Intrique in the Middle East (London: Bloomsbury, 1989).

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The Arab-Israeli Wars

A Conflict of Strategic Attrition

Stewart Reiser

Few modern regional conflicts have endured the tenacity of

the Arab-Israeli conflict. To understand its duration and

durability, one must examine the conflict on two levels. One

level focuses on how the antagonists defined the issues. The

second level of analysis examines why this particular conflict

still has not been resolved during its cycle of warfare.

Historically, war does not resolve many conflicts. Apparently,

both parties to this particular dispute assume war can settle

their differences; therefore, why, to date, has it not? This study

examines the conflict to determine whether its duration has

been caused by design, as part of a policy of strategic attrition,

or as a product of blunder and circumstances beyond the

control of policymakers on each side.

Concerning the first level, one can argue this is an evolving

and dynamic conflict. In this context, it should be seen and

defined as a conflict because the many wars between the

Arabs and Israelis failed to resolve their underlying concerns,

and these wars were regularly separated by periods best

characterized as phases of “no war, no peace,” which later

broke down into active conflict. The conflict began with the

Arab side anticipating a rapid conventional victory. As neither

side achieved this during the first two wars (1948–49 and

1956), both sides began to engage in conflict that gradually

developed into one that was characterized by strategies of

protraction. These strategies reflected each side’s perception of

their respective natural advantages as well as their abilities to

extract resources from the great powers.

Thus, time and circumstances have changed the reality of

the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has evolved through several distinct

phases. One reason for this evolutionary nature is that the

conflict is influenced by and, in turn, influences other political

dimensions in the Middle East region. These dimensions

include the internal character of the major states in the region,

67
the inter-Arab political dynamic, and, finally, the interests and

involvements of the great powers in the region. A major change

on one political level, or dimension, usually causes changes in

the other three.

Pursuing this approach, one can see that there have been

three phases to the conflict. The first phase began in 1917

with the issuance of the Balfour Declaration and ended in

1948, the year the first Arab-Israeli war began or when the

internationalization of the conflict occurred. The three

intervening decades were characterized by an intercommunal

conflict between the Jewish and Arab communities in

Palestine under the British mandate. Each side during this

stage received aid from external support groups, the Zionist

organizations, on the one hand, and the Arab states still

encumbered by the colonial occupation of Great Britain and

France, on the other. Each side also experienced periodical

shifts by Great Britain toward and against their particular

interest. The conflict during this period focused on the

meaning of the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations

mandate within the context of the changing circumstances in

Palestine, as well as the altering British interests in both the

region and in Europe.

The second phase spanned from the war of 1948–49 until

the Six-Day War of 1967. The conflict became interstate in

nature during this period. It was also defined by the rise of

militant Pan-Arabism and the objectives of Egypt’s charismatic

leader, Gamal Abdul Nasser, which included the integral unity

of the Arab world and the elimination of Israel. This stage was

also characterized by the beginning of the cold war and was

accompanied by a spiraling arms race. Thus, there was a

change in both the issues at stake within the conflict and the

conditions that surrounded it. This phase ended with the

Israeli capture of Arab national territory (beyond Palestine) in

June 1967. The consequences of this war created the

conditions for the third, or current, phase.

The third phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict has lasted from

1967 to the present. The results of the 1967 war has brought

about three major changes in the overall conflict, changes that

have neutralized one another in terms of conflict resolution.

First, there was an alteration in the balance of incentives for

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the major national actors within the conflict. Prior to the

Israeli occupation of (non-Palestinian) Arab territory, the Arab

side could maintain the status quo of “no war, no peace” in the

belief that time, as well as justice, was on its side and wait for

more propitious conditions to renew active warfare. There were

no conditions or factors within or surrounding the conflict that

could force the Arab side to negotiate with and recognize the

state of Israel.

The seizure of Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian territory in

1967 altered this equation. The new status quo benefitted

Israel as long as the United States sustained it with diplomatic,

military, and economic support. From this point onward, the

three Arab confrontation states bordering Israel had to

reconcile their “national” interests with their broader “Arab”

interests, the recovery of Palestine. Each state—Egypt, Jordan,

and Syria—operated under a different calculus of incentives in

their choice of maintaining the status quo, proceeding along a

diplomatic path, or using coercive means. Each state based its

strategic decisions on domestic, regional, and international

factors.

This seizure highlights the second complicating feature of

the post–1967 period. This feature was the reemergence,

following two decades of dormancy, of the Palestinian issue as

a national issue. As the Palestine Liberation Organization

(PLO) gained recognition as the “sole legitimate representative”

of the Palestinian people, Israel and Jordan could not just

“trade land for peace,” as Israel and Egypt had, given Jordan’s

domestic political divisions and the relationship between the

Palestinians in the East Bank Kingdom and those in the

Israeli-occupied territories. This was exasperated by the PLO’s

refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist, within any

boundaries, until December 1988.

Third and finally, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza

stimulated the growth of both the revisionists and religious

Zionists within Israel. These smaller groups had lived under

the shadow of labor (or social) Zionism from 1920 onward but

had never given up their aspiration of an expanded Greater

Eretz Yisrael (Whole Land of Israel). Thus, the same Israeli

expansion and occupation of territories that reawakened the

Palestinian national movement simultaneously catalyzed the

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significant growth of Israeli parties who had historical and

religious attachments to the same land.

These three local and regional factors have characterized the

conflict since 1967. Each factor has contributed to the

protraction of the conflict. Attendant to each has been the

collapse of the cold war and the emergent American dominance of the region, particularly after the defeat of Iraq in

1991 and the earlier start of the intifada (uprising) in the

territories in December 1987. While the latter variable was

believed, particularly during its first 12 to 18 months, to have

been costly and disruptive enough to alter Israel’s balance of

incentives for maintaining its presence in the territories, this

scenario has proven not to be the case. Even the Palestinian

leadership now perceives that it has extracted maximal

political gain from the uprising. It is currently looking to

foreign (Arab and American) sources to alter Israel’s stance.

On the international power level, the general Soviet collapse

has already contributed to one conflict, the Iraqi invasion and

occupation of Kuwait, which in turn brought about the

American diplomatic and military riposte that enhanced

United States political and military hegemony in the entire

Middle East. The United States, alone, has the capacity to

alter the balance of incentives for the local actors. Time will

determine whether it has the will, whether it decides that the

push toward a settlement is worth the political capital that it

would warrant, and finally whether it perceives that a shift

from the status quo is in the interest of the United States.

While the Arab-Israeli conflict at its earliest stages appeared

to have shared certain characteristics with other prolonged

conflicts, it soon reflected many features of a protracted

conflict. This is because during different phases the involved

major Arab actors reached the conclusion that the status quo

of “no war, no peace” gave its side the time during which it

could improve the conditions required for a next round of war.

As for the Israelis, they too favored a protracted strategy, since

it seemed their best policy for both survival and territorial

expansion. This calculus changed for Egypt and Israel

following the 1973 war largely because of the particular type

and level of American involvement as well as the consequences

of that round of combat. The conflict may now be at a similar

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historical crossroad. At this point, it seems necessary to

summarize the series of choices taken in earlier stages.

The Intercommunal Phase, 1917–48

This period was characterized by a three-cornered struggle

between the growing Jewish and Arab communities within

Palestine and the British mandatory power over the meaning

of the Balfour Declaration. The central and defining mission of

the declaration and the preamble and articles of the League of

Nation’s mandate focused on “the historical connections of the

Jewish people” with Palestine and “the grounds for

reconstituting their national home in that country.”1

While this mandate appears straightforward and supportive

of a pro-Zionist interpretation, articles no. 1 and no. 6 also

state that “nothing should be done which might prejudice the

civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities

in Palestine” and that promotion of Jewish immigration and

land settlement was not to prejudice “the rights and position of

other sections of the population.” Thus, sufficient ambivalence

was created to give scope to a wide interpretation by both sides

to the conflict as well as to Great Britain.

Britain’s response to the heightened violence by each

community immediately before and after WWII was military

repression of the Arabs (and later the Jews) on the one hand,

and a series of white papers that reversed the original content

of the original Balfour Declaration, on the other. The

conflicting responses of the Arab and Jewish communities to

Great Britain’s own strategic reversal set the tone for the

Palestinian and Israeli approaches for the following decades.

When Zionists were offered concessions but didn’t care for

their specific content, they accepted such principles of the

concession as territorial partition and statehood for each

community but rejected any concessions on boundaries. The

Arab side rejected both the principle and the content of the

concessions, making it difficult for the international

community to accept their absolutist and maximal objectives.

Both before and following WWII, the Palestinian leadership

refused to view the nature of the conflict as changing and

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insisted that justice and their interests could only be served by

the creation of a single exclusively Arab Palestine. Not only

had they rejected the recommendations of partition in 1937

and 1947, which would have resulted in a miniscule and

contained Jewish state in one corner of the vast Arab Muslim

world that was coming into its own, they also refused the

Anglo-American Commission’s recommendation of a binational

federal state in 1946. They also rejected Great Britain’s (mostly

pro-Arab) white paper of 1939, which would have given them

an independent Palestine and would have frozen the Jewish

population into a permanent minority status within an Arab

state whose leadership could control immigration policy as

well as unite with neighboring Transjordan.

The question is, why did the Arab states and the Arab Higher

Committee take such a hard noncompromising line? There are

both practical-political as well as historical-cultural reasons for

this approach during the first phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

These reasons may apply for the two phases that follow.

On the practical level, the governments of the Arab states

were divided among themselves on the issue of Israel, and they

could unite, to the degree that they did on the surface, solely

on the most extreme program, which was the prevention of the

creation of a Jewish polity in a historic Arab-Muslim territory.

This feature of the conflict prolonged it, since the lack of real

Arab unity, based on these and other political differences, has

contributed to the difficulty of containing, no less defeating,

the Israelis.

A reflection of the political culture that also has prolonged

the conflict has been the fact that the more moderate Arab

leaders were in physical and political danger if they publicly

embraced a position that did not absolutely reject the

legitimacy of a Jewish state of any proportion within Palestine.

Following the 1948–49 war, King Abdullah of Jordan, Prime

Minister Riyad al-Suhl of Lebanon, and Prime Minister

Nuqrashi Pasha of Egypt were assassinated for not adhering to

the most extreme position concerning Palestinian rights. (One

should add Anwar Sadat and Bashir Gamayel in later years.)

Perhaps a more profound reason for the uncompromising

position of the majority of the Arab and Palestinian leaders

was their moral belief that “rights” could not be compromised,

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that they were absolute, and that the pursuit of these rights

warranted a totalistic approach which conflicted with other

cultural notions which held a more relativistic approach to

justice.

The first “Arab-Israeli war” actually began in November 1947

as a Palestinian-Jewish “civil” conflict and became international

when the Arab armies crossed into Israel in March 1948. The

Arab intervention that was designed to reverse the outcome of

the United Nations decision and the earlier Palestinian

Arab-Jewish struggle failed. The Arab defeat leads to three

questions. First, why did the Arab states fail in their objectives

during this war? Second, why did the Israeli military victory

fail to settle the conflict? Third, was the continuation of the

conflict based on design or happenstance?

The Internationalization of

the Conflict, 1948–67

Two factors highlight the defeat of the Arab states in their

first war against Israel. Each factor contributed to the

conflict’s prolongation as well as to the choice of protraction as

a strategy by both sides. One factor is that there had been an

almost total absence of contact between the emerging Jewish

society and the Arab leaders in Palestine. As a result the Arab

side of the conflict, with the exception of King Abdullah of

Transjordan, knew little of the organizational strengths or

limitations of their adversary.2

The Israeli strategic ignorance of their enemy was almost,

but not quite, equal. On the Israeli side, only David

Ben-Gurion, who assumed the positions of prime minister and

minister of defense, perceived the need to prepare the Yishuv

for an all-out conventional war against the regular armies of

the Arab states. This meant a full mobilization of Jewish

manpower (women were conscripted as well as men) and the

procurement of heavy weapons for land, sea, and air warfare.3

The second important factor is that the Arab states were

united only in their negative purpose of destroying Israel (and

Transjordan didn’t even share that goal) but had no unity of

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purpose after the anticipated victory. Transjordan and Iraq (at

that time also headed by a branch of the Hashemite family)

desired to annex as much of Palestine as possible for

themselves, even at the cost of splitting the territorial

difference with the Israelis. Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, on

the other hand, wanted to establish a puppet Palestine, but

they primarily wanted to obstruct the Hashemite objectives.

The Palestinian leadership, demoralized and divided, was

highly suspicious of the Arab states but leaned toward Syria

and Egypt to prevent Hashemite annexation of Palestine.

These conflicting interests led to uncoordinated military

planning, mistrust, and a certain degree of deception between

the armed forces of the Arab states. This position of dependence and minimal leverage on the part of the Palestinian

national movement prevails even today.

The second issue is why did this battlefield defeat not lead to

a negotiated peace between the two sides. With the exception

of Iraq, the Arab states separately signed armistice agreements

with Israel. Neither the armistice agreements nor the talks that

followed led to peace agreements between the antagonists.

Historically, peace treaties usually follow armistices because

the defeated party fears continued punishment if it doesn’t

accede to all or most of the demands of the victor. While it is

likely that some Arab governments believed for several months

following the defeat that they might have to grant concessions,

including that of recognition, to the victorious Israelis. It is

also likely that the Arabs realized that despite their defeat they

were in a novel historical situation. The Arab states realized

that Israel, despite its military superiority, was politically

incapable of renewing hostilities due to the public and private

warnings from the United Nations, Great Britain, and the

United States. At this point in its history, Israel could afford

neither the international condemnation nor the possible and

threatened (British) intervention that might have followed a

renewed offensive.

The Arab leaders concluded that they were not confronted

with the usual choices of continued (and punishing) war or

peace. Rather, they could opt for a status quo of “no war, no

peace” that served several purposes. They didn’t have to take

the highly unpopular act of signing peace treaties with Israel

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and recognizing its legitimacy; also, the future of the conflict

was left open. The following quote from the former secretary

general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, summarizes this

strategy of protraction in a 1960 interview.

We have a secret weapon which we can use better than guns . . . and

this is time. As long as we do not make peace with the Zionists, the

war is not over; and as long as the war is not over there is neither

victor nor vanquished. As soon as we recognize the existence of the

state of Israel, we admit by this act that we are vanquished.4

This nonacceptance of the defeat does not mean that the

Arab states planned for an immediate renewal of the fighting.

Rather, the Arab strategy of protraction began when their

leaders realized that they had time on their side and that they

could wait until circumstances were more favorable for the

pursuit of their goal. The Arab side had assumed a lightning

conventional victory as it entered the 1948 war. Having failed

in their “preventive” effort, they moved into a “restorative”

phase. Thus, once the first effort to prevent Israel from coming

into being failed, the Arab side shifted to the goal of restoring

the “pre-Israel” situation.

Regional Changes, 1949–67

Between 1949 and 1967 three crucial changes occurred that

altered the Arab perspective. The first change focused on the

issues at stake between the Arabs and Israel. The second

change surfaced in the conditions surrounding the conflict.

The third change appeared in the festering of the conflict.

In terms of the first change, the introduction of Pan-Arabism

and integral Arab unity into the region as a central and

defining political force for the Arab people escalated the

residual issues of Palestinian refugees and boundary disputes,

which remained the official position of the League of Arab

States until the late 1950s, into a clash of national destinies

between Zionism and Arab nationalism. Once Egyptian

President Gamal Abdel Nasser called for integral unity with the

Arab east, the Mashriq, and once this call found a receptive

ear among the Arab populations, Israel’s boundaries and the

Palestinian refugee problem were no longer the point. Israel

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became a physical as well as a political obstruction to Arab

unity.

From the Arab perspective, there was little or no incentive

toward peace and a limited capacity to wage war between 1949

and 1956. From the Israeli perspective, there was little

leverage by which to induce the Arabs to accept peace and no

political freedom to go to war and force the issue. In terms of

the absence of war during this period, one can say the Arab

side was limited in its instruments of force, and Israel for its

part did not have the freedom to use its military superiority

until Great Britain and France not only permitted Israel to

strike at Egypt but actually assisted for their own reasons in

October 1956.

From the mid-1950s onward, the conditions surrounding

the conflict changed dramatically. What altered the dynamic

between Arab and Israeli most, as well as the inter-Arab

dimension, was the introduction of the cold war into the

Middle East. In short order, Great Britain, supported by the

United States, attempted in 1954–55 to organize a Muslim

anticommunist containment alliance, centered in Iraq and

called the Baghdad Pact.

Nasser, fearing a reinforcement rather than a decline of

Western, particularly British, power in the region, succeeded

in mobilizing the Arab masses in Jordan, Syria, and Saudi

Arabia against the installation of Western bases in their

countries. He succeeded despite sympathy for the concept by

several of the leaders (except Syria). In turn, the Soviet Union

rewarded Nasser for his obstruction of Western bases in the

region with major arms supplies. This shattering of the

Western military and diplomatic monopoly in the region led to

the unsuccessful invasion of the Suez region and Sinai by

Great Britain, France, and Israel.

The United States and Soviet Union each applied pressure

on the three invaders for similar, albeit competitive, reasons;

each wanted to expand its influence in the Arab world at the

other’s expense, as well as that of Great Britain, France, and

Israel. Thus, détente between the two great powers did not

follow, and one major result of this hectic cycle of activity was

a marked belittling of diplomatic power surrounding the core

Arab-Israeli dispute. In short, the Western monopoly, as well

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as unity of purpose in the region, was shattered, and both

major actors in the cold war had extended their rivalry from

Europe and northeast Asia into the Middle East and

southwest Asia.

The second consequence of this series of events was the

beginning of an accelerated and comprehensive regional arms

race that has not abated to the present time.5 Israel’s decision

to attack Egypt in 1956 was based on several criteria. A

preemptive strike against Egypt was chosen before its army

had time to assimilate the Soviet arms and exercise its own

first strike.

Third, the Soviet rearming of Egypt as well as the groundswell of Arab popular support for Nasser following the Western

withdrawal renewed the possibility of war for Egypt. Whereas

the economic boycott of Israel (that included blockades in the

Suez Canal and through the Gulf of ‘Aqaba) and the support of

Palestinian border raids had characterized Arab attrition

tactics during the early 1950s; these tactics were never

perceived as part of a grand strategy to eliminate the state.

Rather, they served the purpose of maintaining the status quo.

Arab Strategy from 1957 through 1967

Egypt’s grand strategy had room within it for parallel sets of

maximal and minimal goals. The maximal goal was to liquidate the state of Israel.6 The minimal goal sought to alter

Israel’s boundaries by seizing the south Negev, enabling Egypt

to have territorial contiguity with Jordan, the oil-rich state of

Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula.

From a military point of view, the means required to reach

this more limited goal were similar to those needed for the

maximal; in either case, the IDF would have to receive a

crushing blow. However, Nasser acknowledged there were

some circumstances wherein the minimal goal could be

reached without a total victory over Israel. These circumstances would include an early Egyptian ground gain followed

quickly by the intervention of the great powers. Under these

circumstances a negotiating situation might occur with Egypt

trading a nonbelligerency pact, short of both a peace treaty

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and the recognition of the state of Israel, in exchange for the

territorial gains made in the early stages of the war. However,

Nasser appeared wary of this as an overall strategy and opted

instead for what Gen Yehoshafat Harkabi has called a “war a’

outrance,” a war to the bitter end.7

Nasser considered the liquidation of Israel indivisible,

requiring one major stroke; not an incremental strategy as

part of an overall protracted process. The choice between

liquidation “by event” versus “by stage” dominated Arab debate

until the 1967 war. Those advocating a protracted approach

expressed it in two forms during the 1960s. The former

president of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, expressed one form

when he proposed in 1965 that Israel accept and implement

the first United Nations resolution (of 1947) for partitioning of

and withdrawal to those boundaries called for in the UN

debate. This was in exchange for an undefined “form of peace.”

Bourguiba insisted that if Israel accepted the resolution, it

would be dramatically weakened for a later stage, a stage that

Bourguiba alluded to but did not detail. If Israel rejected the

overture, the Arab manifestation of peace then would

constitute an Arab diplomatic victory in the international

community. However, Nasser rejected the entire enterprise

since he believed that an Israeli acceptance could actually lead

to a political settlement, one that the international community

would find in its own interest. In short, the first stage in the

process of weakening Israel for a future round might actually

terminate the conflict and allow for the existence of Israel.8

The second type of phased process that Nasser opposed was

the “incremental violent process,” an openly protracted

struggle that was proposed by Syria at frequent intervals

between 1959 and 1966. Syria proposed starting limited

military actions that would incrementally weaken Israel.

Nasser, however, feared Israel’s escalatory ability and believed

that although the Arab states could sustain and absorb

battlefield defeats as well as material losses better than Israel

due to the demographic asymmetry between the two societies

there was a chance of devastating internal political effects on

the Arab societies.9 The consequences of the June 1967 war

justified these fears.

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Thus, Nasser believed that the war against Israel should be

protracted because the Jewish state would be gradually

weakened (morally, financially, and psychologically) by

economic embargo and guerrilla warfare while Arab unity and

internal development would strengthen the Arab side. At the

right time, and only the right time, a conventional military

strike would win the war.

Nasser eventually conceived of four interacting conditions as

essential for his long-term grand strategy. First, the Egyptian

home front had to be politically consolidated; there could be

no widespread social fissures as existed in Syria, Iraq, and the

Sudan. Second, the Arab side would have to acquire superior

military force. Third, there had to be a united Arab front. This

meant a revolutionary change in the social structure of the

Arab world since “the unity of the objectives” required

homogeneity of regimes. In this estimate, the modernization of

the Arab world was a prerequisite to the showdown with Israel.

Fourth, the United States had to be neutralized. Conditions

had to prevail in which the United States would not intervene

to save Israel from military defeat. Nasser also wanted to use

the Soviet Union to nullify an intervening American power.

Israel’s Strategy, 1949–67

From 1949 to 1967 Israel also underwent a debate regarding

its own strategy as to how to preserve and consolidate the

status quo. Prior to 1967 Israel had nothing to offer the Arab

states in exchange for peace and viewed the surrender of any

of its 1949 territories (as proposed by the Bourguiba plan) as

the first increment of an Arab strategy meant to weaken Israel

“a piece at a time” (known as the “salami tactic”). Therefore,

deterrence, through a variety of means, characterized the

Israeli strategy for these two decades. The security debate

within Israel was over these means.

Until 1955, Israel attempted to attain security by joining a

collective alliance. In vain, it tried to attain membership in

NATO as well as a mutual defense pact with the United States.

From 1956 onward, it altered its approach to one characterized

by self-reliance but with a close relationship with one great

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power that would lend it diplomatic support in the United

Nations and afford it military and economic aid. France played

that role for a little over a decade, beginning shortly before the

1956 war, and the United States followed suit after the 1967

war. However, the most important and interesting aspect of

the Israeli conception of deterrence was the internal debate

over a nuclear versus a conventional strategy.10 The debate, as

far as one can tell from limited public sources, was formed by

two divergent approaches to deterrence—compellence and

conflict resolution. In their purest form, one resolution is

represented by Ben-Gurion’s strategy and the other by

general, and later labor politician, Yigal Allon.

Shlomo Aronson’s voluminous research led him to conclude

that Ben-Gurion opted for an “opaque” nuclear policy; he

chose to proceed with the development of the weapons and

delivery systems but to use the concept of a “bomb in being” in

lieu of developing a public war-fighting doctrine.11 In this

context, opacity meant that Israel would not openly threaten

the Arab side with nuclear strikes since this would both

humiliate the enemy and hasten its own quest for a nuclear

arsenal which he believed inevitable in the long run. Instead,

Israel would allow the enemy sufficient information regarding

its nuclear capacity to influence the Arab will to fight.

Second, Ben-Gurion believed that Israel’s possession of

nuclear weapons would be necessary, although not sufficient,

to make the Arabs eventually, albeit grudgingly, accept Israel’s

existence in the region. Israel’s diplomatic positions, including

maintaining the principle of the partition of Palestine, in

conjunction with the opaque nuclear strategy, would

eventually bring about a change in the Arab position regarding

the acceptance of Israel. Thus, Ben-Gurion’s long-range strategy

pulled closely together the two concepts of “deterrence” and

“conflict resolution.”

Ben-Gurion’s position represents one of the two major

schools of thought within Israel’s strategic elite, who saw the

conflict as one requiring prudently managed protraction. Yigal

Allon articulated the contending school of thought. He

consistently advocated a strategy characterized by

conventional deterrence and compellence. He believed that if

Israel started the regional nuclear race, it would ultimately

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lose it. Basing his position on his historical-cultural

assessment of the Arab world, Allon believed that the nuclear

“balance of terror” achieved between the East and West was

not replicable between the Arabs and Israelis if and when the

Arab side gained access to nuclear weapons.

Allon for his part contended that once Israel obtained a

bomb, Egypt would do all it needed to provide one for itself and

that Nasser would quickly use it since Israel’s small size

prohibited a second-strike capability. Allon also believed that a

“balance of terror” was impossible in the Middle East for more

profound cultural reasons. Part of this second calculation was

based on his belief that the Arab value system would be willing

to suffer the enormous casualties accompanied by nuclear

warfare—so long as Israel was destroyed—and therefore would

not be deterred by an Israeli retaliatory capacity. In either

case, Israel had to prepare itself for a lengthy and manageable

conflict that should avoid nuclear arms as a strategic

component and advocated Israel “maintaining a last resort”

option if the Arabs did go nuclear. However, he came to base

his overall strategic doctrine on the principles of Israel’s

striving for conventional superiority in military terms,

improved territorial holdings for security purposes, and the

ability to trade extra territory for peace.

Allon succeeded in prevailing over Ben-Gurion and laid the

basis for Israel’s conventional strategic doctrine in the early

1950s. Five major factors provided the rationale for his

particular conceptions of security, war doctrine, and the

planned structure of the IDF. Central to this study was Allon’s

own concept of the “war of attrition.” Essentially, Allon

contended that Israel could not create a doctrine that itself

was based on the belief in a “final decision” over the Arab side.

This final decision would never be actualized due to the

material asymmetry between the two sides.

Allon’s strategy of protraction was based on his belief that in

the long run deterrence would eventually lead to resignation

on the part of the Arabs and that resignation would ultimately

lead to acceptance and peace. The deterrence would be made

up of astute political maneuverings and an unknown but

manageable number of Israeli battlefield victories over an

unspecified but reasonable period of time. Allon believed this

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application of deterrence-compellence would eventually alter

the Arab strategic calculus. Finally, if Israel captured and

occupied Arab territory beyond the 1949 armistice lines, they

would provide the final lever that would extract a contractual

peace from the surrounding Arab states.12

Finally in 1962 Ben-Gurion agreed that the Israeli nuclear

program and strategy did face some of the limitations

elaborated on by Allon and agreed to an enhanced conventional effort. (It was Moshe Dayan who asked for a reduction in

Israel’s conventional capabilities and who actually claimed

that Israel should give up its doctrine of opacity [attributed to

his mentor, Ben-Gurion] and opt for an open nuclear strategy.

Dayan’s view was based on his own contention, shared by

Ben-Gurion, that Israel could not economically sustain a

conventional arms race with the surrounding Arab world,

given the asymmetrical land, economic potential, and

demographic imbalances. Dayan’s view was rejected.) The

strategic debate ended in compromise—“an undeclared bomb

with an enhanced conventional effort.”13

The War of 1967

Given the overall strategies of the two contending sides, the

1967 war was inevitable. While Nasser may have wanted to

await a more propitious time (in terms of Arab strength and

unity of ranks), he was captive to too many smaller actors in

the Arab system. By retaliating against these actors, Syria and

al-Fatah, Israel stayed true to its doctrine and made it difficult

for Nasser not to become prematurely overengaged.

Both al-Fatah and the PLO (before their merger in February

1969) appeared to want to instigate a conventional war out of

their fear that the Arab frontline states would abandon the

national cause once Israel “went nuclear.”14 Syria, as already

noted, also favored an escalated conventional attrition of Israel.

President Nasser of Egypt scorned precipitous action against

Israel. His initial actions placed the two sides on their collision

course despite the lack of the conditions that he believed

Egypt required for initiating a “war of destiny” with Israel.

Nasser calculated that by closing the Gulf of ‘Aqaba (one of the

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casus belli in 1956) and concentrating Egyptian troops in the

Sinai he could gain a diplomatic victory over Israel by

contending that Egypt’s forward deployment (and subsequent

withdrawal) stopped Israel from launching a major offensive

against Egypt’s sole Arab ally, Syria. (While there was no

immediate evidence that Israel was planning such an

offensive, observers noted a marked escalation in both clashes

and rhetoric between Israel and Syria since 1966.)

Nasser had alienated the conservative Arab world by his

costly intervention in the Yemen civil war from 1962 onward

and indeed needed any type of visible gain. Or, Nasser may

have come to believe that a limited war, with accompanying

limited Pan-Arab gains, was possible because of his misperception that he had more Soviet support than really existed.

Confronted by this challenge, Eshkol expanded his left-center

cabinet to include Dayan (to replace him as minister of defense)

and Menachem Begin, both maximal territorial expansionists (to

add to the “minimalist” expansionism of Allon). This new

“wall-to-wall” coalition (minus the Israeli Communist party)

conducted the preemptive war of June 1967. Dayan believed

that Israel could win by conventional means and that a defensive

posture (that may have been recommended by his former

mentor, Ben-Gurion) was inappropriate for the challenge as the

IDF would have lost its deterrent value, despite the opaque

threat of a nuclear strike. The result was the destruction of the

three frontline Arab armies and the occupation of the Golan

Heights, West Bank, and Arab Jerusalem, as well as Sinai and

the Gaza district. This occupation and the forces that it catalyzed

altered the Arab-Israeli conflict in several fundamental ways and

brought it into a phase that has lasted until the present time.

The Year 1967 to the Present

The same questions arise from the consequences of the 1967

war as from the 1948 war: why didn’t the outcome of the war

end the conflict? and why did the “no war, no peace” stalemate

set in again creating the conditions for the 1973 war?

Regarding the first question, the Soviet Union immediately

rebuilt the Egyptian and Syrian armies and rescued their

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political leaderships from a feeling of total helplessness. This

same material and diplomatic support by an external power

enabled the Arab side to continue its protracted struggle

despite the severe losses of the 1967 war. Furthermore, even

during the course of the war, Israel did not seize as much

territory as it could have. Thus, with the advantage of

hindsight, an observer could say that Israel didn’t attain

sufficient leverage to impose the start of negotiations.

In addition, by war’s end the Soviet Union was threatening

to intervene—a replay of the veiled threats of Great Britain in

1949. The convergence of these factors saved the Arab side

from the feeling of powerlessness and the need to settle

immediately under these highly unfavorable conditions.

Thus, the questions for the Arab side could be reduced to

the following: (1) Was the stalemate of lost national territories

possible to live with? (2) Were the prospects for a protracted

war good? and (3) What were the potential costs and returns of

a peace strategy?

The New Arab Calculus

Given the profound material and economic losses suffered

during the war, Egypt had to choose between forms of coercion

against Israel and real peace. The former included a war of

attrition along the Suez Canal, the support of the Palestinian

guerrilla groups to irritate Israel, and a limited conventional war

(as in 1973) to catalyze a peace process. However, Egypt could

not tolerate an indefinite occupation of the Sinai accompanied by

the closure of the Suez Canal as well as the prolonged

evacuation of its industrial cities along the canal’s West Bank.

Syria, on the other hand, not only had a stronger ideological

commitment to “Arabism” and the Palestinian cause but could

sustain the (much less significant) material loss of the Golan

Heights to a far greater extent than Egypt could endure its own

losses. Thus, Syria sustained the status quo of “no war, no

peace” (broken by Israel during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon

and not by itself) until the collapse of the Soviet Union as its

financial and diplomatic support system in the late 1980s. The

loss of the Soviet support system in the late 1980s, followed by

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the United States’s destruction of Iraq’s offensive capability,

altered Syria’s own balance of incentives and drove it toward

the negotiating table in 1991.

Jordan, for its part, occupied a somewhat middle position

between its two stronger frontline confrontation states. While

Jordan’s material and economic losses surpassed even those

of Egypt, the country’s incentive toward retrieving its

territories through a diplomatic approach to Israel was more

than neutralized by the demographic split on the East Bank

between the original East Bankers and Palestinians. This split

occurred when the return of Palestinian nationalism was a

central issue of the overall conflict.

Therefore, three major changes occurred in the conflict after

1967. The first, Israel’s capture of Arab state territories,

opened the possibility of a trade of “land for peace.” However,

the other two changes have complicated this “rational-state”

model of analysis. After two decades of dormancy, the

Palestinian issue, as national issues, rather than a refugee

issue, reemerged central to the conflict. As the PLO gained

legitimacy as the “sole legitimate representative” of the

Palestinian people, it found that Israel and Jordan could not

trade “land for peace,” as Israel and Egypt had done. The PLO

exasperated this condition when it refused to recognize Israel’s

right to exist, within any boundaries until December 1988,

following the first year of the intifada.

Third, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza district

stimulated the growth of both revisionist and religious Zionism

within Israel—smaller political and social groups that had lived

under the shadow of the dominant Labor Zionism since the

1920s—but movements that had never given up their aspiration

for a whole land of Israel. Therefore, international, regional, and

domestic forces pulled the states central to the conflict in

contradictory directions, both toward conflict resolution and

continued conflict, but away from the status quo.

The Arab States

From Egypt’s perspective, the prospects of the status quo

prevailing in the post-1967 period were poor. These prospects

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had built-in ingredients that would lead it toward either war or

peace. Both the war of attrition conducted along the cease-fire line

of the Suez Canal and the Egyptian support of Palestinian

fedayeen raids from Jordan were asymmetrical in the nature of

their action and the Israeli reaction.

In the war of attrition, which spanned from 1968 until 1970,

Egypt used its large standing army and long-range, heavy,

Soviet-made artillery to barrage the Israeli side of the canal to

inflict an intolerable level of Israel Defense Force (IDF) casualties

and force Israel to soften its own demands. Israel, on the other

hand, relied, then as now, on a small standing army, since a

mobilization of its reserves (i.e., nearly its entire civilian male

population) is possible only in time of full crisis since its economy

can not bear the strain of too frequent interruption. Thus, Israel,

which had a much less substantial artillery corps than Egypt,

responded to the Egyptian artillery barrages by using its air force

as mobile artillery. Soon the Israelis were bombing deeper into the

Egyptian heartland until the Soviet Union intervened with both

pilots and weapons systems to save the regime of Gamal Nasser.15

In sum, the military responses were different from the original

actions in scale and elevated the “limited” war of attrition to a new

and far more dangerous level. What had begun as a form of

protracted strategy for Egypt threatened to erupt into a full,

regional, and even international conflict by 1970.

The same escalatory cycle of action and reaction occurred with

the guerrilla raids from Jordan by the Palestinian organizations.

Israel began striking and punishing Jordanian as well as

Palestinian assets across the river to force King Hussein’s army

to police the Palestinian raiders at the incursion’s original source

of location. When the United States came forth with a peace

initiative by Secretary of State Rogers to cut short the escalating

war of attrition between Israel and Egypt, as well as to initiate a

peace process, the Palestinian guerrilla organizations in Amman

Jordan attempted to block the negotiations by skyjacking several

international aircraft and landing them in Jordan. King Hussein

decided that the time was right to crush the Palestinian “state

within a state” that had formed since 1967 and the result was

the 1970 Jordanian civil war.

These chains of events actually confirmed Nasser’s earlier

apprehension of using incrementally calibrated coercion against

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Israel as part of a protracted strategy. He had resisted Syria’s call

for “incremental violence” against Israel during the 1960s, prior to

the June 1967 war, on the grounds that the Arabs would have no

control over Israel’s escalated level of retaliation. In addition, he

had feared the domestic political consequences of a long,

drawn-out, costly struggle with Israel. The weakening of his own

regime and the Jordanian civil war indicated that his fears were

justified and that another negative consequence of an extended

conflict, characterized by both protracted and prolonged features,

is the spread of the conflict across the region and the

enhancement of domestic sociopolitical strains.

The talks were stillborn for several reasons. The paramount

reason was the death in 1970 of President Nasser during his

attempt to negotiate a halt to the Jordanian civil war. However,

despite the fact that the combatants felt relief from the respite of

the limited wars along Israel’s southern and eastern borders, the

renewed status quo was, again, politically and economically

intolerable for Egypt, and to a lesser extent, Jordan and Syria. Of

particular importance was the Egyptian fear that the longer the

new cease-fire held, the more the world would accustom itself to

shipping its merchandise around the Suez Canal rather than

through it. Of a more profound nature, Arab governments feared

that the international community might become accustomed to

Israel’s consolidation of its 1967 territorial acquisitions as it did

to those added following the 1948–49 war.

Of the three confrontation states, Syria could bear the

economic costs of the stalemate best of all and therefore didn’t

accept the 22 November 1967 United Nations Resolution 242

until the midst of the 1973 war. However, Syria needed

assistance from other Arab states in its fight against Israel, as

the Golan range was too narrow a front. Help finally came in

1973 when Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, reached a point

of almost final desperation in Egypt.

The Israeli Perspective

The territorial consequences of the 1967 victory altered

Israel’s own strategic balance of incentives. To begin with, the

territorial alterations gave Israel the “strategic depth” it

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required and therefore provided a doctrinal victory of the

“conventionalists” over those advocating a more active nuclear

deterrence policy. While this turn of events didn’t halt Israel’s

development of its nuclear capability, it gave Allon’s doctrinal

conventionalists the upper hand in keeping “the bomb” as the

weapon of last resort.16

The Allon faction within the Labor alignment called for a

partition of the territories with Israel retaining those parts

required for security in return for the heavily Arab populated

sectors to contiguous Arab states. Allon sought this in return for

peace and recognition of Israel. However, no Arab governments

were ready to negotiate with Israel in principle, nor were any

governments ready to divide the territories that they had just

lost. At the same time, Moshe Dayan ascended within the rival

Ben-Gurion wing of the Labor movement. Supported by Shimon

Peres, Dayan favored a permanent Israeli presence in the West

Bank accompanied by an autonomy scheme for the Palestinian

inhabitants but with neither full self-determination for the

Palestinians nor a return to Jordanian rule.

Just as the Labor party was split over the future of the

territories, increasing numbers of Israelis shifted toward such

parties as the Herut (now the Likud bloc) that had held onto

their Greater Israel creed since 1949. Israel now held the lands

that these parties had consistently claimed as fulfilling the

Jewish historical heritage. Thus, just as the leadership of the

central Arab state, particularly Egypt, began moving (sincerely

or not) toward a form of conflict resolution based on a formula

of trading land for peace as well as undefined “justice for the

Palestinians,” it noticed that increasing numbers of Israelis,

for historical, strategic, and religious reasons, became fixed on

the retention of the “trump cards” that would allow for such a

trade. The result was the spread of Jewish settlements within

and outside the areas Allon said Israel required for strategic

defense and deterrence.

The 1973 War

The 1973 war was fought, from the Egyptian and perhaps

even the Syrian perspective, for political objectives rather than

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the traditional Arab war aim of eliminating Israel. The

aftermath of this war once again altered the strategic calculus

for each of the regional participants. The peace process

between Israel and Egypt reflected several complicated factors.

Israel made full territorial concessions in the Sinai because of

mutually acceptable security arrangements within the

returned territories. In addition, while such important civilian

settlements, as Yamit had been established in the Sinai, the

territories captured from Egypt in 1967 had little historical or

religious significance for Israel. In exchange for the Sinai,

Israel obtained what the now-ruling Likud bloc considered a

separate peace with Egypt, allowing Israel greater latitude to

its north and east.

From the Egyptian perspective, Sadat had delivered the

necessary psychological victory to his public at the outset of

the 1973 war, enabling him to make the concessions essential

to retrieve national territory and start the arduous task of

restoring the economy. However, this “trade” would not have

been possible without the Israeli nuclear shadow that

convinced the Egyptian leadership that a more complete

victory over Israel was impossible. This shadow drove a wedge

between Sadat and the more militant Arab leaders. At the

same time, and even with Israel’s nuclear arsenal, the process

probably would have still run aground without the

unprecedented level of United States diplomatic involvement

throughout the talks.

Egypt’s withdrawal from the conflict altered the balance of

incentives for the remaining Arab states. However, the

combination of the American effort, the pressures emanating

from Arab economic hardship, and the Israeli nuclear

deterrence (opaque as it was), as well as the altered regional

balance of power, was still not sufficient to further the peace

process. These factors that seemed to reinforce the peace

incentives were countered by a formidable array of forces that

continued to obstruct progress. First, there was the far

different Israeli view of the remaining occupied territories for

which Israel had more intense ideological and historical ties.

Second, these remaining territories had more strategic

importance than the returned Sinai. Third, the formidable

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domestic and inter-Arab political forces, particularly within

Jordan and Syria, opposed recognition of Israel.

The continued Soviet assistance to Syria and the PLO

enabled them to continue the status quo, if not to wage war.

While the status quo was no more uncomfortable for them

than before the Egyptian-Israeli peace, it appeared unlikely

that a war option was feasible. Confronted with this reality,

Syria attempted to create an eastern-front coalition that had

both offensive and defensive capabilities and one that would

compensate for the loss of the western (Egyptian) front.

The United States became increasingly central to any

hypothetical peace scenario as both Israel’s and Egypt’s

economic dependence on Washington grew following the 1973

war. Israel became increasingly tied to the American economic

and military lifelines, despite increased efforts to minimize its

arms dependence on the United States through the expensive

development of its own indigenous weapons industry.17

However, well into the 1980s the Israelis prevented the US

from using this economic dependency to push it toward an

unfavored settlement by relying on the pro-Israeli lobby in the

Congress and the powerful anti-Soviet instincts and policies of

the Reagan administration.

Because of these instincts, the Likud bloc believed the

United States had given it the license to enter Lebanon in

1982 to eliminate the PLO and push the Syrian army out of

the small buffer state.

The 1982 Israeli Invasion of Lebanon

Israel sought to redraw the political map of the Arab states

to the east and north of Israel during the war of Lebanon. By

crushing the PLO militarily in Lebanon and by forcing it to

remove its political headquarters from Beirut, Israeli Minister

of Defense Ariel Sharon, supported by Prime Minister Begin,

wanted to fully and permanently suppress any spirit of

Palestinian nationalism in the occupied territories and

eventually transfer the Palestinian national problem into the

East Bank Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Within the Likud

bloc, Ariel Sharon most openly and ardently advocated the

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“Jordan is Palestine” thesis, desiring the establishment of a

Palestinian government and state with its capital in Amman, a

stroke that envisions ending, once and for all, the

international and Arab pressure for Palestinian statehood

within the occupied territories for the Palestinian people.18

However, the initial success the IDF experienced against

both the Syrian and PLO forces during the war was more than

offset by the setbacks the IDF faced during the following

occupation. Having misread the degree of support the

Christian right could and would offer Israel in the remaking of

a “new order” in Lebanon and having overlooked the

revolutionary changes that the poorest and most populous

community in Lebanon, the Shi’ites, had undergone, the IDF

was incrementally forced southward by acts of violent

resistance and terrorism until it was left with the security zone

that it currently occupies with the proxy support of the

Christian-dominated South Lebanese Army (SLA).

This swirl of events set in motion several forces within the

Palestine national movement and Syria that remained under

the surface for much of the remainder of the 1980s but, when

reinforced by other regional and international currents, led to

a new strategic calculus for both the PLO and Syria.

As for the Palestinians, the 1977 visit by Egyptian president

Sadat to Jerusalem and the peace treaty that was produced

with Israel two years later split the Palestinian leadership

ranks. Some observers saw the end of armed struggle and

openly advocated coexistence with Israel and an independent

Palestinian West Bank state. Other observers refused to accept

the notion that the Palestinians did not have a military option

against Israel. These internal PLO conflicts surfaced following

the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Negotiations in Amman between Arafat and King Hussein

regarding future relations between the two peoples and banks

of the Jordan River following a hypothetical Israeli withdrawal

led to a military clash between Palestinian rejectionists,

supported by Syria, and the forces still supportive of Arafat.

The PLO and its leader were expelled a second time from

Lebanon, this time by Arab forces from Tripoli.

Two lessons emerged for the PLO leadership from the

Lebanese quagmire. First, when it was under assault by the

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IDF within an Arab state, no Arab army came to its defense;

the Syrian armed forces merely defended itself when attacked

by Israel. The follow-up Syrian assault on the residual PLO in

Lebanon reinforced this sense of isolation when, again, no

Arab state attempted to block Syria’s actions. Second, the PLO

learned that an occupied people, in this case the Shi’ites of

Lebanon, could create sufficient penalty and pain for an Israeli

occupation if the occupied party itself was willing to pay an

even greater price by forcing the Israelis to recalculate the

costs and benefits of retaining the occupation. This was one of

several important inputs into the intifada that began in

December 1987.

The Intifada

There is a multifarious variety of immediate as well as more

underlying developmental causes to the outbreak of the

popular uprising (known as the intifada) in the occupied

territories.19 As for the deeper underlying causes, the following

considerations should be taken into account: The nationalistic

impulse of a people under occupation for over two decades

that includes the built-up frustration and despair that

accompanied the occupation; the development of a new

generation of local Palestinian leadership in the territories, a

leadership, however, that was structurally organized through

many new voluntary associations, such as unions; the

deteriorating living conditions, particularly in Gaza, caused by

the population explosion and the failure of structural

economic development to keep pace with the demographic

increases; and the decline of the IDF’s deterrent profile based

somewhat on the lessons of the Lebanon experience as well as

more localized episodes that included the General Security

Services (Shabak).

The more immediate causes were also domestic and regional

in nature and included: the April 1987 London Agreement

between then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and King

Hussein that reinforced Israeli and Jordanian control over the

Palestinian political future (the implementation of the London

Agreement was torpedoed by both Prime Minister Yitzhak

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Shamir and Yasir Arafat); the influx of released Palestinian

guerrillas from Israeli (and South Lebanese) prisons into the

occupied territories, as part of a prisoner exchange; and last,

the November 1987 Arab summit conference in Amman that

placed Arab support for Iraq against Iran as the highest

“national” priority and gave little attention to the worsening

Palestinian plight in the territories.

There was, and remains, divided opinion within Israel as

how to respond best to the intifada. Political hardliners

advocated a full-military response and a rapid repression. The

IDF general staff, supported by the then-minister of defense

Yitzhak Rabin, preferred a containment policy that utilized

many tactics but which would keep casualties low, on both

sides, and would simultaneously attempt to limit the erosion

of international good will that was sure to accompany the

containment of the uprising. Therefore, the IDF, border police,

and Shabak relied on methods that ranged from live ammunition

to rubber bullets, beatings, the use of Palestinian informants

(resulting in mass arrests), the closure of universities and

schools, and economic and financial embargoes.

On the other side, the Palestinians formed the United

National Command (UNC) which attempted to organize as well

as mobilize a mass base in the occupied territories. The goal of

the internal Palestinian structure was to increase areas of

Palestinian authority and wrest control of functions as well as

territory from the IDF and the civil administration. At first, the

UNC demonstrated a good deal of decision-making

independence from the PLO-Tunis.

The UNC stoned IDF personnel as well as Jewish-settler

civilians who traveled through the territories; printed and

distributed pamphlets throughout the population to create

unified action as well as to demonstrate to the Israeli authorities

that UNC had control over the Palestinian population rather

than the occupying forces; attempted to set up an embryonic

autonomous Palestinian economy in the territories; and used

civil disobedience through the nonpayment of taxes to the civil

administration.

Conflict on each side has periodically escalated: the

Palestinians with the use of firearms and firebombs and the

Israelis with the demolition of homes and the expulsion of

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suspected intifada leaders. These actions have caused a

stalemate. The Israelis have learned to live with the costs and

discomforts of the intifada in terms of a low level of casualties,

a significant percentage of the annual defense budget, a

cleavage within the security establishment in regard to the

continued value of the occupied territories, and a pronounced

decline in public morale. The Palestinians have clearly

registered certain gains. From their perspective, they have, in

a certain manner, recreated the “green line” (the 1967

boundary) because travel by Israelis into the territories after

the start of the uprising is limited to the settler population and

the army. In addition, Palestinians, at great human and

material cost, have succeeded in placing their cause near the

top of the international agenda; they also have raised the cost

of the Israeli occupation.

Of greatest significance on the diplomatic level has been the

development of a parallel Palestinian leadership within the

territories during the intifada that forced Yasir Arafat to finally

accept a two-state solution in public at a UN General

Assembly meeting in Geneva in December 1988. This

development in turn began a series of official negotiations

between the PLO and the United States that were discontinued

when the PLO failed to officially and publically denounce

Palestinian acts of terrorism against Israel that followed.

The Consequences of the

1991 Persian Gulf War

While the intifada met with certain important successes

during its early stages, it ultimately has not been capable of

altering the strategic or economic calculus of Israeli

policymakers. Failure to alter this balance of incentives has

thrown the Palestinians, once again, into a dependency

relationship with the Arab “confrontation” states and the

United States. However, the allied destruction of most of the

offensive capabilities of the Iraqi armed forces in turn has

reinforced the shifting strategic orientation of the other key

Arab confrontation state, Syria. The results of the Western

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military reaction not only eliminated Iraq as an “expeditionary”

force member of an eastern front against Israel but also further

placed the Soviet Union on the diplomatic sidelines in the region.

Furthermore, the rapidly deteriorating economic (as well as

political) situation within the USSR increased the Soviet reliance

on the West for its economic reconstruction, and this economic

crisis, in turn, reinforced the Soviet-political forces who favored

enhancing the flow of Soviet-Jewish emigration to Israel. Any of

these fast-moving events and forces had the potential to alter the

policy frame of references of the major actors in the region. Since

they occurred in such a compressed period of time, they created

a unique situation for breaking the status quo of the Arab-Israeli

conflict.

The Arab state perspective found the war option far less

realizable in the present and the foreseeable future than in

recent memory. However, the Arab states, with the exception of

Jordan, can live with the status quo, if a peace process fails to

produce results, until the point that Israel assimilates or

annexes the occupied territories. At the point of Israeli

annexation, the possibility of future peace not only would be

eliminated, but the Arab world would be impelled to plan and

prepare for a war similar to that of 1973.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, not only have no war

option but can only see the extension of the status quo, under

the current circumstances of the rapidly accelerating settlement

policy within the territories, as disastrous to their future hopes

for self-determination of any sort west of the Jordan River. Yet,

Yasir Arafat’s support of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait reinforced

the mistrust of the Israeli “man in the street” regarding the true

intentions of the Palestinians despite the PLO’s official

recognition of Israel’s “right to exist” in December 1988.

The United States and the

Future Balance of Incentives

The Arab-Israeli conflict became prolonged because of the

particular confluence of domestic, regional, and international

forces. This confluence has both shielded the Arab side from

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having to make domestically unpopular political decisions

aimed at terminating the conflict as well as reinforced its

ability to pursue a protracted strategy. For its part, Israel may

have wanted to force a conclusive decision at any point during

the decades-long conflict but realized that the demographic

and geographic asymmetries between the antagonists

prohibited such a conclusion. This led to a protracted

defensive strategy on the part of Israel; however, following the

successful offensive of 1967, a significant growth began of the

social and political forces aspiring to retain the captured

territories.

The cultural and psychological views each side had of the

other also influenced the duration of the conflict. For a long

time, the Arab side saw the Israelis as a “Jewish version” of

the crusades. By believing that Israel was an artificial entity,

foreign to the history and culture of the region, Arab political

leaders and intellectuals believed that time was on their side,

as the “artificial entity” would weaken from its own internal

contradictions and from Arab tactics. This assumption

reinforced the view that a protracted strategy was conducive to

the “withering away” of the artificial entity.

As noted, just as the Israeli strategy appeared to be bearing

fruit and the ideological fervor in parts of the Arab world

seemed to be losing some of its strength, changes occurred

within Israel’s domestic political system that reinforced

ideological claims to the very territories required for a future

bargain with the Arab side. Thus, one may conclude that one

consequence of this prolonged conflict, best characterized by

protracted strategies for each antagonist, is the formation of

domestic forces on either or both sides who in turn alter their

policymakers’ agendas in dealing with the other side.

External forces helped to prolong the conflict by giving each

side the means to exercise their protracted strategies. At the

present time, despite its hegemonical position in the region,

the United States cannot sufficiently alter the balance of

incentives for the local actors to bring about a change of heart.

However, the United States can manage the status quo so that

the local actors find it disadvantageous not to enter and stay

in a peace process that takes on a life of its own. The process,

if prudently guided, could alter the beliefs, fears, and

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ambitions of the respective populations and could lead to a

comprehensive regional settlement that could allow for Israel’s

real security needs and the political rights of the Palestinian

people.

Notes

1.-J. C. Hurewitz, The Struggle for Palestine (New York: Schocken Books,

1976), 18.

2.-Nadav Safran, From War to War: The Arab-Israeli Confrontation,

1948–1967 (New York: Pegasus Press, 1969), 28–29.

3.-Yoav Gelber, “Ben-Gurion and the Establishment of the IDF,” The

Jerusalem Quarterly 50 (Spring 1989): 62–63.

4.-Safran, 39.

5.-J. C. Hurewitz, Middle East Politics: The Military Dimension (New York:

Praeger Pubishers, 1969).

6.-Professor Yehoshafat Harkabi, former chief of IDF intelligence, Arab

Attitudes Toward Israel (New York: Hart Publishers Co., 1971).

7.-Gen Yehoshafat Harkabi, Arab Strategies and Israel’s Response (New

York: Macmillan Publ. Co., 1977), 9.

8.-Ibid., 10.

9.-Ibid. See also Harkabi’s assessment of Nasser’s preconditions for a

lighting victory over Israel.

10.-Shlomo Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the

Middle East: Opacity, Theory, and Reality, 1960–1990—An Israeli

Perspective (New York: SUNY Press, forthcoming); Leonard Spector, The

Undeclared Bomb (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1988); Louis Rene Beres,

ed., Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Lexington, Mass.:

Heath, 1986); and Robert Harkavy, “After the Gulf War: The Future of Israeli

Nuclear Strategy,” The Washington Quarterly 14, no. 3 (Summer 1991):

161–79.

11.-Aronson, 467.

12.-Allon’s strategic concepts are developed in many professional forums.

However, A Curtain of Sand (Tel Aviv: Hakibutz Hameuchad, 1959, Hebrew)

remains the blueprint of his thoughts.

13.-Aronson, 143–44.

14.-For an organizational history of the Palestinian movements, see

William B. Quandt, Fuad Jabber, and Ann Mosely Lesch, The Politics of

Palestinian Nationalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973).

15.-Nadav Safran, Israel, the Embattled Ally (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1978), 437.

16.-Aronson, 221.

17.-Stewart Reiser, The Israeli Arms Industry: Foreign Policy, Arms

Transfers, and Military Doctrine of a Small State (New York: Holmes & Meier,

1989).

18.-Ze’ev Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari, Israel’s Lebanon War (New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1984); and Itamar Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon,

1970–1983 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).

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19.-Books and articles abound regarding the uprising by Arab, American,

and Israeli scholars. The Palestinian perspective is best articulated by a

diverse and extensive collection of articles in the Journal of Palestinian

Studies: A Quarterly on Palestinian Affairs and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Ze’ev

Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari have written Intifada: The Palestinian

Uprising—Israel’s Third Front (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989); Don

Peretz has contributed Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising (Boulder, Colo.:

Westview Press, 1990); and Israeli Brig Gen (Res) Aryeh Shalev, The Intifada:

Causes and Effects (Israel: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv

University, 1991).

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Prolonged Conflict in the Sudan

Ann Mosely Lesch

Protagonists in internal conflicts that lead to high levels of

violence tend to view their situation in zero-sum terms.

Defense of national identity, the survival of the community, or

the future of the economic class appear at stake in the

struggle. Thus, although the intensity of the violence can

fluctuate, the stakes are so high that a negotiated resolution is

difficult. Powerful forces undermine attempts to resolve the

conflict, in part, because the benefits from conflict are more

immediate than the benefits from peace and, in part, because

each group believes that only a clear victory for its own side

can be the acceptable outcome.

When conflicts start, protagonists often expect them to end

quickly. Governments may view a rebellion as an illegitimate

action by outlaws that can be thwarted by police action or as a

manifestation of grievances that can be contained by coopting

rebels into the political system. Groups that challenge the

regime may consider the system already so decayed that it can

be easily toppled, may believe that a simple change in the top

leadership will accomplish their goals, or may anticipate that

the government will soon accede to their demands.

In some situations, however, rebels prepare a protracted

strategy to achieve their aims. They anticipate a lengthy period

of guerrilla warfare and other unconventional means of

pressure through which public attitudes will be transformed

and the morale of government officials and troops undermined. That strategy, when coupled with intensive diplomatic

contacts, may lead to the anticipated transformation of

relationships and foster alliances that cut across the violent

divide. However, the strategy may also increase polarization

and harden opposition in certain sectors of the public. Tactics

on both sides may alienate rather than attract support and

diminish the prospects for mutual accommodation.

Moreover, the country may bog down in a seemingly endless

struggle, in which casualties, social dislocation, and economic

99
hardships burden everyone. The struggle may become

prolonged far beyond either side’s desire to continue, with

polarization so profound that neither side can end the contest

without admitting defeat. No resolution would then be possible

short of the total defeat of one side by the other.

The internal war that began in Sudan in 1983 fits the

patterns of protracted conflict. The military officers who

launched the guerrilla struggle sought to transform the

country’s political structure. They recognized that an extended

time period would be required and systematically built up

their fighting capacity. Their efforts brought them to the brink

of success in 1989 when a broad range of sociopolitical groups

pressed the government to negotiate a fundamental resolution

of the issues that had caused the civil war. But the seizure of

power by hardline politico-military forces that summer

preempted negotiations and exacerbated polarization. The new

government insisted on a total victory and wanted to impose

its own ideological vision on the society, a vision diametrically

opposed to the rebels and to the social forces that supported

negotiations. Since then, the struggle has been prolonged in

ways that destroy the already weak economy, undercut its

sovereignty, and damage the body politic.

Overview

The Sudan is the largest country in Africa, covering 1

million square miles.1 Its 23 million residents, scattered

across that wide expanse, derive from a complex mix of ethnic

groups. Arabic culture and ethnicity predominate, even

though 60 percent of the population belongs to such African

peoples as Nubian, Fur, Nuba, Dinka, Shilluk, and numerous

others in the far south. Moreover, more than 70 percent of the

citizens are Muslim by religion, including many non-Arab

peoples. Traditional African religions predominate in the

south, and perhaps 6 percent are Christian, of whom most

derive from churches established during the Anglo-Egyptian

condominium (1898–1956).

During the British-dominated colonial era, the western

districts of Dar Fur and Nuba Mountains and the entire

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southern one-third of the country were kept isolated from the

central Nile Valley. At independence they were incorporated

into a unified political system, in which Arab politicians, with

their well-articulated political structures and leading role in

the negotiations for independence, assumed dominant

positions. Political decisions were made in Khartoum and

economic development was concentrated in the Nile Valley.

Peripheral areas—which tended to be non-Arab and/or

non-Muslim—felt marginalized.

Residents of the south rejected that status most forcefully.

They waged guerrilla warfare for 17 years, from mid-1955 until

1972. Having been denied their demand to decentralize

authority onto the regions, many southerners pressed for

separation and the formation of their own state. They were

also angered by government measures to Arabize the educational and administrative systems in the south and to restrict

Christian churches. In the mid-1960s, officials and political

groups in Khartoum began to respond to southern demands,

when proposals for regional self-rule were discussed in a

round-table conference and other political fora.

No conceptual breakthrough occurred until 1969, when the

new military ruler, Col Ja’far Muhammad Numairi, declared

that the government “recognizes the historic and cultural

differences between the North and South and firmly believes

that the unity of our country must be built on these objective

realities. [Therefore, the south should have] regional autonomy

within a united Sudan.”2 That approach was embodied in the

Addis Ababa accord of February 1972 that ended the civil war.

The entire south would comprise one region, with its own

assembly and elected executive. The region had an independent budget and tax sources to control internal security and

local administration in the social, cultural, and education

fields. English, rather than Arabic, was recognized as the

principal language in the south. (The Sudanese constitution of

1973 explicitly accorded respect to Christianity and traditional

beliefs as well as Islam.) Moreover, the Addis Ababa accord

specified that the guerrilla forces, known as the Anya Nya,

would be gradually absorbed into the army and would serve in

the south. Southerners thereby relinquished their demand for

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independence in return for gaining substantial self-rule and

protection from pressure from the center.

Numairi never allowed the system to function as intended.

He frequently interfered in the operation of the regional

government to prevent independent power bases from

emerging. By the 1980s, as Numairi strengthened his alliance

with radical Islamic political forces, he actively undermined

southern autonomy. That effort culminated in his unilateral

redivision of the south into three provinces in June 1983.

Redivision undermined the already limited self-rule and freed

Numairi to institute a version of an Islamic criminal code in

September 1983, a crucial step towards establishing an

Islamic state in which he would be the imam (religiously

sanctioned ruler), and non-Muslims would have second-class

status. The “September laws” were widely opposed by Muslims

in the north as well as by citizens in the south and contributed

to increasingly overt public opposition that culminated in a

popular uprising in Khartoum that overthrew Numairi on 6

April 1985. Public discontent was also galvanized by economic

crises triggered by drought, failed agro-industrial projects,

high-level corruption, and renewed war in the south.

Fighting erupted there for the second time after the forcible

suppression of mutinies in Bor and Pibor on 16 May 1983. The

soldiers, who came from Anya Nya units absorbed into the

army after the Addis Ababa accord, had resisted illegal orders

to be transferred north.3 Rather than negotiating a resolution

of the standoff, Numairi repressed the mutineers. After a

day-long battle, the commanders and soldiers evacuated Bor

and Pibor and regrouped in Ethiopia, where they coalesced

with soldiers who had fled to the bush after earlier mutinies.

Overall command was assumed by Col John Garang de

Mabior, an officer from the absorbed forces who deserted his

post in Khartoum to join the rebels. Garang welded the

disparate troops into the Sudan People’s Liberation Army

(SPLA) with its political wing, the Sudan People’s Liberation

Movement (SPLM).

The Bor mutiny triggered an uprising that caused unprecedented political turmoil, social disruption, and economic

collapse. Unlike Anya Nya, the SPLM did not want the south to

secede but sought to restructure the bases of political power in

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Khartoum. Its opposition to the September laws and Numairi’s

autocratic rule won support from the northern dissidents who

led the popular uprising that overthrew Numairi in April 1985.

But the SPLM felt the uprising was incomplete. Garang

criticized the transitional government set up in April 1985,

which combined a Transitional Military Council (TMC) with a

civilian cabinet.4 Even though the TMC pledged to return

power to an elected government within one year and even

though activists from the professional and trade union

movements were influential in the cabinet, the SPLM

mistrusted the transitional government. The power of

Numairi’s generals was intact: the SPLA could not forget that

the chairman of the TMC had urged Numairi to suppress the

Bor mutiny in 1983. And the September laws were not

rescinded.

The SPLM also criticized the parliamentary elections held in

April 1986, since the war prevented most southerners from

voting and since no constitutional transformation had yet

occurred. The elected prime minister, al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, also

failed to reach an understanding with the SPLA. Head of the

Umma party and great-grandson of the religiopolitical leader

who had ousted the Turco-Egyptian rulers a century earlier,

Mahdi articulated a vision of a liberal Islamic government that

would respect the rights of religious minorities within a

relatively centralized Muslim state. That approach was suspect

to the SPLM as well as to regional and secular political groups.

They argued that a political system had to be constructed that

would reflect the multireligious and multiethnic realities in

Sudan. The situation polarized further in May 1988, when the

National Islamic Front (NIF) joined the cabinet on a platform

committed to instituting a comprehensive Islamic legal system

within two months. NIF, a pillar of the Numairi regime, had

rejected negotiations with the SPLM that would restructure the

political system.

Meanwhile, the conservative Democratic Unionist party

(DUP) feared that its support among Muslim religious orders

was being undermined by the NIF and that the Umma-NIF

alliance would relegate the DUP to a minor role. DUP leaders

were also concerned that NIF’s absolutist approach would tear

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modation was required in the multiethnic Sudan. The DUP

therefore negotiated a path-breaking accord with the SPLM in

November 1988 that promised to freeze Islamic laws until a

national constitutional conference could make fundamental

decisions concerning the legal system and the nature of the

state. Mahdi and NIF rejected the DUP-SPLM accord, which

forced the DUP to pull out abruptly from the government in

late December 1988.

By then the SPLA controlled 90 percent of the countryside in

the south. A dozen army garrisons surrendered to its forces

that winter. By February 1989 the commanders of the armed

forces were fed up with Mahdi’s alliance with NIF and his

unwillingness to negotiate. They believed that a negotiated

resolution of the conflict was preferable to an endless,

draining, and unwinnable war. The defense minister resigned

abruptly and nearly 300 senior officers issued an ultimatum to

Mahdi in which they demanded that he negotiate peace if he

could not arm them adequately. They pressed him to implement the steps needed to conclude an agreement and convene

a constitutional conference. Under acute military pressure,

Mahdi removed NIF from the cabinet and formed a

broad-based government that began to adopt the measures

specified in the DUP-SPLM accord. When the foreign minister

met with SPLM leaders on 10 June 1989, they agreed to

finalize arrangements on 4 July and to convene the

constitutional conference on 18 September.

NIF rejected the terms of the officers’ ultimatum, which

required shelving Islamic law until the constitutional

conference could decide on the fundamental bases for rule.

NIF activists, recognizing that they could not institutionalize

their views by democratic means, conspired with hard-line

army officers to overthrow the regime. The coup d’etat on 30

June 1989 cast aside parliamentary institutions and banned

all political parties and unions. The new leader, Brig Gen

Umar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, tore up the DUP-SPLM accord

and accelerated military operations against the SPLA. In 1991

NIF consolidated its hold by proclaiming Sudan an Islamic

republic and organized it on a nominally federal basis. The

central government retained overwhelming financial and

executive powers, but states with non-Muslim majorities could

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exempt themselves from certain provisions of the Islamic

criminal law. Popular committees were formed on the Libyan

model to mobilize and control the public.

Despite the government’s sweeping arrests of political

activists and intellectuals, banned political and union forces

created a national democratic alliance (NDA) in October 1989

that called for the restoration of democracy by a campaign of

civil disobedience against the regime. The NDA charter was

formally endorsed by the SPLM in March 1990 and, in

September 1990, by the high command of the armed forces

that had been ousted after the coup. The officers even urged

army garrisons to stop fighting the SPLA and join forces

against the government. Thus, the political forces that sought

to restore democracy aligned with the leaders of the violent

rebellion in their common aim of destroying the NIF-led

military government.

The SPLM/SPLA had grown from a small band of mutineers

in 1983 to a broad-based movement that controlled nearly all

the south and allied with all the political groups opposing the

regime. If that alliance were to hold together and overthrow the

government, the SPLM might realize its far-reaching

aspirations. If, however, the government warded off those

challenges, the protracted conflict would continue to wreak

havoc on the society and the economy. With government and

opposition pursuing their struggle in zero-sum terms, no

compromise appeared possible.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement

The aims of the SPLM crystallized soon after its

establishment in 1983. Garang articulated comprehensive

goals: the creation of “a united Sudan under a socialist system

that affords democracy and human rights to all nationalities

and guarantees freedom to all religions, beliefs, and outlooks.

A united and socialist Sudan can be achieved only through

protracted revolutionary armed struggle. Peaceful struggle has

always been met with ruthless suppression and callous killing

of our beloved people.”5

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Goals and Structures

Garang emphasized that his aim was not merely to destroy

“Numairi’s one-man system of dictatorship” but also to

overthrow “any other minority clique regime in Khartoum” that

might attempt to replace Numairi. He stressed that the SPLM

was not a southern movement that focused on regional issues.

Rather, as a national Sudanese movement, the SPLM happened to emerge in the south where exploitation was especially

intense: “The marginal cost of rebellion in the south became

very small, zero or negative; that is, in the south, it pays to

rebel.” As such, the SPLM was the “vanguard movement for

the liberation of the whole Sudanese people.”

Garang declared that the “New Sudan” would be democratic

and guarantee equality, freedom, and economic and social

justice and respect human rights. The monopoly of power by

any one group must end, whether that monopoly is held by

“political parties, families’ dynasties, religious sects or [the]

army.”6 Consequently, Garang criticized the Transitional

Military Council as a “gang of generals,” Mahdi’s Umma party

and DUP as invidious exemplars of family dynasties linked to

religious sects, and NIF as an ideological sectarian movement.

The SPLM also rejected tribalism and racial distinctions as

bases of rule: “The emergence of regional political groups [is] a

natural revolt against the appalling conditions in which the

masses live in those areas,” but those conditions cannot be

overcome by viewing each region and group in isolation.

Rather, “the root causes of Sudan’s chronic social and political

instability are essentially national. As such, they should be

tackled nationally.”7 Once power was restructured in

Khartoum, each region could achieve genuine autonomy. Then

the central government would not monopolize power, and the

economies of the less-developed peripheries would benefit.

Since the SPLM rejected the limited approach embodied in the

Addis Ababa accord, Garang criticized government proposals

to negotiate solely concerning the south.

The SPLM’s aims were all-embracing and highly political.

Yet the movement was organized along military lines, since

force was its primary means to pressure and overthrow the

government. Diplomacy was initially viewed as secondary,

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since SPLM leaders believed that no negotiations would

succeed without control over territory and considerable

military leverage. Although a joint SPLM/SPLA high command

governed the movement, the primary responsibilities of its

senior members were to command particular battlefronts.

Decision making was complicated and slow, since messages

had to be sent to far-flung officers, responses collated, and

further discussion carried out before agreement could be

reached on major policies and diplomatic issues. Meetings

were logistically difficult to arrange and relatively infrequent.

Garang wielded special power. As the premier commander

articulated the goals of the movement with authority, he

provided direction of the overall military campaigns and served

as the leading diplomatic envoy. Senior officers played

prominent public roles in meetings with political groups and in

negotiating significant agreements.8

Until May 1991 the SPLM had its political headquarters in

Addis Ababa and maintained liaison offices in Nairobi and

London. The Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association

(SRRA), which provides humanitarian aid in the

SPLA-controlled areas, also has offices overseas. In practice,

SRRA operations are controlled by SPLA officers in the field,

even though the SRRA is legally independent. Similarly, the

SPLM did not develop an autonomous administrative structure

in the territories under its control. SPLA commanders

encouraged civil administrators, health personnel, and

teachers to return to their posts, once the area had been

secured by the SPLA. But no SPLM government was set up,

even though a substantial number of former high-level

administrators in the southern regional government joined the

movement. Considerable tension between civilian cadres and

leaders with solely military backgrounds therefore emerged.

Garang’s concern for political coherence within the

movement merged with his belief that maintaining the unity of

political and military cadres was essential for long-term

success. SPLM leaders remembered that the Anya Nya

rebellion suffered from military fragmentation and the

conflicting ambitions of rival politicians; the movement could

negotiate effectively with the central government only after Col

Joseph Lagu forcibly united the factions. The SPLM/SPLA

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faced competition initially from the reemerging separatist Anya

Nya movement, called Anya Nya II, whose leaders had deserted

the armed forces shortly before the Bor mutiny. They expected

him—senior in rank and age to Garang and the 1,200 men

from Bor and Pibor—to come under the authority of Anya Nya

II. Instead, in Garang’s words, the SPLA waged a “bitter

struggle” from June to November 1983 before the “correct

direction prevailed,” and the SPLA killed or won over the

“separatists, reactionaries, and opportunists.”9 The remaining

Anya Nya II received arms and funds from the government;

Anya Nya II was a low-cost way to harass the SPLA.

Nonetheless, after prolonged negotiations, the SPLM

appointed the most effective Anya Nya II commander, Gordon

Kong Chuol, to the SPLM/SPLA high command in January

1988. He led operations in his home district, fighting the army

garrisons that had previously funded him. Only remnants of

Anya Nya II remained under government control in Upper Nile.

Those Anya Nya II members who joined the SPLA felt that their

immediate interests coincided with the rebellion, even though

they were not interested in the comprehensive ideology

espoused by Garang; they emphasized the special needs of the

south, its African heritage, and the establishment of a federal

system of rule.

The SPLM lost the advantage of structural unity, however, in

August 1991 when three commanders split from Garang. Two

officers with a civilian background were supported by former

Anya Nya II Gordon Kong Chuol in demanding that Garang

resign, the SPLM institute internal democracy, that civilian

needs be given priority in the SPLM-ruled territories, and

temporary partition be accepted if that were the only means to

gain peace.10 The SPLM high command denounced the

dissidents but addressed the reformist demands by giving

qualified endorsement to the concept of establishing civil

administration. Clashes between the two sides during the fall

of 1991 threatened to exacerbate political differences.

Foreign Relationships

In addition to consolidating their internal bases, SPLM

leaders sought stable relations with foreign countries that

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could provide sanctuaries, material assistance, and diplomatic

support. The government of Mengistu Haile Mariam provided

the most substantial support. When the battalions from Bor

and Pibor took sanctuary in Ethiopia, Mengistu was already

hostile to Numairi, whom he accused of supporting Eritrean

secessionists and antiregime forces in Tigre and Oromo.

Mengistu preferred to support the SPLA rather than Anya Nya

II since Garang rejected the concept of secession. That support

continued during subsequent regimes in Khartoum, as the

basic tension in Sudanese-Ethiopian relations remained.11

Mengistu allowed the SPLA to operate a radio station, which

reported the SPLA’s military campaigns, the outcome of

meetings with Sudanese political groups, and the basic

philosophy of the movement. The radio served as a vital means

for the SPLM to transmit its message directly to the Sudanese

public. Ethiopia served as a sanctuary for SPLA forces. They

operated training camps, logistical centers, and a prison and

POW camp—all beyond the reach of the Sudanese army.

Moreover, by early 1991 more than 400,000 southern

Sudanese crowded into refugee camps operated by the SRRA

in western Ethiopia. Mengistu probably also provided military

support in the form of transport planes, helicopters, and

trucks that sometimes ferried SPLA forces and supplies among

base camps in western Ethiopia and even into Sudanese

territory. Ethiopian forces may have assisted the SPLA’s

attacks on certain border garrisons, since long-range artillery

shelled the towns from Ethiopian territory. In 1987 reports

surfaced that Cuban advisors to the Ethiopian army aided

SPLA operations; in 1990 similar rumors spread that Israeli

arms and advisors reached the SPLA through Ethiopia.

Garang denied contact with Israel and argued that such

rumors were designed to discredit the movement. He

maintained that most SPLA weapons came from the Sudanese

army itself, either captured in battle or seized when garrisons

were overrun. Other weapons, he asserted, were purchased on

the international market.

Mengistu facilitated contacts with Muammar Qadhafi, who

eagerly supported any groups that opposed Numairi. Garang’s

visit to Tripoli in April 1984 secured substantial military aid,

but the SPLM resisted Qadhafi’s pan-Arab political agenda.

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Cooperation ended abruptly when Numairi was overthrown

and Qadhafi signed a military protocol with the transitional

government. Tripoli subsequently provided not only sizeable

arms deliveries but also Libyan-piloted planes that bombed

SPLA positions on behalf of all three post-Numairi

governments. (Nonetheless, the SPLM never publicly attacked

Libya and continued to seek to reopen its office in Tripoli.)

The SPLM established significant relations with Egypt, a

pivotal country in both Africa and the Arab world. President

Husni Mubarak consistently sought a negotiated settlement

between the SPLM and the government. He facilitated

Garang’s meeting with al-Sadiq al-Mahdi at the summit of the

Organization of African Unity (OAU) in July 1986 and strongly

supported the talks in 1987–88 between the SPLM and the

DUP. Cairo also tried to arrange negotiations between the

SPLM and the military government that seized power in 1989

but shifted toward the antiregime National Democratic

Alliance (NDA) in spring 1990. Mubarak’s tilt became more

pronounced during the Gulf crisis that autumn in reaction to

Khartoum’s overt sympathy for Iraq.

Egypt provided credible diplomatic support to the SPLM as a

neutral but vitally concerned state. The SPLA also diversified

its territorial sanctuaries by the time Mengistu was

overthrown. That proved invaluable, since the groups that

seized power in Addis Ababa in May 1991 (assisted, not

surprisingly, by Khartoum) closed the SPLM office. The SPLM

hastily dismantled its radio station, and troops and refugees

surged across the border into Sudan. By then, the movement

controlled virtually all of Equatoria and had access to

neighboring Kenya and Uganda, although no SPLA forces were

stationed on their soil. Tentative contact had also been made

with Zaire and the Central African Republic, to which perhaps

65,000 Sudanese refugees had fled during fighting in

1990–91. Moreover, an agreement was reached with Chad in

1990 for SPLA and Dar Fur dissident forces to receive support:

the agreement was never implemented since the government

fell in December.

Nairobi, in particular, supplemented Ethiopia as a conduit

for military and relief supplies and a locale for political offices.

By mid-1988 Sudan’s government was so irritated at the

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high-profile SPLM and SRRA presence in Kenya that the

foreign minister charged President Daniel Arap Moi with

abetting the SPLM. Khartoum threatened to aid ethnic and

religious groups inside Kenya to destabilize the regime.

Nonetheless, Kenya let the SPLM and SRRA retain their

offices, and the relationship assumed enhanced importance

with the overthrow of Mengistu.

Relations became cordial with Uganda after Yoweri

Museveni came to power in January 1986. Despite Kampala’s

protestations of neutrality, supplies crossed into Equatoria

from Uganda. Khartoum attempted to respond by supporting

his predecessor Gen Tito Okello, whose forces launched

sporadic attacks across the border into northern Uganda.12

The Khartoum and Kampala governments managed, however,

to avoid diplomatic crises, and Museveni (as well as President

Mobutu of Zaire during his one-year term as OAU chair) tried

unsuccessfully to arrange meetings between Garang and the

Sudanese ruler.

Military Operations

The SPLA developed a five-pronged strategy to undermine

the government and the armed forces in the south by

mounting protracted operations that would wear them down.

The guerrilla forces sought to cripple major economic projects;

block communications routes; surround, isolate, and overrun

army garrisons; seize and administer towns; and expand the

fighting to the north. SPLA operations moved beyond purely

guerrilla tactics to include limited positional warfare and rule

over a vast territory.

First, the SPLA focused on destroying development projects

in the opening months of the civil war. The Water Buffalo

(jamus) Battalion, a combined SPLA/Anya Nya II force,

compelled a French contracting company to stop digging the

Jonglei Canal in November 1983. That ambitious and costly

project was intended to increase the amount of water for

agricultural projects in the south as well as in the north and in

Egypt. Another combined operation in February 1984, led by

Anya Nya II’s Oil Battalion and the new SPLA Tiger and

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Crocodile (tumsah) Battalions, forced Chevron to suspend

drilling for oil at Bentiu—another vital project that Numairi

had hoped would make Sudan self-sufficient in its energy

resources. Garang commented that those two operations were

designed “to achieve maximum shock and embarrassment”

while Numairi was negotiating with creditors in Paris.13 SPLA

leaders believed that they could force Numairi’s hand by

demonstrating the economic price he paid by adhering to his

policies. The actions also alerted Egypt and the United States

to the Sudanese crisis, since they underwrote the Jonglei and

Chevron projects, respectively.

Second, the SPLA attempted to block communication routes

within the south as well as between north and south. That

included boats and barges on the Nile River, the railway from

Kosti via Babanusa and from Aweil to Wau, the unpaved roads

that crisscrossed the region, and the airports in the provincial

capitals. SPLA’s ability to blow up railway bridges, ambush

truck and rail convoys, mine roads, and sink barges devastated the armed forces and economic life. Rebuilding bridges

and railway lines drained the government’s budget. By the end

of his rule, Numairi conceded that the army could not protect

communication routes in the south. Even resupplying

garrisons was generally impossible from April through October

because the summer rains made land routes impassable, and

cloud cover made flying hazardous. In February 1988, for

example, the SPLA sabotaged river barges approaching

Malakal, delayed a Juba-Bor overland convoy, and ambushed

a convoy from Juba to Torit; no additional supplies reached

Torit before it fell to the SPLA the next year.14

As a result of the SPLA’s effective grip on communication

routes, the government dropped supplies by air to garrisons

that lacked airports. But the SPLA used portable SAM-7

missiles to attack civilian and military planes as they landed

or took off from airports in the south. Garang claimed in

March 1986 that the SPLA had, in just two years, downed 13

military helicopters, two transport planes, and three of the air

force’s five F-5 fighters. In December 1987 and December

1988 Libya lost three of the four MiG-23s supplied to Sudan

and appealed to the SPLA to return captured pilots.15 Civilians

died in several attacks: the most widely publicized case

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involved the death of 60 people on a civilian plane that was hit

after it took off from Malakal airport on 16 August 1986. That

cost the SPLA considerable public sympathy and gave the

government an excuse to freeze diplomatic contact. The

political damage outweighed the short-term value to the SPLA

of forcing a three month’s halt of flights to the south. Garang,

however, insisted that blame lay with the government, which

frequently used civilian planes to ferry troops and supplies

and therefore made them potential targets.

Third, the SPLA sought to isolate strategically located towns

and army garrisons, initially in Upper Nile and Bahr al-Ghazal

provinces. By controlling the surrounding countryside, the

SPLA prevented soldiers from entering or leaving the garrisons

and disrupted civilian life with artillery shelling. The SPLA also

periodically occupied garrison towns on the Ethiopian border,

notably Nasir and Kurmuk, to catch the army off balance and

seize heavy weapons from its military supply bases.

Fourth, the SPLA seized and held populated towns once it

controlled sizeable areas and established reasonably secure

lines of communication into Ethiopia. The SPLA took over Yirol

and Tonj, for example, in eastern Bahr al-Ghazal during 1985

and gained dominant influence in Upper Nile by 1986–87.

(Access remained limited in central Bahr al-Ghazal, where the

government armed a Fertit militia against the SPLA, playing on

Fertit resentment of the populous Dinka.) Moreover, SPLA’s

Locust (jarad) Battalion rapidly consolidated its hold in

eastern Equatoria in the winter of 1987–88, which was

signaled by the capture of the strategic town of Kapoeta

astride the only land route from Juba and Torit to Kenya. As

local militias began to switch to the SPLA, bringing their

government-supplied arms with them, the guerrilla forces

swelled to nearly 40,000, according to Sudanese military

commanders. In their ultimatum to Mahdi in February 1989,

the officers complained of a serious disequilibrium in the

balance of forces. That imbalance enabled the SPLA in early

1989 to operate throughout the south and overrun not only

Torit (near Kapoeta) but also Nasir (Upper Nile on the

Ethiopian border), Nimule (near Uganda), and Jummayzah,

north of Juba. By May 1989, when the dry season ended, the

SPLA had gained control of the north-south land route and

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had seized three more towns, including Bor, where the 1983

mutiny had touched off the revolt. Only then did the SPLA

accept a UN-mediated cease-fire, which the government had

desperately sought throughout the spring.

That cease-fire ended in October 1989, when the threemonth-old military government launched a dry-season

offensive southward from Damazin. But the SPLA ambushed

those troops and pinned down government forces in the hilly

southern Blue Nile province. With an additional 50,000

government soldiers bottled up in Juba, the capital of

Equatoria, the SPLA mounted its own offensive in western

Equatoria. By March 1991 the SPLA had captured more than

16 garrisons and six important towns, including Yambio and

Maridi. The SPLA controlled all of Equatoria except Juba and

Yei. Juba had to be supplied by air from Khartoum, and the

only convoy that reached Yei from Juba in the winter of

1990–91 took three weeks to travel that 100-mile route.16

The seizure of western Equatoria completed phase three of

the SPLA operations in the south, code named Bright Star. In

the winter of 1990–91, the fourth phase (intended to be the

final phase) began as SPLA forces moved into western Bahr

al-Ghazal and intensified operations in central Bahr al-Ghazal

around Wau and along the railway near Aweil. The SPLA

controlled an area larger than Uganda or Ghana but remained

vulnerable. Aerial bombardment damaged the towns and

complicated the task of caring for civilian residents. Moreover,

the military government tried to prevent international food and

medical aid from reaching SPLA-controlled areas by delaying

the signing of agreements with the United Nations that would

permit emergency airlifts and even by bombing authorized

relief flights and distribution centers. In 1990 the UN

estimated that 3.5 million of the 5.5 million southern residents

had fled their homes during the seven years of war; entire

areas were depopulated, with cattle and crops lost.17 The

SRRA lacked resources to cope with that overwhelming

dislocation. Coupled with the SPLM/SPLA’s apparently weak

administrative structures, those difficulties indicated the

problems that the movement faced in moving from a purely

guerrilla struggle to static operations in which the SPLA would

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hold fixed positions, and the SPLM would bear responsibility

for the well-being of the local population.

Fifth, the SPLA tried to expand the fighting to the north,

notably southern Blue Nile, southern Kordofan, and southern

Dar Fur. The Kurmuk operations signaled that the SPLA could

operate on the fringes of the northern provinces since Kurmuk

was located in the Ingessana Hills of southern Blue Nile

province. The loss of that province’s vital hydroelectric installations and agroindustrial areas would black out Khartoum

and destroy sugar and cotton projects in which the government had invested substantial resources. After the SPLA

seized Kurmuk in November 1987 and hundreds of civilians

and wounded soldiers fled to Damazin, Mahdi mobilized

frantically to recapture the town. The army suffered heavy

casualties in the effort and remained vulnerable to ambushes.

Moreover, the SPLA made inroads among the Ingessana people

who were already angry at the government and private

businessmen for establishing agricultural projects near

Damazin that drove them off their traditional lands.

The SPLA also capitalized on grievances among the peoples

in the Nuba Mountains of southern Kordofan.18 Long-standing

tensions between Nuba and Arab tribes over water and grazing

rights were exacerbated both by the alienation of land to

private mechanized agricultural schemes and by drought,

which forced herders to move into the Nuba-populated hills.

Nuba political groups supported the aims of the SPLM and

decried the government’s use of Nuba foot soldiers against the

SPLA. By mid-1985 the transitional government responded by

arming Arab villages, initially for self-protection. Mahdi

increased support for those militias, which raided Nuba

villages and Dinka, Shilluk, and Nuer areas in Bahr al-Ghazal

and Upper Nile. Militia raids and SPLA operations devastated

the rural areas. Civilians who fled to southern Kordofan to

escape the fighting were sometimes killed by revenge-driven

Arab militias, as in the massacres of Dinka in Daien in 1987

and of Shilluk in Jabalayn in 1989. Only after the SPLM and

the NDA aligned in 1990 were there serious attempts to

reconcile the peoples: Mahdi’s Umma party reversed its prior

support for the Arab militias, and the NDA reached an accord

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with the SPLA for Nuba to train and fight jointly against the

military government’s forces.

That accord was extended to political movements in the

westernmost region of Dar Fur where many had long resented

control from Khartoum. They were also angry that central

governments allowed Chadian rebels to camp in Dar Fur,

thereby provoking retaliation by the Chad army. IntraChadian battles destroyed villages and livestock in Dar Fur,

particularly in 1989–90. Nonetheless, relations were limited

between the SPLA and the Dar Fur groups because of the vast

distance separating them. Guerrilla warfare was hampered in

the stark terrain of Dar Fur and southern Kordofan by the lack

of cover and a limited rainy season. The air force bombed and

burned villages in periodic scorched-earth retaliations, and the

SPLA could not supply its guerrilla outposts in the west

systematically.

By 1992 the SPLA controlled nearly all of the south and had

probed into the north. But the loss of its sanctuary in Ethiopia

set back its operations and helped to precipitate a serious split

within SPLA ranks in late August 1991. With eastern Upper

Nile under the dissidents’ control, intra-SPLA fighting

weakened the movement and eased the government’s task.

The sharp decrease in financial and arms support to the SPLA,

just as it faced the increased costs of providing for refugees

fleeing Ethiopia and internal displaced persons, risked

overwhelming its rudimentary administrative structure.

Moreover, the SPLA lacked the capacity to move north toward

Khartoum. Despite its control over nearly one-third of the

country, the SPLA realized the fighting had reached a

stalemate.

Perspectives from Khartoum

Government officials and politicians in Khartoum reacted to

the SPLM/SPLA according to their own perceptions of the

political realities in Sudan. The dominant political

groups—notably Mahdi’s Umma party, DUP, and NIF, which

together controlled 83 percent of the seats in the parliament

elected in 1986—viewed Sudan as a predominantly Arab and

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Muslim country, within which the south comprised a discrete

entity. The geographically peripheral areas appeared politically

marginal: political life revolved around the needs and

perspectives of the Nile Valley core. Moreover, those politicians

assumed that the Muslim majority had the right to institute

Islamic legal codes concerning not only their own personal

matters but also political, economic, and social life. The

non-Muslim minority would have to accept that reality but

would retain freedom of worship and certain other legal

protections.

In light of those perspectives, officials and politicians from

the dominant parties tended either to stress the

insubstantiality of the SPLM as a political movement or to

argue that its values were so threatening that accommodation

was impossible. If the rebellion was merely “Garang’s

movement,” the SPLA need not be taken seriously, and the

leader’s personal ambitions could be satisfied by an honorary

post in Khartoum. If the SPLM were an extension of the

secessionist Anya Nya movement, restoring the Addis Ababa

accord and offering economic aid to the south could end the

uprising. (Only in the fall of 1991 did it appear that the

dissident commanders of the SPLA might accept separation, at

least as a temporary measure.) Another delegitimizing tactic

was taken by politicians who argued that the SPLM was not

the sole voice representing the south by arguing that several

southern parties won seats in the elections of April 1986 and

could represent the region in a constitutional conference.

Other politicians claimed that the rebellion would collapse

without support from Israel or communist states. The NIF

military government sought to mobilize Arab support by

arguing that Israel aided Ethiopia and, by extension, the SPLA

to control the Red Sea and encircle the Arab world. Mahdi

frequently called Garang a puppet of Mengistu and argued

that Ethiopia sought to impose a Marxist regime on Sudan,

with help from Moscow and Havana.

Primarily, however, political leaders argued that the SPLM

was fundamentally anti-Arab and anti-Muslim in mounting a

challenge to the structure of power in Khartoum and therefore

had to be defeated at all cost. They appealed to Libya, Iran,

and the Gulf states for financial and military aid on the

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grounds that Garang would impose an African identity on the

Muslim Arab majority in Sudan.19 Islamic-oriented politicians

viewed the SPLM’s insistence on a secular constitution as

proof of its anti-Muslim orientation, rather than as a reflection

of its concern for upholding the multireligious dimensions of

Sudan. NIF adherents blamed western Christian churches

which, they argued, sought to thwart the natural spread of

Islam in Africa.20 A movement that embodied African racism,

Christian missionary influence, Zionist designs, and/or

Marxist dogma could be delegitimized. The speaker proved

that negotiations were impractical and impossible and

reinforced the image of a zero-sum conflict.

Nevertheless, some political forces in Khartoum addressed

Sudan’s problems from perspectives that were compatible with

the SPLM and thereby prevented the conflict from becoming

entirely zero sum. The charter drawn up by the professional

and trade union groups that underpinned the uprising in April

1985 supported the secular constitution of 1956 (as amended

in 1964). In March 1986 a broad range of political parties and

unions met with the SPLM in Ethiopia and issued the joint

Koka Dam Declaration that resolved to create the New Sudan

“free from racism, tribalism, sectarianism and all causes of

discrimination and disparity.”21 The declaration asserted that

the “basic problems, not the so-called southern problem” must

be addressed and that the government must repeal the Islamic

laws of September 1983 and promulgate the constitution of

1956. Those resolutions indicated that bases for dialogue and

agreement existed between the SPLM and potentially

influential political and intellectual groups. And yet most

parties that signed the Koka Dam Declaration lacked

representation in the parliament elected the next month. The

Communist party, Nuba-based Sudan National party, and

coalition of African parties totalled barely 17 percent of the

MPs. On their own, they could not transform the conflict from

zero sum to positive sum, although their efforts could

contribute to that transformation.

Thus, only a minority of the political forces in Khartoum

sought to construct a constitutional system that would

incorporate the political perspectives of the SPLM. The

majority in the government and parliament tried to contain the

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movement by force and avoid making political concessions.

Numairi viewed the rebellion as a mutiny that could be

stamped out, even though his generals warned him that the

strife would drain his resources. The TMC sent missions to

Arab countries in search of military and financial aid so that

the armed forces could quell the SPLM or negotiate from a

position of strength.

Mahdi built up the armed forces and sought to persuade

Ethiopia to stop assisting the SPLA. His heightened rhetoric

after the SPLA shot down the civilian plane in Malakal (August

1986) and overran Kurmuk (November 1987) helped win extra

Arab armaments but could not turn the tide militarily. Mahdi

relied on direct Libyan air support to help recapture Kurmuk:

by February 1988 Tripoli provided more than one-half of the

military aid received in Khartoum. NIF encouraged Mahdi to

look to Iran for support, once the Iran-Iraq war ended in

August 1988. Ironically, Iraq also armed Sudan, supplying jet

fighters, transport planes, rockets, and heavy guns. Despite

Iraqi and Libyan airlifts of supplies, towns and garrisons fell to

the SPLA at an accelerating pace. By winter 1988–89, Jordan,

Saudi Arabia, and Oman rejected Sudanese appeals for arms,

disillusioned by the possibility of a military solution to the civil

war. (Iraq also briefly withheld arms, protesting pro-Iranian

statements by NIF.) The government paid a substantial

political price for military aid. Libya, in particular, expanded

its influence in Dar Fur and pressed politicians to support

unity between the two countries.

The military regime that seized power in 1989 depended

heavily on arms from Libya, Iraq, and Iran. Qadhafi gained

free access to Dar Fur, which served as a sanctuary for the

Chadian rebels under Idris Deby and as the vital launching

pad for the rebels’ thrust into Chad to overthrow the

government in December 1990. Qadhafi also won an

integration charter in 1990, the establishment of Libyan-style

popular committees (jamahiri) in Sudan, and joint pledges to

disseminate the Arabic language and culture throughout the

country. Saddam Hussein received his payoff when Bashir

supported Iraq’s stance against the international coalition;

Sudan thereby antagonized Egypt and the Gulf states. When

Iraq was defeated, NIF turned to Iran, whose diplomats

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declared that the Sudanese civil strife was a war of “Islam

versus blasphemy.”22 Iran viewed the Sudan as a means to

promote Islam throughout Africa and provided substantial

funds to NIF to purchase Chinese weapons for the government. Chinese teams also trained Sudanese pilots, following

the signing of an accord in March 1991. Meanwhile, Khartoum

succeeded in helping to overthrow Mengistu in May 1991.

Bashir supported several opposition groups, but especially

favored an Islamic-oriented group among the Oromo people

who attacked SPLA forces and refugees in western Ethiopia.

The long-term aim of eliminating the SPLA’s presence in

Ethiopia finally succeeded.

The governments paid heavy prices financially and in

national sovereignty to prosecute the war. Under Numairi, the

government admitted that the war cost $1 million a day; under

Bashir, the cost skyrocketed to $3 million daily. Bashir’s

government conceded, at its conference on peace prospects in

September 1989, that 4,593 soldiers and officers had died

since 1984, as well as 2,700 policemen. (The conference also

stated that the total military casualties reached 340,000;

27,000 members of the SPLA had died; 62,000 civilians had

died from the violence; and another 260,000 civilians had died

from disease and starvation.)23

The economic cost escalated. Numairi accumulated a

$9-billion debt by 1985, which soared to $13 billion by 1990.

Bashir admitted that one-half of that debt was due to

economic projects that were cancelled in the south.24 The

fighting wrecked plans to diversify cash crops and reduce

dependence on foreign oil. The cost of living soared as the

government frantically printed money and raised prices; severe

food shortages spread in the towns as well as the countryside.

Foreign donors withheld assistance, and the International

Monetary Fund (IMF) froze loans to Sudan in February 1986.

In the fall of 1990 the IMF issued a formal Declaration of

Non-Cooperation that isolated Khartoum from virtually all

international donors except China, Iran, and Libya.

Economic collapse was an important reason for

governments to seek a way out of the conflict. The finance

minister argued in April 1987 that negotiations with the SPLM

were essential: since the war consumed most of the general

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budget, neither balanced budgets nor economic reforms were

possible as long as the war continued.25 The economic crisis

was a factor in the decision of DUP to initiate talks with the

SPLM a year later. A senior party member stated:

We are in a terrible and deteriorating economic situation and

threatened to lose our democracy, indeed our independence. We will

never be able to stand on our feet unless there is stability, which can

only be achieved by stopping the war—which is why the initiative was

made.26

In contrast, Bashir’s government refused to let economic

collapse and even widespread famine deter its efforts to

prosecute the fighting. The government sold its entire reserve

stock of grain to Libya and Iraq and Europe in 1990 to finance

the war. The government did not admit that the country

lacked food until October 1990, despite reports that the grain

crops had failed in the west, east, and south.

Obstacles to Conflict Resolution

In view of the polarity between the dominant political forces

in Khartoum and the SPLM, creating mechanisms to overcome

the mutual distrust and resolve the conflict was a laborious

process. Nonetheless, major obstacles to negotiations—if not

to ultimate agreement—were overcome by mid-1989. The coup

d’etat cancelled four years of effort and deepened the divide.27

Until the Koka Dam Declaration of March 1986, northern

political forces did not realize fully that the SPLM would refuse

a political settlement based on the Addis Ababa accord and

would insist on adhering to its comprehensive program to

transform the government in the center. For the north,

according limited self-rule to the south was easier than

countenancing a fundamental shift in power in Khartoum. By

November 1985, however, the transitional government

accepted Garang’s idea of convening a constitutional

conference to establish agreed upon legal bases for the

political system. But the government was not willing to annul

the September laws prior to the conference, as the SPLA

demanded. Both sides jockeyed for advantage on the ground,

believing that the other side would not make significant

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political concessions until it was hurt militarily. The continued

fighting, in turn, made each side more suspicious of the

other’s intentions.

If the Koka Dam meeting had convened in January 1986, as

its organizers had hoped, its resolutions could have

encouraged the promulgation of a new, secular constitution

and cease-fire prior to the April elections. In fact, the

conference met barely two weeks before the elections and had

no impact on their outcome. Thus, even though terms of the

conference met virtually all of the SPLM’s requirements—in

particular repealing the September laws and adopting the

1956 constitution—the new prime minister, al-Sadiq al-Mahdi,

ignored these terms. If he had pledged to implement them,

Mahdi could have ended the guerrilla warfare after only three

years, with relatively limited destruction of the social fabric

and economy and with relatively limited political polarization

within the Sudan as a whole. Instead, Mahdi signed a coalition

agreement with DUP that endorsed the Islamic-oriented draft

constitution of 1968 and indicated that he sought modified

Islamic laws that would protect religious minorities. His room

for maneuver was also limited by NIF, which formed a vocal

opposition bloc in the assembly to prevent any dilution of

Islamic law.

Attempts at personal diplomacy between Mahdi and Garang

failed to bridge the gap: Mahdi tried to bypass Koka Dam,

which Garang insisted was the only legitimate framework of

negotiations.28 Mahdi claimed that Garang had negotiated in

bad faith when the SPLA subsequently shot down a civilian

airplane. Garang claimed that Mahdi intended to accelerate

the war by turning to Libya for additional bombers and

shooting down the peace process itself by refusing to engage in

further meetings with him.

Nine months later, when the government’s dry-season

offensive ended inconclusively in April 1987, both sides

resumed their tentative contact. Garang noted that dialogue

was necessary since neither side could win militarily, and

Mahdi responded with a proposal partly based on Koka

Dam.29 The September laws would “be replaced by a legal

position based on diversity in a way which satisfies the

aspirations of the Muslims in areas of Muslim majority and

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the aspirations of non-Muslims in other areas.” The SPLM

rejected Mahdi’s proposal and argued that Sudan was

multiracial and multireligious; therefore, Islamic law must be

abolished rather than reinforced. The SPLM questioned the

sincerity of Mahdi’s commitment to end the war since the

army had launched a military offensive two weeks after he

sent the letter and since the government declared an enhanced

state of emergency in late July.

The political groups that had organized the Koka Dam

meeting were scattered by then and could not take any

effective political initiative to counter Mahdi’s approach.

Rather, the African (Nuba and southern) parties represented in

parliament took the lead. They held three meetings with the

SPLM during August and September 1987 that restated

support for the Koka Dam Declaration. They also persuaded

Umma and DUP (but not NIF) to sign a transitional Sudan

charter on 10 January 1988 that stressed the dual Arab and

African identity of Sudan and the importance of sharing power

and resources equitably within the country. Nonetheless,

Mahdi used the excuse of SPLA military victories to break off

diplomatic contact and countered the growing pressure to

negotiate by adding NIF to the cabinet in May 1988, on a

platform that insisted on full-scale Islamic laws.

The African parties could not counter that Umma-NIF

alliance. Rather, DUP broke the diplomatic impasse, not

because it accepted SPLM terms but because its leaders feared

political marginalization by Umma and NIF. The DUP-SPLM

accord, signed on 16 November 1988, agreed to the SPLM’s

long-standing preconditions: pending the convening of the

constitutional conference, the government would “freeze all the

clauses related to the hudud [Islamic punishments] and other

pertinent clauses included in the September 1983 laws. No

laws with clauses that refer to the above clauses shall be

enacted until the National Constitutional Conference is

convened and the issue of the laws is finally settled.”30 They

also agreed to abrogate military agreements that affected

national sovereignty, end the state of emergency, and declare a

cease-fire. A national preparatory committee would fix the

date, venue, and agenda of the conference which, they hoped,

would open on 31 December 1988.

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In effect, each side agreed to reserve its substantive

differences until the conference. The DUP leader noted: there

will be “a long debate and a great deal of argument at the . . .

conference [on these issues], but in the end we believe in the

democratic course. . . . Through dialogue and democratic

practice we shall be able to build a modern Sudan.”31 There

was no guarantee that the outcome of the conference would be

a secular constitution; instead, they agreed that debating

rather than fighting was the appropriate means to resolve the

country’s deepest divisions.

The DUP-SPLM accord was blocked by NIF and Mahdi

because it threatened their rule: DUP, SPLM, and the African

parties suddenly emerged as an alternative ruling coalition.

NIF leaders also feared that Islamic laws would never be

promulgated once they were frozen. The multiparty

fragmentation in Khartoum and relative power of Umma and

NIF prevented DUP from gaining parliamentary support for the

accord. The military high command had to step in to resolve

the crisis with its ultimatum in February 1989. The officers

forced Mahdi to form a broad-based government that excluded

NIF and to make the DUP’s chief negotiator with the SPLM the

foreign minister in charge of finalizing arrangements for the

constitutional conference.

The government and parliament formally endorsed the

DUP-SPLM accord, and parliament voted to shelve debate on

Islamic laws until the constitutional conference. The SPLA

responded with a cease-fire on 1 May for Ramadan, the

Islamic month of fasting, and both sides agreed that the state

of emergency would end simultaneously with the beginning of

a permanent cease-fire just before the constitutional

conference would convene on 18 September. As a final step, on

29 June Mahdi initialed the draft law that would suspend the

existing Islamic laws in preparation for a cabinet decision on

30 June and parliament’s vote on 1 July. The stage was set for

the government meeting with the SPLM on 4 July with all the

preconditions satisfied for the conference. Garang commented

later, “The peace process was at an advanced stage when the

fifteen army officers seized power.”32

With the establishment of Islamic-oriented military rule in

Khartoum, prospects for negotiations vanished. The

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government immediately canceled the DUP-SPLM accord,

reinstated the September laws, and reverted to viewing the

conflict as a southern problem. The officers insisted that

negotiations could not question the majority’s right to Islamic

laws. The nominally federation system promulgated in 1990

only allowed provinces with non-Muslim majorities to exempt

themselves from certain Islamic personal-status laws. The

SPLM countered with stiff terms of its own: the government

must restore democracy and accept the DUP-SPLM accord

before the war would end.

The two meetings between the junta and SPLM, held in

August and December 1989, reached a deadlock. SPLM negotiators spoke of “an extremely wide gap” and an “agreement to

disagree” after the first meeting.33 The gathering in Nairobi,

hosted by former US President Jimmy Carter on 1 December

1989, found itself presenting diametrically opposed positions.

No mediator could bridge the differences; if anything, the

meeting deepened the discord.34 Subsequent mediation

attempts by Mubarak and Mobutu through the OAU failed

even to get the two parties to the table. Similarly, an American

proposal to separate the two sides by an internationally

monitored buffer zone in the south proved a nonstarter.

Each side geared up for a military showdown. The SPLM

strengthened its ties with the NDA and former military high

command in 1990 and gained control over virtually all the

south. The government viewed substantive negotiations as

ideological suicide and deepened its ties with radical Libya,

Iran, and Iraq. The fall of Mengistu, however, affected the

political balance by reducing material support for the SPLM.

Some SPLA commanders calculated that, given the

impossibility of achieving the SPLM’s political aims, the

protracted struggle was destroying the country rather than

bringing about the anticipated transformation. They calculated

that the cost of war outweighed the benefits: the SPLM must

cut its losses and make peace, even on limited terms.

Otherwise, fighting could continue indefinitely or until the

south was destroyed. Whether the government would agree to

the de facto or de jure separation of the south as the price for

consolidating an Islamic regime in the north remained

uncertain. That radical excision of the major non-Muslim area

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would benefit the government at the price of relinquishing a

third of the country’s territory.

Three opportunities emerged to negotiate an end to the

prolonged war. The Koka Dam conference of 1986 and the

DUP-initiated accord of 1988–89 could have resulted in an

agreement that would restructure the political bases of power

in Sudan to meet the needs of the peripheral areas that the

SPLM claimed to represent. The fragmented nature of the

Sudanese political system, the weakness of the central government, and the lack of political consensus about the appropriate form of rule, however, enabled powerful political forces

to block the implementation of those accords. The third

opportunity, expressed by support for territorial partition,

approached the problem from a radically different angle, based

on the failure to reach a mutually acceptable accommodation

and a reversion to the view that the conflict is a zero-sum game.

The civil war in Sudan since 1983 thus represents a classic

prolonged war. The stakes have been so high that a negotiated

resolution is extremely difficult. Each side has perceived itself

as defending its core identity and ensuring the survival of its

political community. At key moments, one side or the other

has perceived the benefits from conflict as outweighing the

benefits of peace and has hoped that a clear military victory

will obviate the need for negotiated compromises. The struggle

has therefore been prolonged far longer than anyone

anticipated or sought and has caused profound suffering to

the people. Those living in the war zone have been affected

directly, but the economic and social life of the country as a

whole has been damaged by the nearly decade-long strife. The

collapse of the political agreement in 1989 meant that the civil

war would continue until another political transformation

occurred or until both sides accepted partition. The prolonged

conflict was destroying the people and society that the political

forces sought to preserve.

Notes

1.-For background, see Mohammed Omer Beshir, Revolution and

Nationalism in the Sudan (London: Rex Collings, 1974); P. M. Holt and M. W.

Daly, The History of the Sudan (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979); and

Peter Woodward, Sudan, 1898–1989: The Unstable State (Boulder, Colo.:

Lynne Rienner, 1990).

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2.-Quoted in full in Perspective on the South (Khartoum: Ministry of

Guidance and National Information, 1983), 21–22. For subsequent

developments in the south under Numairi, see Mom K. N. Arou and B.

Yongo-Bure, eds., North-South Relations in the Sudan Since the Addis Ababa

Agreement (Khartoum: University of Khartoum, 1988); and Raphael Koba

Badal, Oil and Regional Sentiment in Southern Sudan (Syracuse: Department

of Geography, Syracuse University, 1983).

3.-Abel Alier, Southern Sudan: Too Many Agreements Dishonoured

(Exeter: Ithaca Press, 1990), 244–47. Analyses of the causes and initial

period of renewed civil war include the author’s “Rebellion in the Southern

Sudan,” UFSI Report 8 (1985); and “Confrontation in the Southern Sudan,”

The Middle East Journal 40, no. 3 (Summer 1986).

4.-For details on 1985–1986, see the author’s “The Fall of Numairi,” UFSI

Report 9 (1985); “Transition in the Sudan,” UFSI Report 20 (1985); and

“Party Politics in the Sudan,” UFSI Report 9 (1986).

5.-All quotations in this paragraph come from Garang’s address on 3

March 1984 and are quoted in full in Mansour Khalid, ed., John Garang

Speaks (London: Kegan Paul, 1987), 21–23.

6.-Ibid., 26.

7.-Ibid., 112.

8.-Commanders who led negotiations included Col Kerubino Kuanyin Bol

(the former commander at Bor) at Koka Dam, March 1986; Chief of Staff Lt

Col William Nyuan Bany Deng (who led Ayod troops to the bush on 6 June

1983) with African parties, August 1987; Lt Col Lual Deng Wol with African

parties, September 1987; and Dr Lam Akol (former professor of engineering,

Khartoum University, who joined the SPLM in winter 1985–1986); Yusuf

Kuwa (Nuba officer, former member of the Kordofan regional assembly)

negotiated with DUP in August and October 1988. Akol also headed the

delegation at the meetings with the foreign minister on 10–12 June 1989

that finalized arrangements for the constitutional conference and met the

military government officials in the summer and fall of 1989.

9.-Khalid, 54. Concerning relations with Anya Nya II, see Alier, 251–55;

Africa Confidential, 30 October 1985; SPLA radio, 7 August 1985 and 28

January 1988; Omdurman (Sudan) radio, 17 August 1985; and Sudan News

Agency, 6 February 1988.

10.-Declaration on 28 August 1991 in Nasir (Upper Nile) by “SPLA Two,”

headed by Riek Mashar, Lam Akol, and Gordon Kong; reprinted in Sudan

Update 3, no. 4 (24 September 1991). The SPLM high command met in Torit

6–11 September. See Sudan Monitor 2, no. 4 (October 1991): 6.

11.-For a discussion of relations with Ethiopia in the context of Sudan’s

foreign policy, see the author’s “A View from Khartoum,” Foreign Affairs 65,

no. 4 (Spring 1987): 807–26. For details on foreign meddling in the civil war,

see the author’s “External Involvement in the Sudanese Civil War,” in

“Foreign Intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa: Making War and Waging

Peace,” ed. David R. Smock (US Institute of Peace, forthcoming 1992).

12.-When SPLA forces overran western Equatoria in the fall of 1989, they

captured Okello’s bases and virtually imprisoned them. The Sudan air force

then bombed Ugandan villages in November 1989 in which international

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relief supplies and personnel were located. See John Garang, speech in

Khalid, 20 March 1986, 139; Omdurman radio, 31 January 1986.

13.-Khalid, 45, 55. In a speech on 22 March 1985, Garang claimed that

the government spent $12 million to rebuild the Lol River railway bridge

alone.

14.-SPLA radio, 20–24 February 1988 and 2, 7 March 1988; Omdurman

radio, 21 February 1988 and 2, 3 March 1988; SUNA, 27 February 1988.

15.-SPLA radio, 18, 25 December 1987, claimed that one MiG-23 was

shot down by the SPLA and that the other crashed. On Libya’s appeals to

release the two pilots, the SPLA captured the previous year, see SUNA, 15

January 1989, and Middle East News Agency (MENA), Cairo, 20 January

1989. SPLA radio, 21 January 1989, claimed that the third MiG-23 was shot

down near Nasir within the previous six weeks. Earlier references to military

losses come from Ittihad, 5 March 1986; SUNA, 13 and 16 October 1985;

and SPLA radio, 14, 16 October 1985.

16.-Sudan radio, 11 February 1991. Africa Confidential 3, no. 22,

discussed the difficulty of supplying Juba and Yei. See Africa Confidential 3,

no. 22 (9 November 1990). See Sudan Monitor 3, no. 4 (October 1990).

Sudan Monitor commented that 200,000 displaced persons had crowded

into Juba, in addition to the 100,000 normal residents, and the army was

preventing anyone from leaving.

17.-UN and US figures cited in Sudan Update, 25 September 1990.

18.-Alier, 255–57.

19.-For an overview of Sudanese foreign policy, see the author’s “Sudan’s

Foreign Policy: In Search of Arms, Aid, and Allies,” in Sudan: State and

Society in Crisis, ed. John O. Voll (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1991), 43–70.

20.-See the arguments in Hassan Makki Mohamed Ahmed, Sudan: The

Christian Design (London: The Islamic Foundation, 1989).

21.-Khalid, 145.

22.-Quoted in Africa Confidential 3, no. 22 (9 November 1990). For

information on Chinese military aid to Sudan via Iran, see Sudan Democratic

Gazette 19 (December 1991): 1, 3; and on the political relationship with Iran

and Libya’s reaction, see Sudan Democratic Gazette 20 (January 1992): 1, 3,

7.

23.-MENA, 21 October 1989; and al-Watan al-Arabi, 9 February 1990.

24.-Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 16 July 1990.

25.-Dr Bashir Umar Fadlallah, former economics professor and member

of Umma, whose views on negotiations did not coincide with Mahdi, SUNA, 6

April 1987.

26.-Sid Ahmad Husayn, DUP’s chief negotiator with the SPLM, SUNA, 10

December 1988.

27.-Details on the conflict resolution process are provided in the author’s

“Negotiations in the Sudan,” in “Foreign Intervention in Sub-Saharan

Africa.”

28.-They met for nine hours in Addis Ababa on 31 July 1986; the author

interviewed Mahdi, 21 September 1986; and interviews with Garang in

al-Musawwar, 14 August 1987 and on SPLA radio, 9 November 1987.

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29.-Text of the letter broadcast on SPLA radio, 20 April 1987, the day

after the SPLM received it. Garang’s comments on SPLA radio, 6 April 1987;

and SPLM reaction to the letter on SPLA radio, 8 August 1987.

30.-Text found in MENA, 17 November 1988.

31.-Comments at their joint press conference, SPLA radio, 18–19

November 1988.

32.-SPLA radio, 14 August 1989; on the coup d’état, see the author’s

“Khartoum Diary,” Middle East Report 162 (November 1989): 36–38.

33.-AFP, 19 August 1989; and SPLA radio, 20, 22 August 1989.

34.-SPLA radio, 2, 4, 6 December 1989; al-Sharq al-Awsat, 5 December

1989; SUNA, 7 December 1989; and Omdurman radio, 7 December 1989.

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Fire in the Horn

Prolonged War in Ethiopia and Eritrea

Cobie Harris

The tragedy of Ethiopia is really an African tragedy because

a generation of Africa’s most precious resource, its young

people, have been sacrificed on the altar of war, famine,

refugee camps, and exile in a prolonged war that should have

been avoided. This study examines the circumstances that

contributed to Ethiopia’s descent into an interminable fog of

conflict and prolonged war.

In Africa’s modern history, Ethiopia is probably the most

important nation-state because it is the only African country

to defeat in war a European power, the Italians. In the last 30

years, however, Ethiopia has moved from a symbol of African

freedom and dignity to a country plagued by famine and

internal wars and is now teetering on the verge of disintegration. Presently, Ethiopia is the only African country where a

subnationalist group has effectively fought the central

government, and is now on the verge of seceding from the

republic.1

Five major factors contributed to the prolonged war in

Ethiopia. First, the intervention in Africa by Italian

imperialism eventually led to the creation of an enclave called

Eritrea. Second, the existence of the kingdoms of Tigray and

Shoa, two Christian islands in a sea of Islamic states, forced

these kingdoms, for their own survival, to pursue a regional

imperialist policy as a form of insulation against Islamic

domination. Third, after World War II, the rise of Israel as a

nation-state exacerbated and highlighted the strategic importance of the presence of a powerful Christian state in a mostly

Islamic region, transforming the problem between Ethiopia

and Eritrea into a regional conflict. Fourth, the rivalry

amongst the superpowers to establish hegemony over the

Horn and Red Sea areas predisposed Ethiopia to pursue a

military rather than a political resolution to the problem since

the superpowers had flooded the area with weapons.2 Fifth,

131
after its collapse and eventual overthrow, the feudal monarchy

was replaced with a military dictatorship based on repression

and organized around Leninist principles.

European imperialism radically transformed African society

because it brought the revolutionary idea of the nation-state to

the African continent; this was a revolutionary concept in that

it compelled the radical transformation of the geopolitical landscape. Imperialism created states in a heretofore stateless environment and introduced the idea of the nation-state to Africa

for the first time. The uneven penetration of European

imperialism, however, led to the differential effects of nationalism and state formation on the nascent Ethiopian state.

Europe’s profound impact on the region was most evident by

the fact that neither Ethiopia nor Eritrea existed before

European penetration. Although independent kingdoms had

existed in the regions for thousands of years, the Horn region

was devoid of a self-conscious nationalism associated with any

particular state boundary. Thus, one dimension of the modern

civil war in Ethiopia was the simultaneous emergence of two

competing nationalisms within the same geographical area.

This paper focuses on the intersection and conflict of ethnicity,

feudalism, and foreign interests on prolonging the war in the

region.

Italian Interests

In the 1870s, when the Italians first attempted to colonize

the northeastern part of Ethiopia now called Eritrea, they met

stiff resistance from the indigenous people there. Later, when

the Italians attempted to seize the area, King Yohannes

incorrectly assumed that the British would protect his flank

against encroachment by another European power. Instead,

the British encouraged the Italians to seize the coastal

lowlands from King Yohannes and permitted them to advance

on the highland plateau area in Eritrea.3 Once the Italians

realized that they had the consent of the British, they decided

to conquer all of the Eritrean territory under the control of

King Yohannes.

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During this period another Christian kingdom rose in the

center of Ethiopia. Under the leadership of King Menelik, a

new Amhara kingdom became the dominant force in the region

by incorporating the Oromo people and gaining their fertile

agricultural lands. When the Italians began to encounter fierce

resistance from northern Tigrean forces, they embarked on a

program to exacerbate and intensify the latent cleavages

between the Amhara and Tigrean kingdoms. While fighting the

Tigreans from Tigray and Eritrea, the Italians also signed a

nonaggression treaty with King Menelik who, in exchange,

received approximately 5,000 guns from the Italians.4

In 1887 King Yohannes was killed while fighting the

Mahdist’s forces from Sudan. His death created a power

vacuum in the northern Christian kingdoms which intensified

competition for the title of King of Kings formerly possessed by

King Yohannes. The death of King Yohannes started an

intense rivalry between his two sons, Alula and Mengesha,

and King Menelik over control of the northern Christian areas.

In pursuit of this goal, King Menelik enlisted the Italians, who

were quite eager to assist him because this alliance would

allow Italian control over Eritrea. King Menelik conceded this

expedient alliance with the Italians to gain time to build a

modern military force without antagonizing them. King

Menelik made this alliance even though it meant he would

accept Italian control over Eritrea.5

By 1893 a conflict emerged between the Italian and

Ethiopian interpretation of the Treaty of Uccialli, which stated

that the Ethiopians might use the Italians as their

intermediary with other European powers. The actual

controversy between the Italians and Ethiopians revolved

around the issue of whether Ethiopia was a dependent Italian

protectorate.

To establish Ethiopia as a protectorship, the Italians

attempted to colonize the region by military conquest. Instead,

the Italians suffered one of their worst military defeats ever at

the battle of Adowa, marking this military feat as the first

victory ever by non-Europeans over Europeans in Africa.

However, the fateful decision of Menelik not to drive the

Italians completely from Ethiopian soil eventually led to the

creation of the Eritrean colony.

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After their defeat, the Italians consolidated their power

within their Eritrean colony. In short, Italian rule stimulated

and nurtured Eritrean national consciousness. On a political

level, Italian colonization served as a capitalist-battering ram

to destroy or distort noncapitalist formations in Eritrea.6

Italian colonization of Eritrea transformed their feudal

subsistence/peasant economy into a market economy. On the

one hand, the insertion of capitalist components into Eritrea

created working and commercial class fragments, whose

struggles to protect and advance their interests made their

society more liberal and free than feudal Ethiopia. On the

other hand, King Menelik’s victory over the Italians essentially

froze their feudal social structure until the overthrow of the

monarchy in 1974. Hence, the Italian transformation of

Eritrean society is particularly noteworthy because it planted

the seed for Eritrean nationalism which made the fusion

between semicaptialist Eritrea with feudal Ethiopia inherently

unstable. The simultaneous uneven penetration of Italian

imperialism and the rise of the Ethiopian nation-state set the

stage for the drama of the longest war in postcolonial Africa.7

The Social Historical Context

The Ethiopian and Eritrean conflagration highlights one of

the central problems of African politics: the question of

legitimacy and the relevance of nation-states created directly

or indirectly by European imperialism. Ironically, the only

principle African states agree on today is that the colonial

boundaries are legitimate and any attempt to overturn these

boundaries violently is illegitimate; such an idea is one of the

charter principles of the Organization of African Unity.

African political discourse on the postcolonial state is

grounded on the sanctity of colonial boundaries as a nonnegotiable principle. Since African states are multinational

and multicultural, any boundary dispute could lead to the

disintegration of the nation-state in Africa. Thus, most African

states consider the Eritrean struggle illegitimate. Nonetheless,

Eritreans believe that Italian colonization legitimated their

claim for independence because only sovereign nations can be

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colonized and colonization presupposes a sovereign state.

They further contend that the difference between oppression

and colonial subjugation is that the resolution of the

nationalist question is justice, while the resolution of the

colonial question is independence. Of course, Ethiopians reject

the Eritreans’ formulation of the problem in this manner. To

Eritreans, Ethiopia’s annexation of Eritrea symbolized an act

of aggression against a sovereign nation by another African

country.

United Nations and British Perspectives

After the 1936 Italian invasion of Ethiopia and their final

defeat in 1941 by the British forces, Eritrea fell under the

control of the commander in chief of the British forces in East

Africa. The power vacuum left by the unconditional surrender

of Italy compelled the British to design a plan for the future of

the Eritrean territory. Proposals put forth by the British

ranged from forming a unity between Tigray and Eritrea to

allowing Ethiopia to absorb the area.

In either case, Britain did not support independence for

these states because it could adversely affect their geopolitical

hegemony over the vital Red Sea shipping lanes. In addition,

Ethiopia asserted their own “natural right” to control the

future of Eritrea for two main reasons: first, Eritrea provided

Ethiopia’s only access to the sea; and second, the idea of

separation between the two countries was artificial, since they

were one culture and one people.

On 2 December 1950, the United Nations General Assembly

voted for a federal solution as the best way to resolve the

Eritrean question. The resolution recommended the following:

1.-Eritrea shall constitute an autonomous unit federated

with Ethiopia under the sovereignty of the Ethiopian state.

2.-The Eritrean government shall possess legislative,

executive, and judicial powers in the field of domestic affairs.8

The federal constitution developed by the UN provided that

the emperor would be represented by a governor general in

Eritrea. The federal charter also established an autonomous

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legislative chamber for Eritrea and elected a president who

was responsible for electing permanent secretaries to staff the

national civil service departments. In addition, the president

would appoint judges and an independent judicial branch of

regional government. The federal constitution enabled Eritrea

to establish Tigrinya and Arabic as their national languages.

The UN designed these measures to protect the autonomy of

Eritrea from total subordination to Ethiopia.

The first election to the national assembly of Eritrea was

held in 1952.9 What is noteworthy about the first free election

ever held in Eritrea was that the prounion and federation

supporters garnered over two-thirds of the votes cast in the

election. The election results clearly indicated that a majority

of the Eritrean people favored unification and/or federation

with Ethiopia. Perhaps what is even more significant was how

the decrepit feudal regime managed to convert profederation

Eritrean sentiment into volatile antifederation and antiEthiopian feelings.

Within 10 years, Haile Selassie fundamentally transformed the

relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia and forcibly annexed

Eritrea in 1962. Ethiopia’s unilateral decision to annex Eritrea

abrogated the UN provisions, which stated that only the UN

General Assembly could amend the federal relationship. Ethiopia

justified the annexation of Eritrea by referring to the Eritrean

General Assembly’s majority vote for the union in 1962. Eritrean

nationalists, however, discounted the General Assembly’s vote

by alleging that the Ethiopian regime had packed the chamber

with its supporters and destroyed the integrity of the National

Assembly. In 1960, in the conclusion of his book, G. K. N.

Trevaskis prophetically stated:

The temptation to subject Eritrea firmly under her [Ethiopian] control

will always be great. Should she try to do so, she will risk Eritrean

discontent and eventual revolt, which, with foreign sympathy and

support, might well disrupt both Eritrea and Ethiopia herself.10

War Clouds

To understand how the conflict between Ethiopia and

Eritrea degenerated into Africa’s longest war requires a brief

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analysis of the major political, geographic, and religious

divisions. Such divisions within Eritrea transformed the war

against Ethiopia into two separate wars; the Eritrean Liberation Front waged the first war, and the Eritrean People’s

Liberation Front waged the second.

The major internal political cleavage within Eritrea is

between Christianity and Islam. The most contentious issue in

the formation of Eritrean nationalism focuses on whether

Islam or Christianity will become the hegemonic power and

organizing principle of the new state. The fact that Eritreans

are evenly divided between Christians and Muslims further

exacerbates this religious cleavage. Moreover, each religion

dominates a particular region: Christians comprise the

majority in the core highland area, while Muslims dominate

the coastal regions and the western plateau area.11

Other major factors which led to the nationalist revolt

included the Ethiopian ancien regime‘s backward and

repressive strategy toward Eritrea, the rise of Pan-Arabism,

and an Islamic revival. Emperor Haile Selassie’s regime’s

relentless implementation of policies that alienated and

intensified Eritrean secession sentiment fueled the fires of war

even more.

The federation of Eritrea and Ethiopia was complicated by

Eritrean’s indirect participation in democratic government

under colonialism in such areas as freedom of association,

independent political parties, trade unions, and an independent legislative branch, whose function was to elect an

Eritrean chief executive and to legislate for the state. In

Ethiopia, on the other hand, once the emperor returned to the

throne after the defeat of the Italians, the government granted

none of these rights to the Ethiopian people.

In 1956 the Ethiopian government began to destroy the

democratic features of the Eritrean state. The Ethiopians

banned independent political parties and muzzled the press. It

forced opponents of annexation to go into exile while the office

of the chief executive was put under the control of the

government’s representative, the enderase. In 1958 the

disembodied Eritrean National Assembly voted to rescind their

right to fly an Eritrean flag and later, in 1959 when Ethiopian

law was imposed on Eritrea, it virtually destroyed the Eritrean

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National Assembly’s legitimacy and power to act

independently. The final act of Eritrean annexation was the

National Assembly’s announcement of the legalization of the

annexation.

What is most remarkable about this tragedy is that before

the Ethiopian government pursued the fateful path of

annexation, the majority of Christian Eritreans supported

some level of affiliation with Ethiopia. An ethnic dimension

further reinforced the solidarity between these two Christian

communities, since the Christian Eritreans, who were Tigres,

comprised the same linguistic and ethnic group as the Tigres

of Ethiopia. What should have been a natural unification

between two nationalities was destroyed by the repressive

policies of the Ethiopian regime.

Tension between Christians and Muslims began to increase

in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Nasserism,

Pan-Arabism, and Islamic solidarity began to rise. In Egypt

Nasser’s emergence to power was based on a Pan-Arab

platform, which called for the unity of Arabic and Islamic

people and exhorted Muslims to form a political union that

transcended artificial colonial boundaries. More importantly, it

provided a fertile political climate for nurturing the rise of

Eritrean nationalists.

The initial Eritrean Liberation Movement (ELM) was formed

in the Port of Sudan in November 1958. Origins of this

movement are somewhat unclear because of the obscure

background of the early founders. What is definite, however, is

that the founders were Islamic emigrants from the Keren and

Sahel coastal region who flocked to the Port of Sudan.

The principal leaders of the movement were Saleh Ahmed Iyay,

Yasin el-Gade, and Mohammed Said Nawid.12 Mohammed Said

Nawid was politicized by the Sudanese Communist party, the

largest and best organized Communist party on the African

continent. The ELM was a Leninist party, predicated on the

vanguard party and the principle that it was the party’s

responsibility to bring revolutionary consciousness to the

masses. Following this recipe for revolution, the vanguard of

Eritrean Islamic workers and intellectuals attempted to

galvanize support for their movement against the Ethiopian

state. They attempted to return to their area and use

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Sudanese passports to organize cells within the Muslim areas

located in the Asmara and Massawa regions. In addition, they

mobilized Christian workers and students who had been

alienated by Ethiopian repression. To the surprise of these

organizers, they saw their overtures well received by segments

of the Christian community.

However, like most Communist movements that were

organized along the Leninist model, the ELM was immobilized

because of two conflicting goals: one, the political education of

the masses and the other, the desire to seize power during or

after a popular revolt. The recent coup in Sudan and its apparent success had predisposed the ELM to consider a coup as

the best way to wrest power away from Ethiopia. ELM’s

ambivalence on these questions led other Eritrean nationalist

movements to accuse them of passivity.

While the ELM struggled for power, another Eritrean

nationalist movement arose outside of Eritrea by Egypt. Egypt

supported the Eritrean movement because Ethiopia had sided

with the Western powers against Egypt and the rest of the

Arabic states in the 1956 Suez Canal crisis. During the late

1950s, characterized as the apex of Pan-Arabism and Islamic

solidarity, Nasser provided free scholarships and room and

board to Eritrean students and prominent exiles. In retaliation

for Ethiopia’s support or the West against Egypt in 1956,

Nasser asked the most prominent Eritrean exile in Egypt to

broadcast anti-Ethiopian programs into Eritrea. For this

assignment, Nasser chose Woldeab Woldemariam, one of the

most important exiles in Egypt at the time.13

A third political organization, called the Muslim League and

led by Ibrahim Sultan, also emerged during this time to fight

for Eritrean independence. Ibrahim Sultan was joined by Idris

Mohammed Adam, a leader of a splinter faction from the

Muslim League called the Muslim League of Western Eritrea.

These leaders embarked on journeys to the Middle East to

secure money from the expatriate Eritrean community to raise

funds for a resistance movement against Ethiopian

domination. The expatriate Eritrean community encouraged

them to form an alliance with the ELM, who were already

organizing resistance from their base at Port Sudan. Ibrahim

and Idris refused, referring to the ELM as outsiders who had

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been contaminated by communism. Furthermore, they both

distrusted the ELM because they had recruited into the

movement Christians whom they considered traitors.14

Their strong rejection of the ELM set the stage for the

development of other Egyptian-backed movements to resist

Ethiopian domination. Idris Mohammed Adam, who came

from a minority ethnic group within Eritrea, and Ibrahim

Sultan decided to form a new liberation front and to call it the

Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). The Ethiopian security forces

began to round up suspected leaders or any strong Eritrean

nationalist. Inadvertently, their sweep frightened a Shifta

leader, Hamid Idris Awate, who decided in 1961 to resist

arrest. His shots, according to most accounts, were the ones

that started Africa’s longest war.15

Despite opposition, the ELF continued to organize and later

formed a central committee of major figures who intended to

dominate the liberation struggle of Eritrea for the decade of the

1960s. The three central figures who led the ELF were Idris

Mohammed, Idris Osman Galedewos, and Osman Saleh

Sabbe. After creating the political structure, they received

arms from friendly Arab states, as any level of external support

for a national liberation war required an armed presence in

Eritrea.16 By 1962 the ELF formed a motley armed force comprised of Shiftas, who were Eritrean deserters from the

Ethiopian security forces and from the Sudanese army.

Once the Eritrean nationalists established an armed

presence in the region, they became pawns in the regional

conflict between the Arab states and Israel as well as the

superpower competition for strategic hegemony over Middle

Eastern objectives. In this volatile regional context, Ethiopia,

because of its strategic position at the mouth of the Red Sea,

became a target of international and regional concern and

attention.17 The internal conflicts of Ethiopia became international problems leaving Ethiopia’s internal affairs subject to

external manipulation. Thus, when the Islamic states in the

region realized that Ethiopia’s support of the West during the

Suez Canal period was not an anomaly and that Ethiopia was

actually a recipient of Israeli aid, they began to support an

Eritrean secession movement fervently.

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Eritrean Perspectives

In 1961, when Eritreans opposed to the Ethiopian

annexation fired the first shots, the Eritrean movement was

composed exclusively of Muslims. Even though Christians

represented 50 percent of the Eritrean population, it was clear

that the Islamic dominance of the nascent Eritrean nationalist

movement limited the recruitment of Christians into the

nationalist movement. Despite the compelling necessity to

organize Christians into an effective liberation movement, the

presence of Christians in the nationalist movement remained

marginal in the first decade.

From 1962 to 1965 the small bands of ELF fighters were

ineffective and still based mainly around the western

lowlands. Pressure to expand, coupled with previous ineffective campaigns, compelled the ELF’s executive committee to

establish a more decentralized and effective fighting force.

The ELF adopted a guerrilla model for protracted struggle

and predicated it on the Algerian model of autonomous zones.

They divided Eritrea into four fighting zones that ranged from

the western lowlands to the eastern seaboard. Although the

zones were designed to increase the fighting capacity of the

ELF’s national liberation forces, they failed to address the

most important issue of war: the sociopolitical configuration of

power between the various ethnic, linguistic, and religious

groups found within Eritrea. This dimension of their struggle

was even more complicated by the fusion of ethnicity, class,

religion, and territory.18

During this period, the ELF found itself divided into two

types of cleavages. On the one side, internal divisions existed

between Muslims based on ethnicity, regionalism, and the

timeless dispute between pastoralists and agriculturalists. The

other major cleavage began between the Christians and

Muslims. The ELF’s leadership and rank and file distrusted

the Christian population, holding them responsible for the

forced annexation of Eritrea because of Eritrea’s prounionist

stance. For example, even though the third zone, the Christian

area, held over 50 percent of the population and was the

breadbasket and economic engine of the region, it was militarily the weakest zone.

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The Christians, in turn, distrusted the Muslims because of

their historical position as an embattled minority in a region

surrounded and dominated by Islamic states long before the

states of Ethiopia and Eritrea were created. That the official

language of the ELF was Arabic and that the ELF’s major

source of funding and training also came from the Arab states

reinforced Christian fears of Islamic hegemony.

In spite of these divisions, the feudal Christian Ethiopian

regime did not embrace the natural alienation of Eritrean

Christians by the ELF. Even though a Christian prounionist

party received the majority vote in the 1952 election, the

Ethiopian regime lost its legitimacy within the Christian sector

when it destroyed the Eritrean Christian-dominated trade

unions and the party organization that had voted for

unionization.

The Ethiopian regime could have regained its credibility with

50 percent of the Eritrean population easily if they had

incorporated Eritrean Christians into the bureaucracy on an

equal basis. Instead, the Amhara-dominated Ethiopian

government limited the Eritreans’ entrance into the national

administration. Although prominent Eritrean Christians held

key posts in the Ethiopian government (Bereket Selassie as

attorney general and Gen Arman Andom), opportunity was

basically limited for the vast majority of Eritreans. The

tendency of individual Eritreans to attain high status did not

alter Eritrean perceptions that their assignment to low-level

staffing positions in the national and provincial administration

occurred solely because they were Eritrean.

The ditcum that “war is the continuation of politics by other

means” sums up how the failed politics of the Ethiopian

regime pushed the Christian Eritreans into conflict. Christians

not only constituted 50 percent of the Eritrean population but

were also natural allies of the Ethiopian regime. This political

failure also explains the inevitable limitation of the ELF’s

effectiveness because of its failure to mobilize the Christian

sector.

The ELF realized later, however, that to advance their liberation struggle, the Christian sector had to be accommodated.

Towards this end in 1967 they created another zone called the

Christian zone, designed to facilitate the incorporation of the

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Christian sector. Before the creation of the Christian zone, the

Ethiopian government treated the insurrection in Eritrea as an

Islamic/Arabic problem against a Christian/African country.19

Since Ethiopians had framed the Eritrean question in these

terms, they did not even consider the seriousness of the

insurrection. For example, they installed only one brigade in

the region. This circumstance changed dramatically when the

regime discovered the creation of a Christian sector. The

killing of Asrate Kassa, the governor of Eritrea, highlighted in a

dramatic way the depth and seriousness of the Eritrean crisis.

The Rise of the Eritrean

Peoples Liberation Front

The social forces that pushed the Eritrean conflict into a

prolonged war, based on Marxist and Maoist principles, were

generated, ironically, by the rise of the more Christian and

secular Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF) movement,

which was coupled with the collapse of Emperor Haile

Selassie’s regime. The Italians had transformed Eritrea into a

more capitalist and industrial society than the feudal and

agriculturally based one established by Ethiopia. Despite the

political alienation and disaffection of Eritrean Christians from

the Ethiopian regime, the Eritrean Liberation Front could not

mobilize the Christian sector, because the ELF lacked a

coherent and integrative ideology. The paradox of ELF’s

national ideology was that they predicated it more on the

religious idea of community, which by definition was more

particularistic, than on the secular and universalistic idea of

nationalism, which was based on citizenship and individualism.

The ELF’s more sacred-than-secular conception of nationalism

precluded the equal incorporation of all sections of Eritrean

society within the national struggle.

The failure of the ELF to develop a more secular ideology of

nationalism, independent of Islamic principles, and to develop

an effective strategy eventually paralyzed their military and

political positions in Eritrea. For example, the ELF based their

organizational structure and distribution of military personnel

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and supplies on four autonomous zones that operated

independently from the strategic needs of the movement. The

ELF functioned as a loose confederation of war lords against

the feudal regime of Haile Selassie. For example, if Idris

Mohammed acquired resources from the more militant Arab

states, like Syria or Iraq, he would only use them in his zone.

In this context, the ELF found it unnecessary to mobilize the

Christians, who were considered to have dual loyalty to Eritrea

and Ethiopia due to their religious sentiment. They essentially

excluded progressive nationalist Christians from the liberation

struggle while Christians who joined the ELF operated under a

cloud of suspicion, since the ELF viewed them as potential

spies for the Ethiopian regime.

A great deal of hostility and distrust also existed between

the Muslims and Christians on the battlefield. These cleavages

became even more acute when the Ethiopian government

decided to wage a full-scale assault on these nascent forces,

inflicting heavy casualties around the western and highland

zone. The Ethiopian regime’s first major offensive against the

ELF sought to limit or destroy the effectiveness of the new

Christian zone. The Ethiopian army offensive proved successful, since the ELF fighters did not have the organizational or

military capacity to withstand a frontal assault by a professionally trained and seasoned Ethiopian army. Nonetheless,

the ELF attributed their major defeat to the ineffectual fighting

of the Christian contingents and to treachery. One commander, Osman Hishal, accused and executed 27 fighters for

not fighting properly, which compelled some Christian leaders

to defect to the Ethiopian side.20 These defections only

reinforced the suspicions of Islamic groups, who already

viewed the Christians as traitors and union supporters.

Although the summary executions constituted a heinous

crime against the Christian soldiers, in particular, and against

the Christian community, in general, they did not deter

Christians from continuing to join the Eritrean independence

struggle. In 1970 the continuing hostility between Christians

and Muslims led to a massacre of about 300 Christian

Eritreans, who had previously left Addis Ababa to join the

ELF. The massacre at Barka created an irreparable breech,

prompting the remaining Christian elements in the liberation

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struggle to abandon the ELF and to form a new liberation

front, the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front.21

The core group of the ELF escaped to Ala, a Christian area,

located in the desolate hills on a highland plateau 50 miles

from Asmara. Isayas Afeworq, Mesfin Hagos, Tewolde Eyob,

Solomon Wolde Mariam, and Asmeron Gebre Egzhiabher, the

core of the group, together formed the central committee of the

new movement. It was called the Peoples Liberation Front and

was eventually transformed into the EPLF. The founding

principles of EPLF rejected Arabism, denounced the use of

Arabic as the official language of the liberation struggle, and

argued against the subordination of Eritrean culture to Arabic

culture. The EPLF also rejected Muslim sectarianism and the

ethnic and regional divisions that dominated the ELF. Finally,

the EPLF leadership rejected the ELF’s lack of a secular

political ideology. In this regard, the EPLF consciously sought

to model their liberation struggle and movement on the

“peoples war” theory advanced by Mao. In fact, the central

committee of the EPLF and especially Isayas Afeworq

developed this ideological orientation after their training in

China during the midsixties, the highpoint of the Chinese

cultural revolution. The EPLF’s Christian ideological

orientation actually facilitated its acceptance of Marxism,

since Christianity, unlike Islam, divided society into two

distinct realms, sacred and secular, from which came the

social conditions for the emergence of civil society and

revolutionary politics.

Of course, the ELF rejected the formation of the EPLF and

issued a number of directives to eliminate the EPLF. These

directives signaled the beginning of a brutal civil war between

the EPLF and ELF as well as the demise of the ELF as a

fighting and political force in the Eritrean national movement.

The ensuing civil war lasted until mid-1975. Only the

overthrow of Haile Selassie prompted the formation of tactical

unity between the two movements. Even still, the movements

were never able to join forces as a united front against the

Ethiopian military government. On balance, the EPLF was the

net beneficiary of the Eritrean civil war, since they survived

attacks by the ELF and the Derg which, in turn, transformed

the EPLF into a more effective fighting force.

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The EPLF also incorporated in its struggle the ideological

fusion of Leninist and Maoist precepts. From Mao, they took

the idea that peasants could become a revolutionary force and

the concept of a “new democratic revolution,” which advocated

the unity of all progressive forces in society. Following another

of Mao’s tenets, the EPLF proved themselves extremely selfreliant by acquiring most of their weapons from the Ethiopian

army. They also established their own hospitals, collected

taxes within their sphere of control, distributed food, and used

overseas contributions from Eritreans abroad to buy needed

supplies. The EPLF, unlike the ELF, distributed arms and

military supplies on the basis of need and strategic necessity

rather than for religious, regional, or ethnic reasons.

From Lenin, the EPLF derived the idea that professional

revolutionaries organized in a vanguard party had the right to

monopolize political and military activities in society. Hence,

the EPLF included in their movement the dissident ELF

followers, including deserters from the Ethiopian army and

progressive Christians. In 1978 it was estimated that the ELF

forces declined to 7,000 troops, while the EPLF increased to

30,000.22 By the early 1980s, the ELF was neither an effective

fighting force nor an effective political organization.

In sum, the progression of the Eritrean struggle from a

sacred and religious struggle to a secular movement led by a

Leninist party with a systematic fighting force transformed the

Eritrean conflict into a protracted war. The fusion of the

EPLF’s vanguard organizational structure with Maoist

ideological underpinnings enabled them to develop a more

comprehensive military and political strategy than the more

religiously and regionally based ELF.

The Ethiopian Response to the Crisis

Analysts can divide the Ethiopian response into two periods.

The first period lasted from the undermining of the federation

in 1956 until the overthrow of the emperor in 1974. To

eliminate Eritrean opposition to the annexation, Haile Selassie

used the strategy of incorporating antagonistic elites into the

regime by giving them titles and land. Other tactics included

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incorporating Christians in his regime, excluding the Muslims,

dismissing the ELF as bandits, and using a minimal amount

of force. Selassie based the core of his strategy on a

combination of coercion and cooperation.

However, famine and economic stagnation, accelerated by

the dramatic rise in oil prices after the Yom Kippur War in

1973, paralyzed the regime of Haile Selassie. As popular

protests became more widespread and intense throughout

Ethiopia, Emperor Selassie’s response of simply reshuffling his

cabinet proved inadequate to deter demands for the overthrow

of the ancien regime. Just when the regime was teetering and

on the brink of failure, the military officers, observing the

creation of a power vacuum, purloined the revolution from the

popular movements. When the military officers established the

Derg, they presumed that military rule could substitute itself

for the ancien regime. However, the power struggles within the

Derg proved that the military council as it was constituted

could neither establish legitimacy nor sustain political

stability.

The second period began in 1974 after Gen Aman Andom’s

initial attempts to achieve a negotiated peace with the Eritrean

rebels failed, and the Derg assumed power. The failure of these

talks fueled Mengistu Haile-Mariam’s ascendancy to power

and his adamant opposition to a nonmilitary solution to the

conflict. Mengistu’s elevation signaled the rise of military

hardliners who wanted to achieve an unconditional military

victory over the rebels. The Derg’s exclusive reliance on

coercion to resolve the issues created a zero-sum relationship

between the Derg and the EPLF: either the Derg would destroy

the insurgency or be defeated by the rebels. Under Mengistu, a

political settlement of the Eritrean problem was unthinkable.

Mengistu’s predisposition to use violence rather than

negotiation was largely due to the social forces that enveloped

him and which he had to overcome to gain power. First, the

unrelenting power struggle between different radical,

moderate, and conservative factions within the Derg led to

bloody purges in the military as one faction attempted to gain

hegemonic control over the Derg. Starting with General

Andom, an Eritrean by origin who had favored a political

settlement within the state, Mengistu eliminated all of the

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147
leading figures. General Andom was killed at his house in

1974 by a group of radicals and moderates. In February 1977

Mengistu also killed Brig Gen Terferi Banti, leader of the

second division. In November of that same year, Mengistu

executed his last rival for power, Atnafu Abate. By the time of

Abate’s execution, Mengistu had virtually eliminated all of the

Derg’s senior military officers.23

Second, the motley coalition of such urban groups as

students, professors, taxicab drivers, and trade unionists that

had initiated the overthrow of Haile Selassie, lost their

revolution to the military because of disorganization. After the

Derg seized power, these various groups could not decide if

they should support or reject the Derg’s leadership after the

revolution. Haile Fida led Meison, one of the major popular

groups, and called for an alliance with the progressive elements of the military. These groups advocated simultaneously

politicizing the military and using it to advance the revolutionary transformation of Ethiopia.24

Another group, the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party

(EPRP), under the leadership of Berhane Meskel, advocated a

total break between progressive organizations and the military.

EPRP tried to overthrow the Derg and the progressive

organizations that sided with the Derg. Their widespread and

popular base came largely from the working class and

basically from students at different educational levels. In

1978, when they declared war on the Derg, then under the

exclusive control of Mengistu, a bloody urban battle erupted,

which led to the death of several thousand students. To

silence the students, the military used the kebelle system,

patterned after the “Committee to Defend the Revolution,” a

system the Cubans used to repress opposition. Ironically, the

Marxist Meison had been a leading advocate for this type of

repression, which eventually led to their own destruction.

After destroying EPRP, Mengistu destroyed the Meison, the

only remaining independent political organization in Ethiopia.

Mengistu executed Meison’s leader and dismantled their

organization, leaving himself in control of the entire state

because of his virtual monopoly over the means of violence.

Nonetheless, the other factions in Ethiopia viewed

Mengistu’s exercise of political power as illegitimate. Even the

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military realized Mengistu’s rise to power resulted solely from

his execution of senior officers. Mass movements, which had

overthrown Haile Selassie and rejected military rule, had to

change their position when Mengistu unleashed kebelle terror

in the urban areas. The only area where Mengistu could

mobilize a sector in Ethiopian society effectively was the

Oromo peasantry of southern Ethiopia.

Mengistu mobilized this sector around two issues. First, he

either gave land or promised land to the tillers due to the

inequality of feudal land holdings suffered by their region.

Second, he exploited southern Oromo nationalism, which had

stemmed from the Oromo’s opposition to the Somali’s claim of

their lands.

Mengistu’s two-pronged strategy enabled his regime to

mobilize huge peasant armies successfully. His peasant army,

reputed to be the largest in Africa, was sadly an army in name

and uniform only; they were neither trained nor understood the

idea of guerrilla warfare. Hence, thousands upon thousands of

peasants lost their lives when they confronted the smaller

seasoned EPLF army. Mengistu also used the peasant militia to

control and repress any dissent in the urban areas. His skillful

fusion of nationalism with socialist fragments, such as land to

the tiller, allowed Ethiopia to become lost in the fog of a

prolonged war against Eritrean secession.

In sum, Mengistu incorrectly believed that he could

successfully substitute for both the Derg and the emperor.

Since the military had usurped its power from the ancien

regime as well as from the popular movements, Mengistu felt

compelled to destroy the civilian opposition in the urban areas

by using what he called “red terror,” the indiscriminate killing

of young students, and mass arrests. Mengistu then attempted

to substitute the peasant militia for the regular army, since

in his efforts to protect his power he had already decimated

the senior officer corp through bloody purges. After

Mengistu eliminated all effective opposition, he remained

alone at the apex of power in Ethiopia, his regime illegitimate

and unstable.

In his final attempt to salvage his regime, Mengistu declared

himself the last of the true nationalists and offered his

prolonged war with Eritrea as evidence. He garnered support

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149
for this war by becoming a pawn in the geopolitical superpower rivalry for hegemonic control over the Middle East

region and by courting the United States, Israel, and the

former Soviet Union to resupply his war machine. Yet as long

as these countries continued to provide military support,

Mengistu continued to destroy both Ethiopia and Eritrea. Only

through the destruction of both countries could Mengistu’s

illegitimate rule achieve security.

Tigrai Liberation Movement

When the Derg replaced Emperor Haile Selassie’s regime,

Tigrai attitudes crystallized against Amhara chauvinism and

the centralized government. Insurrection in the Tigray

province was further stimulated by the lack of economic

development, the imposition of Amharigna as the dominant

language of administration, commerce and education, and the

general resentment concerning Amhara political hegemony

over Tigray.

The political vacuum created in Ethiopia by the collapse of

the central government led to the emergence of two major

opposition forces in Tigray: the Ethiopian Democratic Union

(EDU) and the Tigrai Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF). The EDU

was led by nobleman Ras Mengesha Seyoum, one of the few

nobles who had escaped execution by the Derg. Seyoum

sought to resurrect the ancien regime and restore Haile

Selassie’s son to the throne. Ironically, the EDU was destroyed

by the combined efforts of the Derg and the TPLF, who

repeatedly attacked the EDU from different levels.25

The TPLF, on the other hand, received inspiration from the

EPLF because the constituent elements of the TPLF were

Christian and Tigrigna speakers. The EPLF party was

comprised of dissident members of the Tigrai intelligentsia,

who emerged from Addis Ababa University, and segments

of the Tigray peasanty, who had historically resisted the

taxation policies of the central government. Both groups

benefited from their mutual association. The EPLF benefited

because the TPLF provided yet another front for the Derg to

fight, while the TPLF gained because the EPLF offered tactical

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150
and strategic military support. The only significant difference

between the EPLF and the TPLF was that the TPLF wanted to

remain part of Ethiopia, based on a federal model, whereas the

EPLF considered the Derg fascists and wanted to secede from

Ethiopia.

The TPLF also engaged in a bitter struggle with the EPRP

mainly because of their disagreements on the “national

question.” The EPRP’s position emphasized that since all

regions were oppressed by Haile Selassi’s regime and then the

Derg, a unitary party system, composed of regional and

subnational entities, was required to create a new government

structure. The TPLF, on the other hand, believed that every

nationality had the right to organize separately and the right

to self-determination. Eventually, the TPLF’s forces routed the

demoralized forces of EPRP, whose forces had been brutally

repressed in Addis Ababa during the Derg’s “red terror”

campaign.

Because of its organic connection with the EPLF, the TPLF

eventually found itself at odds with another liberation

movement in the North, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF).

The TPLF had to traverse through ELF territory when it

procured supplies from the Sudan. Such circumstances made

a conflict between TPLF and ELF inevitable. Eventually, the

combined forces of the EPLF and the TPLF defeated the ELF

which, in turn, made the TPLF more dependent on the EPLF

than before the conflict.26

After the fall of the Derg and the dissolution of the Ethiopian

armed forces, the TPLF with the support of the EPLF formed a

coalition government called the Ethiopian Peoples

Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The leader of this

front was Meles Zenawi, also the leader of the TPLF. Observers

of the Ethiopian transitional period believe that the EPRDF

was only a facade; the dominant force in the transitional

Ethiopian government, Ethiopia was really the TPLF. However,

the monopolization of power by TPLF during the transitional

period is presently generating considerable resentment and

fear of Tigray domination of the Oromo, Amhara, and Gurage

and other smaller ethnic groups.

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151
Conclusion

As the sunlight of Glasnost and Perestroika pierced the fog

of the cold war, Mengistu’s effort to support his regime

continued in a self-destructive search for a military solution to

the Eritrean problem, which already had destroyed the

socioeconomic structure of Ethiopian society. Mengistu’s

capacity to raise huge peasant militias became extremely

difficult. Seventeen years of war, famine, and Leninist economic policies had become an unmitigated disaster. To solve

the country’s political problems, Mengistu essentially had

mortgaged his country’s future to buy weapons. The officious

nature of Mengistu’s declining regime was clearly indicated by

his sale of Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) to Israel for money and

military supplies.

As Mengistu’s reign began to fall apart, evidenced by

increasing troop defections in 1990, continued economic

stagnation, and the failure of his economic reforms to stop the

hemorrhaging of his regime, the fragility and hollowness of

Mengistu’s dictatorship unraveled. These social forces

contributed to a major revolt by the same generals Mengistu

had appointed to conduct the war in May 1989. The failed

coup of these personal appointees, however, further alienated

Mengistu from his troops, the main pillar of his support.

Because Mengistu’s government had been maintained

exclusively by military power, his rule became untenable when

his troops began to feel alienated from his regime. Two years

later, in June 1991, as the last fragments of his motley armed

forces disintegrated or refused to fight, Mengistu fled the

country, and the EPLF assumed control of Eritrea.

In sum, observers can attribute the success of the EPLF to

wage a successful protracted struggle to a combination of

propitious internal circumstances. First, the Christian

orientation of the leadership of the EPLF allowed them to

divide society into sacred and secular spheres, which in turn

allowed the mobilization of women and Muslims. The division

of society into sacred and civil spheres gave rise to what Weber

calls “instrumental rationality” (a cost-benefit analysis of the

relationship between means and ends). Such reasoning

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152
legitimated the mobilization of segments of Eritrean society

because the goal was liberation, not religious salvation.27

Since Islam does not divide society into sacred and secular

realms, it considers heretical all political behavior which is

inconsistent with Sharia law or Islamic theology. Hence, in the

Islamic context “instrumental rationality” is precluded because

the principles of Islam are immutable and not subject to

mitigation. On this view, Islamic theology constrains the

conduct of a major prolonged war because it cannot mobilize

all segments of society. In Afghanistan, questions of ideological

purity also have divided the guerrilla forces which, in turn,

limited their capability to wage and win a prolonged war.

Moreover, it is highly unlikely if someone can organize

women or other nonbelievers as fighters in an Islamic jihad,

while Christians as long as they do not have to denounce their

faith can rationalize fighting with non-Christians and others.

One significant effect dividing society into a secular part is

that it facilitates the rise of Marxism-Leninism, the quintessential rational ideology of revolution. The rise of MarxismLeninism as the dominant ideology of insurrection movements

is important because it leads to the development of an

“organization,” “strategy,” and “tactics,” which are indispensable features for a successful protracted war.

Second, Eritrea’s inaccessible terrain allowed the guerrillas

to maintain a permanent presence inside the country. Most

successful protracted wars in this century have occurred in

environmental regions that contain large areas of inaccessible

terrain. For Mao, it was the Yenan area and for Ho Chi Minh,

the mountains and the jungle area. The presence of the EPLF

in all areas of the Eritrean countryside created a symbiotic

relationship between the armed forces and the people, which

helped to reinforce their strategic position.

Third, the illegitimate nature of the Ethiopian government

contributed to the EPLF’s success because the will to fight was

missing in the Ethiopian troops. Even through Mengistu had

assembled one of the largest armies of men and equipment in

Africa, the people’s will to fight was absent.

Finally, Mengistu’s slaughter of the urban intelligentsia,

students, workers, and dissident forces created an ideological

and political vacuum that constrained his ability to generate

HARRIS

153
the popular support needed to actively defeat the EPLF’s

protracted war strategy. Hence, circumstances eventually

forced Mengistu to rely on air power as the only weapon to

prevent an outright EPLF military victory. After several coup

attempts, he began to question even the loyalty of his generals

and officers. It became only a matter of time before his regime

collapsed. The rise of Gorbachev and the ending of the cold

war only accelerated the process.

Presently in Ethiopia, the Eritrean problem has been settled

with regard to Ethiopian domination. However, the question of

how the remaining nationalities can or will construct a new

nation-state, predicated on democracy and liberty, remains

the leading challenge of the newly reconstituted states of

Ethiopia and Eritrea.28

Notes

1.-See Richard Greenfield, Ethiopia: A New Political History (New York:

Praeger, 1965); Donald Levine, Wax and Gold (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1965); and Dame Margie Perham, The Government of

Ethiopia (London: Faber and Faber, 1969).

2.-See Matthies Volker, “The Horn of Africa and International Relations,”

Intereconomics 12 (December 1974); and T. B. Millar, The Indian and Pacific

Oceans: Some Strategic Considerations, Adelphi Papers no. 57 (London: The

International Institute for Strategic Studies).

3.-G. K. N. Trevaskis, Eritrea: A Colony in Transition (London: Oxford

University Press, 1960), 8.

4.-Dielbo Getahun, “Historical Origins and Development of the Eritrean

Problem 1889–1962,” Current Bibliography on African Affairs 7 (Summer

1974): 226–31. See Stephen Longrigg, A Short History of Eritrea (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1945).

5.-Terrefe Woldestadik, “The Unification of Ethiopia 1880–1935,” Journal

of Ethiopian Studies 6, no. 1 (1968).

6.-Richard Sherman, Eritrea: The Unfinished Revolution (New York:

Praeger Publishers, 1980), 20–30.

7.-Eric J. Hobsvawam, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (Great

Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 15–30.

8.-Resolution 390 (V) Eritrea—Report of the United Nations Commission

for Eritrea, “Report of Interim Committee of the General Assembly on the

Report of the United Nations Committee for Eritrea from the Fifth United

Nations”; and General Assembly, 316th Plenary Meeting 1950—Official

Records of the General Assembly, 5th sess. supplements, no. 8, 1c.

9.-Trevaskis, 120; and Araia Tseggai, “The Case of Eritrean National

Independence,” Black Scholar 7 (June 1976): 20–27.

10.-Trevaskis, 131.

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11.-Mesfin Wolde Mariam, An Introductory Geography of Ethiopia (Addis

Ababa: 1972).

12.-John Markakis, National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa

(London: Zed Books, 1990), 174–75.

13.-Haggai Erlich, The Struggle over Eritrea 1962–1978 (Palo Alto: Hoover

International Studies, 1982), 21–22.

14.-See Sherman, 40–45; and Tom J. Farer, War Clouds on the Horn of

Africa: The Widening Storm, 2d ed. (New York: Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace, 1979), 35–45.

15.-Gebre Medhin Yordanos, “Eritrea Background to Revolution,” Monthly

Review Press 28 (September 1976): 52–61.

16.-See Spencer J. Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (London: Oxford

University Press, 1952); and Eritrean Liberation Front, The Eritrean

Revolution: Sixteen Years of Armed Struggle (Beirut: ELF Foreign Information

Center, 1977).

17.-Erlich, 25–35.

18.-Lloyd Ellingson, “The Origins and Development of the Eritrean

Liberation Movement” in Robert Hess ed., Proceedings of the Fifth

International Conference on Ethiopian Studies (Chicago: 1978), sess. B.

19.-Markakis, 122.

20.-Ibid., 126.

21.-Erlich, 88–96.

22.-Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, In Defense of the Eritrean

Revolution (New York: 1978), 145.

23.-See John Markakis and Nega Ayele, Class and Revolution in Ethiopia

(Nottingham: Spokesman, 1978), chap. 1.

24.-Ibid.

25.-Max Peberdy, Tigray: Ethiopia’s Untold Story (Rest Publications,

1985), 15; and Dawit Wolde Giorgis, Red Tears (New Jersey: Red Sea Press,

1989), 35–40.

26.-Fred Halliday, The Ethiopian Revolution (London: New Left Books,

1980), 15; and David and Mariana Ottaway, Afro-Communism (New York:

Holmes & Meirer, 1981), 128–30.

27.-See Wolfgang Schlucter, The Rise of Western Rationalism: Max

Weber’s Developmental History (Berkley: University of California Press,

1981).

28.-Christopher Clapham, Revolutionary Ethiopia (Great Britain:

Cambridge University Press, 1990).

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155
Chad

The Apparent Permanence of

Ethno-Regional Conflict

Frédérick Belle Torimiro

Until the mid-1980s Chad was unknown to most of the world,

even though it is the fifth largest country in Africa (four-fifths the

size of Alaska). Like many other African countries, the brusque

and arbitrary manner in which Chad’s colonial boundaries were

drawn reflected more the power politics of European states than

local interests. The outcome was the creation of artificial borders

compelling entirely dissimilar ethnic groups to live together.

Chad’s population, now estimated at 5.2 million, has come to

represent what Samuel Decalo calls a “huge ethnic mosaic” of over

100 different languages.1 The religious distribution is

approximately 50 percent Muslim, 43 percent animist, and almost

7 percent Christian (primarily Catholics). The northern part

commonly referred to as BET (Borkou, Ennedi, Tibesti) occupies

about one-third of the national territory, although it is sparsely

inhabited with about 6 percent of the population. By contrast, the

southern area, or Le Tchad utile (useful Chad), has the bulk of the

population and occupies only one-tenth of the total territory.

What has been termed the “north-south dialectic” is obviously

an important facet of Chad’s political development or decay.2

Such a dichotomization does not however “capture the

contextual complexities of ethno-regional conflicts over time.”3 It

obscures the competitive and conflictual interplay of ethnic

groups that share similar geographical boundaries or primordial

elements. The prevailing assumption in the north-south dialectic

is that the combative foes are easily identifiable and may be

neatly separated into two distinct camps. However, the

composition of the Chadian population makes it difficult to

analyze the character of the conflict from a simple north-south

perspective. In the north, for example, there are significant

ethno-regional groups which are fragmented into subcultures,

even though Chadic Arabic remains the lingua franca. The

157
region’s politics is therefore obliged to reflect the competing, if

not conflicting, interests of the seminomadic, reticent, and

fiercely self-reliant Toubou, who are subdivided into the Teda of

Tibesti and the Daza of Borkou and Ennedi; the “sahelian”

population of semisedentary groups with traditional strongholds

in the eastern regions of Quaddai, Biltine, and the sultanates of

Baguirmi in the West; the Arabs; and the Hausas and Fulanis,

who are modern arrivals to the territory.

The multiplicity of ethnic groups and interests also poses a

persistent challenge to the ideas that Islam is useful in

institutionalizing sociocultural and political cooperation in the

north. It does not always offer the Muslims an adequate modus

vivendi or permanently provide the incentive to muster a strong

and collective opposition against the non-Muslims. As René

Lemarchand points out:

One needs only to recall the bloody feuds that have periodically pitted

Arabs against Arabs, as happened in 1947 when the Missiryes turned

against the Rattatinine, resulting in 180 deaths, and again in 1972

when the same Missiryes slaughtered 120 “rebels” affiliated with the

Front de Libération National Tchadien (Frolinat). Similarly, the deadly

struggle between Hissene Habré and Goukouni Weddeye is also a trial

of strength between two separate segments of the Toubou cluster, that

is, Annakaza versus Tomagra.4

These events reinforce the assertion that ethnic and regional

cleavages are intrinsic components of Chad’s sociopolitical

reality. At the very least, they expose the shaky relationships

between the various factions in the north.

In terms of the south, the cultural and linguistic dominance of

the Sara conjures the image of homogeneity. This perception

fails to recognize that there are different clans within the larger

Sara community. For instance, it distorts the cultural differences

among the Ngambaye, Madjingaye, and Mbaye, just to name a

few. What becomes most apparent is that intra-Sara unity is

linked to their desire to politically control Chadian society. This

means that any useful analysis of the strength and fragility of

Sara cohesion must take into account the distributive or

allocative capacity of the country’s political leadership. In this

context, the competition and distribution of political and

economic fortunes or “spoils” provide a basis for sociocultural

solidarity or fragmentation.

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Equally important, Chadian ethno-regional fragmentation is

related to its colonial experience. Although the BET remained

under French military administration until 1965, and the East

was periodically suppressed, there was some tolerance for

local autonomy in the north. By adopting a policy of indirect

rule or more accurately “omission” for political and

administrative convenience, the locals were able to maintain

their traditional authority. The sultans in Quaddai, Baguirmi,

and Kanem, for example, ruled their people, even though

ultimate political control still remained in French hands. This

administrative option permitted the French to concentrate on

the south (Tchad utile), where they implemented an

assimilation policy. The incorporation of the southerners into

a westernized culture was enhanced by their access to French

education and upward mobility in the administration, military,

and political life of Chad. Thus, by the time of independence,

the westernized south had established its “beachhead” in the

battle to gain political supremacy in the country. The point

here is that instead of creating coparcenaries of Chad’s

political future, the colonial legacy fostered ethnic and regional

animosity and distrust.

This chapter analyzes elements which might be brought to

bear on the conflicts in Chad. It also assesses the pattern of

political decay and any potential national reconstruction in

terms of the dynamic character of ethno-regional animosities,

personal ambitions, and external influence. What is implied

here is that the scope of Chad’s sociopolitical instability must

take into consideration the impact of endogenous and

exogenous factors. It is important to determine if these factors

contribute to the prolongation of the conflicts in Chad and

indispensably to any resolution scheme.

A Theoretical Foundation

One of the important concerns of international relations is

the explanation of state behavioral ideals and attributes which

leads to various levels and intensity of conflict. The concept of

conflict is understood as the outcome of structural and

perceptual incompatibilities that yield mutually exclusive and

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159
overt behaviors that may be violent. Put differently, it is a

condition in which disputes over goals, interests, resources,

and values between two or more identifiable groups may be of

such magnitude that any resolution will adversely affect one of

the contending parties. As Charles Lockhart suggests, “Conflict episodes can follow a variety of different patterns as they

develop.”5 The implication is that the manipulation of domestic

instruments of power and the influence of the international

environment may be salient to any discussion of conflict

prolongation in Chad.

What K. J. Holsti terms the “issue field,” which is the “subject

of contention between the parties and includes the positions

they are attempting to achieve,” may be complex and difficult to

resolve.6 The conflict becomes prolonged as civilian and military

interventions fail to halt the rising tensions or guarantee a

complete victory. The prolongation of the conflict becomes a

deliberate means used by the competing forces to destroy the

will of the other. The relevance of this distinction in the case of

Chad is that it encourages a closer look at whether or not the

ethno-regional hostilities have been strategically designed to

persist. The following analyses therefore seek to determine if the

persistence of conflict in Chad since its independence is a result

of careful planning by the competing political actors and

interests. These analyses also attempt to establish any possible

connection between the character of the Chadian conflicts and

the external environment. In other words, can it be said that the

external influence was a deliberate and calculated effort to

maintain a climate of perpetual violence in Chad? Or, has the

dynamics of Chad’s internal politics and the attraction of

external actors resulted in the prolongation and not deliberate

protraction of conflict?

The Internal Metamorphoses of

Conflict Prolongation

A significant aspect of this study is analyzing the impact of

endogenous factors in explaining conflict prolongation in

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Chad. This method of analysis recognizes that the development of a modern state apparatus is challenged by

raw power struggles among competing pressure groups (often

communal or regional in character) striving for control of the political

machine, for a greater share of economic rewards, for status, and for

privilege. These rivalries sometimes occur between new interest groups

or classes, between established and ambitious ethnic communities, or

between new challenges and those wishing to defend a previous

dominant position in a particular area.7

Or, as James O’Connell states, “Dissent and conflict in society

are centered on the control of political authority, because it is

seen as the main source of the allocation of rewards in the

form of status, roles, and wealth.”8 In this sense, the absence

of well-developed “national linkages and national identity”

results in group fragmentation and resistance against any

singular effort to expand the scope of “national authority.”9

The major concern rests on the question of who should govern,

and by focusing on the following internal factors, it is possible

to determine if conflict prolongation is a consequence of

institutional dysfunction or structural weakness of the

sociopolitical and economic system.

In the Chadian case, the idea of cooperating for a “common

good” has been adversely affected by the pursuits of narrowly

defined interests and goals. For over 44 years, party leaders

have established and maintained their spheres of influence by

bonding their political machinery to specific groups. This

political orientation was exemplified by the failure of the Parti

Progressite Tchadien (PPT) (formed by Gabriel Lisette) to

emerge as a genuine nationwide party.10 The PPT was

perceived by the northern leaders as the “political wagon” of

the non-Muslim population and challenged by northern-based

party organizations. These organizations included the Union

Démocratique Indépendante du Tchad, and the Groupement

des Indépendants et Ruraux Tchadiens.

The formation of these splinter parties also explained the

prevalence of incompatible objectives among the leaders. A

variety of political organizations was created as personalities

clashed or as party leaders built new alliances designed to

maximize their political ends. The political “marriage of

convenience” provided additional avenues for the leaders to

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161
broaden their support base or to gain access to the reins of

government. For example, the political union between the

Union Nationale Tchadienne of Marxist Ibrahim Abatcha and

the Mouvement National de Libération du Tchad of the

conservative Muslim Ahmed Moussa resulted in the organization

of the Front Pour la Libération du Tchad (FROLINAT). This was a

political marriage aimed at countering François Tombalbaye’s

push toward one-partyism and Sara domination of the

government. However, the creation of FROLINAT did not help to

eliminate the differences in long-term goals between the

partners. It was therefore a union predicated on the purpose of

correcting the political and social injustices in Chad but lacking

a consensus on the definitions of social justice.11 More

specifically, a fierce internal struggle ensued for control among

the various leaders in FROLINAT. In one of its loosely linked

member groups, called the Second Army or the Forces Armées

du Nord (FAN), the internal squabbles led to a split in 1976

between Hissène Habré and Goukouni Oueddei.

The Consequences of the Goukouni-Habré Rift

Unquestionably, the Goukouni-Habré split revealed profound

disagreements among those seeking to reconstruct the political

landscape of Chad. The immediate result of this rift was that it

spawned new warring factions, including Habré’s FAN, the

Forces Armées Populaires (FAP), which was the outcome of a

merger of Goukouni’s forces, and the Volcan army of Ahmat

Acyl, which had replaced the First Liberation Army, and

Aboubakar Abdelrahmane’s Third Army or the Populaire pour la

Libération du Tchad. These rival warlords sought to expand their

spheres of influence by squabbling with each other and by

undermining the leadership of Gen Felix Malloum, who had

ousted the postindependence regime of Tombalbaye. This crisis

of political legitimacy intensified as Libya extended military and

humanitarian aid to Goukouni and Acyl. Libyan support and the

outbreak of fighting in July 1977 boosted Goukouni’s position.

Not only was Malloum’s Forces Armées Tchadiennes (FAT)

defeated, but they were forced to abandon the northern towns of

Bardai, Zouar, and Ouri.

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Malloum was compelled to initiate a rapprochement with

Habré, due to the military threat posed by Goukouni’s forces.

Habré was perceived as a likely ally since he had shared

Malloum’s rejection of Libya’s occupation of the Aouzou Strip

and had built his military capability, with Egyptian and

Sudanese support, in the eastern towns of Biltine and Abéché

to approximately 1,000 men. However, any outcome of great

consequence was preempted by an offensive launched by

Goukouni’s forces in January 1978. This military campaign

resulted in the capture of Ounianga-Kebir, Fada, and FayaLargeau by the end of February. The significance of these

victories was that Goukouni controlled much of BET.12 It also

brought Malloum to cease-fire conferences involving Chad,

Niger, Libya, and Sudan in Sebha and Benghazi, Libya. In the

Sebha talks of February 1978, Malloum conceded to abandon

his charge against Libya over the Aouzou Strip. Similarly, the

Benghazi peace agreement in March compelled the Malloum

regime to recognize FROLINAT as the political organization

which symbolized the true will of the people in Chad.13

The fragility of these agreements was made evident by

renewed fighting seemingly encouraged by Acyl’s forces in

April. French intervention with ground and air support was

nevertheless crucial, since Malloum’s FAT repelled FROLINAT

advances in battles at Ati and Djedaa. More specifically, 1,500

men of the French expeditionary military force, 10 Jaguar

fighter aircraft, troop transportation, and refuelling and

electronic surveillance planes were used to stave off Acyl’s

attacks.14 The immediate fallout of the French assistance was

the break up of the FAP. The Goukouni-Acyl schism allowed

Habré and Malloum to sign an agreement in August 1978. The

resulting Fundamental Charter received the full support of

France and also paved the way for a new national government.

Malloum retained the presidency, while Habré was appointed

prime minister. Of course, what became a serious weakness of

the charter was the exclusion of Goukouni in the political

system. This attempt at power sharing also was handicapped

by distrust and eventually collapsed because of Habré’s plot to

forcibly overthrow Malloum. The upshot was the eruption of a

civil war in N’Djamena between Habré’s and Malloum’s forces

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in February 1979 as well as a renewed Goukouni offensive in

the north.

The First Battle of N’Djamena

The temporary collaboration between the FAN and the FAP

tilted the balance of power in favor of the northerners.

Malloum’s southern-controlled government fell apart, and the

FAT was forced to withdraw farther into the south. The tragic

outcome of the first Battle of N’Djamena was that it aroused a

new wave of communal violence, particularly between Muslims

and non-Muslims. There were massive killings of southerners

as the FAN established a stronghold in N’Djamena and at

Abéché and Biltine. This was subsequently followed by a

brutal revenge on thousands of Muslim civilians in the

southern prefectures. It is estimated that roughly from 5,000

to 10,000 Muslims were killed in the south.15

Arguably, conflict prolongation in Chad may be a

consequence of ineffective or the lack of political leadership.

The attempt to fill the leadership vacuum resulting from the

military campaign in N’Djamena was marked by the peace

conference of March 1979 in Kano, Nigeria. The Kano talks

produced a pact which sought to mend the rift between Habré

and Goukouni. In the eight-man Provisional Council of State

in which Goukouni became president, Col Wadal Abdelkader

Kamougue (a southerner) and Habré were designated to serve

as vice president and minister of defense, respectively. It was

also agreed that the French would withdraw their forces under

a pledge sanctioned by Cameroon, Central African Empire,

Libya, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan. Needless to say, the political

legitimacy of the coalition government was strongly challenged

by the rival warlords excluded from Kano I. Acyl’s and Abba

Siddick’s insistence on recognition as members of the Council

of State precipitated the failure of Kano II, held in April 1979.

A similar demand of recognition came from Mohammed Abba

Said of the People’s Liberation Army and Adoum Dana of the

First Army. The result was the resumption of a violent struggle

for power.

It stands to reason that neither Goukouni nor Habré

vigorously searched for legitimacy by pledging a government

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based on consensus. The political-military maneuverability of

these warlords and the other rival groups was geared toward

expanding their territorial claims within Chad. Notably, the

Goukouni-Habré rift and the first Battle of N’Djamena lend

credence to the following words of Gen Olesegun Obasanjo:

Most of Africa’s inheritors of political independence spent inordinate

time not only “establishing” themselves to ensure personal and

political survival, but also hunting down and dealing with “enemies,”

real and imagined. The kind-hearted allowed their opposition to go into

exile or put them in prison; others put theirs under the soil.16

The efforts at coalition politics only demonstrated the spirit of

distrust and violence among the various factions. Quite

simply, it would appear that the prolongation of the

Goukouni-Habré squabble for power and the challenges from

the other forces were aided by the lack of a workable and

long-lasting politics of accommodation.

The External Stimuli of the Chadian Conflict

The Chadian conflict assumed an international character as

various external forces penetrated its domestic realm. The focus is

not simply on the local warlords but also on the global and

regional actors, who were eager to influence the events in the

country. It is apparent that the internationalization of the conflict

stresses the extent to which the local competing groups are

receptive to outside assistance. What is pointed out is that any

struggle for power can turn violent when opposition groups feel a

strong sense of exclusion from the political system, a deep fear of

domination by a major communal group, and bitter grievances about

regional neglect. Violence is likely to occur when such groups consider

themselves strong enough to resist—and even more likely when they

feel they can attract external support.17

The rival groups seek political leverage by attaching themselves

to foreign interests. The number of these outside parties

increased as the conflict was transformed from a domestic to an

international phenomenon. They found it essential to intervene

in the internal affairs of Chad even though their objectives were

not strongly connected to a durable peaceful solution.

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The Libyan Nexus

The most significant and highly controversial aspect of

Libyan-African interaction has been that nation’s pursuit of

interventionist policies. In broad descriptive terms, Libyan

adventurism in Chad has often conjured images of

neocolonialism and irredentism. Col Muammar Qaddafi’s

activities have had a political and a military dimension. From

a politico-military standpoint, Qaddafi used Islam to link

Libya’s foreign policy interests with the struggle of the Muslim

population in Chad to secure a greater share of political power

and to reduce the intrusive effects of westernization. As

maintained by Qaddafi, Chadians “are Muslims of Arab origin.

They are subjected to plots, divisions and minority rule.”18 It is

no wonder, then, that the Libyan leadership perceived the

various conflicts in Chad as part of its anti-Western campaign.

Although Qaddafi’s effort to include the conflict into the

broader objectives of Dar-al-Islam was not clearly defined, his

mere involvement delayed its resolution. The prolongation of

the conflict was boosted by Qaddafi’s ability to use the

principle of “divide and rule.” The pursuit of this

interventionist policy was most evident with the annexation in

1973 of the uranium-rich Aouzou Strip on the northern end of

the BET. It demonstrated Qaddafi’s ambition to expand his

“Islamic empire” deep into Africa as well as accounted for the

rift between Goukouni and Habré. While Goukouni agreed to

cooperate with Libya, Habré vehemently opposed such

profound external control of a piece of northern Chad. Perhaps

what may be recognized here is that what René Lemarchand

refers to as “crass opportunism” sharpened the edges of

factional politics in Chad.19 Qaddafi saw the opportunity to

feed and benefit from the political ambitions and personal

greed of the rival forces. By the same token, some of the

warlords gravitated toward Libya to foster their own political

agenda. The openness of the factions to Libyan or other

external financial and military support suggests that they had

become clients in search of a patron. Libya became one of the

patrons whose activities intensified the post-1980 conflicts in

Chad.

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It is generally acknowledged that Libya’s invasion in 1980

was at the invitation of Goukouni. The military defense pact

signed between Qaddafi and Goukouni allowed about 5,000

Libyan troops to occupy northern Chad and to be strategically

positioned within 40 miles of N’Djamena. The Second Battle of

N’Djamena in December 1980 was therefore marked by the

presence of Qaddafi’s Islamic Legion which assisted

Goukouni’s FAP in its violent struggle for power against

Habré’s FAN. The Islamic Legion was equipped with US

Chinook helicopters, Soviet multiple rocket launchers, 81-mm

mortars, and roughly 60 Soviet-made T-54 and T-55 tanks.20

The participation of the well-armed Libyans in the push for

N’Djamena as well as the military support received from

Kamougue’s FAT guaranteed Goukouni’s victory. The triumph

of Goukouni forced a retreat of Habré’s troops to Cameroon

and to Sudan.

Goukouni’s control of N’Djamena eventually led to the

establishment of the Gouvernement d’Union Nationale de

Transition (GUNT). The GUNT was faced with the herculean

task of rebuilding a war-torn capital, a paralyzed economy,

and a country fettered by ethno-regional animosities as well as

persistent personal ambitions. At the same time, the Libyan

invasion had aroused the suspicion and disdain of neighboring

states like Nigeria, Sudan, and Egypt and such patrons as

France and the United States. The announcement of an

agreement to merge both countries further heightened concern

about Libya’s interventionist goals in Chad. This action

propelled the Organization of African Unity’s (OAU) Ad Hoc

Committee on Chad to convene in Lomé on 14 January 1981.

The Lomé conference rejected the planned union and called for

Libyan withdrawal from Chad.21 It was agreed that the OAU

would sponsor the creation of a peacekeeping force.

Unfortunately, the replacement of Libyan troops by an OAU

peacekeeping force failed to bring peace to Chad.22 Apart from

Goukouni’s inability to consolidate his power, Habré had

rebuilt the FAN with Sudanese and American support. The

revitalized FAN successfully launched an offensive from its

station at Abéché to regain control of the BET and such places

as Oum Hadjer and Ati. By June 1982 Habré had pushed into

N’Djamena with hardly any resistance from the GUNT. The

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recapture of the capital by Habré’s forces caused Goukouni to

flee to Cameroon. At this juncture, Habré emerged as the new

Chadian leader and unified the FAN and the FAT to form a

national army or the Forces Armées Nationales Tchadiennes

(FANT). However, Habré’s ascendancy to power was seriously

challenged by Goukouni, who used Libyan support in his

absence from N’Djamena to revamp his military capabilities.

From the northern town of Bardai and assisted by 2,000

Libyan troops and MiG fighters, Goukouni took control of

Faya-Largeau on 24 June 1983.23 GUNT hegemony was also

established in most of northern and eastern (including

Abéché) Chad. This imminent threat to Habré’s leadership

prompted an increased military assistance from the United

States, France, Egypt, and Sudan and a paratroop unit from

Zaire. The injection of this new life into the FANT resulted in

the recapture of Faya-Largeau on 30 June, although it was

lost again to the GUNT two months later.

The Character of French Military Involvement

In 1976 Chad signed a military agreement with France. It is

therefore not surprising that the internal squabbles for power

and Libya’s intervention drew attention to the readiness of the

French to meet the demands of its security commitment. This

was particularly essential since Chad was more of a strategic

than an economic interest to the French. Chad served as a

“buffer state, partly shielding other French protected states

(most immediately, Cameroon, Niger, and Central African

Republic) from invasion or subversion from territories beyond

French influence.”24 Libyan interference in the conflict should

have provided the French with the opportunity to forcefully

establish its presence in Chad. David Yost estimates that

between 1960 and 1973 Chad received about 30 percent of all

French military assistance to black African states.25 The

French even assumed a brief fighting role when their

assistance was sought by Tombalbaye and Malloum. Nevertheless, the French have been uncertain of their responsibility

toward Chad and played the role of a reluctant partner. They

remained neutral in much of the fighting among the various

factions. Perhaps the logical assertion is that the lack of a

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full-scale French military operation against Libya or the

warring factions caused the prolongation of the conflict.

The cautionary disposition of France toward the conflict in

Chad was essentially maintained by François Mitterrand and

the Socialist party. This orientation provided a sharp contrast

to the interventionist outlook of the Gaullists and the

Giscardians. It would appear that the Socialists were

concerned about Chad’s sovereignty and the increasingly

negative public opinion in France to any military adventurism

in Africa. The escalation of Goukouni’s Libyan-backed

insurgency lessened the reluctance of the French to become

embroiled in the Chadian conflict. In the so-called Operation

Manta (Stingray), 3,000 French troops supported with Jaguar

and Mirage fighter planes were sent to stymie the Libyan

assault. Although the operation failed to prevent the fall of

Faya-Largeau, it was nonetheless considered to be France’s

largest military campaign since Algeria.26 The French troops

established an east-west defensive (“red”) line at the 15th

parallel that stretched from the towns of Abéché, Arada, and

Biltine in the east to Salal and Moussoro in the west. The

French and 2,000 Zairian troops created a buffer between

Habré and Goukouni forces.27 Equally important, the

cessation of fighting raised the expectations of a proposed OAU

national reconciliation conference intended to bring an end to

the conflict.

As it turned out, a controversy over protocol matters

preempted the Addis Ababa talks scheduled for 9 January

1983.28 Habré refused to participate in the conference because

of what he perceived as the “presidential” treatment Goukouni

received from the Ethiopian leader Mariam Mengistu. In

return, Goukouni rejected the idea of meeting with Tahar

Guinasson, the minister of interior and security, who was

appointed by Habré to lead the government’s delegation. The

eventual cancellation of the reconciliation talks led to the

outbreak of fighting. In effect, the renewed fighting was

precipitated by the attack of Goukouni’s Libyan-backed forces

on the French military post of Ziguey in northern Kanem. The

real significance of the assault is that it drove the French to

extend the defensive line 60 miles north to the 16th parallel

(along the Koro Toro-Oum Chalouba line).29 In short, Chad

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was literally divided with Habré’s French-supported forces in

the south and the Libyan-backed GUNT in the north.

Operation Manta had helped to establish a military stalemate.

The United States and the “Libyan Element”

It is a fundamental assumption that United States

involvement in Chad is intimately related to the Libyan factor

in the conflict. Much of the impetus in the US for support of

Habré’s forces has been connected to Qaddafi’s anti-Western

stance. The Reagan administration saw Libya as a violently

aggressive “outlaw state” whose activities had to be halted.30

The responsiveness of the US to Habré’s request for military

and financial assistance was demonstrative of the United

States’ desire to undermine the “empire building” attitude of

Qaddafi. To support the war campaign of Habré, the Reagan

administration in July 1983 provided him with $10 million in

nonlethal military supplies, which included food, fuel,

vehicles, clothing, and tents. It was expected that a portion of

the aid would be allocated to the Zairian troops in support of

Habré. The amity between Reagan and Mobutu Sese Seko of

Zaire seemed to be based on their similar view on the threat to

African stability posed by Qaddafi’s aggression against Chad.

United States interest in the Chadian conflict was most

evident in the battle for Faya-Largeau in August 1983. To

counter the escalation of air attacks by the Libyans, the US

offered antiaircraft weapons, trucks, guns, and ammunition to

the Habré government. The Chadian army received 30 US

Redeye and Stinger shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles and

military advisers. The Reagan administration also sent two

airborne warning and control system surveillance (AWACS)

planes, eight F-15 jet fighters, and approximately 550 US

personnel to Sudan. The implication here is that the US was

not eager to directly intervene in the fighting. As President

Reagan stated, Chad “is not our (US) primary sphere of

influence.”31 In fact, the US took the position that the AWACS

in Sudan would only be used if Mitterrand were willing to

upgrade French military involvement in the conflict. It is even

claimed that by organizing Operation Manta, the US may have

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indirectly, if not directly, pressured France to take a stronger

stance in Chad’s destiny.

Collapse of the Military Stalemate

The military stalemate by the first half of 1984 was

enhanced by the mutual agreement by France and Libya to

withdraw their forces from Chad. Although the French troops

pulled out by the end of 1984, Libya reneged on its pledge to

leave by retaining about 5,000 soldiers in northern Chad.

However, the most powerful jolt to the stalemate occurred

when Libyan-backed GUNT forces and a unit of the Islamic

Legion attacked FANT positions south of the 16th parallel. The

offensive involved the towns of Oum Chalouba, Ziguey, and

Kouba Olanga and was successfully repelled by Habré forces.

The French responded by increasing their military shipment to

FANT and by sending a squadron of Jaguar fighter-bombers

stationed in the Central African Republic to raid the Libya

airfield at Wadi Doum in northern Chad. What would appear

to be a recurring trend, the Libyans retaliated by using a

Soviet-made Tupolev 22 bomber on a raid at N’Djamena’s

airport.

Of great importance, the Libyan counterattack exposed the

permeability of the redline. It also led to the redeployment of

1,200 French forces in Chad under the so-called Operation

Epervier (sparrowhawk). But more important was the capture

of the Libyan air base at Ouadi Doum by FANT forces in March

1987. This was a worthwhile military action, since Libyan and

GUNT forces were compelled to withdraw from Faya-Largeau.

The retreating forces also left behind military equipment

valued at $1 billion.32 Habré was now in control of northern

Chad with the exception of the Aouzou Strip. One can

therefore argue that his push into Aouzou in August was

designed to completely liberate all of Chad’s territory. The

failure to achieve this goal was perpetuated by the refusal of

France to support Habré. The French were uneasy about

Habré’s push north, since their troops could be drawn into the

battle. By contrast, the US perceived the attack as an

opportunity for Chad to humiliate Libya’s forces.

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The notion that the internal unrest in Chad persists is

reaffirmed by the rise of Gen Idriss Deby to power on 4

December 1990.33 The conflict between Habré and Deby was

sparked by the 1989 abortive coup, which pushed the latter to

flee to Sudan’s Darfur province. What ensued were

cross-border attacks that rekindled the civil war in Chad.

Deby’s Mouvement Populaire du Salut (Patriotic Salvation

Movement—MPS) was aided by Libya and Sudan. It is

estimated that the Libyans provided the MPS with 200 Toyota

desert cruisers armed with 23-mm Soviet-made cannons and

Brazilian-built six-wheel armored vehicles with 90-mm guns.34

Habré did not only have to face a Libyan-equipped rebel force

but also a decision by France not to allow its 500 soldiers in

Abéché to intervene. The French described the fight between

Habré and Deby as an internal matter and directed the efforts

of their 700 additional troops toward protecting their 1,250

nationals.35 Thus, the success of Deby’s insurgency was

facilitated by the entente between Deby and Qaddafi as well as

the refusal of France to assist Habré.

Admittedly, the MPS is now faced with the ultimate

challenge of altering the fabric of government authority in

Chad. The MPS’s call for multipartyism and democracy,

probably inspired by the growing demand for democratization

programs in several Françophone African countries, is now

put to a real test. The guerrilla activities of the Movement for

Democracy and Development (MDD), including the January

1991 attack on N’Djamena, has increased Deby’s dependence

on France. Ironically, the French government responded to

Deby’s call for help by sending in 450 paratroopers. The

justification of this decision was linked to Deby’s

democratization effort.36

Toward a Conclusion

On the whole, this study has centered on the complexities of

the conflict in Chad. The examination of the various battles

sought to explain the prolongation of the Chadian conflict. In

the first place, the absence of political leadership is notable in

explaining the prolongation of the conflict. This emphasis

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reveals that conflict resolution might depend on political

leaders who build successful coalitions or advance the politics

of compromise among the rival warlords. The connectedness of

leadership performance and conflict prolongation in Chad is

one that has demanded a careful appraisal of the rivalries

between Habré, Goukouni, Malloum, Deby, and the remaining

rival leaders. Their strong desire to gain control of government

at any cost meant that Chad would be infected with lengthy

ethno-regional fighting. In other words, only a decisive victory

in which the rivals and their forces are completely eliminated

would the likelihood of political stability prevail in Chad.

However, the remnants of a rival faction willing to fight for

control of Chad’s political systems make the search for peace a

remote possibility.

A slightly different and equally important analytical focus is

the internalization of the Chadian conflict. It is assumed that

conflict prolongation in Chad is in part a function of the

external political environment. The internationalization of the

fighting was maximized by the presence of France, Libya and

its wide variety of sophisticated Soviet-made weapons, the US,

and the several African states (including Nigeria, Sudan,

Egypt, Senegal, Zaire, and Cameroon). The external stimuli

underscored the extent to which rival factions sought to win.

The disposition of the external actors and their conflicting

prescriptions to ending the Chadian conflict suggest that what

occurs in Africa has an extraneous symbiosis. Even more

significant, the internalization of the conflict exposed the

weaknesses of the state to turn inward and simply provided

the rival lords with different periods at which they exercised

leverage.

It is clear that the government of Deby must also face the

task of rebuilding a political system while fighting off the

MDD. The random arrests and killings of Deby’s political

opponents reveal the fragility of his leadership. What is

apparent is that the proliferation of ambitious and disaffected

Chadians may hamper attempts to promote a final chapter to

the conflict. In addition, the MPS’s chances for success are not

necessarily predictable, because it is difficult to accurately

gauge the disposition of France, Libya, and the US. It is no

longer easy to determine the willingness of France to serve as

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173
Françophone Africa’s policeman. The friendship between Deby

and Qaddafi is also uncertain, since there is still a major

disagreement over the Aouzou Strip. It is likely that Qaddafi

may be drawn to support another rebel force with the goal of

displacing yet another government if Deby maintains his

resolve to liberate the mineral-rich area in northern Chad.

Lastly, the US involvement by proxy seems to be influenced by

Washington’s antipathy toward Qaddafi. This raises the

possibility that US military and financial assistance will end if

Qaddafi is out of the picture. It may be, in fact, that the

resolution of the Chadian conflict must emanate from the

people themselves.

Notes

1.-Samuel Decalo, “Regionalism, Political Decay, and Civil Strife in

Chad,” Journal of Modern African Studies 18 (1980): 26.

2.-Robert Buijtenhusi, “La Dialectique Nord-Sud dans l’Histoire

Tchadienne,” African Perspectives 2 (1977): 43–62.

3.-René Lemarchand, “Chad: The Misadventures of the North-South

Dialectic,” African Studies Review 29 (September 1986): 28.

4.-René Lemarchand, “Chad: The Roots of Chaos,” Current History 80

(December 1981): 415.

5.-Charles Lockhart, “Flexibility and Commitment in International

Conflicts,” International Studies Quarterly 22 (December 1978): 551.

6.-K. J. Holsti, International Politics: A Framework for Analysis

(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983), 400.

7.-Colin Legum et al., Africa in the 1980s: A Continent in Crisis (New York:

McGraw-Hill, 1979), 30.

8.-James O’Connell, “The Inevitability of Instability,” Journal of Modern

African Studies 5 (1967): 186.

9.-Donald G. Morrison, Understanding Black Africa: Data and Analysis of

Social Change and Nation Building (New York: Paragon House, 1989), 18.

10.-Gabriel Lisette, a black colonial administrator of Guadeloupian

descent, was elected to represent Chad in the French National Assembly.

Lisette served Chad in this capacity from 1946 to 1951 and from 1957 to

1959, and rose to the rank of prime minister, although he was eventually

replaced by François Tombalbaye. Lisette’s PPT was the indigenous version

of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africaine, which was fully operational in

Guinea and Ivory Coast.

11.-Ali A. Mazrui and Michael Tidy, Nationalism and New States in Africa:

From About 1935–Present (London: Heinemann, 1984), 208.

12.-Kaye Whiteman, Chad (London: The Minority Group, 1988), 10.

13.-Arthur S. Banks, ed., Political Handbook of the World 1990 (New York:

CSA Publications, 1990), 114.

14.-Mazrui and Tidy, 209.

15.-Whiteman, 11.

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174
16.-Olesegun Obasanjo, Africa in Perspective: Myths and Realities (New

York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1987), 8. Obasanjo served as Nigeria’s

head of state from 1976 to 1979 at which time the military handed over the

reins of power to civilians.

17.-Legum et al., 32.

18.-John Wright, Libya, Chad and the Central Sahara (Totowa, N.J.:

Barnes and Noble Books, 1989), 139. According to Qaddafi, the Muslims in

Chad were the obvious majority.

19.-Lemarchand, “Misadventures,” 38.

20.-Mazrui and Tidy, 209; Lemarchand, “Chad: The Roots of Chaos,” 414.

21.-It is claimed that Tripoli pressured Goukouni into signing the merger

agreement. The proposed union was also strongly criticized by Vice

President Kamougue, who called it an “impossible marriage” and by Dr Abba

Siddick (the minister of health), who subsequently resigned and fled to

Sudan.

22.-The OAU peacekeeping force was comprised of 1,500 Nigerians, 900

Zairians, and 600 Senegalese.

23.-Banks, 115.

24.-David S. Yost, “French Policy in Chad and the Libyan Challenge,”

Orbis 26 (Winter 1983): 966.

25.-Ibid., 968.

26.-Franziska James, “On the Battlefield,” African Report 31 (July–August

1986): 81. It is estimated that the military operation cost the French

$500,000 each day.

27.-Whiteman, 13; Martin Meredith, The First Dance of Freedom: Black

Africa in the Postwar Era (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 279; René

Lemarchand, “Putting the Pieces Back Together Again,” Africa Report 29

(November–December 1984): 65.

28.-There was another failed attempt to foster Chadian political

reconciliation in Brazzaville, Congo, in July 1983.

29.-Whiteman, 14.

30.-Franziska James, “Habré’s Hour of Glory,” Africa Report 32

(September–October 1987): 21.

31.-Facts on File, 12 August 1983, 597.

32.-Banks, 116.

33.-Idriss Deby, a French-trained professional soldier who served as

Habré’s head of the military, masterminded the 1982 coup which brought

Habré to power. A Muslim from the north, Deby was eventually forced to flee

Chad after the April 1989 abortive coup.

34.-Time, 17 December 1990, 40.

35.-West Africa, 10–16 December 1990, 2990; The Economist, 1 December

1990, 42.

36.-Assane Diop, “Plus Ça Change,” Africa Report 37 (March–April 1992):

26.

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Liberia’s Conflict

Prolongation through Regional Intervention

Karl P. Magyar

Gus Liebenow’s comprehensive review of Liberia, published

in 1987, concludes with quotations from Rev Thomas Hayden,

who observed that if the Samuel K. Doe government and the

opposition cannot “respond to the legitimate needs of the

people, spontaneous violence might erupt and an entirely new

leadership might evolve.” He also expected that “soon there

will be a changing of the guard in Liberia”—and that it may

come by “Quadafi-backed Liberian exiles.”1

His judgment proved to be chillingly prescient. But those

who have been following Liberia’s tumultuous affairs realize

that a prediction of Liberia’s catastrophe was safe to make.

Since Doe, as a master sergeant, ousted President William R.

Tolbert and his Americo-Liberian elite from power in 1980, that

country had been on a steady course toward self-destruction.

Whatever wrongs that coup sought to correct, everything in

fact only deteriorated further, and it soon became a classic

case of history repeating itself. Numerous coup attempts

followed; existing social divisions polarized; the already fragile

economy deteriorated further; and relations with the international community plummeted. Under these circumstances,

either a successful coup, or the commencement of an

insurgency, could have been expected. The latter transpired in

1989.

Liberia had enjoyed a unique history in comparison to that

of other West African states. The territory had been settled by

freed slaves from other areas of West and Central Africa, but

more significantly, by numerous former slaves from the US

who returned, starting in 1822. This latter group soon formed

the sociopolitical elite, as they extended their influence and

control inland over the territory’s indigenous inhabitants. In

1847 the Americo-Liberian elite declared its formal

“independence”—though it had not been a colony of any

external power. The elite introduced a constitution and

177
currency, all patterned on the American standard; this

repatriated elite soon built fine antebellum houses on

Southern-style plantations and worked them with indigenous

slaves well past the period of America’s Civil War.

Rule by the Americo-Liberian elite was authoritarian with

the power elite being characterized as an ethnic oligarchy, rent

by nepotism, and ruled through paternalistic authority over a

largely traditional and impoverished native population, which

comprised some 95 percent of the country’s inhabitants. They

in turn were divided into 116 ethnic groups, each occupying

distinct geographic zones which, significantly, range across

Liberia’s borders, well into neighboring Ivory Coast, Guinea,

and Sierra Leone.2 The ruling elite, as the 17th group,

dominated the capital city of Monrovia—grandly named for

America’s President James Monroe, who facilitated the return

of the ex-slaves.

Few in the external world knew of the plight of Liberia’s

rural populations and few cared. A handful of foreign

enterprises were lodged in Liberia, extracting mostly iron ore,

diamonds, and rubber—which was dominated by America’s

Firestone Company. These, plus Roberts Airfield, a major

refueling stop for international flights, comprised the bulk of

the external world’s interest in Liberia. The US, because of its

historic ties to the ruling elite who had guaranteed long-term

stability, also had installed some major international navigation, radio, and communications facilities in Liberia, and

this tie added to America’s interest in the country.

Over the years, the Americo-Liberian elite had grown too

complacent, which was not justified in view of the tumultuous

events associated with the decolonization process throughout

Sub-Saharan Africa. As colonial powers terminated their rule

in Africa, starting with Ghana in 1957, William V. S. Tubman

held forth as president of Liberia from 1944 until his death in

office in 1975.

Tubman was succeeded by President William R. Tolbert,

who ruled until his brutal ouster by MSgt Samuel K. Doe in

1980. Apparent was the ignorance of continental

developments on the part of both rulers. In fact, their regimes

approximated and were viewed by the indigenous population

as a foreign colonial force, replete with a foreign language and

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other colonial accoutrements of power. Others saw it as

black-on-black apartheid. When Doe took over in his grisly

coup, he was but another youthful African military man who

would challenge a corrupt, stagnant, and entrenched elite.

Certain historical facts concerning Liberia were indeed unique,

but the general trend of these historic developments now

comprised somewhat routine Africawide political practices

which had engulfed the continent during the previous two

decades.

Doe led the fatal putsch, after which he and his armed

forces-based People’s Redemption Council undertook to rule

the country under the usual austere and emergency

conditions, but ultimately at the point of increasingly

undisciplined guns. President Tolbert was the victim of grisly

atrocities—which became the fate of Doe himself a decade

later. The international community was horrified to learn of

the summary executions of 13 top officials of the Tolbert

government. These executions were carried out in public along

Monrovia’s beach. Many of the ecstatic and cheering people in

attendance at the executions would in turn become victims of

violence during the events of 1990–91. The offending Tolbert

government officials had been cited with, among other crimes,

disrespecting human rights. Treating them so brutally in turn

set the tone for the Doe regime’s modus operandi.

Little would change—least of all the drift towards disaster—

but at least a representative of the indigenous population,

along with mostly his own tribal-originated junta, had

replaced this unique “colonial government.” Rather than arrest

the drift towards disaster, Doe only expedited the process. And

that process would deteriorate rapidly. Where previously social

relations among the indigenous tribes had been tranquil, they

now would become polarized—a process in modern Africa

which, when initiated, has rarely been reversed.

Africa’s Conflict Environment

It is tempting to speculate that the longer the process of

social disintegration, the more likely it is that an ensuing civil

conflict will continue. In the case of Liberia, tensions in the

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social fabric emerged over several decades and were influenced

especially by the liberation processes in neighboring countries.

Doe may well have been only the spark that set off the final

vortex of the next decade.

Explaining the reasons or causes for this incident of

disintegration could easily occupy an entire volume in itself

and not yield a definitive statement. Readers receive an

enhanced understanding of the process of conflict within

Liberia when they view it in a greater African perspective; that

is, a perspective where similar conflicts have been experienced

during the last four decades. However, we must remember

Liberia’s unique situation in that the ruling Americo-Liberian

elite was in fact not a transient colonial force but a permanent,

foreign-originated, social oligarchy much like the Afrikaners in

South Africa. At issue in both instances is the question of

majority rule (in Liberia, implying the indigenous natives)

rather than simple liberation.

Africa has experienced and is presently undergoing several

distinct types of conflicts. They may be categorized as wars for

independence (e.g., Algeria); wars which preceded and which

continued after independence had been attained (e.g., Angola);

wars starting after independence (Uganda); transnational wars

(Somalia and Ethiopia); wars of secession (Biafra); military

coups and countercoups; and massive internal disturbances.3

Most of these examples contrast with conflicts in the developed

world which, if and when they break out, tend to be almost

exclusively transnational wars. In this respect, Africa’s

conflicts may be collectively characterized as “conflicts of

consolidation,” which suggests that such conflicts are endemic

to most states in their early histories as independent nations.

In the preindependence phase, resistance and militarism is

introduced as these colonial or subject territories become

politicized. The indigenous population identified the colonial

regime as the enemy, but in most of Africa the colonial power

departed without a fight. The most notable exception were

three Portuguese colonies, where the anticolonial struggles

had been standard protracted conflicts and turned into

complex civil wars. Often, competing insurgent groups, each

with different ethnic and leadership bases, opposed the

enemy. These groups did not easily overcome their separate

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identities after independence had been attained. But the

process was different where no substantial anticolonial wars

were fought—as was true for most of West Africa. There, the

initial security forces were more integrated into the ruling

circles until opposition emerged from within the single security

apparatus, led usually by younger military men. These men

did not perceive the struggle as one against competing

ethnic-based social groups but against an entrenched,

corrupt, and stagnant ruling elite. This latter tendency,

introduced by the Dergue in Ethiopia, by Jerry Rawlings in

Ghana, and Thomas Sankara in Upper Volta, inspired the

ascension to power by Doe in Liberia.

Whether peaceful or violent, the abrupt replacement of an

entire power elite by another group based on different social

classes amounts to a revolution and introduces a new

consolidative period. This period is the most volatile and

disruptive in the history of most nations. In these instances,

law and order breaks down; social cleavages polarize; new

leaders emerge who are bent more on achieving power than on

restoring peace; economies are devastated; and external

interventions often do more to exacerbate problems rather

than to resolve them. In essence, the major thrust of political

efforts in this period concern the attempts to establish

legitimacy and social tranquility to restart the process of

socioeconomic development. But with the established social

infrastructure having been destroyed, and considering that the

general welfare level had never been advanced, new aspirants

to power face formidable challenges indeed. These

characteristics describe Liberia’s predicament quite well.

Whether protracted or prolonged or conflicts or outright

wars, organized hostilities by African governments in power or

by their opponents tend to get bogged down when neither side

can eliminate the other in a short, sharp strike. The conflict

rages, but as the active combatants come to respect each

other, each in turn inflicts great havoc on the other’s society.

The embattled government’s only concern becomes sheer

survival, while administrative programs are placed in

abeyance due to the absence of stability and the lack of

domestic and foreign capital formation. Opponents, on the

other hand, rarely constitute in the initial stage more than a

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motley group of armed opportunists seeking to legitimize

themselves by embellishing their cause with terminology

borrowed from external guerrilla and insurgent groups. Their

lack of materiel and financial resources is soon overcome by

the unscrupulous exploitation of the rural masses among

which they move, but in time they gain some respectability.

They become, in Mao Tse Tung’s formulation, the fish in a sea

of people. Their claims to be taken seriously is enhanced when

they receive overt support from external neighboring or distant

benefactors. In the cold war days, this support was obtained

easily from the Soviet or the American camps. Today, external

support may come from Libya, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia,

or India or old, established west European sources. Africa has

not lost its attraction to external meddlers, although most of

the continent has been marginalized as a global player.

There have been respectably managed protracted wars in

Africa. For the most part, however, other insurgencies in Africa

have lacked sophisticated formulations of protracted warfare

at the outset, although several, such as those movements led

by Savimbi in Angola, Dhlakama in Mozambique, and Garang

in Sudan, developed them once they were under way. Most

other conflicts in Africa have been prolonged wars. Conflicts

such as those in Chad or Sudan or the western Sahara have

gone on interminably, and as is the case of Ethiopia, Angola,

and Sudan, they raged on and became “wars without results.”

Liberia’s civil war early demonstrated the classic tenets of

prolongation as the proliferation of competing opposition

groups, changing objectives, expanding battleground, and

extending the conflict into neighboring states. These tenets

also included divisions among regional supporters, external

intervention, devastation of the social infrastructure, and large

numbers of direct and indirect civilian casualties. Although

not planned developments, these tenets offer emerging

evidence of progressive deterioration—the result of avoiding

one massive, concentrated confrontation, which certainly

would eliminate one of the protagonists decisively. However, it

may indeed be likely that the ultimate damage done as the

result of an initial decisive confrontation between the

government and the insurgents may be less than the damage

inflicted from the prolonged war and the absence of a clear

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victory. External interests, whose intervention almost

invariably leads to the prolongation of conflicts, should have

had a prime concern in this proposition. Certainly the

examples of Chad, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, and,

presently, Liberia, attest to this.

The Evolution of Liberia’s Prolonged War

Progressive deterioration, social tensions, and authoritarian

domination have marked the reign of President Tolbert. The

“rice riots” of 14 April 1979 offered evidence of the Liberian

military’s reorientation from traditional support for the

government. For example, when Doe ascended to power in the

12 April 1980 coup, he faced not only a declining social situation but also a deteriorating economy that Tolbert’s civilian

government had failed to stem. As the subsequent decade of

Doe’s own rule progressed, however, there were no signs to feel

good about the country’s fate. An unsuccessful coup attempt

by Gen Thomas Quiwonkpa in 1985 had a remarkably

prescient tinge in that the coup had wide popular support and

engaged the neighboring countries of Sierra Leone and the

Ivory Coast, and to an undetermined degree, Israel and the

United States.4 That coup started the active demise of Doe’s

regime.5 His decade in power had been marked by at least

one-half dozen coup attempts, but it took a full-scale civil war

to bring him down—after which the war continued.

On 24 December 1989 Liberia’s devastating conflict

commenced when Charles Taylor and his small band—

variously estimated to range between a few dozen to well over

a hundred strong—crossed into Liberia from the Ivory Coast.

Its composition represented acknowledged dissidents,

participants at Quiwonkpa’s coup, and an undetermined

number who may have received training in Libya. Allegedly,

included in this latter group were Charles Taylor and Prince

Johnson, who split from Taylor’s movement a few months

later.

This modest team of insurgents were led by Charles Taylor,

a man who must have assessed two important factors

correctly: that Doe’s troops, the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL),

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were poorly prepared for combat, and that his own ethnic-based

rural insurgents would advance quickly as the AFL would pose

only a challenge in the capital city. This weakness afforded

Taylor the opportunity to prepare for a quasi-protracted war

while extending his control over the rural areas, which in turn

also would generate additional recruits for his force. These

strategies went according to plan, and after a few successfully

quick strikes at minor government installations and garrisons

in Nimba county—adjacent to the Ivory Coast from where he

entered—Taylor moved rapidly towards the coastal towns. His

early intentions were to seize the key economic and

infrastructural grids while avoiding a premature attack on

Monrovia. This latter objective would require a much larger

and trained force and the prior alliance with most of the

country’s rural inhabitants.

Taylor’s successes came rather easily and were abetted by

Doe’s widely perceived ineptitude and by the seemingly total

incompetence of the AFL, which quickly resorted to pillaging

and wanton slaughter of villagers. D. Ellwood Dunn and S.

Byron Tarr note that Liberia was severely “tribalized” during

the 1980s, and these writers expected a severe backlash

against Doe’s Krahn kinsman, whose members dominated the

government and military.6 This backlash may have been

anticipated by Taylor, who may have incorporated the existing

tribal animosities into his insurgent strategy. If he did so, he

once again calculated correctly that this would weaken the

government and would enable him to gain the wide backing of

other Liberians who had come to resent the Kahn ascendancy.

The question of ethnicity and its role in civil wars holds

special interest to students of African conflicts. In Liberia

ethnic relations were generally peaceful during the long period

of domination by the Americo-Liberian elite. The abrupt

termination of that oligarchic rule and the wider indigenization

of political participation may have constituted a proper step

towards democratization, but only the naive should have failed

to anticipate the ensuing social conflict. While observers may

accuse Tubman and Tolbert of not learning from recent

African history, they may level the same charge at Doe and his

supporters (and in the distant country of South Africa, the

same phenomenon may be underway). Once activated, ethnic

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politics cannot be easily turned off, and the distant

repercussions will likely plague the region in ways not initially

foreseen by the perpetrators. Thus, in Liberia not long after

Taylor’s initial forays, the Gio and Mano of mostly Nimba

county supported Taylor’s efforts. In contrast, a Mandingo and

Krahn coalition—the latter being the privileged kinsmen of

Doe—opposed him. By this time the Americo-Liberians had

ceased to be a major factor, although one may argue that they

had served as the functional peacekeepers while they dominated power.

Doe’s government troops failed to mount a credible offensive

against Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL)

forces; hence, they assumed a mostly defensive posture by

digging in around key points in the capital. Before a year went

by, Taylor dominated 95 percent of the country, but he

remained frustrated in not being able to go in for the final kill.

(Some observers argue that he could have done so, but he

chose not to as this would have entailed massive civilian

casualties.) Again, this tactic is a frequent feature in African

wars where the main strategic objective always involves the

difficult-to-conquer capital city, despite the loss of control over

the vast rural areas. Luanda in Angola and Maputo in

Mozambique are such examples. The failure of the NPFL to

take Monrovia may be attributed, as is the case in Luanda, to

foreign intervention. Cubans defended Angola’s capital, while a

combined force, the Economic Community of West African

States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), introduced a

mixed force that was comprised in mid-1990 of five West

African countries in defense of Monrovia.

ECOMOG’s active intervention, starting in 1990, secured

the capital city but in the process had introduced a new

fighting force. Remnants of Doe’s army numbered about

1,000; Taylor’s NPFL troops numbered several thousand;

Prince Johnson, who left the NPFL and organized his

Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL),

commanded fewer than 1,000 troops, but they were highly

aggressive; and ECOMOG began with about 3,000 troops,

which, after a slow start, doubled a year later. ECOMOG’s

mission began ostensibly as a peace-keeping effort, to separate

the sides in the conflict while allowing the political process to

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resolve the dispute. However, Taylor’s hostile attitude towards

ECOMOG led ECOMOG partially to align itself with Johnson’s

INPFL. This alignment allowed Johnson’s men to capture Doe

and his contingent of palace guards while Doe was on a visit to

ECOMOG headquarters in September 1990. The terms of this

capture have not yet been cleared up, but the subsequent

mutilation of Doe by Johnson and his cohorts cast a terminal

pall over the INPFL as an internationally approved participant

in the future affairs of Liberia. Subsequent atrocities

committed by the INPFL have only verified the innately

perverse nature of that group as personified by its leaders.7

External interventionists cannot escape the task of

becoming kingmakers—and subsequently being burdened

with supporting them in power. The US experienced this

situation in Vietnam and in Panama; the Soviets in Eastern

Europe and in Afghanistan; and in Liberia, ECOMOG had little

choice but to support the interim government of Amos Sawyer.

As Taylor had no hand in that appointment, ECOMOG then

inherited the obligation to defend Sawyer in a country where

95 percent of the territory was out of his control, thus,

ensuring a classic tenet of prolonged wars. Liberia would

become ECOWAS’s “Vietnam.”

Prolonged wars tend to engage various efforts at intervention

by the international community, and this is likewise the case

in Liberia. Some observers believe Taylor received training and

financial support from Libya; most of this support was

channeled through Burkina Faso. Taylor operated from the

Ivory Coast, where he made his initial incursions. Unsubstantiated reports note that Burkino Faso even had some

active troops supporting Taylor’s efforts.8 As Taylor had Libyan

connections, and his program and leadership capabilities were

uncertain, relations between Taylor and the US were cautious.

Taylor in turn castigated the US for its enthusiastic backing of

ECOMOG’s effort and its support of Amos Sawyer.

The US had backed Doe during his initial years in power but

gradually reduced that support after failing to note positive

gains. Once hostilities against Doe commenced, the US moved

quickly to guard American facilities, especially its embassy,

and a substantial contingent of US Marines was stationed on

warships offshore. They eventually did have to secure the US

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Embassy and evacuated American and other foreign personnel

from Liberia. As peace talks broke down, the US offered to fly

Doe to a destination of his choice, but he declined the offer.

Throughout the war, all opposing factions acknowledged

America’s long interests and future role in Liberia, but the

factions cast a weary eye at America’s involvement and

occasionally accused the US of siding openly with opponents.

In the cold war days, this alignment may have led to more

acute problems if the Soviets had chosen to enter the fray, but

now Taylor had to make do with only limited external support.

It appears that initially Taylor had lived mostly off the land,

however ruthlessly, and that he did gain much of his military

supplies from captured government stores. This strategy is

also a feature of many prolonged wars in Africa. But it is

hardly conceivable that he could have succeeded so much had

he not secured external support initially from Burkina Faso

and the Ivory Coast. He also realized that he would receive

continued Libyan backing and substantial profits from diverse

French commercial interests during the course of the conflict.

Prolonged wars tend to attract participation by external

benefactors, and they soon involve neighboring countries.

Indeed, Liberia’s civil war actually spilled directly into Sierra

Leone, whose government was subsequently overthrown in a

coup in 1992. Motives for external intervention or involvement

are difficult to isolate, and we cannot generalize about them,

as each participant has his own agenda. Qadhafi’s objective

may well be his penchant to intervene wherever possible or to

capitalize on opportunities afforded while world attention is

focused on another combat theater. However, he has made no

significant or permanent gains in black Africa. The motives of

Burkina Faso may well represent little more than the personal

ambition of President B. Campaore to exert influence in a

wider region. Houphouet Boigny of the Ivory Coast is rumored

to have been related to President Tolbert through marriage,

and he found Doe difficult to work with.

Sierra Leone may have feared the conflict spreading across

her borders and hence gambled by offering a contingent of

troops to ECOMOG to help stabilize Liberia. This act, however,

led Taylor to support a Sierra Leonean dissident faction

against that government, which then expanded it to the level

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of a quasi-civil war. Most accounts by the print media agree

that Taylor’s NPFL forces entered deep into Sierra Leone’s

territory with the support of Libya and Burkina Faso. That

action by the NPFL did not lead to Sierra Leone’s pulling out of

the ECOMOG force, and Guinea and Nigeria had to come to

Sierra Leone’s rescue to beat back the incursions.9

The other foreign participants include members of the

ECOMOG force led by Nigeria, which subsidizes the largest

portion of the bill and offers the largest contingent of troops,

and later Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Senegal

later. Again, each participant had different objectives for

intervention, most of which have not been articulated openly.

Those with contiguous borders generally fear the expansion of

the conflict into their areas, while the more distant

participants present a mix of political, or “imperial,”

ambitions. According to Kenneth B. Noble, Campaore justified

his country’s participation “because he believed foreign

military intervention would only exacerbate the situation.”10

His words, however, were overtly corroborated by his own

actions.

A Lutta Continua

“The battle continues” embodies the classic expression of

Africa’s struggle against colonial domination. But in the case

of Liberia, this phrase introduces an updated dimension which

implies that the battle is becoming prolonged. The elements of

the war which normally lead towards the “bogging down

phenomenon” were manifest early in Liberia’s civil war, and

the war-related activities after the first two years only expanded

on the established complexity but added little that was new. A

detailed listing of intervening events would in effect yield a

history of the conflict—which is not the purpose of the present

analysis. However, several developments may be presented as

they promote an understanding of prolonged wars, particularly

Liberia’s prolonged war.

On the international front several conferences were

convened, with or without Charles Taylor’s participation. The

most notable one was Yamousoukro IV (October 1991), at

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which time the convening nations agreed to open the roads

throughout Liberia, to begin disarming the warring factions

and encamp the troops, and to prepare for elections. Little of

this was realized as Taylor would not accept a situation in

which his perceived just rewards would not be ensured.

Instead, Taylor began to sense an emerging split in the ranks

of ECOWAS and its ECOMOG peacekeeping force.

Nigeria, which supplied the leadership and the greatest

number of personnel and finances for the ECOMOG contingent,

also began to show doubts about the entire affair. Indeed, some

in Nigeria began their own domestic “Vietnam” debate. Military

operations in distant lands depleted fragile treasuries quickly.

ECOMOG’s troop strength escalated to around 11,000, and by

mid-1992 Ghanaian and Nigerian airplanes were engaged in

bombing sorties to destroy Taylor’s headquarters. All this

promised a long and escalating involvement.

Whereas West Africa had traditionally seen a pervasive

political split between Anglo and Francophone states, regional

concern over the Liberian affair introduced a further split

among the Francophone ranks. Guinea, a contributor of forces

to ECOMOG, feared that the war was spilling into her territory—

as it had done in Sierra Leone, while Senegal offered a

moderate-sized contingent, perhaps in response to external

requests as there was no problem of territorial contiguity.

These two states and Mali, another supporter of ECOMOG,

were opposed by Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast. In 1992

the US recalled its ambassador from Burkina Faso in response

to continued active support of Taylor. Houphouet Boigny of the

Ivory Coast on the other hand was under great pressure by his

West African colleagues to end his support of Taylor. The Ivory

Coast then began to assume a more ambiguous position. This

split in the Francophone ranks, however, did not reduce its

traditional suspicions of Nigeria and its unavoidable

leadership role in West Africa and ECOMOG. Dominating the

military operations in Liberia, it was feared, could whet

Nigeria’s appetite for a hegemonial role and Nigeria would gain

valuable leadership and battlefield experience. Nigeria’s

long-established opposition to French initiatives in West Africa

once again raised old questions about certain Francophone

states serving French designs. French commercial interests

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had moved rapidly into the area controlled by Taylor, and the

revenues thus generated served as Taylor’s principal financial

support for his insurgency.11

President Doe was killed in September 1990. Conferences at

Banjul, Lome, and Monrovia then established an interim

government led by Amos Sawyer. He had the backing of the

ECOWAS and the US but remained opposed by Taylor, who

either boycotted most conferences or refused to abide by their

formulations. This strategy then introduced a common feature

of prolonged wars, namely the de facto existence of two

governments. Under these conditions, the insurgents develop

their own political and administrative machinery: introduce at

least the intent of providing social services, starting with

schools and rudimentary clinics; and attempt economic revival

by focusing on the exploitation of extractive commodities and

subsistence agriculture. Inevitably, external commercial

interests are available to capitalize on this high-risk, but

profitable, opportunity. The besieged government, on the other

hand, occupies the capital city and relies on external aid,

military support, and resolution of the conflict at international

conferences and distant negotiating tables. This procedure

raises a curious dilemma, one which Liberia has to face as

well: the government in the capital city relies on its legitimacy

which stems from the diplomatic activities of external

interests, while the insurgents work systematically to gain

legitimacy from among the mostly rural population. This

pattern surfaced in China, Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan,

Guinea Bissau, and Angola and now characterizes Liberia.

Whoever wins in the end will still face a formidable task in

attracting a former adversary’s support base.

Ongoing factionalism embodies another pervasive

characteristic of prolonged wars. If insurgents fail to act

quickly to oust the government, as a protracted strategy is

then assumed, they will notice a rise in factionalism with the

insurgent group or the introduction of new armed dissident

groups. Prince Johnson and his followers broke away from

Taylor’s NPFL and pursued their own insurgent agenda in the

suburbs of Monrovia. Then the United Liberation Movement of

Liberia (ULIMO) emerged in March 1991, representing the

Krahn-based Liberian United Democratic Front (LUDF), led by

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Arma Youlu, and a mostly Mandingo force led by Alhaji

Kromah. These new groups have the backing of neighboring

Sierra Leone and Guinea and concentrate their energies more

against the NPFL than on the interim government.12 Their

ultimate objectives, aside from servicing the needs of their

benefactors, are unknown. And reportedly, before long, each

group, including Taylor’s NPFL, experienced an outbreak of

bickering and outright hostilities among internal factions.

Such continuous bifurcations virtually guaranteed the

attendant prolonged public suffering and foreign meddling.

This outcome was evident in Angola and continues to be the

case in Liberia.

ECOMOG’s role also underwent redefinitions. That organization was constituted as a peace-keeping force, but when it

bombed certain strategic targets in areas controlled by Taylor,

it acted as a combatant. ECOMOG backed the interim government of Amos Sawyer and came to appreciate the efforts of

ULIMO to weaken the NPFL. But ECOMOG demonstrated

notable weaknesses. Several—if not most—of the constituent

national forces, such as Sierra Leone’s and Guinea’s, were

hardly neutral in the conflict. Nigeria’s massive commitment

is, of course, also suspect. And persistent rumors hold that

there is dissent within the ranks as soldiers perceive their

“Vietnam-like” situation. Some soldiers seriously question

their willingness to confront Taylor’s force in a systematic

ground campaign on his own territory.

While the conflict festers and its resolution is pursued at

various negotiating tables, the atrocities continue, whether

inflicted by war or by deprivation. The massacre of 600 Gios

and Manos in St. Peter’s Church in July 1990 provides a stark

reminder of the inevitable dark side of a prolonged war.13

Casualties in Africa’s wars are not reliably reported, but

observers generally assume that civilians account for 90

percent of the deaths in the continent’s civil war. Another

dimension concerns the long-term damage of such wars. The

physical infrastructure throughout most of the country is soon

destroyed, or it deteriorates through neglect. Domestic capital

flees—as do many of the entrepreneurial managers—while

traditional external trade and investment ties are abrogated.

The mere cessation of war will hardly reinstitute these lost

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assets, hence the damage will be compounded for some time to

come. Liberia has never been featured as the focus of major

external economic interest; therefore, the reconstruction of the

destroyed economic infrastructure will not be accomplished

soon.

Conclusion

The prolonged Liberian conflict has been raging since the

end of 1989. Some wars have been much longer, but scholars

in the field do not define prolongation within a purely temporal

context only. Rather, observers should focus on the failure of

the conflict to come to a head in an early decisive battle—

which would eliminate at least one of the major protagonists.

In this regard, the conflict in Liberia, while still in its early

stages, experienced most of those attributes associated with

prolonged wars of much longer duration.

Charles Taylor never did develop an acknowledged

sophisticated protracted war strategy. Instead, external forces

and rival insurgent groups interdicted the NPFL’s surprisingly

rapid advance on Liberia’s jugular vein. Certainly, the way in

which Taylor built his force required elements of a protracted

strategy, which also guided his systematic advance through

the countryside. Gaining adherents in the rural areas in Africa

is not, however, as significant as it may be in the Latin

American or Southeast Asian contexts. Authoritative power in

Africa is almost totally concentrated in the capital city, and if

that city is secured with the aid of foreign forces, the classic

protracted struggle, focusing on the domination of the rural

areas, loses considerable relevance. In effect, the struggle

continues with two “governments” in power: one dominating

the formal accoutrements of state authority in the capital,

which is embellished with claims to wide diplomatic

recognition; the other gains incremental legitimacy in the

countryside. Both however, rely on competing foreign interests

to determine their fate. The insurgents rarely topple the

government, but by retaining a credible capability to survive

and by launching an occasional terrorist act or attack on a

governmental installation (which are often little more than

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192
suicide missions), they determine their fortunes at

international negotiation forums (e.g., SWAPO in Namibia), or

they continue their fight sporadically and interminably and

without resolution (e.g., PLO in Palestine and RENAMO in

Mozambique).

Liberia has experienced virtually all the characteristics of a

prolonged war in a compressed time frame. An insurgent

group eliminated the head of state, but they could not capture

state structures. The stated objectives of participants changed

frequently, ranging from the desire for the mere ouster of Doe’s

corrupt government, ostensibly for altruistic reasons, to the

unprincipled drive to become the new leader. Some external

analysts have referred to the entire embroglio as little more

than tribalism—a charge which cannot escape a pejorative

connotation. Were this to be true, we would have to expect

that all fighting in Africa would not cease until each tribe had

its own state. Tribalism in Liberia’s conflict is obvious, but as

in other African conflicts, it is a symptom of the breakdown of

an established order which did not possess wide legitimacy.

External analysts will be mistaken if they focus solely on this

issue—and miss the nuances of changing power relationships.

At issue is progressive social deterioration and a contest of

who shall prevail. Balancing or manipulating tribal cleavages

is but one demonstration of power articulation. In Liberia, a

fundamental revolution has already taken place, and the

contest for power has moved out of the capital city and into

the rural areas. The consequent resort to tribal reidentification

as an expected reaction surprises no one. This resort also

reflects a standard feature of prolonged wars throughout

Africa, although it does not necessarily hold true in all other

areas of the third world.

Negotiated settlements alone will not resolve Liberia’s

prolonged war. The traditionally placid rural population has

been activated and polarized. Standard democratic institutions

drawn from Western forms will find little relevance in Liberia’s

disrupted third world context. The most acute problems relate

to socioeconomic standing and security matters. Analysts may

argue that these needs cannot be addressed outside of a

political context. But here they would do well to remember

that most modern African states started with democratic

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structures but only a few of them survived. Certainly little

realistic basis exists for expecting the economy to strengthen

after a political settlement; hence, political and ethnic tensions

may also be perpetuated. Ghana and Nigeria’s alternations

between democratic, authoritarian, and military governments

reflect the fundamental problems associated with attempts to

resolve poetical disputes without commensurate economic

progress. In this regard, Liberia’s offending head of state was

removed from power, but the conflict has hardly ended. A

negotiated settlement may represent little more than a reprieve

before parties renew hostilities again. And with numerous

external allies or benefactors available, the prospects for the

prolongation of the war are greatly enhanced.

Because of the inherent nature of prolonged war, analysts

find it difficult to predict when they will end. And again, the

arrival of peace will only signify the start of new problems as

the country begins to redevelop. In Liberia this latter task

poses a social challenge just as profound as the civil war itself.

Notes

1.-Quoted in J. Gus Liebenow, Liberia: The Quest for Democracy

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 315.

2.-D. Elwood Dunn and S. Byron Tarr, Liberia: A National Polity in

Transition (Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Ltd., 1988), chap. 2.

3.-See Karl P. Magyar, “Low-Intensity Conflicts: The African Context,” in

Stephen Blank et al., Responding to Low-Intensity Conflict Challenges

(Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 1990), 19.

4.-Liebenow, 300–303.

5.-“Liberian Warfare Has Roots in 1985,” New York Times, 5 June 1990.

6.-Dunn and Tarr, 199–200.

7.-“A Foe to Be Feared,” New York Times, 1 September 1990; Foreign

Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), “Daily Report, Sub-Saharan Africa,” 5

August 1991, 30.

8.-See “Civil War in Liberia Threatening to Divide West African

Neighbors,” New York Times, 29 September 1990.

9.-New York Times, 16 April 1991.

10.-Ibid., 29 August 1990.

11.-S. Byron Tarr, “ECOMOG’s Initiative in Liberia: A Liberian

Perspective” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the African Studies

Association, Seattle, 1992), 26.

12.-Africa Confidential 32, no. 23 (22 November 1991): 6–7.

13.-Janet Fleischman, “The Liberian Tragedy,” Reconstruction 2, no. 1

(1992).

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194
The Rhodesian Conflict

1966–79

Herbert M. Howe

All sides at least initially misjudged the war’s length. The

Rhodesian government, led by Prime Minister Ian Smith,

issued its Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from

Great Britain in November of 1965, convinced that the blacks

could not mount a significant military threat and that white

rule was thus assured. Among the blacks, the Zimbabwe

African National Union (ZANU) and the Zimbabwe African

Peoples Union (ZAPU) thought erroneously that significant

guerrilla incursions from Zambia could trigger African

uprisings against the whites. The British government, which

had legal responsibility for its errant colony, at least publicly

believed in 1965 that the Rhodesian cause would last only

“months, if not weeks.”1 The United States government in its

1969 National Security Studies Memorandum (USSM)-39

reaffirmed its belief that whites in southern Africa would

remain through the foreseeable future.

All sides were wrong. The prolonged war began in the

mid-1960s, sputtered until the early 1970s, and flared

increasingly in the mid-1970s until the Lancaster House

agreement and the cessation of hostilities in 1979 and the

subsequent election of ZANU’s Robert Mugabe as prime minister

in March 1980.

Between 1965 and 1972 the Rhodesian Defence Force (RDF)

seemingly had won the military struggle; it had contained the

initial guerrilla hostilities and had destroyed much of ZAPU’s

and ZANU’s capabilities. Rhodesia used mostly military, and

not political, means to counter the guerrillas. Its basic military

doctrine was mobile, rather than area, defense. Both ZANU

and ZAPU began hostilities believing that relatively large

guerrilla incursions would secure immediate peasant support.

Between 1972 and 1976 the conflict started anew. By 1970

ZANU had shifted to protracted war with an emphasis on

political mobilization, whereas ZAPU remain wedded to more

195
conventional military strategy. ZAPU and ZANU benefitted

from communist (Eastern bloc and Chinese) weaponry and

European financial support. The independence of Angola and

especially Mozambique (which granted sanctuary to ZANU),

coupled with rising levels of East European and Chinese aid

and rising Zimbabwean nationalism, helped to persuade white

Rhodesia’s two major hopes, the United States and South

Africa, to work for black majority rule.2

By late 1979 the Rhodesian military remained capable of

inflicting large losses on guerrilla forces and their regional allies,

notably Mozambique, but the country’s increasingly depleted

economy, a declining white manpower pool, an almost inexhaustible manpower pool for guerrilla manpower recruitment,

and rising guerrilla capabilities signalled the need for

negotiations. The conflict claimed some 40,000 lives and affected

postwar development by damaging Rhodesia’s—and the

region’s—economy.

Events unforeseen in 1965 that contributed to the

prolongation included: (1) the growth of large guerrilla forces

capable of conducting a protracted war (“chimurenga”)3; (2)

Rhodesia’s ability to withstand sanctions by developing

alternative domestic industries and by circumventing United

Nations sanctions; and (3) the accession to power of the Popular

Movement For the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and Front for the

Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO). The massive Soviet/

Cuban support given to the MPLA and FRELIMO’s support of

ZANU guerrillas caused the US and South Africa, Rhodesia’s two

major hopes, to oppose continued white rule.

Black Grievances

Rhodesia was bound to resist African nationalism more than

any other of the European colonies. Rhodesia had more

settlers—some 200,000 by 1965—and these settlers had

established a strong vested interest by developing Rhodesia’s

mineral and agricultural wealth. A self-governing colony since

1923, Rhodesia enjoyed almost total freedom from England, its

legal but nominal ruler.

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The settlers’ strong will to control Rhodesia’s economic and

political future increasingly collided with external factors,

most notably support for postwar decolonization and such

internal considerations as a growing core of well-educated

Africans, who saw continued white domination as barring the

rights and privileges of 6 million other Africans.

Rhodesia’s racial system, while not as pervasive or harsh as

South Africa’s, embittered blacks. Various land laws, including

the Land Apportionment Act and the Land Tenure Act, gave

one-half (and most of the best) of Rhodesia’s land to whites.

The Color Bar Act limited social mixing between the races. The

Masters and Servants Act denied at least one-half of all African

workers the right to form or join unions. The Unlawful

Organizations Act authorized the government to restrict or ban

political organizations.

Repression of African’s initial protests and the government’s

UDI increasingly spurred a drive for violent opposition. ZAPU

in 1961 and the more radical ZANU in 1963 replaced the

moderate organizations, notably the (Rhodesian) African

National Congress and the National Democratic Party of the

late 1950s. African frustration turned to military insurgency

by the mid-1960s when, after the government banned the

recently formed ZANU and ZAPU in 1964, these two groups

established their military wings, Zimbabwean African National

Liberation Army (ZANLA) and Zimbabwean African Peoples

Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA). Throughout the war, ZANU drew

most of its support from the Shona, while ZAPU relied

primarily on the smaller Ndebele population.

Major Actors

Ian Smith’s Rhodesia Front government and the guerrilla

forces of ZANU and ZAPU were the war’s major combatants.

Smith enjoyed overwhelming support from Rhodesia’s whites

(whose numbers peaked at 275,000 in 1972). His party never

lost a seat in the 50-member parliament. The Rhodesian Front

strongly opposed any significant political reforms. In talks with

Britain in the late 1960s, Smith remained recalcitrant. As late

as March 1976, Smith vowed that majority rule would not occur

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within the next one thousand years. The government believed

the insurgency as externally directed and that Rhodesia’s

blacks, described by Smith in 1972 as “the happiest Africans

in the world,” would not willingly support the struggle.4 The

government had failed to understand the growing black anger

towards white rule. In 1965, the year of UDI, the Rhodesian

Defence Force was small and unable to fight a prolonged bush

war. Yet, during the next 15 years, it forged a highly capable

force that conducted highly successful internal and crossborder operations.

Joshua Nkomo, sometimes described as the “father of

Zimbabwean nationalism,” established ZAPU in 1961. While

containing some Shonas, ZAPU had its greatest strength

among the Ndebele, who comprised about 18 percent of all

Rhodesians. Nkomo, unlike ZANU’s Robert Mugabe, would

sometimes meet with the white government and business

establishment in hopes of a peaceful settlement. Yet the

uncompromising Rhodesian Front government forced such

moderates as Nkomo to use military pressure. Nkomo favored

conventional military structure and tactics. Based in Zambia

and relying on conventional Soviet support, equipment, and

theory, ZAPU and its military wing ZIPRA posed only a limited

threat to the Rhodesian government.

Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole founded ZANU in 1963 as a

split off from ZAPU. But, following several leadership changes,

Robert Mugabe by early 1975 had established himself as

ZANU’s leader. ZANU, and its military wing ZANLA, largely

drew on the Shona, who comprised 80 percent of Zimbabwe’s

total population. Increasingly operating from Mozambique

during the 1970s, ZANU supported Mao Tse-tung’s three-staged

protracted-war concept and opposed negotiations until

achieving the clear military advantage. Mugabe’s ZANU

described itself as Marxist-Leninist, rather than simply

nationalist, and received much of its weaponry from the

People’s Republic of China and from Eastern Europe.

At the war’s outbreak, internal and regional relations greatly

favored the Smith government. Opposition Rhodesian whites

never posed any political challenge. In 1964 supporters of

ZAPU and ZANU attacked each other over ideology (“moderate”

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198
ZAPU versus “radical” ZAPU) and group/ethnic rivalry and

caused both loss of life and property damage.

The military balance at the outset of UDI overwhelmingly

favored the Rhodesian government. The two guerrilla “armies

had perhaps two hundred poorly trained and equipped men.”

The Rhodesian army had one regular battalion of Rhodesian

African Rifles, one battalion of Rhodesian Light Infantry, one

Special Air Services squadron, and one armored car regiment.

These forces could draw on the supporting corps—artillery,

signals, and service units. Besides these regular units,

Rhodesia had three white territorial battalions mobilizable

with one day’s notice and at least two more all-white reserve

battalions that required about a 10-day mobilization period.

The army, the uniformed police, the Special Branch, and the

Department of Internal Affairs provided separate intelligence

flows.

The air force had about one hundred aircraft, including

Hunter fighters, Canberra bombers, Vampire jets, Alouette

helicopters, Provost trainers, and Dakotas. Rhodesia started

its counterinsurgency (COIN) operations with an officer corps

that had effectively fought guerrillas in Malaya during the

early 1950s.

South Africa, on Rhodesia’s southern border, had militarily

cooperated with its fellow white minority government in training

exercises as early as 1961. To Rhodesia’s east, Portuguese-ruled

Mozambique adamantly opposed independence. Rhodesia’s two

black-ruled neighbors—Botswana to the west and Zambia to the

north—opposed Rhodesia’s minority rule. Zambia initially

granted sanctuary to both ZANLA and ZIPRA but could offer only

limited resources. Furthermore, the Zambezi River and Lake

Kariba hindered guerrilla infiltration. To Rhodesia’s west,

Botswana would allow little help to the guerrillas other than

transit permission.

Early Guerrilla Operations

Shortly after UDI had proven the futility of peaceful

opposition, ZIPRA and ZANLA began guerrilla operations.

ZIPRA received its earliest training from the Soviet Union,

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Cuba, and Algeria. ZANLA’s first trainers were from Ghana,

the People’s Republic of China, and Tanzania.

In April 1966 a 14-man ZANLA band moved from Zambia

into Rhodesia and then split into three small teams. At the

Battle of Sinoia (Chinhoyi), Rhodesian security forces in

Operation Nickel wiped out a seven-man squad, including

some guerrillas trained at Nanking Military College.

This early battle demonstrated the initial incompetence of

both forces. The political commissar of this group apparently

was an agent of the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), and the group was to guide security forces to

arms caches and chimurenga supporters. Yet government

mistakes resulted in the group’s inefficient slaughter: a

Rhodesian air force history notes that “it was a very unconvincing and unprofessional action. . . . Fortunately for the

police, the guerrillas were too confused to take advantage of

the inexperience of the hunters.”5 The police armed themselves with single-action Lee-Enfield .303s and insisted then,

and for several later operations, on wearing their blue

uniforms while operating in the bush.

In August 1967 an 80-man joint ZIPRA-South African ANC

team crossed the Zambezi River into the Wankie game

preserve.6 The force planned to establish base camps from

which ZIPRA was to infiltrate into Matabeleland while the

South Africans would move into the northern Transvaal. The

Rhodesian African Rifles’ response reportedly met “several

nasty reverses,” and the final tally was 30 guerrillas killed and

20 captured versus seven Rhodesians killed and 13 wounded.7

Then captain Ron Reid-Daly (later commander of Rhodesia’s

Selous Scouts unit) described the government’s casualty rates

as “extremely high.”8 From March until the end of May 1968,

Rhodesia conducted Cauldron, its first prolonged operation.

Having reevaluated several of the mistakes from Nickel, the

RDF killed 69 guerrillas and captured 50 out of a total of 125.

According to Rhodesian figures, guerrillas killed only six

Rhodesian troops. In another 1968 action, Operation Griffin,

Rhodesian Provost T-52s dropped napalm and white

phosphorous on guerrilla forces. By the end of 1968, only 12

security forces had been killed versus more than 160

insurgents.

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Effects of Early Operations

These early, poorly conducted operations of ZANU and ZAPU

had four significant effects: converting ZANLA to protracted

war, reducing ZIPRA’s effectiveness, deluding the Rhodesians

about their invincibility, and prompting South Africa to insert

security personnel.

Most importantly, around 1969 ZAPU and ZANU’s military

failures convinced ZANI (especially Mugabe) to embrace Mao’s

concept of protracted war. Previously, the scattered

inhabitants of remote and mountainous northwest Zibabwe

had greeted their liberators with suspicion, and the Rhodesian

army was able to quickly locate, enclose, and then destroy

such relatively large units. As Herbert Chitepo, ZANU’s

national chairman, noted, “These initial battles were fought in

a social climate in which our people had not been given full

political ideology and line.” Chitepo concluded that “we cannot

expect to wage guerrilla warfare successfully without mass

support.”9 In December of 1972 the appointment of Chinesetrained Josiah Tongagara as chief of ZANLA and secretary of

defense cemented ZANLA’s conversion to Mao’s three-stage

concept of rural revolution.

Protraction of the struggle along Maoist lines initially

involved organizing and consolidating safe bases, then

expanding low-risk military operations, and finally engaging in

more conventional military offensives. Protraction gave the

guerrillas time to minimize their weaknesses while playing on

the enemy’s shortcomings. The white Rhodesians preferred a

short war, whereas the Zimbabwean nationalists could win

only a protracted war.

Protraction husbanded scarce resources, allowed guerrilla

units to engage in low-risk operations (notably

shoot-and-scoot ambushes, sabotage, and mine laying), and

enabled ZANU to gain a rural base from which it could draw

intelligence, sanctuary, food and water, and porters and

recruits. Herbert Chitepo, ZANLA’s operations chief, described

the strategy’s goal as “to attenuate the enemy forces by

causing their deployment over the whole country. The

subsequent mobilization of a large number of civilians from

industry, business, and agriculture would cause serious

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economic problems. This would have a psychologically

devastating effect on the morale of the Whites.”10 A protracted

conflict would also damage white interests by giving

UN-imposed sanctions more time to work and by grinding

away at white morale.

Having taken the brunt of Rhodesian response to the

northwest operations, ZIPRA witnessed “a collapse of morale

and the withdrawal of ZIPRA from the conflict for a number of

years.”11 As a result, ZIPRA turned down FRELIMO’s offer to

operate from Tete province into northeast Rhodesia. Perhaps

because of its reliance on Soviet advisors or because it may

have felt that it needed a conventional onslaught to defeat

Rhodesia, ZIPRA did not shift to a Maoist-protracted strategy.

ZAPU would later pay heavily for its early inactivity and

decision not to engage heavily in internal guerrilla warfare.

The Rhodesian success in Operation Nickel gave a false

sense of security to whites and a confirmation of African

ineptitude. A limited military buildup and no political

concessions appeared sufficient. Defense spending remained

fairly constant, and the government became even more

hardline in its social policies. Aided by a seemingly sanctionsproof economy and security complacency (which included a

bordering South Africa), white immigration began growing to

its peak of 275,000.

South Africa showed more prescience than the Rhodesian

public. The ZAPU incursions, which had included South

African ANC members, persuaded Pretoria to dispatch police

units into Rhodesia’s Zambezi valley. Numerous reasons

explain South Africa’s support. Pretoria considered Rhodesia

and its some 150 miles of common border as South Africa’s

most important buffer. Twenty percent of white Rhodesians

had Afrikaner roots, and the two nations benefitted from

bonds built from race, tourism, and business as well as a

common minority status in black southern Africa. South

African right wingers had always seen the Zambezi as South

Africa’s real defense boundary. In 1961 (almost five years

before UDI) the two nations participated in combined air

exercises. By 1969 South Africa had deployed 2,700

paramilitary troops into Rhodesia—a total force of only one

thousand fewer than the entire Rhodesian regular army—as

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202
well as the “V Troop” (an South African Defense Force (SADF)

until that quickly cracked all of Zambia’s radio codes). Later

military assistance included helicopters and their air

crews—vitally necessary for Rhodesia’s COIN operations—and

specialized flight and underwater demolition training in South

Africa. Yet unforeseen in the late 1960s was that South

Africa’s regional goals increasingly would collide with those of

Rhodesia.

Prelude to Chimurenga

Without much fanfare ZANU’s several hundred supporters

began consolidating their position within Mozambique’s Tete

province around 1970. While Rhodesia still focused much of

its attention on a line running from Victoria Falls to the end of

Lake Kariba (the infiltration site of previous operations), ZANU

intensified its political buildup along the Mozambican border.

The shared Shona language and culture of eastern Rhodesia

and western Mozambique greatly aided ZANU.

ZANLA quickly turned to its greatest potential resource—the

6 million Zimbabeans—and began an effective process of

politicization. ZANLA’s adherence to the concept of people’s

war had ZANLA draw upon all possible Zimbabweans for

military manpower, porterage, sanctuary, food, and

intelligence. ZANLA for years would emphasize political

recruitment (and reliance on the peasantry for support) rather

than direct military conflict. David Martin and Phyllis Johnson

note that until early 1978, ZANLA was not on the offensive but

was engaged in defending the process of mass mobilization.12

As one guerrilla recalled, “We were taught that we had come

from the people and that we had to go to the people . . . our

source of supplies, shelter, and security.”13

The guerrillas sought out Tribal Trust Lands (TTL), where

most of Rhodesia’s Africans lived under subsistence

conditions. Recruitment often occurred at a village gathering,

or pungwe. Popular spirit mediums significantly aided

recruitment. ZANU sought and gained the support of these

popular mediums. Many, and probably most, Zimbabweans

believed that departed spirits communicated through these

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living mediums. The mediums helped to legitimatize the new

guerrilla organization in many nighttime pungwes and would

advise on a wide range of combat-related issues. While ZANLA

recruiters cited a wide range of African grievances, they

sometimes benefitted from apolitical considerations. Many

guerrillas, including Josiah Tongagara, later ZANLA’s chief

political commissar, thought of enlistment as leading to

“probably an adventure.”14

The guerrillas chose targets that denied the government’s

presence and legitimacy and, in time, installed ZANU

administration. Achieving these two goals would secure

guerrilla legitimacy among blacks while lowering white morale.

ZANU’s nonmilitary targets included white farmers and their

farms, government personnel (who implemented governmental

policies for the blacks), protected villages, tribal chiefs and

headmen, and such strategic infrastructure as railway and

power lines, roads, and bridges.

Beginning Chimurenga

The Rhodesians knew of ZANU’s shift to politicization but

apparently failed to gauge both its importance and its scope.

The southern movement by FRELIMO opened up areas of

western Mozambique from which ZANU increasingly infiltrated

into Rhodesia. The rewards of this quiet campaigning

appeared in late 1972. On 21 December small ZANLA units

staged surprise attacks in Centenary and elsewhere in

northeast Rhodesia and marked the beginning of the seven

years of protracted guerrilla struggle.

ZANLA grew from one hundred fighters in 1964 to perhaps

40,000 by the late 1970s. It had both male and female fighters

and noncombatant male auxiliaries (mujibas) and female

auxiliaries (chimbwindows). Perhaps 50,000 mujibas

supported the chimurenga effort.15 Auxiliaries aided the

guerrillas with intelligence, food, and psychological and

physical support. By the early 1970s, “large-scale porterage

groups numbering 100 or more were . . . covering the distance

from the Zambezi to the Rhodesian border in under

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twenty-four hours. They carried hundreds of kilograms of

ammunition, land mines, and weapons.”16

The guerrillas’ ordnance and training reflected ZANLA’s

predisposition towards protracted warfare. The fighters used

light weaponry—rifles (AK-47 assault, AKM, and SKS carbine),

light machine guns (DP, RPD, and RPK), rocket launchers

(RPG-2 and RPG-7), grenades (fragmentation, percussion, and

fragmentation rifle), mines (POMZ-2 antipersonnel and TM 48

and 48 antivehicle), 60-mm mortars, as well as Tokarev pistols

and TNT blocks.

ZANLA’s basic tactic was to hit the enemy with minimal risk

and from some distance. Guerrillas attacked security outposts

with mortars and RPG-7s, which allowed an attack base some

600 meters from the target. When hitting a convoy, guerrillas

would often halt the convoy with a mine blast or RPG firing.

Then a section (between 15 and 20 guerrillas) would fire

AK-47s and several of their RPGs.

ZANLA implemented sabotage operations with two sections.

The sabotage section had about seven combatants trained in

explosives. A larger support unit numbered between 15 and 20

fighters with (at maximum strength) mortars, RPG-7s, and

machine guns. ZANLA never used remote control explosive

equipment.

Guerrillas often planted land mines—“the single most

devastating and effective device”—according to Henrik Ellert.17

ZANU and ZAPU usually had an abundance of mines,

guerrillas (and mujibas) needed little training in their handling

or placement, and mine-laying operations rarely encountered

the enemy. The mine’s weight—about 10 kilograms—proved

their major disadvantage.

The government’s central claim about the guerrillas’

methods was that of terrorism. The government documented a

number of cases where guerrillas, usually ZANLA, killed or

mutilated Africans who refused to join the struggle or who

supported the government. Such violence usually occurred at

a pungwe, where residents would accuse other residents of

collaboration and “the accused were then put on ‘trial’ and

invariably found guilty. The penalty was usually death.

However, amputation of hands, fingers, legs, toes . . . was

regarded as a less severe form of ‘punishment’.”18

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All combatant forces employed terrorism, or the use of

physical force, against noncombatant/innocents for political

ends. The government’s security forces regularly used torture,

especially against captured guerrillas or when seeking

guerrilla locations during COIN operations. Terrorism had

short-term tactical advantages but could be used politically

later by the other side. The government’s demonizing ZANU

and ZAPU as terrorists aided Rhodesian military morale and

intensified overall white refusal to negotiate with the

guerrillas.

The Government’s Response

Over the next two years, the government responded to

ZANLA’s growth with both typical and atypical counterinsurgency tactics. Most notable were protected villages and

elite COIN units. The government’s overall strategy was to

control its internal population while stemming the insurgents’

flow into Rhodesia.

In early 1973 Special Branch reported that ZANU enjoyed

active support from the peasantry into the northeast. The

resulting Operation Overlord worked to isolate the guerrillas

from this support. Rhodesia established protected villages (i.e.,

strategic hamlets in Vietnam and “aldeamentos” in

Mozambique) to remove the peasantry from the guerrillas. By

August 1977 the government had placed one-half million

Africans into such villages. These villages, often called keeps,

were surrounded by barbed wire and had watchtowers. The

government also created “free-fire” zones and increased patrols

and checkpoints. Salisbury sometimes imposed collective

punishment on villagers. Along the Mozambican border, the

government created a cordon sanitaire by defoliating a strip

and then seeding the area with antipersonnel mines. Begun in

May 1974, the minefield by its completion in April 1976, ran

about 120 miles, from the Musengedzi River to the Mazoe

River. Manpower shortages prevented adequate patrolling.

Some of the population controls, notably checkpoints and

protected villages, did help to isolate the guerrilla from peasant

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support, but in the longer run, they created significant

peasant antagonism towards the government.

By late 1973 the increased infiltration and politicization by

ZANU within the TTL was drying up the government’s

intelligence sources. The Rhodesians responded with the

Special Air Service (SAS) and two new groups, the Selous

Scouts and RENAMO (Mozambican National Resistance

Movement). Used mostly from external operations, the SAS

was a small force; in the mid-1970s it had only about one

hundred fighters. The SAS (and the Rhodesian Light Infantry)

began covert, small-unit operations against ZANLA in

Mozambique as early as 1969. SAS mastery included map

reading, long-range tracking and infiltration, demolition,

intelligence gathering, parachuting, and assault tactics.

Security observers credit SAS as Rhodesia’s most professional

fighting unit.

No longer able to rely on chiefs and headmen for internal

information, the RDF decided on a “pseudo” unit patterned

loosely on units in colonial Kenya and Mozambique. Such a

force would dress and act as guerrillas. In 1973 captain, later

colonel, Ron Reid-Daly assumed control of these Selous

Scouts, whose main function was to locate the enemy and

then radio in a reaction force. A second role was that of

“hunter-killer” groups. The Scouts received their funding from

the CIO as well as from a South African Defence Force

supplemental fund. The unit enjoyed unusual freedom from

the normal chain of command. When at full force, the unit

comprised about one thousand operators (combat personnel).

Many were captured guerrillas whom the government had

converted (turned).

The Scouts operated in “frozen” areas where no other RDF

personnel were permitted: guerrilla impersonation could prove

fatal to the Scouts if regular government troops sighted them.

The Scouts, as pseudo guerrillas, often visited villages to

gather intelligence. Initially, they fooled the villagers, who

could not distinguish between vakomana (guerrillas) and the

mazkuzapa (scouts). The villagers soon developed recognition

codes which the Scouts would need to learn quickly—

validation was essential. Hence, “turning” a captured guerrilla

within 24 hours was crucial before codes changed.

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The Scouts employed various means to force a guerrilla to

support the government: emphasize that death was his only

alternative, financial incentives that included a kill-bonus of

$1,000, or intense political indoctrination. The Scouts

employed physical torture, but it was done more for extracting

information than for turning a guerrilla into a government

supporter.

When a Scout’s “call sign” (between two and 12 men) sighted

a guerrilla band, it radioed the map coordinates to a

quick-response unit called Fire Force. Comprised usually of

the all-white Rhodesian Light Infantry in Dakotas (DC-3s) or

helicopters (initially Alouettes and later Hueys), Fire Force

would vertically envelop the guerrilla area. Overhead

helicopters provided command instructions and cover fire.

The government claimed that the Scouts, largely through

this function and only secondarily through direct combat,

helped to account for 68 percent of all guerrilla deaths.

The Scouts also gained a reputation for “dirty tricks.” They

sometimes kidnapped or assassinated political undesirables,

poised clothes (especially blue jeans), or booby-trapped radios,

which they believed the guerrillas would later acquire. In 1974

a group of eight Scouts kidnapped four high-ranking ZIPRA

personnel inside Botswana, an action which dealt ZIPRA a

stunning loss. To convince a village that they were guerrillas,

Scouts would sometimes flog a resident who villagers had

accused as a sellout. Sometimes Scouts would deliberately

mistreat villagers, hoping that the mistreated would blame

ZANLA or ZIPRA.

A third new unit, which achieved notoriety following the

Rhodesian conflict, emerged at the end of Portuguese rule.

Former Portuguese businessmen and military personnel, as

well as black Mozambicans, opposed FRELIMO’s crossing into

Rhodesia in 1974. Strapped both for effective manpower and

the ability to gather current intelligence inside Mozambique,

the Rhodesian military gathered these refugees—especially

former special force Flecha soldiers—into the newly formed

National Resistence Movement and tasked the SAS to train

(and often lead) the unit.

During its Rhodesian days, RENAMO functioned more as

long-range reconnaissance and as eyes and ears for the RDF;

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it usually fought only when necessary. Its knowledge of

Mozambique (i.e., geography, language, and customs) helped

the Rhodesians in their spectacular raids during the mid-and

late 1970s, although, comments Reid-Daly, “It came too late in

the war to have any serious effect on the outcome.”19

Rhodesia’s ability to skirt international sanctions proved vital

in sustaining the war effort. For the war’s first decade, Rhodesia

baffled the experts as its economy seemingly winked at

sanctions. Rhodesians, working with South Africans,

Portuguese, and businessmen from other countries,

circumvented UN sanctions and obtained vital supplies,

including oil, despite United Nations sanctions. Military imports

included Siai Marchetti SF 260 trainers and 11 Augusta Bell 205

(Huey) helicopters. This last item proved invaluable to a

government facing a theater, internally and extremely, of

widening guerrilla operations. Rhodesia’s commodity marketing

boards (aided by favorable international commodity prices)

helped to export dairy, cotton, grain, and beef products. The

government and the private sector helped to manufacture a wide

range of products, including such military items as “rat packs,”

uniforms, tents, radio sets, armored personnel carriers, and

weaponry, including several assault pistols and 82-mm mortar

tubes and bombs.

The United States played a secondary but important role in

the Rhodesian conflict. It initially aided the Smith government

through the Byrd amendment. Enacted in 1971 despite UN

sanctions, the Byrd amendment allowed purchases of

Rhodesian minerals if the Soviet Union were the only other

major supplier. Until its repeal in 1977, the amendment

accounted for trade amounting to $400 million in foreign

exchange for the Rhodesian government. The US did not

prosecute any of its approximately 500 citizens who fought in

the Rhodesian Defence Force.

Divisions within Chimurenga

The government’s population control measures, its elite

units, and its securing of some international support, as well

as divisions within guerrilla ranks, gave Rhodesia a short-term

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military boost which fooled some observers into believing that

Rhodesia could win the war.

Relations between ZAPU and its now larger splitoff, ZANU,

had never proven especially cordial. In the early 1960s,

disagreement led to killings and property destruction. The

differences were multilayered. Ethnically, ZAPU was largely

Ndebele, while ZANU was predominantly Shona, but ethnic

subdivisions existed within each of these groups, especially

within ZANU.

To avoid ongoing competition, the frontline states (Zambia,

Angola, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Botswana) and the

Organization of African Unity’s African Liberation Committee

attempted to unify the armed struggle. In November 1975

ZANLA and ZIPRA contributed some forces to ZIPA (the

Zimbabwean People’s Army). Yet long-standing differences

rose again, and as Dr Masipula Sithole notes, “Clashes

ensued.” After a few weeks of joint operations, the surviving

ZAPU men withdrew from ZIPA in Mozambique and fled to

Zambia.20 The division of targets—ZANLA concentrating on

eastern Rhodesia and ZIPRA focusing on western

Rhodesia—lessened possible contacts and rivalries.

Guerrillas smarted against what many perceived to be a

double standard: relative luxury in Zambia for high-ranking

ZIPRA and ZANLA officials and intolerable supply and

battlefield conditions for lower supporters. In November 1974

several ZANLA officers—in what became known as the Nhari

rebellion—attempted a coup against their high command.

While failing, the attempt caused some 60 deaths.

Kenneth Kaunda’s anger at the guerrillas’ disunity

increased when, in March 1975, a bomb killed ZANU’s

national chairman, Herbert Chitepo, in Lusaka. Kaunda,

believing that internecine ZANU conflict was getting out of

control, jailed ZANLA’s high command until mid-1976 and

transferred ZANU’s bases to Joshua Nkomo. “ZANU survivors

fled to Mozambique,” writes Paul Moorcraft, “but the military

infrastructure had been emasculated.”21 Ironically, Rhodesia’s

Central Intelligence Organization may have planted the

bomb.22

Government and guerrilla forces alike faced internal rivalries

and jealousies which lessened their capabilities. The Nhari

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rebellion sidetracked ZANLA. On the Rhodesian side,

divisiveness between the police and military and between the

Selous Scouts and SAS lessened Salisbury’s COIN abilities.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Rhodesian police “jealously

regarded” the maintenance of law and order as their preserve

and an area where they would not allow the army to intrude.

“It was an attitude,” notes Reid-Daly, “that created much

unnecessary friction between the police and the army and

hindered cooperation between different branches of the

security forces.”23

Chimurenga Increases

But other foreign events aided the chimurenga (liberation

struggle) forces. Without foreign support, the guerrillas could

not have prolonged their struggle. Communist nations

supplied military equipment and several west European

countries and international organizations gave nonmilitary

aid. The liberation of Angola and Mozambique proved most

crucial.

“We need arms—arms—arms. We need training facilities.

Give us these, please, we plead and we shall do the rest.”24

Mugabe’s plea underlined ZANLA’s overriding need. Most of its

weaponry came from Communist states, either from the

People’s Republic of China or such east European nations as

Czechoslovakia or Hungary. The Soviet Union gave little aid to

ZANLA because of its Maoist doctrine and perhaps because it

had gambled from the beginning on an eventual Nkomo

victory.

Finland and Norway provided cash grants and the United

Nations High Commission for Refugees, the United Nations

Development Program, the International Committee of the Red

Cross, and the World Council of Churches provided cash

grants, relief supplies, and technical assistance. Such aid also

provided obvious psychological support.

ZANU’s ability to open political offices in foreign countries

greatly assisted its ability to obtain external aid. By 1977

ZANU had offices in Australia, Botswana, Canada, Lesotho,

Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and the

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United States. The OAU regularly championed the chimurenga

verbally but, given the largely empty coffers of its Liberation

Committee, provided little financial assistance.

The April 1974 junior officer coup in Portugal installed a

new government that quickly recognized the right of Portugal’s

colonies to independence. MPLA rule in Angola not only

provided some military bases for ZIPRA, but its acceptance of

Soviet and Cuban help prompted South Africa and the US to

reconsider their Rhodesian policies. Newly independent

Mozambique allowed ZANU bases all along the 650-mile

border with Rhodesia. Rural black youth increasingly flocked

to join ZANU, which soon began infiltrating into the southeast

lowveld.

Another crucial external occurrence began in 1974 when

South Africa sought a “deténte” with black, and especially

southern, Africa. Detente could lessen both the international

criticism of South Africa and the nascent international call for

sanctions. Peaceful resolution by South Africa of the

Rhodesian conflict could bolster South African prestige while

preventing the war from washing over into South Africa.

In December 1974 South Africa obtained Rhodesia’s

acceptance to detente proposals which, inter alia, forced

Rhodesia to release some leading nationalist politicians

(including Mugabe, who had been in detention for 10 years)

and to stop all offensive operations, including pursuit of

guerrillas leaving the country. Smith’s reluctance in early

1975 to seek a significant agreement with nationalist forces

prompted South Africa to withdraw its 2,500 paramilitary

police in Operation Nutcracker. Smith subsequently followed

South Africa’s wishes, but the peace talks failed. The cease-fire

allowed the battered guerrilla forces to regroup and retrain.

Furthermore, the cease-fire convinced many Rhodesians “that

the guerrillas had won a victory similar to the one which the

cease-fire had brought FRELIMO in Mozambique. All

intelligence sources had dried up and the army’s position on

the ground was weaker than it had been since the beginning of

the war in 1972.”25

On 3 May 1976 Mozambique closed its border with

Rhodesia. This action trapped one-sixth of Rhodesia’s railway

stock and significant exports. More importantly, the border

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closing forced Rhodesia—which would quickly construct the

Rutenga-Beitridge railway line to South Africa—to depend

almost totally on its southern neighbor for trade access to the

outside world.

ZANLA infiltration by mid-1976 prompted Rhodesia to open

two major theaters of operations (Repulse and Tangent). By

mid-1976 ZANLA had over 1,500 internal members and a

previous 11 to 1 kill ratio had temporarily slid to a 6 to 1 ratio.

Defense costs were rising rapidly and so was white emigration (in

March, only 40 whites had left the country, as compared to 817

the next month). Increasingly, the TTLS throughout eastern

Rhodesia had become base areas that sponsored ZANLA attacks.

External Operations

ZANLA’s larger base camps and increased infiltration from

Mozambique prompted Salisbury to consider major “external

operations.” These incursions were the only major conflicts of

the war: inside Rhodesia, contacts were usually between small

units and involved slight casualties.

While militarily sensible, the cross-border operations

exacted a political price and discredited Salisbury’s belief that

increased guerrilla casualties could end the war. By July 1976

Rhodesian security planners believed that upwards of 6,000

ZANLA were training for a rainy season offensive by perhaps

2,000 guerrillas. Some senior Rhodesian officers questioned

whether their troops could contain such infiltration.

On 9 August a group of 84 Selous Scouts drove 25 miles

into Mozambique to a camp at Nadzonya. Entering a ZANLA

camp of perhaps 5,000 at daybreak, the Scouts, with no losses

to themselves, rapidly killed some 1,200 ZANLA military and

civilian supporters.

For the next three years, the RDF conducted a huge number

of both large and small externals; in 1979 General Walls

maintained that not a day passed without his troops operating

inside at least one bordering country. The raids’ initial

objective was to inflict maximum casualties. As guerrilla

encampments adjusted to the raids (smaller concentrations in

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larger areas, better antiaircraft and bunker configurations),

the Rhodesians concentrated more on disrupting logistics.

“Wonderful” was Smith’s description of Nyadzonya.26 South

Africa, however, feared that the raid could attract Soviet and

Cuban personnel to South Africa’s borders. To deter any

future raids, South Africa instituted Operation Polo, which

pulled out a significant number of military personnel and cut

into half Rhodesia’s air-strike capability. South Africa’s

“congesting” of its railway lines reduced ammunition supplies

to only 12 days. Two days after the raid, South Africa for the

first time publicly supported majority rule for Rhodesia.

Political Moves

External events continued to weaken Rhodesia’s cause. In

mid-1976 US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger moved to

resolve the Rhodesian conflict. While he failed in his major

goal, Kissinger did persuade Smith to announce that majority

rule would come within two years. Kissinger also brought the

combatants together in Geneva for a peace conference.

White morale understandably flagged with Smith’s majority

rule announcement as “in a single speech Smith had reversed

the original war aim of the whites.”27 The war no longer was to

preserve the white Rhodesian state. Now the war was only to buy

Smith time to obtain a moderate black internal government.

Under pressure from their respective patrons—the frontline

states and South Africa—the guerrilla forces and Rhodesia

reluctantly attended the stillborn Geneva conference in late

1976. When Smith agreed to attend, Pretoria began supplying

enough weaponry for Rhodesia to survive the growing

infiltration. Subsequent Western diplomacy, led primarily by

British Foreign Secretary David Owen and America’s UN

Ambassador Andrew Young, failed to achieve peace.

Yet Smith needed to change his government’s image to

counter growing South African and US hostility and to lessen

growing internal support for chimurenga. In March 1978 the

internal settlement headed by Smith, Bishop Muzorewa, and

the docile Chief Jeremiah Chirau began to rule in Rhodesia.

Nkomo refused to participate and ZIPRA activities increased,

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which in turn prompted increased Rhodesian strikes across

the Zambezi. The settlement did not address the guerrillas’

major concerns and provided whites with inordinate power

(e.g., an effective veto for at least the next 10 years).

Beginning of the End

White Rhodesia was slowly coming to its knees, despite its

clear combat superiority. The guerrillas’ ability to prolong the

struggle had provided them time to secure manpower, destroy

some government infrastructure, gain military knowledge, and

generally to wear down white morale and the economy. “Purely

statistically,” J. K. Cilliers writes, “the security situation was

deteriorating with each passing month.”28 At least since 1976,

ZANLA had faced difficulties finding enough facilities for its

expanding numbers. The guerrillas effectively closed such

government operations as clinics, schools, and cattle dips and

increasingly attacked white farms and major transport routes.

The security forces countered with a series of dramatic and

destructive external raids. In November 1977 a combined SAS,

Scouts, and RLI unit attacked a ZANU encampment in

Chimoio, Mozambique, and killed over one thousand ZANU

soldiers and civilians. The government also recruited young

supporters of Muzorewa and Sithole into an auxiliary force

while offering safe return and amnesty to guerrillas.

But such operations were only a finger in a crumbling dike.

ZANLA “simply punched too many terrs across the border for

us to handle,” recalls a former Selous Scout.29 ZANLA

infiltration went from about 300 in 1973–74 to about 5,000 by

late 1977, then to 9,000 in December 1978.

Also, Mozambican-ZANLA resistance was stiffening against

Rhodesian attacks. The SAS-RLI Operation Uric of 1979

involved “a very light infantry assault against a well-defined

conventional position. For the first time in the history of the

war, the Rhodesians had been stopped dead in their tracks.”30

Martial law rose from 50 percent of Rhodesia in November

1978 to 95 percent in September 1979. Special courts helped

to enforce dawn-to-dusk curfews. In December 1978 ZANLA

guerrillas destroyed 25 million gallons of fuel at Salisbury’s

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depot. The worsening battlefield conditions lowered morale.

Henrik Ellert claims that “security force reaction had in some

cases sunk to the levels of the once despised Portuguese army

who merely reacted to such events by firing into the bush and

getting out of the killing zone as quickly as possible with little

thought of any follow-up.”31 The protracted guerrilla war and

international sanctions bit hard at Rhodesia’s economy.

Rhodesia’s gross domestic product for 1979 was about the

same as in 1965—the year of UDI.

The final year of combat, 1979, saw dramatic examples of

escalation and the continuance of two related trends:

increased guerrilla infiltration and Rhodesian external

operations. Between December 1978 and January 1979—less

than two months—the number of insurgents increased from

8,954 to 11,183. In early 1979 a major Soviet military delegation began reorganizing ZIPRA’s overall military strategy.

Ominously for Salisbury, ZANLA reportedly was preparing for

the final, conventional state of protracted war. In February

ZIPRA shot down a second Viscount (the first occurred in

September 1978) and an aging Canberras hit ZIPRA bases in

central Angola. In April the SAS conducted a dramatic, but

unsuccessful, assassination attempt against Joshua Nkomo in

Lusaka.

Also in April, the government managed to mobilize 60,000

personnel to ensure undisturbed elections that brought

Bishop Muorewa to power. As with the 1978 Internal Settlement, effective white retention of power and the guerrillas’

insistence on a military solution foreclosed any hope for the

new government.

Rhodesian external raids continued to exact an increasing

toll on Mozambique’s and Zambia’s economies, while

internally ZANLA and now ZIPRA increasingly gained effective

control over much of rural Rhodesia. Officially recorded

contacts with insurgents rose from under 600 in late 1978 to

1,706 in May 1979. A Rhodesian Intelligence Corps paper

noted that “in some areas a well-organized and securityconscious [guerrilla] civil administration is working”32 while an

army briefing document in mid-1979 tacitly admitted defeat:

“in classical COIN terms, this is a no-win or rather, a sure-lose

equation.”33 Rhodesia was ready for peace.

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Britain’s foreign secretary, Lord Carrington, decided to

resolve the rapidly unraveling conflict. Primarily speaking to

the combat’s patrons, South Africa, and the suffering frontline

states, Carrington brought all combatants to Britain’s

Lancaster House. As the talks opened, Rhodesian troops

destroyed important bridges in both Mozambique and Zambia.

“Zambia was now almost totally dependent,” J. K. Cilliers

notes, “for all her imports and exports on the remaining link

through the south” (i.e., Rhodesia).34 Kaunda and especially

Machel pressed their reluctant clients and all parties agreed to

a 21 December cease-fire. A commonwealth monitoring force

supervised the movement of Patriotic Front guerrillas to

assembly points, and in April 1980 Robert Mugabe stunned

most Western observers by gaining 63 percent of the vote and

57 of the 80 seats reserved for blacks. On 18 April Mugabe

became Zimbabwe’s first prime minister. In his first address to

the nation, Prime Minister Mugabe stressed reconciliation. He

then retained several whites for his cabinet and declined to

nationalize the white industrial, service, and agricultural

sectors. About 100,000 whites elected to remain under

Mugabe’s rule. Tensions between ZAPU and ZANU flared for

several years, as former ZIPRA soldiers conduct banditry in

Matabeleland, and the government employed harsh, and often

arbitrary, countermeasures. But by the mid-1980s, the three

former combatants—the Rhodesian Front, ZAPU, and

ZANU—were living in peace.

Conclusion

Why did the Rhodesian war, initially between two seemingly

mismatched opponents, persist for some 14 years? Internal

decisions and actions by the combatants prolonged the war

long enough for external events—UN sanctions, communist

military support, and the independence of Angola and Mozambique (which changed US and South African policy)—to take

effect.

The two most decisive internal factors were ZANLA’s

adoption of Mao’s protracted war strategy and the Rhodesian

government’s continued insistence on using military means to

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combat these guerrillas. Maoist doctrine gave ZANLA time to

muster political and manpower support from its greatest

potential strength—the overwhelmingly and increasingly

politicized black population.

Rhodesian military capabilities always remained strong

enough to prevent a conventional guerrilla military victory. Yet

Rhodesia could never win the war with strictly military means.

ZANLA’s politicization attracted increasing recruits, while

Salisbury could not counter with more men or better

equipment. A refusal to acknowledge African grievances and a

lack of funds prevented Rhodesia from conducting a strong

civic action campaign.

Salisbury underestimated the war’s political dimension. It

did not realize the depth (and perhaps even the existence) of

African displeasure with its rule. At the outset of the 1972

Pearce Commission, a British delegation which documented

black anger to a proposed British-Rhodesian accord, Smith

had commented that Rhodesia’s blacks were the happiest

blacks in world. Even after the commission, Salisbury continued to believe that outside elements were confusing,

deceiving, or intimidating its blacks. Therefore, the government only needed to militarily eliminate the troublemakers.

Some governmental officials knew of the discontent (and the

guerrillas’ appeal), yet Smith apparently refused to believe it.

He spurned the more realistic intelligence appraisals of the

Special Branch (composed largely of Englishmen) for the

decidedly more rosy assumptions presented by Rhodesianborn Internal Affairs officials.

Salisbury’s refusal to acknowledge the war’s political

content was illustrated when it sharply rebuked a respected

white parliamentarian (and COIN expert), Alan Savory, for

using the term “guerrilla” rather than “terrorist” and then for

suggesting that a constitutional conference be convened.

Smith considered such a proposal as the “most irresponsible

and evil” suggestion he had ever heard.35 Such ostrich-like

thinking stiffened white resolve not to negotiate and thereby

helped to prolong the unwinnable war.

The government’s misreading held, at least until 1975, that

the blacks could not mount any credible and sustained

opposition. Not fearing a serious insurgency, the whites saw

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no need to reform politically. Salisbury calculated that it could

control the internal situation and that the regional and

international equations would not significantly change. The

government drastically misread the regions’ future and its

effect on Rhodesia.

Salisbury’s military strategy of tracking down the guerrillas

rather than addressing economic and political grievances with

security protection reflected its political assumption.

Rhodesia’s major combat units followed mobile—rather than

area—defense. Coupled with a paucity of resources, this

policy, by not providing permanent presence, precluded

serious civic action programs and placed any Africans

considering cooperating with the government at greater risk.

In the early 1970s Rhodesia probably could have

accomplished area defense by training village militias who

expressed loyalty to the local chiefs. Beginning in 1978 the

government-initiated Security Force auxiliaries initially

showed promise but by then the Patriotic Front forces had

made substantial inroads, and government training

capabilities and finances were too thinly stretched.

Rhodesia’s military operations, while tactically sometimes

brilliant, suffered several strategic flaws. The government did

not heed Special Branch intelligence regarding ZANLA’s

changeover to protracted war and its buildup in Mozambique’s

Tete province in 1970 and 1971. Reid-Daly, among others,

considers this a major flaw of the conflict. Not only did the

government largely permit the buildup inside Tete until 1972,

but it failed to comprehend the severity of increased ZANLA

infiltration from 1970 to 1972. Attempting to stem guerrilla

infiltration following their entry into the Tribal Trust Lands

was like closing the door after the horse’s departure.

The government exacerbated its manpower weakness by

maintaining its chiefs interventionist units—RLI and SAS—as

all-white. These groups obtained massive-killed ratios, but

their small numbers (the SAS had only one hundred combat

soldiers as of 1975) limited their effectiveness. This racially

exclusive policy appears questionable when considering the

effectiveness and loyalty of blacks in the Selous Scouts and

the Rhodesian African Rifles.

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Rhodesia’s lack of a strong central commander permitted

personal and group rivalries. Following the 1976 Nyadzona

raid, the SAS felt that the Scouts had gone beyond its mandate

of intelligence gathering and had assumed the SAS’ primary

role of external interdiction. Reid-Daly writes of “petty

jealousies between Special Forces . . . severely limit[ing]

effective external operations.”36 Reid-Daly himself received an

official reprimand for accusations he made against Rhodesia’s

army commander. The guerrillas also faced internal problems,

notably 1974’s Nhari rebellion and Kaunda’s expulsion of

ZANLA in 1975 following various disputes and Herbert

Chitepo’s death. Yet the guerrillas’ emphasis on political

mobilization lessened the military effect of such divisions.

External events turned against Rhodesia in the mid-1970s.

Rhodesia’s unexpected ability to weather UN sanctions helped

prolong white belief in eventual victory. But by the mid-1970s

the Rhodesian economy was beginning to demonstrate how

chimerical this hope was. The UN’s three, increasingly severe,

sanctions packages (from voluntary, to selective mandatory, to

comprehensive mandatory) did not play the leading role their

proponents had predicted but, over time, they had several key

effects. Sanctions did not keep Rhodesia from international

markets, but they did force Rhodesia to purchase at a higher

rate (at least 10 percent) than market price, usually in scarce

foreign exchange, and to sell often at below-market prices.

Whether out of political conviction, desire to conduct only legal

operations, or fear of being exposed, many countries and

companies refused to trade with Rhodesia. Only rarely and

through fraudulent means (e.g., doctored, end-use certificates)

did Rhodesia obtain major military ordnance. Had the

prosperous Rhodesia of the early 1970s openly purchased

required modern military and economic equipment, it could

have, at the least, significantly prolonged and, conceivably,

even won the war. Although imperfectly enforced, UN

sanctions prevented this possibility. Sanctions and their

economic effect probably stiffened white Rhodesian

nationalism until the mid-1970s when the longer-run

debilitating effects took hold.

Regional assistance turned the war’s course around only

after 1975 when Angola and Mozambique gained independence.

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But starting in the early 1960s, African support gave ZAPU

and ZANU the foothold they needed for survival, thus

prolonging the war. When the armed struggle began, Tanzania

allowed several training bases as well as access to weaponry

and training. Its importance as a rear base diminished only

around 1975, when ZANU began major infiltration from

Mozambique. Zambia also allowed both forces to operate from

its borders until the Nhari rebellion and Herbert Chitepo’s

assassination in 1975.

Mozambique proved most important, since FRELIMO had

supported ZANLA even before achieving power in 1975. By

1969 ZANLA was operating out of neighboring Tete province.

After Mozambique’s independence, ZANU spread its network of

guerrilla camps and refugee centers through much of

Mozambique, while ZANLA started operations from Manica

and Gaza provinces.

The independence of Angola and Mozambique sealed the

fate of white minority rule by raising guerrilla capabilities

while lowering those of the government. Angola demonstrated

significant Soviet and Cuban willingness to intervene militarily

in southern Africa, while Mozambique offered sanctuary and

bases to ZANLA, the more radical of the two guerrilla groups.

Both Washington and Pretoria realized that the highly

capable RDF could not handle direct Soviet involvement or the

increasingly real infiltration increases. The longer the war

continued, the more radical the guerrilla forces would become.

Accordingly, the two nations pressed Smith to compromise,

thus weakening his position even further.

Yet the same reasons which dictated initial support for

Smith during the Johnson and Nixon administrations

eventually changed US policy, under Ford and Carter, to one

of opposition. Washington had felt that, whatever Smith’s

domestic racial shortcomings, he provided a buffer for

southern Africa—especially South Africa—against communism. The MPLA and FRELIMO victories in Angola and

Mozambique not only signaled to America (and to South

Africa) that Smith’s days were numbered but also that the

longer Smith believed that outside aid was forthcoming, the

less interested he would be in compromise, while the more

militant the opposition would become.

HOWE

221
South African aid proved paradoxically to be Rhodesia’s

greatest strength and its greatest curse. South Africa

furnished crucial economic and military support but

increasingly had conflicting goals. Facing growing international pressure and the loss of the buffer states of Angola

and Mozambique, South Africa in the mid-1970s strove to

increase its limited international legitimacy and to limit the

effect of regional insurgencies on South Africa. In 1974

President John Vorster sought “deténte” with black Africa and

especially the frontline states. Paul Moorcraft describes the

resultant December 1974 cease-fire as “a major psychological

setback for Salisbury,” since it stopped government operations

against a faltering insurgency and allowed the release of

leading nationalists.37 Equally, in August and September of

1976, Vorster placed powerful and effective pressure on Smith

again. Yet soon thereafter, following Smith’s announcement of

majority rule within two years, Vorster opened SADF training

facilities to the Rhodesians and allowed elite South African

troops to fight alongside Rhodesians on cross-border

operations. South Africa was willing to prolong the war if such

prolongation would force the guerrillas to the bargaining table.

South Africa refused to supply Rhodesia with massive

weaponry which, when used against the frontline states, could

provoke Soviet/Cuban military involvement on South Africa’s

border.

The war’s prolongation, greatly aided by Angolan and

Mozambican independence, allowed the guerrillas, especially

ZANLA, to recruit increasingly from a large, and increasingly

politicized, manpower pool while draining the dwindling pool

of white manpower (and by so doing weakening the white-run

economy and made the manpower pool even smaller by

encouraging emigration).

While the combatants’ patrons—the frontline states and

South Africa—greatly prolonged the military struggle, they

effectively ended the struggle before its military resolution.

Zambia and Mozambique pressed for peaceful resolution as

the nations in conflict increasingly bit at their own economies.

Just as the frontline states could threaten their clients with

deprivation, so South Africa could use its transport and

military system to cajole Rhodesia to the negotiation table. In

PROLONGED WARS

222
1976 ZANU and the Rhodesian government attended the

Geneva conference only because of their patrons’ urging. Three

years later the military situation increasingly favored ZANU’s

hopes for a full military victory. Yet the Rhodesian defense

force had managed to inflict serious losses on Zambia and

Mozambique. A grim future of rising losses for all sides

convinced patrons of the combatants to force negotiations.

That both the RDF and the guerrillas retained some military

advantages presaged the political compromise reached at the

Lancaster House (and invoked Mao Tse-tung’s dictum that

“you cannot win at the conference table what you have not

won on the battlefield”).

Notes

1.-Prime Minister Harold Wilson, quoted in Paul Moorcraft, African

Nemesis (Brassey’s: London, 1990), 124.

2.-Until 1976 Prime Minister Ian Smith believed the US and South Africa

would rush to Rhodesia’s side should communist-backed insurgencies

seriously threaten white control. The US condemned the Smith regime but

between 1972 and 1977 supported Rhodesia through mineral purchases

(the Byrd amendment). South Africa was Rhodesia’s primary economic and

military supplier throughout the war.

3.-Chimurenga is a Shona word meaning struggle or revolution.

Zimbabwe’s first chimurenga was in the 1890s, when blacks fought against

white occupation. The struggle of the 1960s and 1970s became Zimbabwe’s

second chimurenga.

4.-Quoted in Martin Meredith, The Past Is Another Country (London: Pan

Books, Ltd., 1980), 79.

5.-D. Cowderoy and R. Nesbit, War in the Air (Galago, Alberton, 1987),

47–48. Quoted in Moorcraft, 125.

6.-ANC and ZAPU cooperation occurred because both received their

military aid primarily from the Soviet Union and its East European allies.

Also, ZAPU’s Matabeleland geographically lay between friendly Zambia and

target South Africa.

7.-Ron Reid-Daly, “War In Rhodesia—Cross-Border Operations,” in A. J.

Vener, Challenge, 153.

8.-Reid-Daly, 155.

9.-Quoted in Barbara Cole, The Elite: The Story of the Rhodesian Special

Air Service (Amanzimtoti: Three Knights Publishing, 1985), 40.

10.-Ibid.

11.-J. K. Cilliers, Counter-Insurgency In Rhodesia (Croom Helm: London,

1985), 9.

12.-David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe: The

Chimurenga War (Faber and Faber: London, 1981), 88. This important book

provided one of the first substantive examinations of the war from the

perspective of the guerrillas.

HOWE

223
13.-Ibid., 82.

14.-Ibid., 77.

15.-Ibid., 73.

16.-Henrik Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War (Gweru [Zimbabwe]: Mambo

Press, 1989), 22.

17.-Ibid., 29.

18.-Paresh Pandya, Mao Tse-tung and Chimurenga (Braamfontein [South

Africa]: Skotaville Publishers, 1988), 173.

19.-Reid-Daly, 175.

20.-Quoted in Cilliers, 34.

21.-Moorcraft, 130.

22.-Ibid., 131.

23.-Reid-Daly, 149. The formal name for the Rhodesian police was the

British South African police.

24.-Quoted in Pandya, 203.

25.-Meredith, 171.

26.-Quoted in Meredith, 241.

27.-Moorcraft, 133.

28.-Cilliers, 43.

29.-Interview with a former Selous Scout, 1988.

30.-During Operation Uric, an RPG-7 killed 11 SAS troops, an action that

Cole regards as the “worst single military disaster of the war.” See Cole, 335.

31.-Ellert, 47.

32.-Cilliers, 240.

33.-Ibid.

34.-Ibid., 56.

35.-Quoted in Martin and Johnson, 96.

36.-Reid-Daly, 178.

37.-Moorcraft, 130.

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224
Civil War in a Fragile State—Mozambique

Christopher Gregory

Mozambique has been wracked by almost uninterrupted

internal conflict since 1964, the year in which the Front for the

Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) began a protracted

guerrilla war against the then 400-year-old Portuguese colonial

administration in Lourenco Marques (now Maputo). That conflict

endured 11 years, coming to a conclusion in 1975, principally

because of the officers’ coup in Lisbon on 25 April 1974.

This analysis, however, focuses on the conflict which began

only 12 months after FRELIMO formally became the first

government of independent Mozambique on 25 June 1975. At

the time of this writing, the conflict between FRELIMO and the

Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana (RENAMO) had become

intense and had acquired a longevity envisaged by few, if any,

of its principal protagonists and supporters.1 This chapter

identifies and analyzes the reasons for the prolongation of the

war. To that end, the key events of the war are first sketched.

The War in Mozambique Since 1976

RENAMO’s activities inside Mozambique are generally

accepted as having commenced in 1976, the year in which the

organization was first given training and logistical support on

a sustained basis by Rhodesia’s Central Intelligence Organization (CIO).2

 The Rhodesians were attempting to counter

cross-border incursions by ZANLA, the military wing of the

Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). These incursions

had been stepped up in 1972, following a FRELIMO offer to

ZANU to use the northwestern Mozambican province of Tete as

a springboard. Relations between the two movements were to

strengthen steadily during the 1970s.

Initially, RENAMO’s actions were largely confined to intelligence gathering within Mozambique for the Rhodesian army

and joint sabotage operations with elite Rhodesian units. As

225
the conflict escalated, RENAMO operated deeper inside

Mozambique, establishing a base in 1978 at Gogoi in the

southern Manica province, and in the Gorongosa mountains of

Sofala province. At this time, RENAMO numbered roughly 500

combatants.

Zimbabwean independence in 1980 signaled the end of

Rhodesian support for RENAMO. The entire organization was

transported to South Africa. Meanwhile, RENAMO activities

continued to be confined largely to the central provinces,

Manica and Sofala. In 1980 an offensive by the Mozambican

army, the Forcas Armadas de Mozambique (FAM),

reestablished control over the Gorongosa area and overran the

Gogoi base in June. Most observers agree that the 1,200-

strong insurgent movement was at the nadir of its fortunes. In

1981, however, a more resurgent and more widespread

RENAMO surfaced. By the end of that year, a network of

semipermanent bases had been established in Mozambique

from which attacks were mounted on small towns. While FAM

troops captured RENAMO’s main base at Garagua, 20

kilometers from the Zimbabwean border, RENAMO reestablished itself in the Gorongoza mountains, whence it had been

evicted a year earlier.

In 1982–83 RENAMO continued to expand both its geographical spread and the scale of its operations, deploying

some 5,000 to 8,000 combatants.3 Notwithstanding a number

of successful FAM counteroffensives in 1983, RENAMO fought

back, claiming by late 1983 to have a “sphere of operations”

comprising all of Mozambique, with the exception of Niassa

and Cabo Delgado in the far north, western Tete, and southern

Maputo province.

A flurry of diplomatic activity marked 1984. In March the

South African and Mozambican governments signed the

Nkomati accord which ostensibly provided for the end of the

South African government support for RENAMO. Further

diplomatic moves, including the first face-to-face meeting

between RENAMO and FRELIMO representatives in Frankfurt,

West Germany, culminated in the “Pretoria Declaration,”

thereby defining terms under which to declare a cease-fire.

As war, however, continued, both FRELIMO and RENAMO

spokesmen soon repudiated the cease-fire clause. Indeed, by

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226
the end of 1984 RENAMO had for the first time established a

substantial presence in the northern regions. It now claimed

15,000 men under arms and “consolidated control” over

Nampula, Niassa, Zambezia, Tete, Manica, Sofala, and

Inhambane provinces. By 1985, RENAMO was carrying out

hit-and-run attacks throughout the country.

The next few years saw first one side, then the other, take

the military advantage. In 1985–86 FAM again went on the

offensive, bolstered this time by increased military support

from the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) and Tanzanian army

units. The RENAMO base at Casa Banana was captured twice

in a span of six months. The insurgents responded with a

major offensive of their own, concentrating their efforts in the

Zambezi valley and threatening by their actions to cut

Mozambique in two. Indeed, the October 1986 offensive was

the largest launched by RENAMO to date. For the first time

since its inception, the movement seized and held several

sizeable towns. In the same month, President Samora Machel

was killed in an aeroplane crash. The smooth accession to the

presidency of his successor, Foreign Minister Joaquim

Chissano, quelled any speculation that the war effort would be

disrupted.

An FAM/ZNA counteroffensive in February 1987 reversed

many RENAMO gains of the previous year, recapturing the five

provincial towns held by the insurgents since October 1986.

RENAMO countered with its first raid inside Zimbabwe itself,

having declared war on Zimbabwe in the previous year in

response to an increased and more geographically dispersed

ZNA presence inside Mozambique. By the end of 1987, there

were reports of RENAMO tightening its grip on Maputo’s

environs and of almost daily attacks by RENAMO inside

Zimbabwe. By 1988 a determined joint offensive occurred in

central Mozambique by 8,000 FAM, ZNA, and Tanzanian

troops, which, however, failed to push back the insurgents.

Talks resumed in 1989, one year later. RENAMO leader

Afonso Dhlakama announced his organization’s willingness to

halt the insurgency and negotiate an end to the fighting as

long as FRELIMO agreed to a number of reform measures,

including a multiparty constitution and a free market

economy. Notwithstanding a determined FAM/ZNA offensive

GREGORY

227
against RENAMO’s Gorongosa headquarters in July 1989, a

first round of talks was held in Nairobi, Kenya, a month later.

FRELIMO adopted a triple-track strategy against RENAMO:

continue with negotiations while maintaining the military

pressure in the field and accelerate internal political and

constitutional reforms designed to undercut RENAMO’s

political demands. Five rounds of negotiations were conducted

in various centers over the next 18 months, resulting in the

signing of the Rome agreement, which took effect on 1

December 1990. The parties negotiated a partial cease-fire;

ZNA troops in Mozambique were to be confined to the Beira

and Limpopo transport corridors; and RENAMO guaranteed

not to attack what the agreement termed these corridors of

peace. A 10-country Joint Verification Commission was

established to monitor the cease-fire.

Much of the continued fighting in 1990 favored FRELIMO

and its allies. In March a joint force of ZNA and FAM troops

launched yet another offensive against Gorongosa.

Unsuccessful in its efforts to dislodge RENAMO, the joint force

followed up with a similar attack in May, then another in

September. Consequently, Dhlakama was forced to move his

headquarters north to a point just 50 kilometers south of the

border with Malawi. Another blow was struck against

RENAMO in Zambezia province, where, after having yielded

control of the populous province to RENAMO for the previous

five years, Mozambican armed forces succeeded in regaining

control over the thousands of peasant farmers in the province

who had acted as a significant base of RENAMO support. FAM

forces received assistance from an unexpected quarter: a

spear-carrying militia, known as Naprama, that follows a

25-year-old traditional healer, Manuel Antonio, who claims

inspiration from Jesus Christ and knowledge of a magic plant

that renders his followers bulletproof.4 Antonio recruited

several thousand militia and used them to good effect against

RENAMO in Nampula and Zambezia provinces.

In early 1991, RENAMO set about recouping its losses, focusing

its offensive on Manica and Sofala provinces. The cease-fire

collapsed in March, following RENAMO allegations of ZNA

infringements of the Rome agreement. The insurgents increased

PROLONGED WARS

228
attacks on the Beira and Limpopo transport corridors and

intensified pressure on the areas surrounding Maputo.

At the time of this writing (November 1991), a situation existed

perhaps best characterized as one of “violent equilibrium.” The

conflict inside Mozambique had become a prolonged war

conducted in tandem with intermittent negotiations between the

two principal protagonists. Little progress with the negotiations

had been made during 1991 to the visible irritation of the

current co-mediators, the Italian government, and the Catholic

Church, neither of which appeared able to demonstrate leverage

over the warring parties. On the ground, RENAMO deployed

more combatants than ever, some 20,000, yet was unable to

take and hold urban centers of any significant size for a

sustained period. FRELIMO, on the other hand, was unable to

dislodge the countrywide RENAMO presence, much less

militarily defeat the organization. The security situation was

effectively one of stalemate.

The 15-year-old war continued to exact a terrible price from

the inhabitants of Mozambique, at least 100,000 of whom were

reported to have died as a direct consequence of the fighting. Of

an estimated total population of 16 million in 1990, 1.3 million

Mozambican refugees were reckoned to be in neighboring

countries, particularly Malawi, while some 3 million were said to

be displaced persons or internal refugees. Sixty percent of the

population lived in absolute poverty. The rural-based economy

had collapsed, with 78 percent of marketed grain supplies

having to be imported in 1988. This figure did not even include

the considerable volumes of food aid imported under the UN

emergency relief program. The national economy was the world’s

most aid-dependent, with official development assistance

accounting for 76 percent of the gross national product (GNP) in

1988–89 against a sub-Saharan average of 11 percent. With an

estimated per capita GNP of US $80.00, Mozambique had

become the world’s poorest country.5

The Civil War and Its Prolongation

The disputed origins of the war, the incompletely documented

nature of the prime combatants, the characteristics of

GREGORY

229
Mozambican rural society, the many sources of external

support, and a host of imponderables pose a formidable

challenge to the analyst attempting to penetrate and explain

the conflict in Mozambique. In particular, an adequate

understanding of the war on the ground has been hindered for

over a decade by a lack of dispassionate writing on the primary

protagonists, FRELIMO and RENAMO, a state of affairs which

has been perpetuated by the substantial links between the

conflict in Mozambique and the regional bête noir, South

Africa. Analysis also has been hindered by the difficulty of

access to information in a country the size of Mozambique,

and where the limited communications infrastructure has

since independence been successfully dominated by AIM, the

Mozambican government information agency. To cap it all,

most observers approach the conflict with tools of analysis

drawn largely, even exclusively, from the conventional

occidental political science tradition. Analysis of the conflict in

Mozambique, however, benefits from a more eclectic approach,

drawing inter alia on ethnography, ethnology, and social

anthropology.6 In Derluguian’s evocative prose, “The truth of

the huts is very different from the truth of the palaces of the

capitals.”7

The prolongation of the civil war in Mozambique owes much

to the origins and early development of RENAMO. This first

section dwells at some length on this organization before

turning its attention to the other principal protagonist,

FRELIMO.

Origins and Development of the

Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana

RENAMO is an atypical insurgency movement, whose

origins complicate attempts to characterize the early period of

the Mozambique conflict. RENAMO may be understood as

having gone through three phases of development: the first,

from the mid-1970s to 1980, was characterized by Rhodesian

patronage of the organization; the second, from 1980 to the

mid-1980s, was marked by South African government

PROLONGED WARS

230
support; the commencement of the third, post–South Africa

stage is more difficult to establish. It began during the period

after the signing of the Nkomati accord in March 1984 and is

characterized by RENAMO’s greater military and political

self-reliance in the face of dwindling levels of South African

support.

Observers differ on the question of the extent to which

Rhodesia’s Central Intelligence Organization created RENAMO

in 1976.8 Of more direct relevance to this analysis, however, is

the role played by the CIO in supporting and directing

RENAMO. For it appears beyond dispute that, regardless of

the nature and level of Mozambican opposition to FRELIMO

which existed prior to 1976, the Rhodesians were instrumental in taking at least part of this opposition and giving it

much-needed support and direction. One can argue that the

CIO created RENAMO in that the assistance with equipment,

training, and logistics provided by the Rhodesians was

indispensable to RENAMO’s growth and development in the

1970s.

Intensifying the insurgency war in the period after 1972,

particularly the offensive northeast of Mozambique by ZANLA

forces acting with the military and logistical support of

FRELIMO, convinced CIO chief Ken Flower and his colleagues

of the necessity for “a pseudo-terrorist operation directed from

Rhodesia into Mozambique.”9 The Rhodesians established

training camps for RENAMO at Bindura and Odzi, near Umtali

(now Mutare) and close to the Mozambican border, and set up

a radio station, Voz da Africa Livre, near Gwelo (now Gweru).

The movement acted as the CIO’s eyes and ears, gathering

intelligence inside Mozambique for the Rhodesian army.

RENAMO personnel would also engage in joint sabotage

operations with such Rhodesian elite units as the Selous

Scouts and the Special Air Services. A Rhodesian former

senior instructor subsequently described RENAMO strategy as

follows: “To start off with it was sabotage, to disrupt the

population and disrupt the economy which really comes under

sabotage, to come back with decent recruits at that stage and

hit any FRELIMO bases they came across. And if they came

across Zanla they were to take them on.”10

GREGORY

231
RENAMO, under Rhodesian tutelage, seems, ironically, to

have been as much—if not more—a product of the Rhodesian

civil war, than of the Mozambican conflict. It is not clear to

what extent the movement’s leaders and followers enjoyed the

latitude to formulate and pursue their own objectives and to

conduct their own military operations in Mozambique

independently of the Rhodesian CIO.11

While the anti-FRELIMO insurgency had its origins in this

period, to characterize the activities of RENAMO from 1976

onwards as underpinned by a conscious decision at this early

stage to follow a particular insurgency strategy, Maoist or

otherwise, would be to ignore the role of RENAMO in assisting

with Salisbury’s objectives. For Ken Flower and his colleagues,

RENAMO was little more than a military tool for the

prosecution of the Rhodesian war effort. In the telling words of

the late Evo Fernandes, a longtime RENAMO spokesman, “It

was not our war, but a civil war in Rhodesia.”12

Indeed, it is important to consider what might have

happened in the early 1980s to the “organization without a

name,” as Fernandes once called it, had the South Africans

not taken over the movement in its entirety. Certainly, the loss

of external patronage would have been a severe setback.

Moreover, RENAMO suffered several other blows at about the

time Rhodesian support was withdrawn. The movement’s first

leader, Andre Matsangaiza, died in a FRELIMO attack on the

movement’s Gorongosa base camps in October 1979. The

camps themselves were captured by FRELIMO in the assault.

Afonso Dhlakama succeeded Matsangaiza—but apparently

only after a bloody succession struggle. Moreover, his defeated

opponent’s supporters surrendered to Mozambican

authorities, leaving RENAMO, according to one source, with

fewer than 500 members.13 Dhlakama himself is reported to

have written in mid-1980 that “when Andre died the MNR was

on the road to destruction.”14 Were it not for South African

support, the RENAMO insurgency might well not have become

prolonged.

Given the nadir of RENAMO’s fortunes in 1980, it appears

beyond dispute that South African support was instrumental

in perpetuating and redirecting the conflict in Mozambique.

Again, to ensure continued external support, RENAMO played

PROLONGED WARS

232
its part in the furtherance of objectives which were not

necessarily its own. In any event, South Africa took over

RENAMO, lock, stock, and barrel, giving the organization a

new lease on life and a far more ambitious role than that

originally conceived of by the Rhodesian security services and

committing far more resources to RENAMO than Salisbury

ever did.

Ken Flower’s previous attempts to interest South Africans in

supporting the RENAMO operation had been without much

success.15 By 1980, however, South Africa’s regional security

concerns had changed—and those senior officials with the

ultimate responsibility for defining and pursuing them had

been replaced. It is important to understand the regional

context of South Africa’s dealings with Mozambique.

The “cordon sanitaire” of white-ruled and moderate black

countries in the 1960s had been brought to an end by events

following the April 1974 coup d’état. Southern Africa in the

1970s had entered a period of rapidly escalating conflict

marked by the active involvement of outside powers. The

colonial administrations in both Angola and Mozambique were

succeeded by avowedly Marxist-Leninist governments. Soon

after his electoral victory in 1980, Zimbabwean Prime Minister

Robert Mugabe broke off diplomatic relations with South

Africa and set about intensifying the international diplomatic

offensive against South Africa. In the same year, nine

countries in the region set up the Southern African

Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) with the

intention of reducing their economic and transport reliance on

South Africa. Mozambique, because of its history and position,

was assigned the transport portfolio—key to the meaningful

reduction of independence on South African trade routes.

The South African government responded to regional

developments with a more militaristic defense posture.

Pretoria officially adopted the view that a communist total

onslaught was being waged against the republic and responded to the perceived threat with a total national strategy

for the defense of the republic. The ninth point of the 12-point

plan enunciated by Prime Minister P.W. Botha in August 1979

stated, “South Africa [has a] firm determination to defend itself

against interference from outside in any possible way.”

GREGORY

233
To be sure, there was no military involvement in

Mozambique comparable to that in Angola. However, while

Mozambique did not close the border with South Africa as the

country did in 1976 with Rhodesia, FRELIMO pledged full

support for the African National Congress, South Africa’s

principal guerrilla opposition, which was enjoying something

of a resurgence in activity following the Soweto riots of June

1976. The extent to which FRELIMO was willing to go in

supporting insurgent groups in neighboring states had been

illustrated since the early 1970s by its support for ZANU and

ZAPU in Rhodesia.16

The impetus for South African support for RENAMO was

aimed at achieving the following objectives: putting an end to

Mozambican logistic support for the ANC, undermining in

general SADCC member-states’ efforts to lessen their

dependence on South African transport routes, undermining

in particular Robert Mugabe’s attempts to intensify diplomatic

pressure against South Africa, and demarxificating the region

by demonstrating that black Marxist governments could not

efficiently run a country. Thus, the South African government’s involvement in Mozambique was a product of its

regional foreign policy objectives, rather than a particular

bilateral focus on that country. In the period immediately

following Mozambican independence, and prior to the

declaration of FRELIMO support for the ANC, relations

between the two countries began to have a more peaceful

footing.

RENAMO’s second stage is characterized by more than just

the replacement of Rhodesian patronage by that of South

Africa. Pretoria’s objectives were such that it needed a larger

insurgency movement with more territorial reach, and one

which would specifically target Mozambique’s communications

infrastructure—SADCC’s arteries. Pretoria also planned a

higher public profile for the movement to present it as a

genuine nationalist movement rather than keeping it clandestine, as had been the Rhodesians’ preference. Accordingly, the

South African government began funding RENAMO from

mid-1980 on a scale greatly exceeding that of the Rhodesians,

working to build it up substantially from the organization they

PROLONGED WARS

234
had been bequeathed. Large numbers of RENAMO personnel

were airlifted into Mozambique in late 1980 and early 1981.17

It is not apparent that the SADF in 1980 intended RENAMO

to adopt a strategy of protracted war against the FRELIMO

government, much less that prolonged conflict was in the

cards. RENAMO was part of a strategy of limited- or lowintensity conflict designed to reduce what Pretoria saw as a

propensity for FRELIMO’s leadership to meddle in South

Africa’s internal affairs. It appears that Pretoria did not

anticipate—or underestimated—what RENAMO was to become

by the end of the decade.

Significant South African support for RENAMO accounts in

large part for the resurgence of RENAMO in 1981 and the

expansion of its zone of operations. The movement now

focused its attentions on Mozamique’s transport infrastructure

disrupting the railways from Maputo and Beira to Zimbabwe,

the pipeline to Mutare, and the main paved roads in the center

and along the coast of the country. Again, observers suggest,

RENAMO had to pay for external patronage by engaging in

actions the objectives of which were more South African than

RENAMO’s.18 RENAMO bands of some 100 to 150 combatants

also began to attack and destroy small towns, capturing

foreign technicians and aid workers. Some would be killed;

others would be held for ransom or political propaganda

purposes. RENAMO soon acquired an international reputation

for frequent and violent acts against the rural population.19

However, the question of RENAMO’s post-1980 resurgence

raises other issues central to an understanding of the reasons

for the rapid spread and prolongation of the insurgency to

1991. Conventional wisdom has it that, in the (1989) words of

a longtime FRELIMO supporter, “[T]he conflict in Mozambique

. . .is, in fact, an undeclared, low-intensity, covert war waged

by the South African Defence Force through surrogate

forces.”20 On that view, the principal reason for the

prolongation of the war in Mozambique was and is South

African support for the insurgents, who enjoy insignificant

levels of rural support. Furthermore, as the argument often

runs, the conflict would rapidly wind down were (presumed)

South African government support to be curtailed.21

GREGORY

235
This characterization appears to be not so much incorrect as

incomplete. Field research conducted since the mid-1980s has

analyzed the RENAMO phenomenon in the context of the

FRELIMO leadership’s attempts to impose its ideals on

Mozambican society, concluding that the deep-rooted presence

of RENAMO throughout Mozambique can only be understood

in the context of the fertile ground for insurgency created by

FRELIMO in the years after independence.

FRELIMO: Government and Ruling Party

By independence in 1975, FRELIMO’s leadership had moved

from minimalist nationalism, which had characterized the

Front at its formation, to a belief in Marxism-Leninism. The

leadership regarded itself as the vanguard of social revolution

in Mozambique and sought to centralize control of both the

state and the economy, establishing a mechanism for the

central planning of the economy, and implementing extensive

nationalization measures in the two years following

independence. FRELIMO also attempted to transform itself

from a broad-based liberation movement into a narrow-based

vanguard party, composed of ideologically committed cadres,

purging its ranks in the process of individuals whose

ideological orthodoxy or personal integrity were deemed

doubtful, including many longtime FRELIMO supporters who

could not understand why they were suddenly excluded. On

the foreign policy front, FRELIMO signed a 20-year treaty of

friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union and a similar

treaty with Cuba the next year.

Of particular pertinence to this analysis is the impact of

FRELIMO ideology on its agrarian policies in the rural sector

whence came the challenge from RENAMO. Recent research

indicates that both the rapid spread and the deep-rooted

nature of the Mozambican conflict may be explained, in large

part, by examining the catalytic impact of RENAMO activities

in areas of the country where FRELIMO’s increasingly commandist implementation of highly interventionist agrarian

policies antagonized the local inhabitants into either active

support for RENAMO or passive neutrality.

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FRELIMO regarded agriculture as the basis of the Mozambican economy, a sector which had to be developed in a

politically and economically correct fashion by means of the

“socialization of the countryside.” However, FRELIMO thinking

was characterized in general by a modernization mentality and

a concomitant contempt for (and ignorance of) indigenous

practices. During the independence celebrations in 1975,

Machel publicly called for an “ideological offensive to wipe out

the colonial and racist mentality which is deeply rooted in the

urban areas, as well as the feudal traditional mentality which

is predominant in the rural areas.”22

FRELIMO’s initial interventions in the agricultural sector

largely took the form of crisis management. Ninety percent of

the Portuguese settler population left in the 18 months

following independence, confronting the new government with

a worsening rural situation which included abandoned

plantations, farms and farm shops, and a disintegrating

distribution system. However, a concrete policy was soon

formulated, emphasizing the formation of cooperatives and

communal villages and the creation of large state farms. The

predominant mode of agricultural production, the so-called

family sector, in which peasant families typically worked two

to three hectares of land, was virtually ignored by FRELIMO.

Within the ministry of agriculture, there was not even a

department responsible for the family sector.

FRELIMO’s major, albeit unintended, contribution to the

prolongation of the war was its attempted villagization of the

peasantry, a strategy that accelerated after 1980.23 In the

process of constructing collective villages, many peasants were

relocated from their scattered individual land holdings to the

site of the new village. This process disrupted the traditional

social hierarchies, the reins of authority frequently being

taken over by the original inhabitants of the land on which the

village was located. As the most fertile and best located land

was held by these people, the newcomers also often found

themselves economically marginalized. Over time, many of the

newcomers were unable to grow enough food to survive and

had to labor on the plots of others for food, a dependency

which was both resented and difficult to break. Social

marginalization was often added to their woes.

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In the initial stages of villagization, participants largely

volunteered. However, as FRELIMO encountered resistance to

its policies and the threat from RENAMO heightened after

1980, coercion was increasingly employed with those who

resisted being often arrested and imprisoned. Villagization

came to take on a counterinsurgency dimension similar to that

of the previous colonial administration—an irony not lost on

the Mozambican population who had resented and resisted the

Portuguese efforts to combat the FRELIMO insurgency only 10

years previously.

Some peasant groups preferred to live outside the villages

altogether, their menfolk guaranteeing the group’s existence

by means of pillage. This practice hinders a fuller

understanding of the Mozambican conflict, as for most of the

1980s RENAMO and armed bandits were regarded as synonymous by most commentators—a conflation encouraged by

FRELIMO and many of its sympathizers. Derluguian

comments that only after living for some time in the town of

Tete did he receive “testimonial proof that local administrators

and many field officers deliberately exaggerated the role of

‘political terrorism’ in current violence.”24

Elements of the rural youth have been identified as another

important ingredient of the conflict. Their disaffection resulted

from a sense of alienation from both the traditional and

modern sectors. Few of those who migrated to the urban

centers in search of education and/or employment were able

to join the originally small and now shrinking industrial

sector. Many were deported to the rural areas in 1983, the

year in which FRELIMO implemented Operation Production, a

coercive program intended to clear the cities of undesirables.

Deportees were frequently expelled to rural areas foreign to

them and consequently were forced to rely on their wits to

survive.

Meteorological conditions were not on FRELIMO’s side in the

early 1980s. During 1981–84 eight of the 10 provinces were

severely affected by drought, while in 1984 the southern

provinces were affected by floods and cyclones. With its limited

institutional capacity, the Mozambican government failed to

provide adequately for people hard hit by disaster and in this

way demonstrate the benefits of its administration.

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The arrival in a rural settlement of RENAMO was often

enough to bring into the open what was until that time a

largely latent conflict. Frequently, RENAMO would blame the

ruling party and the state for local problems: exploiting

grievances at the suppression of traditional authority structures, undermining of religion, and the imposition of

FRELIMO’s economic and agrarian policies. In this respect,

RENAMO followed traditional patterns of rural mobilization by

insurgents—mirroring tactics employed by FRELIMO in the

previous decade. Building on the rural disaffection with

FRELIMO, RENAMO expanded both in size and sphere of

operations by the mid-1980s.

At the same time, RENAMO demonstrated an increasing

self-sufficiency, owing in large part to its practice of taking

whatever booty—food, clothing, tools, roofing, vehicle parts,

and the like—it found in the settlements it raided or captured.

Commentators report that this practice has earned RENAMO

the nickname among the Mozambican populace of locust

people. In addition to this pillage economy, there are reports of

RENAMO involvement in potentially lucrative smuggling of

ivory. RENAMO is also reported to be deriving income from the

sale of arms. In 1991 the South African press reported a

thriving arms trade between Mozambique and South Africa,

with AK-47s of Mozambican origin finding their way into

Transvaal townships for use in the fighting between their

extra-parliamentary groups.

Thus, the fallout in South African government support in

the 1980s did not bring about the collapse of RENAMO that

many observers had expected. In the third stage of its development, RENAMO moved out from under the wing of its South

African government sponsors. In 1979 the frontline states,

Mozambique in particular, had been instrumental in bringing

ZANU and ZAPU to the Lancaster House conference table at

which an end to the protracted Rhodesian guerrilla war was

negotiated. In 1989 RENAMO’s former principal sponsor, the

South African government, was in no position to exert similar

leverage over RENAMO.25 To be sure, it is uncertain that all

support from South African sources has been curtailed;

rumors of low-level unsanctioned support from elements

within the armed forces recently received new impetus with

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239
allegations of ongoing collaboration between RENAMO and at

least some elements of the SADF’s special forces.26 However,

the support commonly alleged is not of a nature or level vital

to RENAMO’s continued survival given the degree of

disaffection with government authority structures engendered

by FRELIMO’s policies.

The FAM and RENAMO:

A Fragile Balance of Forces

By the mid-1980s RENAMO had become an organization

whose size, geographic spread, method of operation, and

increasing self-sustainability were such that, while able to drive

the insurgents from gains they had made, FRELIMO was unable

to inflict an overwhelming defeat. To end the conflict, FRELIMO

had to capitulate to or defeat the insurgents decisively;

RENAMO, by contrast, enjoyed the traditional advantage of the

insurgent—merely having to remain militarily active in the bush.

The Mozambican conflict had become a prolonged, seesaw war

by virtue of the balance of forces inside the country.

One should beware of constructing too universalistic a

model of RENAMO, given local and regional dynamics, because

in recent years an increasingly coherent picture of the

insurgents has emerged. RENAMO does not appear to be a

loose collection of bandit gangs but a hierarchical military

body with an apparently effective system of command and

control founded on efficient radio communications which

facilitate regular communication with the provincial base.

Efficient radio communications hold the logistical key to

RENAMO’s ability to organize its offensives over the expanse of

rural Mozambique. The efficacy of this organization was

indicated in the period immediately following the

announcement on 1 December 1990 of a partial cease-fire.

This period witnessed a marked decrease in attacks on the

cease-fire zones demarcated in the Rome agreement.

The basic operational unit is the company of approximately

100–150 men. Each company is divided into platoons and

sections, as well as special operations groups. A battalion

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comprises two or three companies, each provincial base being

able to call on two or more such battalions. Troops carry a

variety of ill-assorted and poorly maintained rifles and

automatic weaponry. RENAMO’s tactics have hindered FAM

efforts to counter the insurgency. While several sizeable towns

were held for several months during the Zambezia offensive of

1986, insurgents have traditionally preferred hit-and-run

operations for the most part rather than try to hold territory.

Notwithstanding its hierarchy and tactics, RENAMO’s

military capability should not be overestimated. One analyst

concluded from first-hand observation that, given RENAMO’s

total disregard for fundamental infantry practice for posting

sentries or for erecting elementary defense perimeters, the

insurgents owe much of their tactical success to their

opponent’s weakness.27 Notwithstanding its own guerrillas’

experience against the Portuguese in the 1960s and the 1970s

and the difficulties inherent in prosecuting an effective

counterinsurgency strategy, FRELIMO has demonstrated a

manifest inability to engage its opponent, exasperating even its

closest military ally, Zimbabwe.

Following independence, FRELIMO took the advice of its

Soviet supporters and transformed the existing guerrilla army

into a conventional defense force, the FAM. Given Mozambique’s lack of strategic depth—the Mozambican capital is only

70 kilometers by road from the South African border—

FRELIMO feared an attack by Rhodesian or South African

conventional forces. Indeed, during the previous decade the

Rhodesians had made some 350 hot pursuit raids into

Mozambique against the 10,000 ZANLA guerrillas in various

camps inside the country. A January 1981 raid by South

African commandos on an alleged ANC house in the Maputo

suburb of Matola, resulting in the deaths of some 14 people,

deepened FRELIMO’s anxieties. In August 1982 ANC activist

Ruth First was killed in Maputo by a parcel bomb, allegedly

the work of South African agents, while the South African

military attacked alleged ANC houses in Maputo in May and

October 1983, dividing the Mozambicans’ attentions at a time

when the RENAMO threat was growing.

FRELIMO officials concede that, in the euphoria that

accompanied Robert Mugabe’s electoral victory in 1980,

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241
FRELIMO lowered its guard against RENAMO. There were

several successful offensives against RENAMO in that year,

encouraging the view that the threat from RENAMO was on

the decrease. Neither a protracted nor a prolonged conflict was

envisaged by FRELIMO. Consequently, FRELIMO was ill

equipped and ill prepared for RENAMO’s resurrection from

1981. By 1983, however, all of Mozambique’s provinces had

military governors, and defense expenditure had become the

largest single budget item, placing a further burden on any

already crippled economy. Mozambique’s security forces grew

from 10,000 at independence to over 30,000 in 1985, most of

whom had a counterinsurgency posture. But, for the most

part, the FAM consisted of arbitrarily conscripted, ill-equipped,

and poorly trained men who—the FRELIMO government itself

acknowledged—indulged in the widespread abuse of power, or

even deserted.

A larger, better-equipped, and better-trained army than the

FAM would have been hard put to control an insurgency in a

country with the military geography of Mozambique. The country

extends for some 800,000 square kilometers, an area roughly

twice the size of the state of California. Its rather elongated

shape, straddling 16 degrees of latitude, further complicates the

task of the FAM, as it does the Mozambican civil administration.

North-south communications lag behind communications from

east to west, owing to Mozambique’s historical role as entry point

to the southern African hinterland. Moreover, Mozambique is

bounded on the east by an Indian Ocean coastline almost 2,500

kilometers in length, which has been frequently used to resupply

RENAMO units by sea. Mozambique also shares common

borders with no fewer than six neighboring states, at least three

of which have, voluntarily or otherwise, provided sanctuary for

RENAMO units at one time or another.

Mozambique: A Fragile State

The fragilities inherent in the origins and development of the

Mozambican state are another factor in the outbreak and

prolongation of the conflict. Notwithstanding 400 years of

Portuguese colonial rule, the complete pacification of

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242
Mozambique took until the second decade of the twentieth

century.28 Thomas Enriksen comments that “the turbulence of

contending groups was to make Mozambique one of the least

peaceful regions of Africa and was to give it a legacy of war,

slavery, misery, and turmoil that has lived on into the

present.”29 Even more than most of its peers, Mozambique is a

fragile state without the habit and precedent of peaceful

change.

The institutional weakness of the Mozambican state

predates the current FRELIMO administration. The country

only became a single administrative unit with a national

economy in 1941, when the last of a number of company

charters granted in the nineteenth century lapsed. For the

previous one-half century, Mozambique had effectively

comprised a number of colonial districts and company

concessions administered from head offices in Lisbon, London,

Paris, Monaco, Brussels, and Durban. Different currencies

obtained in each region and tariff barriers were erected between them. Economic development, such as it was at that

time, tended to take the form of regional projects reflecting the

individual interests of the respective companies rather than

(albeit unidentified and unarticulated) national priorities.

Hence, the emphasis on the development of east-west communication links at the expense of a more spatially complete

network linking the northern and southern provinces is quite

clear. Consequently, successive Mozambican administrations

have enjoyed a limited presence and concomitantly a limited

influence in the northern provinces of the country, a situation

that RENAMO—and FRELIMO before it—has exploited for

politico-military gain.

More recently, the communications imbalance has been

further exacerbated because of the civil war. Projects with

international funding have been put in place to upgrade the

handling facilities of the ports of Maputo, Beira, and Nacala,

and the road and/or rail transport corridors linking these

ports with the hinterland, the intention being to revive the

traditionally large services sector of the Mozambican economy.30 Troops, particularly the ZNA, have been deployed to

protect these rail tracks, and the relative security thus

afforded the transport corridors has attracted thousands of

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243
displaced Mozambicans, who pose a further challenge to rural

reconstruction once the war has been brought to an end.

Mozambique in the 1990s has, in the opinion of some

observers, increasingly come to resemble the territory 100

years previously: central government authority is largely

confined to the larger urban centers, most of which are to be

found on the coast.31 Much of the rest of the country has

effectively been abandoned to RENAMO and to bandits, the

latter group frequently of a local and semiautonomous nature

in a fragmented rural milieu, where few inhabitants have

strong affiliations beyond the regions in which they live.

Mozambique in 1991 poses a number of challenges to those

seeking to apply theories of the state to a country which faces

the prospect of becoming a “permanently weak state”

structurally prone to internal conflict and with a long-term

dependence on foreign aid.32

The Internationalization of the Conflicts

RENAMO’s success in capturing and holding several

sizeable towns in the central province of Zambezia during the

1986 offensive suggests that, were it not for increased military

commitments by FRELIMO’s allies, RENAMO might have

moved on to major urban centers and pressed home its

military advantage. The reversal of the insurgents’ gains in

1987 and the further prolongation of the war owe much to the

internationalization of the conflict.

While the most significant external intrusion into the

Mozambique conflict in the 1980s has been that of South

Africa, it has not been the only one. South African support for

RENAMO served to kickstart the conflict in 1980; the provision

of external support to both the principal protagonists by states

both within the region, and beyond, has served to sustain and

prolong the conflict. However, that support—military,

financial, and diplomatic—has been sufficient to sustain both

FRELIMO and RENAMO but insufficient to deliver either

protagonist a decisive advantage. Indeed, in FAM’s case, the

creation of various special forces and the deployment of troop

contingents by neighboring states arguably made coordination

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244
of operations and logistics even more difficult for the

overstretched military high command.

Not surprisingly, Zimbabwe has been FRELIMO’s

staunchest military ally. In 1981 they signed a defense

agreement to regard an attack against one as an attack

against the other. By the mid-1980s, some 10,000 Zimbabwe

National Army (ZNA) troops were committed to the defense of

the Beira Corridor. This number at least doubled in size by

1989 as ZNA became more involved in taking on the insurgents. Regional support for FRELIMO was also forthcoming

from Tanzania (3,000 troops) and, after some bullying by its

frontline neighbors, Malawi (500 troops). The Zimbabwean

contingent in particular was deployed to great effect in 1987,

being instrumental in repulsing RENAMO offensives and

reversing a number of significant RENAMO gains. However,

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe came under mounting

domestic pressure to pull the ZNA contingent out of

Mozambique as casualties mounted and the Zimbabwean

economy suffered.33

A number of countries outside the subcontinent have also

provided support for the FRELIMO government. The Soviet

Union remained the Mozambican military’s biggest benefactor

as recently as 1988, providing nearly all of the army’s aircraft,

arms, and ammunition and training the “Red Beret”

commandos, who reportedly have been the most effective FAM

unit. However, to FRELIMO’s disappointment, that support

had some clear limits. Even in the late 1970s, when

adventurism characterized the Soviet Union’s third world

policy, Moscow refused to become as extensively involved in

Mozambique as it had in Angola, forcing FRELIMO to seek

other sources of assistance. By 1990 the last Soviet military

adviser had left, as Gorbachev scaled down the USSR’s third

world commitments. In the same year, Mozambique’s

preferential pricing arrangement with Moscow for the

provision of crude oil came to an end, placing considerable

additional pressure on Mozambique’s balance of

payments—and on FRELIMO’s security of tenure.

Somewhat more surprising at first sight, given FRELIMO’s

ideological proclivities at independence, is the support

rendered by a number of Western countries. Britain’s central

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245
role in Zimbabwe’s transition to majority rule and its

postindependence role in training Zimbabwe’s army, was

extended after 1980 to the provision of emergency relief aid in

Mozambique and the training of several hundred Mozambican

army officers. Given South African support for RENAMO in the

1980s, aid to Mozambique could be viewed as a cost-effective

expression of opposition to apartheid and solidarity with the

frontline states. Though undoubtedly of assistance to

FRELIMO, Britain’s aid has been criticized, along with that

offered by other Western countries, for being too closely tied to

the individual sponsor’s pet projects rather than being

integrated into more centrally driven economic reconstruction

and security efforts.34

US support for Mozambique from 1984 onwards was

provided, according to the assistant secretary of state for

African affairs at the time, Chester Crocker, to wean FRELIMO

from the Soviet bloc.35 American assistance largely took the

form of development assistance and emergency food aid, of

which the country has become the largest supplier. In 1986

the United States along with the Netherlands and Scandinavia

began a US $300-million program for the rehabilitation of the

Beira transport corridor that links Zimbabwe with the port of

Beira. Congress blocked military assistance—lethal or

nonlethal—even though some of its members vehemently

opposed Crocker’s constructive engagement policy towards

Mozambique. However, American support was stepped up

following FRELIMO’s 1989 decision to drop the MarxistLeninist appellation from its party statutes and following the

December 1990 publication in draft form of a liberalized

Mozambique constitution. With the advent of the Bush

administration, the US has played a more active public role in

encouraging negotiations, unsuccessfully putting forward a

seven-point peace plan in December 1989 to break the

deadlock. However, to date Washington—like Moscow—has

resisted deeper involvement in the Mozambican imbroglio,

deferring instead to other external players.

Both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World

Bank have extended loan assistance since the mid-1980s. This

assistance has been invaluable in ameliorating Mozambique’s

chronic balance of payments problem and foreign currency

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246
shortages. However, while assisting the FRELIMO government

to remain in power during the 1980s, it has been tied to

market-related economic reforms, which have worsened the

economic position of the urban population and, in this way,

undermined FRELIMO’s position among that section of the

population which remained least affected by the rural conflict.

FRELIMO’s economic policy reforms begun in the mid-1980s,

together with the IMF/World Bank-supported Economic

Rehabilitation Program (ERP) initiated in 1987, have reversed

most of the commandist elements of the economy favored by

the ruling party in its earlier years. However, without a concomitant improvement in rural security, the structural adjustment program’s emphasis on price incentives has impacted

negatively on the urban economy at the same time as

FRELIMO has been more supportive of the growth of an independent civil society. As this discontent grows and finds

expression in the emergent civil society, FRELIMO will almost

certainly find its room for maneuver further limited.

Bilateral economic and/or military assistance has also been

increasingly forthcoming from the Nordic countries of Canada,

Italy, Portugal, Japan, and France. In the late 1980s, even

South Africa stepped in, providing a consignment of military

supplies and engineers to repair railway tracks and bridges.

South African private companies, with their government’s

blessing, have for several years been heavily involved in the

rehabilitation of the port of Maputo, the closest outlet to the

sea for the Transvaal province of South Africa—and, until

1975, the route of most of South Africa’s bulk exports.

Much of the bilateral aid provided in the preconditionality

era of the 1970s and early 1980s provided FRELIMO with the

resources it needed to sustain its efforts at ideological

experimentation and in this way indirectly served to prolong

the conflict in Mozambique. Indeed, some of the leading

donors of that era actively supported many FRELIMO goals

and were not opposed to some of their methods. By the early

1980s, however, other donors less amenable to centralized,

statist, and commandist policies became more supportive of

the FRELIMO government but used the leverage of FRELIMO’s

dependence on such external assistance to encourage political

and socioeconomic reform in Mozambique. The United States,

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247
for example, tied the increase of its development aid to the

condition that the funds be channeled to the private sector.

While FRELIMO’s reform agenda lengthened, it saw little

concomitant improvement in its grassroots support, as few

demonstrable benefits of reform could be shown. Aid

conditionality, however, is on the increase.

Foreign development assistance has proved crucial in

prolonging the war by keeping the economy afloat, accounting

for 30 percent of the GNP in 1986 and 76 percent by 1989.

Food aid has been essential in preventing mass starvation in a

country in which, in times of peace, 80–90 percent of the total

working population is involved in agriculture. In 1988, 78

percent of marketed grain supplies were imported, excluding

the significant contribution made under the United Nations

emergency relief program.36 Bad as the situation in rural

Mozambique undoubtedly is, it would have been a lot worse

without the famine assistance that, by 1988, one-third of the

population depended on for survival. Foreign aid thus served

to ameliorate the lot of the rural peasantry, albeit minimally,

while being insufficient or unable to resuscitate an economy

plagued by war. This inability can be attributed in large part to

donor preference for urban or large showcase projects at the

expense of basic rural infrastructure. Nongovernment

organizations, of which 128 reportedly operate in Mozambique,

have been accused of creating organizational structures

parallel to those of the government, leading to a situation

where Mozambican civil authority exists in name only and

posing problems for future government attempts to reestablish

its authority after the war.37 Whether Mozambique will shake

off its increasing aid dependency is another major concern.

While FRELIMO’s main strength has been its diplomatic

efforts, pioneered by Machel and sustained by Chissano, to

increase its international support, RENAMO has been less

successful at presenting itself on the international level as a

legitimate nationalist movement worthy of support. RENAMO

has been dogged by a reputation for widespread atrocities

against the Mozambican peasantry, a reputation which the US

Department of State-sponsored Gersony Report confirmed for

many international observers. The report, issued in April

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248
1988, concluded that RENAMO members had murdered some

100,000 Mozambican civilians in the 1980s.38

RENAMO’s external representatives also have presented a

confused and fractious front to the world community; indeed,

the world community has never been quite sure who in Europe

and who in the United States was authorized to speak on

behalf of RENAMO’s leader, Afonso Dhlakama. The untimely

death of a number of RENAMO representatives has further set

back RENAMO’s cause. Nevertheless, RENAMO succeeded in

securing financial aid and some lobbying support from a

number of sources, principal among them elements in

Portugal and the Portuguese diaspora, West Germany, the

United States, and the United Kingdom.39

Closer to home, Malawi provided an invaluable springboard

for RENAMO in the early 1980s, enabling the insurgency

movement to strengthen its presence in the northern

provinces of Mozambique. On joining forces in late 1982 with

Africa Livre, a guerrilla movement of suspected Malawian

origins which had been operating in the north of Mozambique

for a number of years, RENAMO was able to increase its

territorial presence. In the mid-1980s, however, pressure by

neighboring states on Malawian President Hastings Banda to

crack down on RENAMO bases and domestic support for

RENAMO put the insurgency movement under logistical

pressure and contributed to its mixed military fortunes in the

latter years of the 1980s. In mid-1991 reports surfaced again

that showed RENAMO operating out of Malawi.

Since 1984, Kenya has provided internal passports for

RENAMO officials who, not being recognized by the United

Nations as political refugees, would otherwise have found it

impossible to travel. In the late 1980s, Kenyan President

Daniel Arap Moi was, along with Zimbabwean President

Robert Mugabe, a mediator in the prenegotiations between

FRELIMO and RENAMO. However, Kenya’s neutrality regarding the negotiations has come under suspicion as in 1990

RENAMO’s Afonso Dhlakama was frequently accompanied by

Kenya’s Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary Betwell

Kiplagat. Some observers regard Kenya as having taken over

from South Africa as RENAMO’s rearguard, even training

Dhlakama’s presidential guard.

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249
Other countries that at one time or another have been

mentioned as housing elements sympathetic to RENAMO

include Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the Comores, Israel, Oman,

and Zaire. This diversification of RENAMO’s support in the late

1980s robbed the movement’s former principal sponsor, South

Africa, of much if not all of its previous influence over the

movement. This diversification further complicated efforts to

bring about a negotiated end to the civil war.

What Road to Reconstruction?

Widespread consensus suggests that an end to the present

countrywide conflict is a prerequisite for reconstruction.

However, while an end to the war is a necessary condition, it is

not a sufficient one, and will mark only the beginning of what

will be a drawn-out and difficult process of rebuilding

Mozambique.40 Moreover, extending the war also extends

economic recovery, economic growth on which sustainable

peace will be dependent.

Several factors key to the prolongation of the present conflict

no longer applied in late 1991, suggesting that an end to the

prolonged war could be in sight. The South African

government, whose support for RENAMO from about 1980 was

instrumental in reviving the insurgent movement, now favored

an end to the Mozambican conflict. For its part, FRELIMO had

largely abandoned those political, economic, and social

policies, which had alienated many of the rural populace and

which had formed the basis of RENAMO’s official political

program. Indeed, FRELIMO had from the mid-1980s embarked

on a program of fundamental political and economic reform,

which in effect undercut most of the demands made by

RENAMO throughout the 1980s. A new constitution, which

took effect on 1 December 1991, ended 15 years of one-party

rule, ensured universal suffrage by secret vote, abolished the

death penalty, and guaranteed the right to strike and the

freedom of the press, although the television and radio media

remained state monopolies. Yet, during 1991, several rounds

of negotiations in Rome yielded little progress. The war

continued against the background of a declining economy:

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increased absolute poverty in the rural areas and growing

difficulties in obtaining international aid partly because of

Western European concerns about developments closer to

home in central Europe and the Soviet Union.

In the course of 1991 a number of developments appeared to

militate against an early end to the conflict. The seventh round

of talks, in August 1991, centered on the fundamental issue of

state power and legitimacy: who would rule Mozambique

following the signing of a cease-fire and who would control the

transition to multiparty free elections. RENAMO continued to

resist what it regarded as an unacceptable continuation of

FRELIMO unilateral control of the process of reform and

transition in Mozambique. FRELIMO, for its part, held on to its

internationally recognized position as the government of a

sovereign state.

RENAMO appeared willing and able to continue exercising

the military option while apparently lacking confidence that it

could pose a significant electoral challenge—a challenge

which, judging from the law on political parties passed by the

Mozambican Parliament the previous December stipulating

that political parties must prove electoral support in all 11

provinces, FRELIMO was determined to undermine. Continued

factionalism within the organization hindered efforts to build a

unified and consistent RENAMO negotiating position. While

reports of factionalism developing within the insurgency

movement, and of further military gains by the Naprama

militia tempered the military option, such developments had

the potential to encourage RENAMO intransigence rather than

increase third-party leverage over the organization. RENAMO

was having difficulty making the transition from a military

organization to a political organization but also was

attempting to gain the time to do so. In October RENAMO

embarked on a renewed diplomatic offensive: in a single week

it sent Afonso Dhlakama on a tour of Europe, started a radio

station broadcasting daily into Mozambique, and stepped up a

funding campaign in London.

For its part, in 1991 FRELIMO’s traditional collegial

leadership—virtually unchanged since 1977—and its integral

cohesion were being sorely tested at the same time as it was

coming under considerable pressure in the cities. There were

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251
increasing rumors of factionalism and resurgent ethnicity

within the party, along with divisions of opinion over the

correct strategy to deal with RENAMO. Rumors of centripetal

developments were given new force with the allegations of an

attempted military coup in June. These were developments

whose significance could not be underrated for a ruling party

which, in marked contradistinction to most of its African

peers, had enjoyed a reputation for collective and collegial

leadership. There were other signs of strain within the FAM:

members of the elite Red Beret unit went on strike because of

the lack of pay and rations, while reports increased of soldiers

holding up civilians at roadblocks and stealing relief

assistance.

Meanwhile the by-products of political reform, chiefly the

emergence of a growing civil society, together with increasing

urban economic hardship because of inflation, sharp

increases in rents, repeated devaluations of the national

currency and widespread unemployment, severely tested

FRELIMO’s position in the cities. Already in 1990 there had

been a wave of strike action throughout the country to improve

wages and working conditions. In 1991 there were reports of a

marked increase in urban crime, thought to be the consequence of demobbing thousands of soldiers—in accordance

with IMF structural adjustment program requirements—in a

rapidly deteriorating economic environment. Corruption in

government and ruling party circles also was reportedly on the

increase. The move to political pluralism made it all the more

urgent that FRELIMO demonstrate the benefits of its reform

administration. However, that objective was difficult to

achieve. Indeed, owing in large part to the lack of progress on

the negotiations front, President Chissano had to postpone the

general elections scheduled for 1991.

Looking beyond the question of a negotiated end to the war,

observers differed on the impact a national development would

have on the security situation in the rural areas. The renewed

attacks on the Beira and Maputo transport corridors, which

closely followed RENAMO’s renunciation of the December

1990 partial cease-fire, seemed to indicate that RENAMO was

a directed organization under central control. The corollary

was that a permanent cease-fire observed by both FRELIMO

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252
and RENAMO forces became a practical proposition that

would bring peace to the rural areas. However, it was still not

known whether or how many autonomous local RENAMO

groups might resist Dhlakama’s directives should he sign a

final agreement with FRELIMO. Moreover, activity by social

banditry and splinter groups, if anything, increased in both

rural and urban areas.

Hitherto, Naprama’s successes against RENAMO units had

redounded to FRELIMO’s advantage. However, the movement’s

leader, a member of the Macua tribe, the largest in

Mozambique yet the least represented in government, might

not be amenable to stepping down following an end to the civil

war. In 1991 reports also surfaced of a new guerrilla movement in Zambezia province, known as the Mukuepas, which,

unlike Naprama, was more likely to attack government forces

than to attack RENAMO. This phenomenon was further

evidence of the dominance of local and regional affiliations

over national ones.

The question remained one of where the balance or critical

mass lay, with some Western diplomats suggesting that as

much as one-third of the attacks on civilian and government

targets was caused by groups other than RENAMO. Assuming

RENAMO came out of the bush, would the rural situation they

left behind have stability to rebuild itself? If so, over what

period of time and with what inputs from central government

and outside agencies?41 One seasoned observer suggested

that, under the most propitious of circumstances, donors

would need to continue pumping $1 billion each year into

Mozambique for another 15 years.42

Other problems remained. The repatriation of the estimated

1.3-million refugees in South Africa, Malawi, Tanzania, and

Zimbabwe was, ironically, being deferred by the ongoing

conflict. Within Mozambique, many of the displaced persons

who had moved to the urban and periurban areas had become

absorbed into the urban cash economy, shaky as it was,

arousing government concerns that they would not wish to

return to the rural areas after the war. Similarly, the dense

communities which grew up within the transport corridors

might well reflect irreversible urbanization. Quite apart from

the logistical nightmare of holding universal franchise

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253
elections in a country with no tradition of national elections,

weak local government, and little rural infrastructure, the

question of integrating the FAM and RENAMO remained.

Fueled and sustained in the 1980s by international involvement, the civil war in Mozambique would need more substantial and more effective international involvement to end it.

Notes

1.-RENAMO has been known by a number of names since its formation.

This chapter uses the current name.

2.-A number of false starts occurred in the period prior to Mozambican

independence. According to Ken Flower, the biographer of the former CIO

head, “The Mozambique National Resistance (MNR) [was] developed as ‘eyes

and ears’ for CIO in Mozambique” in 1974. However, in a discussion of the

1977 Operation Dingo, Flower states that “elements of the MNR had been

our ‘eyes and ears’ in these areas for more that five years,” that is, since

1972. Closer examination of the book reveals certain apparent inconsistences with respect to dates, suggesting typographical or author error. See

Ken Flower, Serving Secretly (Alberton: Galago, 1987), xvii, 192.

3.-Annette Seegers cites a member of the Machel government to the effect

that “between 5,000 to 10,000 MNR soldiers had the countryside ‘to

themselves. They were not confronted by anyone’.” Annette Seegers,

“Revolutionary Armies of Africa: Mozambique and Zimbabwe,” in Simon

Baynham, ed., Military Power and Politics in Black Africa (London: Croom

Helm, 1986), 147.

4.-This phenomenon finds an echo in colonial Mozambican history. At the

turn of the century, spirit mediums of the Barue tribe in Zambezia province

claimed to have a secret medicine that would turn European bullets to

water. It took the Portuguese some 30 years to conquer the region. See Allen

Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman, Mozambique: From Colonialism to

Revolution, 1900–1982 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983), 23–25.

5.-A UN development program official, cited in Virginia Curtin Knight,

“Mozambique’s Search for Stability,” Current History, May 1991, 217;

“Financial Times Survey: Mozambique,” Financial Times, 15 January 1991;

and World Development Report 1991 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the

World Bank, 1991).

6.-In this respect, probably the most insightful analysis to date is

Christian Geffray, La Cause Des Armes Au Mozambique: Anthropologie d’une

Guerre Civile (Paris: CREDU, 1990). Gueorgui Derluguian also brings an

unusual and provocative perspective to bear on the problem. See Gueorgui

Derluguian, “Social Decomposition and Armed Violence in Postcolonial

Mozambique,” Review 13, 4 (Fall 1990): 439–62.

7.-Derluguian, 441.

8.-For an analysis which depicts RENAMO as having its origins in

legitimate opposition to FRELIMO stretching back to the early 1960s, see

Andre Tomashausen, “The National Resistance of Mozambique,” Africa

Insight 13, 2 (1983): 125–29. Van Aswegan documents internal and external

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254
Mozambican opposition to FRELIMO in the immediate postindependence

period. See Van Aswegan, “Restructuring Society: The Case of Mozambique,”

in Calvin Woodward, ed., On The Razor’s Edge: Prospects For Political

Stability in Southern Africa (Pretoria: Africa Institute, 1986), 167–68.

9.-Flower, 301.

10.-Quoted by David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, “Mozambique: To

Nkomati and Beyond,” in Martin and Johnson, eds., Destructive

Engagement: Southern Africa at War (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House,

1986), 7.

11.-One could, of course, argue that in 1976 RENAMO was in no position

to pursue short- and medium-term objectives distinct from those of its

sponsors. Not, that is, if it wanted to retain such support. Barbara Cole

argues, without making it clear whose plan it was, that “the longtime plan”

was the replacement of the FRELIMO government “by a democratic

Western-orientated government, one sympathetic towards Rhodesia . . . and

one inclined to boot ZANLA out of Mozambique.” Further on she reports

that, contrary to the wishes of the Rhodesian military, RENAMO had no

interest in engaging ZANLA as its main objective was the overthrow of

FRELIMO. See Barbara Cole, The Elite: The Story of the Rhodesian Special

Air Service (Amanzimtoti: Three Knights, 1984), 243–45. An observer with

ties to RENAMO asserts that there were “limits to the Rhodesian willingness

to support the resistance. The supply of material, the group’s movements

and its numbers were strictly limited by the Rhodesian authorities.” See

Tomashausen, 126.

12.-Martin and Johnson, 7.

13.-Steven Metz, “The Mozambican National Resistance and South

African Foreign Policy,” African Affairs 85, 341 (October 1986): 494.

14.-Alex Vines, RENAMO: Terrorism in Mozambique (London: James

Currey, 1991), 17.

15.-Flower, 300–302; and Tom Young, “The MNR/RENAMO: External and

Internal Dynamics,” African Affairs, October 1990, 495. Paul Moorcraft

asserts that P.W. Botha’s interest in RENAMO dated back to 1978, and that

financial and materiel support had been forthcoming in that year. Paul

Moorcraft, African Nemesis: War and Revolution in Southern Africa

1945–2010 (London: Brassey’s, 1990), 261.

16.-See J. K. Cilliers, Counter-Insurgency in Rhodesia (Kent: Croom Helm,

1985), 175–85.

17.-Estimates of RENAMO’s strength in this early period vary

considerably. Martin and Johnson quote a Zimbabwe military intelligence

report to the effect that “by December 1980 MNR had between 6,000 and

7,000 fully armed men with an estimated 2,000 troops in the pipeline . . . by

February 1981 total strength was in the region of 10,000.” See Martin and

Johnson, 19. Young quotes various other sources, whose figures range from

as low as 3,000 to 8,000 for the period to mid-1982. All estimates, however,

suggest that RENAMO had grown substantially in the period immediately

following its adoption by South Africa.

18.-Young, 497.

19.-The question of the extent to which RENAMO employs violence

against the rural population and uses coercion to gain recruits is the subject

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255
of much controversy which for reasons of length cannot be fully explored

here. We can say that, on the one hand, guerrilla movements have

frequently used tactics which were more violent than they were prepared to

admit. On the other hand, guerrilla movements find it difficult to survive

without a minimum level of acceptability by the local populace—though that

acceptance can be more resigned than voluntary. Robert Mackenzie, a

Vietnam veteran who has trained and fought in Southern Africa for many

years and who was involved with the RENAMO, reports having witnessed “a

constant stream of youngsters coming in out of the bush to join the

(RENAMO) ranks . . . [while] every patrol is constantly provided the latest

information by what we called ‘mujiba’ during the bush war.” Private

correspondence with the author, dated 3 July 1991. For an opposing

viewpoint, see William Minter, “The Mozambican National Resistance

(Renamo) As Described by Ex-participants,” Development Dialogue 1 (1989):

96–106.

20.-Rob Davies, “The SADF’s Covert War against Mozambique,” in

Jacklyn Cock and Laurie Nathan, eds., War and Society (Cape Town: David

Philip, 1989), 103.

21.-A somewhat optimistic scenario was recently provided by a prominent

journal of African business and development. “The absence of a (South

African) sponsor will inevitably result in RENAMO’s disappearance; that will,

in effect, be the end of the civil war. The battle for the development of

Mozambique can then commence.” See Mario Sampiao, “Mozambique: la

bataille du developpement,” Marchés Tropicaux, 2 Aout 1991, 1954 (my

translation).

22.-“Mozambique: How Frelimo Will Govern,” Africa Confidential, 1

August 1975, 6.

23.-For more details of this process as well as its impact on the

Mozambican conflict, see Christian Geffray and Mögens Pedersen, “Nampula

en Guerre,” Politique Africaine 29 (Mars 1988): 28–40; Gervase

Clarence-Smith, “The Roots of the Mozambican Counter-revolution,”

Southern African Review of Books (hereafter SAROB), April/May 1989, and

various articles and letters responding to his contribution in the June/July

1989, August/September 1989, and December 1989/January 1990 issues

of SAROB; Derluguian, 439–62; and Otto Roesch, “RENAMO and the

Peasantry: A View from Gaza,” Southern Africa Report, December 1990,

21–25.

24.-Derluguian, 444.

25.-Vines reports that in mid-October 1989, Neil van Heerden, director

general of the South African ministry of foreign affairs traveled to Nairobi

with a mandate to tell Afonso Dhlakama to become more cooperative in the

negotiations then in progress. Van Heerden was reportedly kept waiting for

some six hours before Dhlakama consented to see him. Vines, 125–26.

26.-“Mozambique Government Accuses South Africa of Continued

Support for Renamo,” Mozambique Information Office, 2 August 1991, 1–2.

27.-Moorcraft, 1314.

28.-David Abshire, “From the Scramble for Africa to the New State,” in

David Abshire and Michael Samuels, eds., Portuguese Africa: A Handbook

(London: Pall Mall Press, 1969), 76.

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256
29.-Thomas Henriksen, Mozambique: A History (London: Rex Collings,

1978), 1.

30.-The nature and importance of these “transport corridors” to the

Mozambican economy is discussed at greater length in Denis Fair, “The

Beira, Maputo and Nacala Corridors,” Africa Insight 19, no. 1 (1989): 21–27.

31.-J. Christopher Alden, “Mozambique: An Abiding Dependency,” in

Christopher Gregory and Larry Benjamin, eds., “Southern Africa at the

Crossroads? Prospects for the 1990s” (forthcoming); Karl Magyar and

Christopher Gregory, “LM Revisited,” Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 24

April 1988.

32.-The concept is developed by Jeffrey Herbst, “War and the State in

Africa,” International Security 14, no. 4 (Spring 1990): 36–38.

33.-Christopher Gregory, “A Marxist’s Rise in Southern Africa,” The World

and I, September 1987, 199.

34.-Karl Maier, “The Military Mix,” Africa Report, July–August 1988,

56–57.

35.-Christopher Gregory, “Supporting the ‘Right Side’ in Mozambique,”

The World and I, October 1988, 115–16.

36.-Steven Kyle, “Economic Reform and Armed Conflict in Mozambique,”

World Development 19, no. 6 (1991): 644–45.

37.-“NGOs Causing Heartburn,” Southern African Economist, June/July

1991, 10–11; and Joseph Hanlon, Mozambique: Who Calls the Shots?

(London: James Currey, 1991).

38.-Summary of Mozambican Refugee Accounts of Principally

Conflict-Related Experiences in Mozambique, Department of State,

Washington, D.C., 20 April 1988. For a contrary—albeit minority—view on

the report, criticizing Gersony’s methodology, see “Mr Crocker’s Propaganda

Blitz,” The Washington Times, 29 April 1988. For a more comprehensive

rebuttal, based on field research in RENAMO-held territory, see Sybil Cline,

RENAMO: Anti-communist Insurgents in Mozambique (Washington, D.C.:

United States Global Strategy Council, 1989), especially 24–30.

39.-For more discussion of these countries’ links with RENAMO,

particularly speculation as to motive, see Vines, chap. 3.

40.-Reginald Herbold Green sets out the goals, strategies, and

components of the Priority District Program, the Mozambican government’s

strategy for rural regeneration, in “Towards Rural Reconstruction in

Mozambique,” a paper delivered at the International Conference on

Agricultural Economics, Namibia, 1990.

41.-N. Kansi, “War and Children in Mozambique: Is International Aid

Strengthening or Eroding Community-based Prices?” Community

Development Journal 25, no. 2 (April 1990): 102–12.

42.-Tony Hawkins, “First Steps on Road to Peace,” Financial Times

Survey, 15 January 1991, 1. A sobering assessment of the socioeconomic

tasks which face the Mozambican government is provided in “Hard Road

Ahead,” Southern African Economist, June/July 1991, 8–9.

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The War Over Angola and Namibia

Factors of Prolongation

Garth Shelton and Karl P. Magyar

Africa’s sub-Saharan countries began to attain their independence, with Ghana becoming the first in 1957. Seventeen

countries attained that status in 1960, with the last colony,

Namibia, becoming a sovereign nation in 1990. In broad

terms, independence started first in northern Africa, then

West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, and finally southern

Africa. Although civil disturbances and political agitation in

Europe’s colonies intensified rapidly after the close of World

War II, most colonies attained independence peacefully.

However, a distinct pattern became discernible when the

transition process encountered large-scale hostilities.

Generally, violent independence movements emerged in those

colonies which attained independence last. This statement

implies that as the independence fervor swept through Africa,

it experienced its greatest impact in southern Africa, where

most of sub-Saharan Africa’s independence related conflicts

occurred. The recent histories of Angola, Mozambique,

Zimbabwe, and Namibia—and the violence in South Africa,

which also reflects a liberationist element—corroborate this

conclusion.

Portugal had been the first and most ambitious of explorers

of the African continent. As Europe’s poorest colonial power in

the 1960s, Portugal sought to counter the tide of Africa’s

colonial history by ignoring it. With its extensive holdings in

Africa dating back several centuries to its initial coastal

contact in the mid-1400s, Portugal did a poor job of assessing

Africa’s notorious “winds of change.” That inadequacy caused

Portugal to lose all her colonies abruptly, while the

government in Lisbon itself collapsed.

Of Portugal’s colonies in Africa, Angola was the most

important. Initially, Portuguese adventurers pursued mythical

silver mines in the interior, but their only profits came from a

lucrative slave trade. The Congo kingdom to the north of

259
Angola was a capable trading partner, but the territory which

would become Angola was more amenable to European

penetration and control. In part, this ease of penetration may

have resulted from the relatively late arrival of the Ovimbindu

people who, along with the Herero in Namibia, comprised the

southernmost extension of the Bantu migration along the

western coast of Africa. In a frequently shown symbiotic

maneuver, the Portuguese and various African kingdoms had

become accustomed to each other for commercial advantage.

Luanda was established as a commercial base in the latter

part of the sixteenth century and would eventually become the

capital of the colony of Angola.

About 170,000 Europeans of Portuguese descent resided in

Angola in the late 1960s. Residing in the capital of Luanda,

and a few other modest sized towns, they dominated the large

estates which were concentrated in Angola’s fertile northern

and central region. Whites, especially those living in southern

Africa, remained oblivious to continental developments,

despite the atrocities committed in the infamous Congo affair.

It was simply assumed that the settler colonies would receive

the backing of the home governments in perpetuity or that the

European residents in the colonies could raise sufficient

armies from among their members. Portugal’s colonies were

encouraged by another factor, namely, that these overseas

units were considered integral territories of the metropole.

There would be no debate about the limitless defense of these

overseas lands. The Portuguese had also made a mistake in

assessing the loyalties of the black population of the colonies

to the white overlords. What the Portuguese perceived as a

progressive “assimilado” policy, which allowed Africans to join

the privileged ranks of the whites, was the reality realized by

only few Africans. For the others, identifying with the

continent’s black population was a much more realistic

prospect. The same history of self-delusion also afflicted

whites elsewhere, most notably in Zimbabwe, and elements of

it are manifest in South Africa today.

Another historical prerequisite to understanding Angola’s

conflict focuses on the cold war. Angola’s colonial war, the

country’s attainment of independence, and the ensuing civil

war were shaped largely by the global reach of the Soviet

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Union and the US. The Soviets had taken an early interest in

Africa’s independence movements and had envisioned a

predominantly socialist continent which would deny its

political, economic, and strategic resources in the West. The

Soviets had assumed naively that the third world would be

easily attracted to socialist ideology, that the Soviets would

have the resources that would make them attractive as developmental partners, and that there would be good prospects for

mutual profit in this relationship. The gross miscalculation of

this assessment is evident today as we are left to wonder what

the Soviet objectives were in Angola, considering their

substantial military largesse until well into the late 1980s.

Portugal, on the other hand, was a member of NATO and

held such key insular strategic assets as refueling facilities in

the Azores, which the European nation thought would guarantee the Western world’s tacit and material support for the

retention of its colonies. In fact, arms intended for the defense

of Europe found their way to Angola, resulting in a general

African perception that the US had deliberately traded its

goodwill in Africa for an alliance with the forces seeking to

retain white control over southern Africa. This predicament

posed a problem for the US, which was caught in a tough

dilemma.

Although the independence leaders in Portugal’s African

colonies became active alongside Africa’s other leaders in the

1950s, shooting battles did not actually break out until after

numerous countries had gained their independence in the

early 1960s. Each Portuguese colony had its own independence movements, but as each colony shared the same

colonial master, the fate of each became linked. By the early

1970s, half of Lisbon’s government budget went to the war

effort in Africa. However, the wars in Africa could not be won

by a poor colonial power, and, consequently, Portugal’s Salazar

regime fell in 1974. This development set the pattern for

European colonial armies in Africa, which would win

numerous battles but lose the prolonged wars. The US in Vietnam and the Soviets in Afghanistan experienced the same fate.

One must view Angola’s war in this greater conflict context,

which drew inspiration from the US’s experience in Vietnam,

Fidel Castro’s successes in Cuba, and the struggle in Algeria.

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In Portugal’s African colonies, Amilcar Cabral from Cape Verde

best articulated the role of the guerrilla struggle in the African

context. The liberation forces were informed at the outset by

conceptions of protracted conflict, which accepted as a

premise Mao’s formulation of a long, drawn-out struggle when

facing a superior conventionally equipped enemy. In Angola,

after the Portuguese had abandoned the prolonged struggle,

the Cuban-backed Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola

(MPLA) forces, which took power, ironically became embroiled

in a prolonged war with Jonas Savimbi’s Uniao Nacional para

a Independencia Total de Angola (UNITA). Savimbi and UNITA

in turn adopted a new version of a protracted struggle. This

typified the general tendency for government forces to resort to

conventional short-war strategies while insurgents adopt the

protracted struggle. Barring an early, unambiguous

resolution, the conflict becomes prolonged. Angola’s classic

example certainly paralleled this phenomenon.

The Evolution of Conflict

The authors view the conflict in Angola in terms of three phases:

1. The phase between the Angolan liberation movements

and the Portuguese colonial authorities, 1961 to 1974.

2. At the start of the Angolan civil war, MPLA received

Cuban and Soviet support while the FNLA and the UNITA

received aid from South Africa and the US from 1976 to 1977.

3. The broadening of the Angolan war in which two alliances

expanded their objectives to include Namibia: South-West

African People’s Organization (SWAPO) joined the

MPLA/Cuba/USSR alliance and was opposed by the

UNITA/South Africa coalition, which received limited US

support from 1978 to 1990.

Angola’s Anticolonial Struggle

On 15 March 1961 Angola’s anticolonial struggle began.

Holden Roberto’s Union of Angolan Populations (UPA)

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movement initiated an insurrection at the Primavera plantation in

northern Angola. The insurrection signaled the failure of Portugal

to assimilate Angolans into the Portuguese nation.1 In 1962

Holden Roberto united a number of other nationalist movements

to form the Frente Nacional de Libertacao (FNLA) and established

the Gouvernment Revolucionaria de ‘Angola en Exil (GRAE), a

government in exile, with himself as president. By 1964 another

liberation movement, the MPLA, under the leadership of Agostinho

Neto, began to receive weapons and financial support from the

USSR and the People’s Republic of China.2

Jonas Savimbi, a top leader, left GRAE in 1964, and after

unsuccessful attempts to join the MPLA, he established UNITA

in March 1966. Savimbi based his organization in the south

among his own people, the Ovimbundu. However, lack of

external backing severely limited UNITA’s ability to compete

with the MPLA and the FNLA for popular support.

The liberation movements assumed that limited violence

combined with international pressure at the United Nations would

end Portuguese domination in Angola. Their long-term goal

envisioned a settlement similar to the one that ended French

control in Algeria. But insurrection merely strengthened Portugal’s

resolve to stay in the territory. The liberation movements

underestimated Lisbon’s determination to maintain control. By

1972 Portugal had sent over 130,000 troops to defend their

colonies, the majority of which were based in Angola.

The United States based its support for Portugal on the Nixon

administration’s famous National Security Studies Memorandum

(NSSM) 39 document. NSSM 39 concluded that the African

liberation movements were ineffectual and not “realistic or

supportable” alternatives to continued Portuguese colonial rule.

The authors of the policy document questioned “the depth and

permanence” of black resolve and “ruled out a black victory at any

stage.”3 However, they did not question Portugal’s determination

to hold on to Angola. This omission later proved decisive.

Gradually, Portugal’s ability to continue the colonial wars

began to erode, and as John Marcum points out:

By the early 1970s there were ample signs—economic disarray,

political restiveness, military demoralization—that Portugal’s days as a

Eurafrican power were numbered. These indicators were visible to

those with eyes to see.4

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Nevertheless, when in April 1974 Portugal’s armed forces

overthrew the government of Marcelo Caetano, the US seemed

surprised. The US responded to developments in Angola after

that coup in terms of global geostrategic concerns—it must

oppose the Soviet link to the MPLA. The MPLA’s Soviet

connection also awakened the region’s dominant power, the

Republic of South Africa.

The first 10 years of war in Angola laid the foundation for

further conflict. The liberation movements were divided. Since

the three main groups—FNLA, MPLA, and UNITA—had never

united against Portuguese rule, they fought their own wars.

Then the superpowers became involved, with USSR supporting

the MPLA and the US aiding Portugal, a fellow NATO ally.

The Start of Angola’s Civil War

In Guinea Bissan and Mozambuzue, Portugal handed over

power to the dominant liberation movements with little

difficulty. However, in Angola the FNLA, MPLA, and UNITA

claimed to represent the Angolan people. The new government

in Lisbon attempted to promote cooperation among the

liberation movements. It held meetings in Kenya and later at

Alvor in Portugal. At Alvor the liberation movements agreed to

create a transitional government to prepare the way for

independence on 11 November 1975.

However, rivalry among the liberation movements sparked

the collapse of the transitional government and marked a new

wave of conflict in the territory. Holden Roberto’s FNLA

attempted to seize control of the country through military

action.5 The US decided to provide covert aid to the FNLA,

while the MPLA began to receive additional support from the

USSR. In addition, Cuba dispatched military instructors to

assist the MPLA.6 The MPLA expelled FNLA troops from

Luanda and launched a military campaign to take control of

all provincial capitals before independence day. In response,

the FNLA and UNITA formed a coalition to stop the MPLA

advance.

Initial successes suggest that by 11 November the MPLA

would control most of the key cities and towns in Angola.

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Consequently, the FNLA-UNITA coalition urgently called for

increased international assistance. The resulting external

intervention transformed the low-intensity civil war into a

multidimensional conflict. Participants fought the second

phase of the Angola war on three levels: (1) a civil war

characterized by competition between three rival liberation

movement; (2) a regional war involving South Africa and Cuba,

and (3) a global power struggle in which the superpowers

promoted their own national interests in the region.

Anxious to prevent a Soviet-Cuban backed MPLA victory in

Angola, the US authorized a massive expansion of military

assistance to the FNLA and UNITA. The CIA initiated its covert

operation, “Operation Feature,” to recruit mercenaries and to

direct operations from Zaire.7 With increased US support, the

FNLA, assisted by units from South Africa, launched an offensive

to expel the MPLA from Luanda. Soon thereafter, South African

troops entered southern Angola and deployed around the

Cunene hydroelectric plant, which served Namibia’s electricity

needs in accordance with a prior arrangement.

During September 1975 the MPLA, with Cuban support,

held off attacks by the FNLA and South African and Zairian

troops in northern Angola. Fearing failure in the north, South

Africa decided to advance into Angola. On 23 October, under

the code name Operation Zulu, approximately 5,000 South

African troops launched an assault in support of the FNLA and

UNITA. South Africa did not need much provocation to send

forces into Angola. Pretoria had hoped that the incursion

would end SWAPO’s attacks against Namibia, most of which

emanated from Angola. Moreover, “Pretoria’s response was to a

perceived domino effect with its old cordon sanitaire being

replaced by a Marxist garrotte that would strangle the

Republic.”8 In addition, the internal struggle within Angola

presented South Africa with an excellent opportunity to

establish its credentials as an ally of the West. South Africa’s

decision makers saw the conflict as a contest between the

Soviet-backed MPLA and the pro-West forces of UNITA and the

FNLA. South Africa’s official reasons for intervention were

given as “hot pursuit” of SWAPO insurgents, protection of the

Cunene hydroelectric plant to counter Cuban involvement,

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and the UNITA/FNLA requests for support “against

communist infiltration in Angola.”9

The South African advance through southern Angola prompted

desperate MPLA requests for additional Cuban support. The

MPLA made no major effort to solve the country’s problems

through negotiations. Instead, it chose to escalate the civil

war. On 5 November 1975 a Cuban battalion was airlifted to

Luanda, and massive reinforcements left Cuba by sea.10

Cuba’s determined commitment to Angola slowed, then halted,

the South African advance. Between November 1975 and

March 1976, more than 20,000 Cubans arrived in Angola.

Their forces, backed by Soviet military equipment and

transportation, denied the FNLA a victory in the north and

stalled the South African-UNITA in the south.

In February 1976 the US passed the Clark amendment,

which ended all US aid to UNITA and FNLA.11 The ghost of

Vietnam had undermined any serious US effort to directly

involve itself in the conflict. Washington’s failure to deliver the

military hardware required for victory against the MPLACuban-Soviet alliance forced South Africa to withdraw from

Angola.

Consequently, the balance of power within Angola shifted

overwhelmingly toward the MPLA. Without South African

support, UNITA rapidly lost control of southern Angola. A

major Cuban-directed offensive against the FNLA gave the

MPLA control over northern Angola also. On 22 January 1976

the Organization of African Unity (OAU) condemned South

Africa’s intervention in the civil war but refused any

condemnation of Cuba or the USSR. On 11 February 1976 the

OAU admitted the People’s Republic of Angola (PRA) to full

membership, thus recognizing the legitimacy of the MPLA

government.12

The Broadening of the Conflict

MPLA-Cuban control of Angola did not signal the end of the

civil war. The MPLA’s decision to extend support to SWAPO

immediately ensured that there would be no peace in the

region. Anticipating MPLA hostility, the South African Defense

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Force (SADF) established a number of new military bases

along the Namibian-Angolan border. In addition, the remnants

of the FNLA and UNITA were recognized and trained by the

SADF. In this context Deon Geldenhuys outlined South

Africa’s objectives:

Pretoria’s primary objective would be to force the MPLA into a

fundamental shift on Namibia. Ideally, the Luanda regime should deny

SWAPO bases and protection on Angolan soil. Alternatively, South

Africa would want Angola to exert pressure on SWAPO to support an

international settlement in Namibia on terms which South Africa

would regard as favorable to its own interests. The way to achieve

either objective is not to punish Angola militarily in the same way as

Israel reacts against Arab hosts of the PLO.13

The MPLA could not bring themselves to end support for

SWAPO and consequently launched their country into a

protracted civil war, which often resembled a regional conflict.

MPLA leaders fully realized that allowing SWAPO bases in

Angola would compromise the country’s own security. South

African support for UNITA would be inevitable.

South African trained UNITA insurgents began the third

phase of the Angolan war through the sabotage of transport

links, especially the Benguela railway. The SADF joined UNITA

insurgents, but the targets were different—the SADF attacked

SWAPO training camps and control centers. On 4 May 1978

the SADF launched its first major offensive since the 1975

invasion against SWAPO positions in Kassinga. Numerous

small attacks and hot pursuit operations followed.

South Africa maintained that its attacks in Angola were

directed only against SWAPO targets and that UNITA was

operating with complete independence. However, it soon

became clear that the MPLA had no intention of ending, or

even moderating, their support for SWAPO. Consequently,

SADF became more supportive of UNITA’s objective to end

MPLA control of Angola.

The election of Ronald Reagan as US president opened new

possibilities for Pretoria and for Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA forces.

The Reagan administration supported the objective of securing

a UNITA presence in the Angolan government. Consequently,

numerous discussions between US and South African officials

took place with the objective of strengthening UNITA. Jonas

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Savimbi was invited to Washington and moves to repeal the

Clark amendment were initiated.14 (The Clark amendment was

finally repealed in July 1985.)

With implicit US support, the SADF launched new offensives

into southern Angola to destroy SWAPO bases and undermine

the MPLA. Early in 1981, the SADF campaign, code named

“Operation Protea,” sought to establish a cordon sanitaire in

southern Angola to prevent SWAPO attacks against Namibia.

The key element of the SADF strategy was the concept of

forward defense (i.e., the elimination of SWAPO insurgents

before they could launch attacks inside Namibia).

The MPLA objected to SADF operations in southern Angola

and thus ordered their armed forces, FAPLA, to aid SWAPO.

Luanda also backed its decision on a desire to prevent the

consolidation of UNITA control in southern Angola, the area

traditionally supportive of Jonas Savimbi.

Throughout the early 1980s, the SADF and UNITA operated

against targets in southern Angola. SADF’s primary objective

remained the consolidation of its forward defense strategy to

prevent SWAPO attacks against Namibia. UNITA received

South African support for their long-term objective, a role in

the governing of Angola. The SADF launched numerous hot

pursuit and counterinsurgency operations into southern

Angola. The major attacks included:

•-December 1981: bombing raids in Moxico province

•-May 1982: attack at Kassinga

•-August 1983: the occupation of Cangamba

•-December 1983-January 1984: “Operation Askari,” operation 300 kilometers inside Angola15

The success of “Operation Askari” provoked the USSR to

warn Pretoria that the overthrow of the MPLA government

would not be permitted. In addition, Moscow stepped up the

supply of weapons to the Cubans in Angola, thus beginning a

process which would later shift the regional balance of power.

Following the signing of the RSA-Mozambique Nkomati

Accord, the US stepped up diplomatic pressure to end the

Angolan conflict. US negotiators, led by Chester Crocker, were

rewarded when on 16 February 1984 South Africa’s Foreign

Minister Pik Botha and Angolan Interior Minister Alexandre

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Rodrigues signed the Lusaka Accord. In terms of the accord, a

joint monitoring commission (JMC), consisting of both

Angolan and SADF officers, would oversee a South African

withdrawal from occupied areas in southern Angola. However,

the MPLA government continued to link their own security to

SWAPO and the Namibian issue. An official Angolan statement

stressed that peace could only be based on “the conditional

and immediate withdrawal of the South African army from the

part of Angolan territory it occupies and the implementation

without delay of United Nations Security Council Resolution

435 on Namibia’s independence.”16

Thus, the MPLA apparently concluded that they should

maintain their long-term security only if someone forced South

Africa out of Namibia. With continued SWAPO attacks in

Namibia and the continued operation of UNITA forces in Angola,

the Lusaka Accord was doomed to failure. In June 1985 the

SADF once again launched attacks against SWAPO insurgents,

who had begun to assemble in southern Angola. Late in 1985

newly equipped and trained FAPLA forces attacked the UNITA

headquarters in Jamba in southern Angola. The FAPLA attack

was predictable. SADF strategists had made a monumental error

in assisting UNITA to establish permanent headquarters in

Jamba. Ignoring the writings of Mao Tse-tung, who repeatedly

emphasized the need to avoid establishing permanent bases

which become easy targets for the enemy, Jonas Savimbi built

Jamba with SADF assistance.17 Thereafter, Jamba obviously

became FAPLA’s main target, which forced SADF to come to the

assistance of UNITA repeatedly. In Clausewitzian terminology,

Jamba became UNITA’s center of gravity.18

Late in 1985 and again in 1986 the SADF was forced to

defend Jamba from a Cuban-FAPLA offensive. By late 1986 the

USSR’s supply of modern weapons to the battlefront was

beginning to shift the balance of power. Throughout the early

1980s South Africa attacked any targets in southern Angola

with little serious opposition because of the SADF’s air

superiority. New Soviet radar and ground-to-air missile

systems, supported by interceptors with Cuban pilots,

dramatically changed the Angolan theatre of operations.

By 1987 the warring factions and their supporters had set

the stage for a final showdown in southern Angola. Savimbi

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269
remained in Jamba, giving his opponents an obvious and easy

target, and the SADF had lost air superiority. In August 1987

FAPLA launched its spring offensive against UNITA forces

occupying Mavinga, the first step towards the objective of

reaching Jamba. Once again the SADF committed ground

forces to defend Jamba. The SADF counterattack led by G5

and G6 cannons proved to be a major success. However,

opposing forces halted the SADF advance at Cuito Cuanavale,

a town which the SADF will never forget. As Fidel Castro said:

“From now on the history of Africa will have to be written

before and after Cuito Cuanavale.”19

Both Cuba and South Africa soon realized that the costs of

attempting to achieve victory in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale

outweighed the potential strategic gains. The concentrated

deployment of forces equipped with modern weaponry suggested

that any major offensive by either side would result in losses.

The balance of military power in southern Angola opened the

way for serious negotiations, which began in London in May

1988. South African negotiators realized that continued

commitment to a military solution could spell disaster. Moreover,

the cost of the annual emergency counteroffensive to save

Jamba had become unacceptable. Mao Tse-tung taught guerrilla

armies how to survive with minimum cost, but UNITA and their

SADF advisors ignored this wisdom. The Cubans and the MPLA

were kept at the negotiating table by their Soviet allies who,

because of serious international economic problems, had no

wish to continue their involvement in Angola.20

After protracted negotiations throughout 1988, the parties to

the Angolan dispute signed an agreement that provided for the

implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 435. This

resolution paved the way for Namibian independence and for the

withdrawal of Cuban forces within a stipulated time period. It

excluded UNITA from the peace talks at the insistence of the

MPLA. Once again the leaders of the MPLA confirmed that they

had no wish to seek reconciliation with their Angolan brothers.

The MPLA obviously hoped that the independence of

Namibia would remove the SADF from their southern border,

and, in time, UNITA would simply wither away. Cuban forces

would no longer be needed to ensure Angolan security.

However, this expectation proved to be incorrect.

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Namibian independence ended South Africa’s help for

UNITA, but the US promised Savimbi “all appropriate and

effective assistance” until the MPLA made “some positive

movement toward national reconciliation.”21 UNITA continued

to attack economic targets to encourage the MPLA to negotiate.

UNITA could no longer call on the SADF to defend Jamba, but

the Angolan government was significantly weakened by the

withdrawal of Cuban forces—31,000 of them left the country

in 1989 alone. The remaining 22,000 left in stages and by 1

July 1991 were gone completely.

Intense diplomatic pressure by the US and a number of

African states brought Savimbi and Angolan President José

Eduardo dos Santos together at Gbadolite in Zaire on 22 June

1989. The two leaders apparently agreed to a cease-fire and

the integration of UNITA into the Angolan government and

armed forces. However, differing interpretations of the agreement led to the return of a state of war.22

Further diplomatic activity failed to produce significant

results. Then in December 1989 the MPLA launched a major

offensive against UNITA to bring matters to an end through a

military solution. The offensive ended with a draw. The first

major FAPLA-UNITA confrontation without Cuban or SADF

support from their respective allies proved that the Angolan civil

war would not easily be resolved through military means. By

mid-1990 the MPLA had come to realize that UNITA was not

simply the creation of South Africa—it was an effective political

organization with mass popular support. Consequently,

continued efforts to destroy UNITA were doomed to failure.

Protraction and Prolongation,

The Liberation Process

Leaders of the Angolan liberation movements expected that

an armed uprising would soon bring independence to Angola.

However, for the reasons discussed below, this outcome

proved to be incorrect. Once these leaders realized that

Portuguese authorities had no intention of leaving Angola,

they adopted a variation of the classical Maoist protracted

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guerrilla strategy and accepted the realization that the

struggle would be long and difficult. The guerrilla war against

the Portuguese in Angola was entirely rural. The war was

fought over vast distances on extremely difficult terrain. Much

of the FNLA’s activities were conducted along the 2,100 km

frontier of mountain, swamp, jungle, and elephant grass that

separated Angola from Zaire.

MPLA operations in the Moxico region ranged over a forest

area covering 391 square kms. Angola’s difficult terrain clearly

worked to the advantage of the guerrilla forces. The

Portuguese found it impossible to control the whole of Angola

all the time. The guerrilla movements were well aware of this

and used this geography to their own advantage. Zaire

provided bases for the FNLA, especially after Joseph Mobutu,

Holden Roberto’s brother-in-law, became president. The MPLA

established bases in the Congo Republic and in Zambia after

that country’s independence in 1964. Bases in neighboring

territories made the task of the Portuguese forces much more

difficult.

The original nucleus of 300 MPLA guerrillas received their

training in Algeria. MPLA guerrillas also received training in

Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR. The FNLA accepted

support in the form of weapons and guerrilla training from the

PRC. The liberation movements benefited from the moral and

political support offered by the United Nations and the OAU.

The UN General Assembly strongly condemned Portuguese

colonialism, while the OAU granted political recognition to the

FNLA until 1968 and thereafter to the MPLA.23

The leaders of these movements attempted to establish

liberated zones inside Angola. They designed these zones to

grow food for the MPLA, but these zones were vulnerable to air

attack. The FNLA neglected to strengthen its political support

through control over land inside Angola. Instead, they

concentrated on armed attacks. The failure to promote

political support prompted the breakaway of UNITA under

Jonas Savimbi. For Savimbi, political education held the key

to success. UNITA attracted the support of the PRC, but it

failed to establish external bases. Zambian officials expected

UNITA after UNITA destroyed the railway line that linked

Zambia to the port of Benguela in Angola.

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None of the guerrilla movements seriously challenged

Portuguese control. In fact, a concerted counterinsurgency

neutralized campaign the initial guerrilla offensive in the

Bakongo area of northwestern Angola. The FNLA survived the

Portuguese counterattack and grew to approximately 6,000

trained guerrillas, but thereafter FNLA tactics concentrated on

limited attacks from Zaire and from the Dembos Mountains

inside Angola.24 UNITA operated in the south among the

Ovimbundu and Chokwe peoples, but its guerrilla forces were

limited and ineffective. The MPLA, numbering approximately

5,000 trained guerrillas, were the most active liberation

movement. The MPLA’s initial offensive was designed to take

control of the Cabinda enclave. However, MPLA abandoned

this strategy due to a lack of popular support in the region.

Thereafter, the MPLA operated from Zambia in the Moxico

and Bie provinces. Vast distances prevented the MPLA from

launching a concerted guerrilla campaign in the Mubundu

region around Luanda. Moreover, the Portuguese met their

operations in the east with fierce and effective counterattacks.

Thus, by 1974 the MPLA had retreated to their original base in

Congo-Brazzaville, and the Angolan liberation war had become

a low-intensity stalemate.

The strength of the Angolan guerrilla armies lay in their ability

to fight a Maoist campaign. As one observer pointed out:

The war in Angola is a harsh campaign. Black guerrillas dictate the

way it is fought. . . . They only engage in battle when they are confident

that they have a material advantage. It is for this reason that a

Portuguese army of almost 60,000 men is tied down to counter a

guerrilla threat of barely a sixth of that number.25

Thus, the application of Mao’s guerrilla strategy enabled the

guerrillas to fight a far superior enemy over an extended period

of time.

Portugal’s Counterinsurgency Strategy

At the start of the political revolt in 1961, the Portuguese

army had little difficulty in overcoming the rebels. They

employed air power to attack rebel strongholds. The initial

Portuguese response to guerrilla attacks was slow due mainly

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to a lack of military resources. Troops withdrew into defended

outposts and relied on air attacks, but they sent out

occasional patrols to contain guerrilla activities. But between

1964 and 1968 the initiative lay with the guerrillas.

In 1968 the Portuguese adopted a more comprehensive

antiguerrilla strategy. The key elements of the strategy included:

•-The concentration of the population in protected villages.

•-A hearts and minds campaign in which houses, schools,

and hospitals were built. All blacks were granted automatic

Portuguese citizenship, the distinction between indigenes and

neoindigenes being abolished. The contract labor system was

ended and social services were greatly extended.

•-Air power was used to seal off guerrilla supply routes and

as an immediate response to guerrilla attacks. (Napalm was

used from an early stage, and from 1970 herbicides and

defoliants were used against guerrilla villages where crops

were being grown.)26 Coordination of light bombers,

helicopters, and ground patrols was used extensively during

dry season operations.27

•-Elite units of the Portuguese paratroops, commandos, and

marines undertook most of the fighting. Africans comprised a

large percentage of the soldiers in these units.

•-Captured guerrillas assisted Portuguese forces. Strong

leadership—generals such as Spinola and Kaulza de Arriaga—

provided the leadership needed to boost morale. Membership

in NATO gave Portugal access to military equipment, including

German G3 carbine (the main infantry weapon), the French

Alouette helicopter, and the Italian Fiat G.91 jet fighter.

Insurrection merely strengthened Portugal’s resolve to stay

in the territory. Lisbon continued to deny Africans the right to

political self-determination and emphasized instead the links

between Portugal and the African “provinces.” John Marcum

observed: “Without its colonies, Portugal, it was felt, would

shrink into a country of little political consequence and limited

economic potential.”28

In response to insurgency in Angola and the other colonies,

Portugal increased the size of its armed forces. Before long,

Portugal’s armed forces had doubled in size and by 1974 had

consumed 45 to 50 percent of the government’s budget. In

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terms of the official budget, military expenditure rose from

35.6 percent in 1961 to 40.7 percent in 1969, while

expenditure on socioeconomic development declined from 22

percent in 1960 to 14 percent in 1968.29 In response to the

colonial wars and a weakening economy, emigration from

Portugal increased dramatically, reaching an annual rate of

170,000 in 1971. By 1972 one observer estimated that 1.5

million Portuguese had found employment abroad, compared

with a labor force of only 3.1 million in Portugal itself.30

Thus, the colonial conflicts brought major economic

problems to Portugal. Portugal’s ability to maintain control of

the overseas “provinces” required sufficient finances to pay for

the military campaign and the education programs which had

been introduced. To boost income, Portugal agreed to permit

foreign investment in the colonies. Between 1964 and 1970

US, German, and South African investments strengthened the

Angolan economy. The Portuguese in Angola benefited from

the new economic prosperity, but the demands of the African

population grew louder. By 1972 Portugal had sent over

130,000 troops to defend the colonies; this number consisted

of more than one half of their total armed forces.

The liberation movements responded to Lisbon’s determination by adopting a war of attrition. However, as some observers pointed out, economic obstacles prevented the liberation groups from achieving victory. In may 1970, one analyst

suggested:

One optimistic supposition has been that, in time, the poorest of the

west European countries would tire of the cost—in money and

manpower—of supporting these rearguard colonial wars. But that

thesis is tenable only if the price of holding on to the territories is

greater than the return.31

In other words, oil revenues from Cabinda’s wells, which

totaled $61 million in 1972, would dramatically alter the costbenefit equation. Cash from Angolan oil would enable Portugal

to maintain control.

The liberation movements responded to Portugal’s improving

economic condition by stepping up the casualty rate. The

insurgents used mines and booby traps to maximize enemy

casualties. Consequently, Portuguese losses from 1967 to 1974

totaled 11,000 dead and approximately four times as many

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275
wounded. These rates paralleled those of the United States in

Vietnam.

By 1974 the liberation movements were active in the northern

and eastern provinces of Angola. Guerrillas ambushed

Portuguese convoys, destroyed bridges, and attacked military

outposts. However, they failed to launch any meaningful

offensive against the settler population.32 The Portuguese

farmers continued their normal daily routine. Significantly, the

liberation movement did not mobilize support from the densely

populated Ovimbindu region west of the Cuanza River.

By the 1970s Portugal began to reconsider its commitment to

the overseas provinces. Domestic opposition to the wars had

become a major issue.33 Portugal restricted opposition at home,

but an ever-increasing number of army defections and draft

dodgings confirmed a lack of domestic support for continued

involvement in Africa. Portugal was divided on its involvement in

Africa. Some leaders demanded a military solution and a return

to full control by Lisbon; others saw Portugal’s future in a united

Europe, arguing that the African colonies had become a burden.

Portugal’s business leaders gradually gave more and more

support to the Europe-first argument.

However, Portugal’s political leaders refused to make a choice

between Africa and Europe. Instead, they adopted the US model

of “Vietnamization”—an approach which later failed both the

United States and Portugal. “Vietnamization,” or “Africanization”

as it was applied by Portugal, had three main objectives: First,

the provincial governments would increasingly bear the costs of

counterinsurgency.34 Second, local recruits would replace

metropolitan troops. The government offered education and

technical training to recruits for the Angolan army.35 Thirdly,

increase external support. As a quid pro quo for a two-year

extension of US base rights in the Azores (important for US

communications with NATO allies), the US extended loans and

aid worth more than $400 million to Portugal.

The Early Civil War

In July 1975 South Africa began serious military operations

inside Angola. Following guerrilla harassment of engineers

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276
working at the Calueque hydroelectric dam, Pretoria

authorized the SADF to undertake hot pursuit operations

against SWAPO guerrillas in Angola. Soon thereafter, the

SADF established a permanent presence in southern Angola.

During August 1975 the SADF launched a series of strikes

against the MPLA. By October the SADF was involved in a

full-scale war with the MPLA. However, South Africa’s

long-term objective did not seek control of Angola; rather, it

sought to assist UNITA and the FNLA under the direction of

the CIA station in Kinshasa.36 The SADF’s advance through

southern Angola was rapid and decisive. South African

armored cars easily overwhelmed MPLA and Cuban defenses.

In November 1975 Pretoria had to decide on a final assault

against Luanda. Apparently this decision depended on a

promise of more US support. The official SADF account

published later referred to the SADF as awaiting orders to

withdraw while “mediation by go-betweens” went on during

this period.37 South Africa’s advance on Luanda was delayed

while the politicians talked, giving the Cubans an opportunity

to fly in reinforcements. By December a highly trained Cuban

army equipped with Soviet weapons would have made any

further SADF advance an extremely costly exercise.

South Africa was obviously not enthusiastic about sending

their entire army into Angola; nevertheless the units deployed

were extremely effective. Without a doubt, the SADF, with

UNITA and FNLA support could capture Luanda with sufficient

political and material support from the USA. By November

1975 the SADF stood poised for victory, but the promised US

military assistance needed to finish the job did not arrive.

With sufficient US commitment, the Angolan civil war would

have been a limited affair that lasted only a few months. An

FNLA-UNITA alliance could have taken power in Angola with

OAU and full international recognition. US failure to act

decisively gave the Cubans an opportunity to prepare a

defense of Luanda and to strengthen the MPLA government.

This Cuban involvement was the initiative of Fidel Castro but

not of Moscow. The USSR was induced to support the war by

Castro’s enthusiasm to back the MPLA. The Cubans had

provided training for the MPLA since 1966, and Neto had

established a good relationship with Castro.38 Between

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October 1975 and February 1976, approximately 12,000

Cuban troops arrived in Angola.39 By September 1977 the

figure rose to almost 20,000.40 The clear Cuban commitment,

backed reluctantly at first by the USSR, made the outcome

obvious. Without massive US support, the SADF would have

been unable to carry out conventional war deep inside Angola.

On 22 January 1976 the SADF began to retreat towards the

Namibian border, while Pretoria made it clear that without a

more open Western commitment, South African forces would

have no option but to establish a defensive line in southern

Angola.41 On 27 January 1976, the US House of Representatives voted to ban aid to Angolan combatants by a vote of

323 to 99. In February the OAU recognized the MPLA as the

sole, legitimate government in Angola.

The SADF did well in Angola but were undermined by a lack

of courage on the part of South African and American political

decision makers. What could have been a short decisive engagement turned into a civil war that lasted for more than a decade.

Fighting the Expanded Conflict

During the final phase and after the withdrawal of the SADF

from Angola, the FNLA and UNITA continued to fight on their

own. The FNLA failed to launch a coherent guerrilla campaign

and consequently ceased major operations altogether. However,

UNITA regrouped in southern Angola and launched a guerrilla

campaign by using the same approach that they had used

against Portuguese rule.42 The de facto government of Angola,

the MPLA, began to provide extensive support for SWAPO

including the provision of bases and camps from which attacks

could be launched against Namibia. Thus, remarkably, the

MPLA chose to provoke South Africa through its support for

SWAPO, rather than concentrate their efforts on consolidating

control of Angola by neutralizing UNITA. This strategic error

proved to be an expensive mistake for the MPLA.

Once it was obvious that the MPLA was in full support of

SWAPO, South Africa had no option but to devise a counter

strategy. That strategy consisted of the following main

elements:

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•-Attacks on SWAPO facilities in southern Angola;

•-Avoidance of attacks on MPLA or Cuban forces;

•-Support for UNITA to prevent SWAPO incursions into

Namibia through the southeast of Angola; and

•-UNITA was encouraged to launch attacks into central

Angola, thus putting the MPLA on the defensive.43

UNITA was not strong enough to launch a serious

conventional campaign, consequently the chosen strategy was

guerrilla warfare. Had the MPLA concentrated on eliminating

UNITA during the late 1970s, they would have consolidated

their control in Angola. Luanda’s decision to support an

offensive war against the SADF in Namibia guaranteed the

prolongation of the conflict in the region.

The MPLA underestimated the popular support for UNITA,

and by 1980 Jonas Savimbi had established a fairly secure

base area in southeast Angola with significant influence

further north. In the early 1980s UNITA designed its offensive

operations to extend its control into central Angola. These

attacks had limited objectives, and were fairly successful. By

the middle of 1983 UNITA dominated most of Angola south of

the Benguela railway line and had gained control of

Cangombe, Cangonga, and Munhango.44 This success led to

others further north.45

The USSR and Cuba responded to the UNITA advance by

providing greater assistance to the MPLA. Once they realized

that UNITA was a serious threat to the MPKLA, the USSR

began to provide more advanced military equipment, and

Cubans took control of military operations against UNITA. In

1984 and 1985, FAPLA with extensive Cuban and Soviet

support, began a series of counteroffensives designed to

recapture areas controlled by UNITA. The key features of these

campaigns included:

•-extensive use of aircraft: MiG-23s and MiG-24s;

•-major ground offensives against towns held by UNITA;

•-efforts to infiltrate and neutralize UNITA (the MPLA

received assistance from East Germany in this regard);46

•-a counterinsurgency operation against forward units of

UNITA;

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279
•-increased employment of SWAPO personnel against

UNITA; and

•-the direct involvement of Soviet officers to direct

operations.

A major offensive against UNITA base areas in 1985

provoked a decisive response from the SADF. Late in 1985

UNITA faced a major defeat at the hands of the Soviet-directed

and Cuban-led FAPLA offensive. The MPLA realized that if

UNITA were defeated, it could provide bases for SWAPO

throughout southern Angola, thus making the defense of

Namibia far more difficult for the SADF. Consequently, the

SADF came to the assistance of UNITA, stopping the MPLA

offensive and forcing its retreat.47 The SADF counterstrike was

not sufficient to destroy the FAPLA army, but it was enough to

end the 1985 offensive and give UNITA a chance to regroup.

The following year Soviet Gen Yuri Petrov took control of

operations against UNITA, thus signaling the USSR’s determination to hold on to Angola. A new Cuban commander arrived

with additional Cuban reinforcements, bringing the total deployment of Cuban troops to approximately 45,000.

With SADF support, a new guerrilla campaign in 1986 by

UNITA included attacks in northern and central Angola. The

SADF-UNITA strategy sought to undermine the MPLA’s

objective of launching another offensive started in June 1986

and included the use of chemical weapons.48 With direct SADF

support, UNITA countered the offensive and launched new

attacks into central Angola. The Soviets and Cubans

underestimated UNITA’s strength and the determination of the

SADF to support UNITA.

The Final Phase of the War

Throughout the early 1980s, the civil war continued in

Angola because the balance of power was fairly even. FAPLA

forces with Soviet and Cuban support could not overcome the

SADF-UNITA alliance. Moreover, neither side was able or willing to commit sufficient forces to achieve a decisive victory. By

1987, however, the USSR appeared determined to lead a new

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offensive to gain full control of southern Angola and the

expulsion of all SADF personnel from Angolan soil. Early that

year, the MPLA-USSR-Cuban alliance decided that a new

major offensive would be launched against UNITA with the

objective of full control of southern Angola.49 Preparations

included:

•-providing for new Soviet equipment and supplies;

•-improving the existing air defense system;

•-receiving T-62 and additional T-55 tanks from the Soviets;

•-providing more MiG-23 fighters and Su-22 ground attack

aircraft; and

•-delivering Mi-25 attack helicopters.50

As a backup to the military campaign, Angola opened a new

round of talks with the US to promote pressure on South

Africa to withdraw support for UNITA.

The MPLA offensive began in June 1987 and once again

UNITA faced the possibility of a major defeat. The balance of

power clearly favored the MPLA after the introduction of new

equipment and the forward deployment of Cuban forces.

Again, the SADF had little choice but to come to UNITA’s

assistance in the knowledge that a UNITA defeat would mean a

new massive SWAPO insurgency campaign in Namibia. SADF

units were deployed inside Angola to stop the MPLA offensive.

Four major SADF operations—code-named Moduler, Hooper,

Packer, and Displace—were launched to stall the advance of

FAPLA forces. Numerous attacks and counterattacks,

including heavy artillery and tanks, took place during the

latter part of 1987 and early 1988.51

The 1987 offensive was different from earlier FAPLA attacks.

In the 1987 offensive FAPLA was better prepared and enjoyed

a comprehensive air protection system over southern Angola.

This preparation made SADF’s task far more difficult. In

addition, in 1987 a time-extension debate occurred within

South Africa about whether its air force had lost air control

over southern Angola. The government reached no final

answer, but it was clear that SADF operations were severely

restricted by FAPLA air defenses and the extensive use of

fighter aircraft.

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The SADF achieved their main objective (i.e., stopping the

FAPLA advance on Jonas Savimbi’s headquarters at Jamba);

however, it came at a far greater cost in lives and monetary

terms than any other Angolan engagement. The 1987–88

campaign made it clear that USSR and Cuba were prepared to

escalate their commitment to Angola to keep the MPLA in

power. At the time, observers predicted that a further FAPLA

offensive would be too costly for the SADF-UNITA alliance. An

increased deployment of Soviet aircraft and air defense

systems would have been decisive.

The middle of 1988 revealed that the SADF and FAPLA were

heading for a major confrontation. The 1988 stalemate would

set the stage for a further round of conflict in 1989 which

would certainly be costly to both sides. Fortunately, by the end

of 1988 the USSR was beginning to reconsider their overseas

involvements, and Moscow decided that a new round of

fighting in Angola would simply be too costly. Soviet pressure

on the MPLA and Cuba opened the way for serious

negotiations.

South Africa was at first reluctant to negotiate, but once the

MPLA agreed that Cuban forces would be withdrawn from

Angola in exchange for Namibian independence, attitudes

changed. Moreover, there was a realization that it was unlikely

that South Africa could bear the costs of another major

operation in Angola to defend UNITA base areas. The shift in

the balance of power in southern Angola made the next round

of conflict a most unwelcome thought for both the SADFUNITA alliance and the MPLA-USSR-Cuban alliance. Consequently, the success of peace negotiations linked to Namibian

independence was inevitable.

Conclusion

When discoursing a prolonged war, one should not confront

the conclusion of the analysis with the conclusion of the war.

The intense armed confrontation may abate, but the conflict

may well continue. This is certainly the case in Angola. The

Cubans left slightly ahead of schedule after the peace process

brought the two warring sides to the negotiating table.

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Elections were held in 1992—under the watchful eyes of the

United Nations. Not surprisingly, the loser—in this case

Savimbi—charged fraud and postured his return to the bush.

He had kept a sizable, well-armed contingent precisely for

such a contingency. But even if he were to accept his electoral

loss as a legitimate expression of his country’s broad sentiment, that same loss might be used to solidify his ethnic

power base, which he might easily reactivate if and when the

new government’s management of the economy begins to fall

in line with Africa’s general pattern of postindependence

frustrations. A termination of war may bring peace to some

societies through national reconciliation, but in the absence of

economic growth, while investing scarce financial resources in

reconstruction, the prospects for lasting peace in such

devastated third world societies hold little promise. Events in

Chad, Uganda, Somalia, and Ethiopia provide excellent

examples of this phenomenon.

By most criteria, Angola’s war was a classic case of prolongation. The notable exception is that the cast of participants

remained unusually consistent, but this consistency reflected

a prominent feature of cold war battles. Other characteristics

reflected the usual attributes of conflict prolongation.

The war became transformed in that its origins lay in

Angola’s independence struggle, but then it lapsed into a civil

war and then into a true international confrontation. Its

objectives evolved from self-determination and sovereignty to a

contest for who should rule, reflecting which power base and

according to which ideological guidelines. The indigenous

opponents of Portugal’s continued colonial rule fragmented

when that objective was attained, and, inevitably, power

organized along regional lines—along with its unavoidable

ethnic identities. This result also elevated the contest of personalities to prominence, and Africa’s prevalent urban/rural

differentiation emerged. Controlling the capital city is the only

objective and whoever maintains that control enjoys a decided

advantage. This case was amply illustrated by Frente de

Libertacao de Mocambique (FRELIMO) in Mozambique and

promises to favor the MPLA in Angola. Rarely in Africa or in

Latin America have insurgents managed to unambiguously

oust a government in power as Castro had done in Cuba, or

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more recently forces did when they toppled Ethiopia’s

government. In Africa the incumbent government had usually

had the decided advantage.

Angola’s war was also typical in that its fate and the war’s

conduct were determined in large part by external forces.

UNITA had almost disappeared until it was resurrected by

South Africa to serve its own purposes. The prolongation of the

conflict was financed and enabled by external sources for

whom Angola’s fate was to serve greater global or regional

objectives.52 The cold war adversaries had backed opposing

sides. The Reagan doctrine was clear enough in its support for

Savimbi, but a detailed articulation of Soviet objectives never

emerged. Had the Soviet Union also undertaken to sponsor

Mozambique’s government, it would have made plausible the

regional domination of southern Africa. South Africa and other

overseas right-wing supporters argued this case quote

forcefully, but it was never accepted by critics of South Africa’s

regional perceptions.

After Gorbachev’s ascendancy to power, the Soviet Union’s

political commitment to Angola began to erode although arms

still poured in. This seeming paradox may perhaps be

explained with reference to Cuba, which had made a substantial commitment to Angola with an estimated 2,000

combat deaths but with nothing to show for the effort. An

overnight abandonment of the war was simply not acceptable

to Cuba, which had by that time instituted its own agenda.

South Africa gained much more in that its perception of a

communist advance was kept at bay, and the conflict was not

waged within its own borders—which could have activated its

substantial internal opposition. Still, this advantage accrued

to south Africa by default—by virtue of the Soviet Union’s

internal unraveling. In short, Angola’s own players were but

pawns in a global game.

Prolonged wars invariably expand into neighboring countries, which soon threaten or alter the regional order. Zaire

was featured early on in Angola’s conflict, as it often served as

the staging area, if not as a perpetual refuge, for Holden

Roberto’s FNLA movement. Roberto’s power base is among the

Bakongo people, who straddle Angola’s northern border with

Zaire.53 Indeed, Roberto is closely related to Zaire’s President

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284
Mobutu. Over the past few decades, each country hosted its

neighbors’ own insurgents. Zaire also had allowed the emplacement of staging areas for active US support of Savimbi,

and at one point the country was rumored to become the new

base for UNITA if the Cubans and MPLA had succeeded in

overrunning UNITA’s headquarters at Jamba.

In the east, Zambia illustrated an important lesson of

prolonged wars. Zambia had at one time allowed Savimbi and

his followers safe refuge. However, this permission lasted only

until the Benguela railway line, which had been exporting

Zambia’s minerals to Angola’s port of Lobito, became a

strategic target and was repeatedly disrupted by UNITA.

Zambia had similarly offered staging areas to Rhodesia’s

insurgents and had paid a stiff price when Rhodesia’s white

government forces launched several armed raids into Zambia.

Mozambique likewise served as a sanctuary for Rhodesia’s

insurgents and paid a price in that the Mozambique National

Resistance Movement (RENAMO), a Rhodesian governmentsponsored force created to interdict Rhodesian insurgents,

subsequently became the active opponents of the Mozambican

government.

These excellent examples illustrate the almost ubiquitous

tendency of the involvement of neighboring countries in

prolonged wars. More often than not, such involvements

become counterproductive, and can even oust from power the

heads of neighboring regimes. This example has recently

happened to Sierra Leone’s government as the result of the

prolonged war in Liberia. This is not to say that such

involvements simply can be avoided. Instead, it underlines the

point that prolonged wars inevitably become a regional

problem, and it argues for a concentrated massive effort at the

outset. In the future this may also make the use of nuclear

weapons attractive for those who have them.

The fate of neighboring Namibia formed an integral part of

the Angolan war. South Africa’s historical “red fear” guided her

response to Soviet-allied activities in southern Africa. Retaining Namibia as a buffer was seen as a necessary strategy. In

view of the Western world’s objections to apartheid, South

Africa would not trust a Western response to a projected

“onslaught” on her own territory. Critics had argued that the

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285
retention of control of Namibia for strategic purposes was but

an excuse for continued colonial subjugation and exploitation

of Namibia—which South Africa would never release. South

Africa countered that the national party government had no

permanent interests in Namibia and that retention of controls

was costly. That South Africa did in fact yield independence to

Namibia, once the Soviets and Cubans reduced their

intervention in Angola, gave credibility to South Africa’s

contention. Since Namibia never had served as a vital source

of wealth, but as a geographic bargaining chip and surrogate

battleground, it yielded a great return on the investment.

SWAPO, as did Namibia’s insurgents, played a diminished role

in the conflict, and indeed, that organization’s greatest

contribution was to serve as an excuse for South Africa’s

aggressive ventures into Angola in line with its forward

strategy. Once again, this illustrates the contention that

prolonged wars tend to become regional wars.

May we then view Angola’s conflict as a “war without

results”? The cynical answer to this question in the affirmation

may be a bitter pill to swallow. If the ultimate result is the

retention of the MPLA in power, this fact alone cannot justify

17 years of civil war. Angola exported a great part of its oil to

pay for the war. This revenue, when added to further funds

accruing from South Africa and other international sources

would, in theory at least, have financed a substantial

development program. Angola should not be poor today, nor

should that country be labeled a “land of cripples.” Another

dimension emerged out of the war’s prolongation, namely, the

shift in the MPLA’s ideological position. As a doctrinaire

Marxist movement, the MPLA projected its superior socialist

system in opposition to UNITA’s inclination towards market

systems (although UNITA’s contention may have been greatly

exaggerated in the West). At any rate, when the Soviets abandoned their commitment to the MPLA, the Marxist paradigm

was further discredited, which again raises the question: what

was the point of the war and its exceedingly heavy price?

South Africa gained time and, quite by accident, a docile

Namibian neighbor, whose quasisocialist veneer poses no

threat without Cuban or Soviet support. South Africa also

gained measurably by developing, equipping, and training in a

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286
live war the best armed forces in the Southern hemisphere.

Namibia gained independence but at a heavy price if measured

in terms of SWAPO casualties and years of dislocation. However, that country is now embarked on the road toward rapid

marginalization. The US gained by virtue of the Cubans’ plans

being frustrated and by helping to neutralize Soviet expansive

ambitions in this distant outpost at a modest price. The MPLA

elite remains in power. But in such war-ravaged countries, the

particular ideological proclivity of one versus that of an opponent group will hardly justify the enormous destruction of men

and materiel. And as that conflict may be far from over, for at

least the great bulk of Angolans, this has indeed been a “war

without results.”

Notes

1.-Dr Salazar admitted that assimilation was a slow process. In 1961 he

said: “A law recognising citizenship takes minutes to draft and can be made

right away; a citizen that is a man fully and consciously integrated into a

civilised political society takes centuries to achieve.” Quoted in J. Marcum,

Angola—Division or Unity? in G. M. Carter and P. O’Meara, Southern Africa

in Crisis (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1977), 138.

2.-See G. J. Bender, Angola under the Portuguese: The Myth and the

Reality (London: Heineman, 1978), 3.

3.-Quoted in R. Bissell, Southern Africa in the World: Autonomy or

Interdependence? (Philadelphia: Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1978), 21.

4.-Marcum, 154.

5.-The Portuguese high commissioner Cardoso indicated that if he could

not hand over power to “two or three” of the Angolan movements, he would

“just get on the plane and leave.” The MPLA was therefore never officially

given control of Angola. D. S. Papp, “Angola, National Liberation and the

Soviet Union,” Parameters 7, no. 1 (March 1978): 33. US aid went primarily

to the FNLA through Zaire. See J. Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA

Story (New York: Norton, 1978). An account of the US decision to provide aid

can be found in N. Davis, “The Angolan Decision of 1975: A Personal

Memoir,” Foreign Affairs (Fall 1978): 108-24. See also C. K. Ebinger,

“External Intervention in Internal War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the

Angolan Civil War,” Orbis (Fall 1976): 669-99.

6.-W. A. Durch, The Cuban Military in Africa and the Middle East

(Arlington, Va.: Center for Naval Analysis, 1977), 17. See also C. Legum, “A

Study of Foreign Intervention,” in C. Legum and T. Hodges, After Angola: The

War Over Southern Africa (London: Rex Collings, 1976), 11.

7.-Stockwell, 102.

8.-J. Swift, Armoured Car Diplomacy: South Africa’s Intervention in Angola

(Cape Town: OUP, 1987), 22.

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9.-Ibid., 25. See also Steenkamper Adeus Angola (Cape Town: Howard

Timmins, 1976), chapter 2.

10.-G. Garcia Marquez, Cuba in Angola: Operation Carlota (New York:

Cuba Update), 128. Ian Grieg suggests that the USSR’s reasons for

becoming involved in Angola included the desire to provide bases for SWAPO

attacks against Namibia, surveillance of Western shipping in the south

Atlantic, and access to the country’s raw materials. See Ian Grieg, The

Communist Challenge to Africa (Cape Town: Cape and Transvaal Printers,

1977), 248.

11.-Senator Clark was defeated in the 1978 elections. South Africa

assisted his opponent. See R. Leonard, South Africa at War (West Point, N.Y.:

Lawrence Hill, 1983), 68.

12.-South Africa’s defence minister, P. W. Botha, argued that the

Angolan war had been lost by the politicians and not by the SADF. Many

government leaders blamed the United States for failing to provide the

promised military support. See G. Cawthra, Brutal Force (London: IDAF,

1986), 148.

13.-Deon Geldenhuys, The Diplomacy of Isolation: South Africa’s Foreign

Policy (Johannesburg: Southern Books, 1990), 195.

14.-See J. Barber and J. Barratt, South Africa’s Foreign Policy

(Johannesburg: Southern Books, 1990), 195.

15.-Seaborne commando raids were directed at Lobito oil terminal, 12

August 1980; Luanda oil refinery, 30 November 1981; Cabinda oil pipeline,

12 July 1984; and cargo ships in Luanda harbour, 29 July 1984. For details

of the SADF’s attacks into Angola, see W. Steenkamp, Borderstrike: South

Africa into Angola (Durban: Butterworths, 1983).

16.-Quoted in Cawthra, 155. See R. S. Jaster, The Defence of White Power

(London: Macmillan, 1988), chap. 8. The US exerted significant diplomatic

pressure on Pretoria to force South African compliance with the accord.

However, similar pressure was not applied on the MPLA or SWAPO by the

USSR.

17.-See J. Ch’en, Mao and the Chinese Revolution (London: Oxford University

Press, 1967), chap. 11. See also B. Turok, ed., Revolutionary Thought in the

20th Century (London: Zed Press, 1981), chap. 6; and P. Pandya, Mao Tse-tung

and Chimurenga (Johannesburg: Skotaville, 1988), chap. 2.

18.-See Carl von Clausewitz, On War (London: Penguin Books, 1976),

chap. 11.

19.-Fidel Castro, addressing the Non-Aligned Movement Ministerial

Conference, Havana, May 1988, quoted in R. Davies, “South African

Regional Policy Before and After Cuito Cuanavale,” in G. Moss and I. Obery,

eds., South African Review 5 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1990), 166.

20.-Angolan Peace Monitor 2, no. 9 (16 October 1990).

21.-SADCC-NGO Newsletter, ICDA, April 1989, 12.

22.-International Institute for Strategic Studies, Strategic Survey,

1989–1990 (London: Brassey’s, 1990), 83.

23.-See N. Muchnik and A. Humbaraci, Portugal’s African Wars (London:

Macmillan, 1974), 119 ff.

24.-I. Beckett, “Portuguese Africa,” in A. Thompson, War in Peace

(London: Orbis, 1981), 156.

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288
25.-R. Corbett, Guerrilla Warfare (London: Orbis, 1986), 144.

26.-The Fiat G.91 and the American F-84 Thunderjet and Lockheed P-2V

were used for offensive air support. The backbone of Portuguese air

operations was the American T-6 converted trainer and the Dornier Do 27.

27.-Such as the operations in Moxico province in 1968 and 1972.

28.-J. Marcum, The Angolan Revolution: The Anatomy of an Explosion

(1950-1962) (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), 142.

29.-B. Davidson, In the Eye of the Storm: Angola’s People (New York:

Doubleday, 1972), 125.

30.-Quoted in Marcum, 145.

31.-Ibid.

32.-At the same time, the Portuguese government realized that domestic

opposition had been the major factor in both the Algerian and Vietnam

wars.

33.-Between 1967 and 1971 the percentage of defense costs carried by

the colonies increased dramatically. See B. McColm and D. Smith, “Angola:

Behind the Lines,” Newsweek, 13 December 1976, 52–55.

34.-Recruiting Africans for the armed forces without providing them with

a role in the political process was doomed to fail.

35.-See Marcum, 146.

36.-H. Heitman, South African Armed Forces (Buffalo: 1990), 202.

37.-Ibid. See also H. Heitman, South African War Machine (Johannesburg:

CNA, 1985), 166 ff.

38.-See A. Kapcia, “Cuba’s African Involvement,” Survey B-A Journal of

East and West Studies 24, no. 2 (1979): 152.

39.-A. Parker, “Behind Cuba’s Involvement in Angola,” Southern African

Freedom Foundation Position Paper 1, no. 23 (1978): 16.

40.-Ibid.

41.-Heitman, South African Armed Forces, 210.

42.-Ibid., 211.

43.-The strategy used against the Portuguese was implemented again.

44.-In August 1983 UNITA took control of Cangamba—one of the most

serious defeats suffered by Fapla.

45.-Early in 1984 UNITA overran Cafunfo near the Zairean border.

46.-See F. Bridgland, Jonas Savimbi - A Key to Africa (Johannesburg:

Macmillan, 1986), chap. 27.

47.-See Hietman, South African Armed Forces, 212.

48.-Bulgarian experts were employed in the CW operations.

49.-The USSR provided heavy transport aircraft to assist preparations.

50.-Heitman, South African Armed Forces, 215.

51.-Ibid., 223.

52.-Karl P. Magyar, “Darkness in a Dark Landscape: Angola and

Mozambique,” Defense and Foreign Affairs, October 1989.

53.-Ieuan L. L. Griffiths, An Atlas of African Affairs (London: Methuen

1984), 98–99.

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Cambodia

Prolonged War, Prolonged Peace?

J. Richard Walsh

On 23 October 1991 the leaders of Cambodia’s warring

factions and the foreign ministers of 18 nations signed a peace

treaty to end more than a decade of war. The Cambodian

conflict is the last of a line of wars that has made Indochina

one of the most devastated regions in recent history. What

began as a communist-led war of liberation for Vietnam, Laos,

and Cambodia in the post–World War II period evolved into an

East-West conflict. In the course of its evolution, the nationalist roots of the conflict were forgotten. Only with the final

withdrawal of the United States (US) in 1975 and the ultimate

victory of communist movements throughout Indochina did

the forces of nationalism come again into sharper focus.

When analyzing the nature of prolonged war in Cambodia

one can identify three levels of conflict: deep-rooted domestic

conflict, regional rivalries, and superpower involvement. Each

of these levels of conflict has its distinct origins and was

sufficient to prolong the war.

These levels of conflict, however, are also interdependent

because of the coalitions that emerged during the evolution of

the conflict. Within these coalitions, the different combatants

became dependent on one another to sustain the war effort,

whatever their objective might have been.1 This interdependence is a key to explaining both the prolongation of the

war and its resolution.

The levels of conflict and their interdependence form the

framework in this chapter for analyzing the Cambodian

conflict. Within this framework several factors emerge. First,

the conflict aggravated the nascent geopolitical division in

Southeast Asia. Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in 1978 drove

a wedge between communist-dominated Indochina and the

more Western-oriented member nations of the Association of

Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This division delayed the

regional reconciliation that was emerging at the end of the

291
Second Indochina War in 1975 by facilitating coalitions of

nations and groups with varying interests for prolonging the

war. To the outside observer, the Cambodian war reflected a

conflict culture deeply imbedded in the history of the region.

Second, the search for patrons by each side (i.e., Vietnam

and the Cambodian resistance) introduced the necessary

diplomatic, economic, and military resources to prolong the

war. Soviet support for Vietnam was necessary for the invasion

of Cambodia and essential for Vietnam’s occupation of its

neighbor. The costs that Vietnam incurred for its support of

the Phnom Penh regime would eventually weaken its resolve. A

key to Vietnam’s costs was the ability of the patrons of the

Cambodian resistance—China, ASEAN (especially Thailand),

and to a lesser extent the United States—to foster a more

effective resistance organization that garnered international

recognition. The rise of countervailing power to Vietnam’s

ambitions forced Hanoi and its patron to reconsider original

estimates of the expected length of the war.

Third, as the Cambodian conflict progressed, the diplomacy

of stalemate became a factor in prolonging the conflict. It

becomes apparent to all the parties involved that the

Cambodian war became one that must not be lost, if it cannot

be won. The several rounds of talks leading up to the final

agreement revealed that no single key could unlock the

impasse. As diplomatic talks proceeded, the distinction

emerged between balance of power interests and conflict

termination interests. There was a shared interest in ending

the conflict, but it was not a high priority for either coalition.

More important was the need to maintain a favorable balance

of power in the region through a policy of continuing conflict.

As the conflict reached a stalemate, neither side spoke of the

benefits of prolonged war; they simply lacked a compelling

reason to change their policies. For successful negotiations,

both parties must introduce incentives for changing policy.2

Given the interdependence between the different levels of

conflict, incentives could and did arise from several quarters

for a variety of reasons.

Before analyzing the reasons for prolonged conflict in

Cambodia, this writer offers the reader a short historical

overview of events. The overview is followed by an analysis of

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292
prolongation that focuses on geopolitical divisions, the levels of

conflict, and the differences between balance of power

interests and conflict termination interests. The conclusion

addresses the effects of prolonged war on the prospects for

prolonged peace.

An Overview of the Conflict

The Second Indochina War ended in Cambodia before it

ended in Vietnam. Thirteen days before the final withdrawal of

US personnel from Saigon on 30 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge

had marched into the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. By

the summer of 1975, Indochina, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia

were perceived as under the control of Hanoi-dominated

movements. The Khmer Rouge had installed the deposed

prince Norodom Sihanouk as titular head of state while

keeping him under virtual house arrest. Under the leadership

of Khieu Samphan and the control of Pol Pot, the Khmer

Rouge began a brutal reorganization of society that resulted in

an estimated 1 million deaths. The regime was determined to

carry out a thorough socialist revolution with an emphasis on

the collectivization of agriculture.

By the following year, Prince Sihanouk resigned and

returned to exile in Beijing. The shadowy Pol Pot emerged as

prime minister, as the Khmer Rouge were increasingly

emphasizing their nationalist character. With uncertainty

about Chinese support following Mao’s death in September

1976, about relations with Thailand following its right-wing

coup in October 1976, and about Vietnamese intentions given

their long-standing interests in regional hegemony, it is

possible that the regime felt the need to complete the

revolution as rapidly as possible, regardless of cost. These

uncertainties probably intensified the regime’s search for

“enemies” within Cambodia and the leadership itself.3

Increasingly to strengthen its nationalist claims, the regime

began to consider Vietnam as the enemy.

China, with its own age-old animosity for Vietnam and a

concern about Cambodia’s tilt toward the Soviet Union,

encouraged Cambodia’s animosity toward Vietnam. By 1978

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293
anti-Vietnamese sentiment led to attacks against ethnic

Vietnamese in Cambodia and on Vietnamese territory claimed

by the Cambodian regime. With Soviet military and economic

support, Vietnam struck back with a full-scale invasion in

December 1978. Vietnam’s invasion was rationalized as

support for a national liberation movement (composed of

former internal enemies of the Khmer Rouge regime) to

overthrow a tyrannical regime whose demise would be

welcomed internationally. Vietnam’s invasion and occupation

of Cambodia provided the rationale for China’s punitive action

in February 1979. Though Chinese troops devastated areas

along the Sino-Vietnamese border, they were fought to a

standstill by second-level regional Vietnamese forces.

After the establishment of the People’s Republic of

Kampuchea (PRK) in Phnom Penh and the Vietnamese army’s

successful push to the Thai border, the fighting was largely

contained around the border area. The resistance effort with

its tenuous logistics and refugee camp buffers was stretched

along the border. The opposition consisted of three groups who

formed the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea

(CGDK) in 1982: the Royalists led by Prince Sihanouk, the

mainly conservative Nationalists led by former prime minister

Son Sann, and the Khmer Rouge represented by Khieu

Samphan. CGDK was able through allied help to gain the

official international recognition that was largely denied to the

PRK.

The conflict quickly became a war of attrition. It settled into

a pattern of seasonal ebb and flow with dry season offensives

by the Vietnamese forces and more limited opposition guerrilla

attacks during the rainy season. The pattern was broken by

1986 when the Cambodian resistance did not recover from the

blow delivered during the 1984–85 Vietnamese dry-season

offensive. Deprived of their depots and rest and training

facilities on the Thai border and their supply networks, the

resistance was unable to sustain a rainy season guerrilla

campaign. A second factor affecting the CGDK forces was the

defensive barrier of mines, ditches, barbed wire, and earthen

walls that made infiltration into Cambodia much harder.

Finally, disagreements within the CGDK and skirmishes

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between the Khmer Rouge and its noncommunist allies

strained the coalition.4

While militarily dominant in Cambodia, Vietnam was in no

condition to dictate terms for an end to the conflict. Vietnam’s

diplomatic isolation and devastated economy were exacting its

price. There was a growing realization that, in the long run,

military force would have to be supplemented or even replaced

by a political strategy. The first indication of this was a

declaration in August 1985 announcing the gradual

withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia. The CGDK

responded in March 1986 with a plan that did not make the

complete withdrawal of Vietnam a precondition for talks. After

pursuing initiatives through various diplomatic channels, the

Phnom Penh government called for direct and unconditional

talks with the resistance groups in the summer of 1987. The

combination of the PRK’s failure to secure effective domestic or

international support, Vietnam’s costs, Sino-Soviet

rapproachment with mounting pressure from Moscow on

Hanoi for a rapid settlement, and Prince Sihanouk’s “leave of

absence” from the CGDK presidency propelled the conflict into

a new phase.

In December 1987 Prince Sihanouk met with the PRK Prime

Minister Hun Sen for the first direct talks. Their joint

communique emphasized the need for negotiations among the

Cambodian parties to the conflict; once they reached an

agreement, they would hold an international conference to

guarantee it. Four other rounds of negotiations over the next

four months proved inconclusive. Even the nearly complete

withdrawal of Vietnamese troops in September 1989 did little

to break the stalemate among the warring parties.

During the same period, the diplomatic maneuvering of the

parties was more closely linked to international diplomacy over

the fate of Cambodia. In January 1990 the five permanent

members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council

drafted a plan that called for UN peacekeeping forces and

administrators during a transition period to new elections. The

four Cambodian factions would join together in a Supreme

National Council (SNC). The factions accepted the plan and a

council was established by late 1990. By September 1991 the

SNC had agreed to a cease-fire, to stop receiving foreign arms,

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to disband 70 percent of their forces with the remainder under

UN supervision, and to a compromise system for elections. The

combination of international and national efforts finally led to

the signing of the peace accords in October 1991.

Analyzing the Prolonged War in Cambodia

An old Khmer adage states that “a curved road is not always

to be abandoned, a straight one not always to be taken.” The

road to a Cambodian peace accord has been a curved one due

to the many levels of conflict. To capture the serpentine nature

of the prolonged war, we will focus on three factors: the

geopolitical divisions, external support and uneasy coalitions,

and the role of diplomacy.

Geopolitical Divisions in Southeast Asia

In the late 1970s, Southeast Asia appeared to be a region

with few prospects for a prolonged peace. A heterogeneous

region, it was the site of various nationalistic and ideological

animosities, urban-rural differences, economic groupings,

ethnic problems, and population pressures. Southeast Asian

nations also had to contend with the interests of extraregional

powers. In the midst of all these divisions the Cambodian

conflict emerged.

Cambodia’s prolonged conflict was precipitated by the

Vietnamese invasion in December 1978. In making this costly

move, Vietnam was reacting to threats to its regional

hegemony. The threats were two-fold: the Khmer Rouge at the

regional level and great power relations at the global level.

Reflecting the long-standing animosity between the Khmers

and the Vietnamese, the Khmer Rouge had been pursuing

anti-Vietnamese policies since 1971. After their victory in April

1975, the Khmer Rouge leadership did little to acknowledge

debts or fraternal ties to other communist movements,

Vietnam in particular. The leadership was “ideosyncratically

national,” making it easier to define enemies of the revolution

who were foreigners or those who served them.5

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The evidence suggests that Vietnam tried to reach a border

agreement with Cambodia in early 1978. The Khmer Rouge

responded by continuing to shell the Vietnamese side of the

border with Chinese-supplied artillery. They also continued to

allege Vietnamese involvement in assassination attempts against

the Cambodian leadership. During this period, the Vietnamese

may have hoped to effect a coup and bring a more pro-Vietnamese

regime to Phnom Penh.6 Such a turn of events would have allowed

Vietnam to avoid the difficult option of large-scale invasion.

Recognizing the different levels of conflict, the origins of

Cambodia’s prolonged war are also linked to the interests and

actions of outside powers. Vietnam’s belief that it must be

treated as the dominant power in Indochina conflicted with

China’s own historic interests in the region. The conflict was

muted during much of the Second Indochina War (1964–75), but

China’s rapproachment with the United States in 1972

precipitated the Sino-Vietnamese conflict. The United States

enlisted China’s help to pressure Vietnam to accept a

compromise, not unlike the half-loaf that Vietnam was forced to

accept after the Geneva Conference in 1954. As China moved to

secure its links with the West and concentrate more resources

on economic modernization, it reduced its assistance to Vietnam.

Combined with the refusal of the United States to honor post

war aid agreements, the decision by China forced Vietnam to rely

more on the Soviet Union. By November 1978 a treaty of

friendship and cooperation formalized the Soviet-Vietnamese

alliance. The Soviets committed themselves to $2–$3 billion

annually in economic and military aid and doubled the

Vietnamese arsenal in the months just prior to the December

invasion.

Long-standing territorial disputes and the treatment of ethnic

Chinese in Vietnam compounded distrust between China and

Vietnam. Hanoi’s tilt toward Moscow reinforced Beijing’s

concerns about possible encirclement and was a factor in

China’s rapid normalization of relations with the United States

in late 1978. An assessment of Vietnamese intentions drove the

United States to reaffirm its strategic interests in the region and

pursue a policy of isolating Vietnam.

Because of Cambodian, Chinese, and US policy, Vietnam

appeared to be driven toward an alliance with the Soviet

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Union. This outcome though was not inevitable. There is

evidence that Hanoi wanted to avoid taking sides in the

Sino-Soviet dispute. Potential benefits could be gained by

playing one side against the other. After 1975 Vietnam pursued

more moderate policies to reduce Soviet influence in the region.

Hanoi hoped for a more positive relationship with the United

States and retained membership in Western financial

institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund,

and Asian Development Bank. The Vietnamese premier visited

Western Europe for aid and resisted Soviet pressure to join

COMECON. Though Vietnam viewed ASEAN with suspicion, it

did court its individual members who sought economic ties to

offset dependence on the Soviets and who encouraged a climate

for normal relations.7

However, finding itself politically isolated, impoverished, and

increasingly under military pressure, Vietnam turned to the

Soviet Union for help in meeting its regional security challenges.

Vietnam’s difficult decision to invade Cambodia resulted in

tremendous national and regional costs.8 First, despite attempts

to avoid excessive dependence on the Soviet Union, Vietnam was

almost totally reliant on the Soviet bloc for economic, military,

and diplomatic support. This dependence ran counter to the

strong desire for self-determination that ran through Vietnam’s

wars of liberation. Second, by alienating both China and the

United States and allying with the USSR, Vietnam reintroduced

great power rivalry into Southeast Asia. The invasion was a

catalyst for the uneasy coalitions that would form on each side of

the battlefield. The interaction among the United States, China,

and the Soviet Union would effect both the prolongation of the

war and its resolution.

Third, Vietnam’s invasion provoked a tenacious insurgency

in western Cambodia that was directly supported by China

and tacitly assisted by Thailand. Vietnam’s action did not

destroy the Khmer Rouge but returned it to its more natural

habitat in the isolated countryside. From its remote bases, the

Khmer Rouge would attempt to wage Maoist-inspired

protracted war. Actors and events would intervene to constrain

the Khmer Rouge, but they would not lose their capacity for

independent action, a concern of allies and opponents in both

war and peace. The need to support the Khmer Rouge would

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lead China to court a new ally and an old adversary of Vietnam

and Thailand and would give China more direct influence over

the balance of power in the region.

Fourth, Vietnam alienated ASEAN and catalyzed its

development into a more effective regional organization. Prior

to December 1978, Vietnam’s goal had been to neutralize

ASEAN to prevent alignment with China or the United States.

Vietnam’s alliance with the Soviet Union was perceived by

ASEAN as a challenge to its “zone of peace, freedom, and

neutrality” and a deliberate effort to repolarize regional

politics. Members of ASEAN traditionally more oriented toward

Vietnam than China (i.e., Indonesia and Malaysia) were

disillusioned by Vietnam’s flagrant disregard for the principles

of peaceful coexistence which it had proposed as a framework

for relations with ASEAN. Vietnam’s action provoked a united

front that became a core element of the opposition.

Fifth, there were the human costs. Tens of thousands of

refugees fled to camps along the Thai-Cambodian border,

where they would become pawns in the prolonged conflict.

Thousands more would flee to other Southeast Asian

countries, receiving increasingly hostile receptions from native

populations. The eventual occupation of Cambodia by more

than 200,000 Vietnamese troops would also divert scarce

resources from the reconstruction and development of

Vietnam. The country would become further isolated from the

economic development taking place in the rest of East Asia.

Polarization of regional politics and sunken costs resulting

from the failure to quickly subdue its enemy would drive

Vietnam to prolong the war in Cambodia. Despite being

militarily dominant in Southeast Asia, Vietnam faced a

coalition that could exploit the geopolitical divisions. The key

to the opposition’s ability was the support it received from

outside powers and the formation of an uneasy coalition.

External Support and Uneasy Coalitions

During his November 1978 visit to Thailand, Chinese leader

Deng Xiaoping remarked to Thai leaders that “the hegemonists

have stepped up their expansionist activities . . . particularly

in Southeast Asia. It is only natural that some Asian and

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Southeast Asian statesmen and men of vision should have

perceived . . . the attempts of the hegemonists . . . and taken

positive measures to counter them.”9 Deng’s statement was a

not-so-veiled reference to the Soviet-Vietnamese alliance and

the need to counter Soviet-backed Vietnamese expansion. The

recognition of their mutual interest in resisting Vietnam would

lead to the development of a Beijing-Bangkok axis.

The Moscow-Hanoi axis was borne not only of Vietnamese

need but also from the belief that “the correlation of forces”

had shifted in Moscow’s favor. The Vietnamese conflict had

little effect on the détente between Washington and Moscow

while the Soviets continued to heavily arm Vietnam for victory

in 1975. By the mid-1970s, as Soviet-American relations

deteriorated, the return of more zero-sum superpower

relations meant there was little opportunity for cooperation in

Southeast Asia. The Soviet Union sought to expand its political

influence in Southeast Asia by supporting Vietnam’s objectives

and establishing a more direct military presence in Cam Rahn

Bay. In doing so, the Soviets could not only better contain

China but also directly challenge US support for status quo

powers.

The Soviet-Vietnamese alliance and Vietnam’s invasion of

Cambodia provided a favorable climate for China’s punitive

action against Vietnam in February 1979. China undertook

the action just after Deng Xiaoping’s successful visit to the

United States, giving the appearance of US approval.

International condemnation of China’s action was muted. The

members of ASEAN privately welcomed China’s military action

as a means of signaling to Vietnam that it could not act with

impunity. China’s incursion into Vietnam was inconclusive,

however, and did little to slow the Vietnamese push toward the

Thai-Cambodian border. In the absence of geographic

proximity to Cambodia and its Khmer Rouge allies and at the

risk of further loss of prestige, China would need more

effective means to pressure Vietnam. Those means lay with

more cooperative relations between Thailand and China.

Before the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, the protracted

conflict with a communist insurgency was Thailand’s most

pressing security threat. This movement was perceived as an

export from Beijing, which participated in its founding,

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provided arms and advice, and continued to do so after the

establishment of diplomatic relations in 1975. The Thai

government met the challenge, but the challenge seriously

constrained closer Sino-Thai relations. Vietnamese aggression,

though, provoked a great change in Sino-Thai relations.

Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia was denying Thailand a

necessary buffer state and creating new sources of internal

security threats with the presence of large numbers of

refugees. Thai and Chinese interests quickly converged on the

need to contain Vietnamese aggression.

China wanted to see the eclipse of Soviet and Vietnamese

influence in Southeast Asia and to establish a more influential

regional presence. More cooperative relations with Thailand

allowed China to successfully pursue both of these objectives.

The PRC could militarily support the Cambodian resistance,

particularly the Khmer Rouge, in their sanctuaries along the

Thai-Cambodian border. By offering support directly to

Thailand, China could strengthen the united front against

Vietnam while influencing Thailand’s policy toward Cambodia

and, indirectly, the policies of other ASEAN nations. Arms

transfers through and to Thailand became the principal means

by which China’s objectives could be met.10

The potential for Chinese influence over the Cambodian

issues and in Southeast Asia as a whole was not lost on

ASEAN. The growing dependence of the resistance groups on

China and the dominant position of the Khmer Rouge could

limit ASEAN’s influence over the outcome of the war. ASEAN

military assistance to the Cambodian resistance was a

contentious issue within the organization. Indonesia, though

wary of China’s intentions, was equally concerned that direct

arms transfers from ASEAN to the resistance would militarize

ASEAN’s relationship with Vietnam. ASEAN did not resolve the

issue, leaving it up to member states to pursue bilateral links

to the resistance groups.11

The central problem for ASEAN’s coalition efforts was the

need to disengage from direct support of the Khmer Rouge

while keeping them on the battlefield to goad Vietnam toward

negotiations. Beginning in late 1979, ASEAN led the way in an

attempt to fashion a more neutral alternative to Khmer Rouge

dominance that would also satisfy the interests of China. In

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successive visits to Beijing by the Thai and Singaporean prime

ministers, the Chinese leaders were convinced that Pol Pot and

the Khmer Rouge were not viable international leaders of the

resistance. By December 1981 ASEAN had fashioned a

diplomatic “fig leaf.” the coalition government of democratic

Kampuchea, that masked their support of the Khmer Rouge.

The most conservative group, Son Sann’s KPNLF, and the

most radical, the Khmer Rouge, were forced to accept the

coalition as the price for continued ASEAN international

support and Chinese arms.

The CGDK allowed ASEAN to promote the noncommunist

members of the coalition, Sihanouk and Son Sann, while

keeping the military pressure, largely the Khmer Rouge, on

Vietnam. The presence of the CGDK after June 1982 also

made it easier for ASEAN to mount the annual defense of the

resistance groups’ UN seat. Thus, Vietnam could be denied

both international recognition of its sponsored regime in

Phnom Penh and a decisive victory in the field.12

The difficulty with which the CGDK was sustained was due

to the mutual suspicions among the members of the

resistance movement. The fundamental contradiction was

between the noncommunist Sihanouk and Son Sann factions

and the militarily superior Khmer Rouge. Mistrust also existed

between the noncommunist factions because of Prince

Sihanouk’s popularity and potential influence. Mutual

suspicion, therefore, made the promotion of each resistance

group’s interests as important a goal as maintaining the

coalition. Coordinated military action was undermined by

protection of each group’s power and territory. The failure of

coordinated action—combined with the fear that too rapid an

end to the war would bring more intense intracoalition

rivalries—helped to prolong the conflict.

The discord within the coalition reinforced the ambivalence

of the ASEAN states toward the CGDK. ASEAN member states

did not relish the possibility of a return by the Khmer Rouge or

the expansion of Chinese influence that could follow. The

alternative of a Vietnamese-dominated Indochina was equally

undesirable. Cynics could and did argue that ASEAN states

were in no hurry to see the conflict end in order to wear down

all the communist participants. With the exception of token

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and discreet support from Singapore and Malaysia, little

material support flowed to the resistance groups. While

professing its neutrality in the conflict, Thailand also placed

constraints on the flow of Chinese military aid. ASEAN support

for the CGDK was enough to ensure its viability but not an early

or decisive victory until the military power of the Khmer Rouge

could be checked.13

In the face of such ambivalence, it would appear that the

combined power of Vietnam and its Cambodian and Soviet

allies was greater than that of the anti-Vietnamese coalition.

At the height of the conflict, Vietnam was fielding a

battle-tested and well-equipped force of 150,000 and 180,000

supported by 30,000 Cambodian troops. With these forces,

Vietnam undertook dry-season offensives in 1984 and 1985

that heavily damaged the resistance groups. The result,

though, was not a decisive victory, but only prolongation of the

conflict. Tensions between Hanoi and Phnom Penh and

between Hanoi and Moscow caused this outcome.

The deeply ingrained enmity between the Khmer people and

the Vietnamese characterized relations between the Heng

Samrin regime in Phnom Penh and the Vietnamese occupying

force. Distrust meant that Vietnam could not expect much real

support from the Cambodians. At the same time, the

Vietnamese could not afford to expand the Cambodian forces

beyond its 30,000-troop size and maintain effective control.

The Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Armed Forces

(KPRAF) was by independent accounts a weak force lacking in

motivation and training and plagued by a high desertion rate.

The KPRAF did not even gain an independent identity until

1987. Vietnam’s failure to build a strong and reliable KPRAF

delayed its withdrawal and further prolonged the war.

From Vietnam’s perspective, Soviet aid was desirable only to

the extent that it facilitated the initial invasion and enhanced

Vietnam’s position vis-à-vis China and the ASEAN states. After

prolonged struggles against France and the United States and

the costs of alienating China as an ally, the Vietnamese were

in no mood to be dominated by the Soviets. Therefore, Vietnam

preferred only indirect Soviet involvement in the Cambodian

conflict. Because of Vietnam’s mistrust and limitations, the

Soviet Union provided only the amount of aid necessary to

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sustain the stalemate on the battlefield and preserve its access

to bases in Vietnam. The lesson of Vietnam’s drastic break

with China was not lost on the Soviets (i.e., Vietnam would

turn away from the Soviet Union as soon as it could). From the

Soviet perspective, Vietnam’s turn would most likely come

after securing its hegemony in Indochina. An early end to the

war, therefore, did not necessarily benefit the Soviet Union.14

Larger geopolitical considerations also motivated Soviet

policy. The Soviets had to consider carefully the consequences

of their support for Vietnam on Sino-Soviet relations. China

was the more strategically important country with whom the

Soviets shared a long, contested, and heavily armed border.

Finding its own support circumscribed but a prolonged war

suitable for bleeding Vietnam dry, China also turned its

attention to larger geopolitical concerns. Beginning in October

1982, China and the Soviet Union began the first of several

rounds of negotiations to normalize relations. China

maintained that the Cambodian issue was one of “three

obstacles” standing in the way of better relations. By the

summer of 1986, the Soviets under the leadership of Mikhail

Gorbachev had compromised on two of those obstacles, the

Sino-Soviet border issues and Soviet occupation of

Afghanistan. Deng Xiaoping noted positive Soviet moves, but

in a notable change of emphasis, stated that an end to the

Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia was “the main obstacle in

Sino-Soviet relations.” If Gorbachev could remove this

obstacle, Deng then would meet with the Soviet leader.15

The possibility of Sino-Soviet compromise on the Cambodian

issue indicated the extent to which great power interests could

conflict with those of its coalition partners. ASEAN and Vietnam

were prompted to take more effective diplomatic steps but found

their efforts thwarted by deep geopolitical divisions and a fear of

the possible outcome. As the conflict was prolonged, it entered

into the final stage of stalemate diplomacy.

Diplomacy: From Stalemate to Compromise

The resumption of Sino-Soviet normalization talks in

October 1982 prompted Vietnam to consider concrete

diplomatic moves. At the first session of the talks, the Chinese

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offered a settlement plan that linked Sino-Vietnamese

normalization talks to the phased and unconditional

withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia. Although the

Soviets reassured Vietnam that it would not sacrifice

Vietnamese interests, it left Hanoi feeling uneasy because a

Cambodian settlement was an ongoing agenda item and

because of the history of Soviet compromise over Indochina

issues in 1954 and 1972.

Vietnam’s approach was to push for “five plus two”

negotiations between the five members of ASEAN and Laos and

Vietnam. Such an approach sidestepped the thorny issues of the

role of the CGDK and the PRK regime in Phnom Penh. The

proposal was coupled with an announced program of troop

withdrawals that amounted to little more than a thinning of the

Vietnamese ranks. ASEAN’s response reaffirmed the

UN-sponsored International Conference on Kampuchea (ICK)

formula which called for a cease-fire and a quick withdrawal of

all foreign forces and UN supervision of the withdrawal and

subsequent free elections. ASEAN’s position was intended to

demonstrate its flexibility and less confrontational stand while

masking confusion within its own ranks.

The prolongation of the war increased the opportunities for

other interested parties to propose diplomatic solutions.

Paralleling the multilateral ICK and Vietnamese approaches

were bilateral talks by Thailand and Indonesia. Indonesian

diplomacy was particularly important because Indonesia

became the authorized conduit between the ASEAN nations

and Vietnam. Indonesia was an effective intermediary because

of its shared concern for great power dominance and a desire

for a strong Vietnam as a buffer to China.16

Attempts by the ASEAN states and Vietnam floundered as a

result of Chinese opposition and Vietnamese dry-season

offensives in 1984 and 1985 that dealt major blows to the

CGDK’s armed forces. As a result, ASEAN members closed

ranks to support the status quo in the absence of effective

leverage over Vietnam. Yet between 1981 and 1985, several

issues emerged whose resolution would form the parameters

of any settlement. These issues were the withdrawal of

Vietnamese troops, recognition of the Phnom Penh regime, an

end to external assistance, preventing the return of the Khmer

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Rouge to power while including them in any settlement, power

sharing during the transition to free elections, and the role of

the UN in Cambodia.

ASEAN support for the status quo and the stalemate on the

battleground played to the advantage of Vietnam. Following

the successful 1985 dry-season offensive, Vietnam announced

in August 1985 total troop withdrawal by 1990. The CGDK

responded with a plan that no longer made the complete

withdrawal of Vietnamese troops a condition for negotiations.

Vietnam understood that the progress of the war was decisive

in shaping and changing the CGDK’s policies. By 1986,

however, the Vietnamese were admitting that effective military

leverage was becoming difficult to sustain because of disease,

malnourishment, and low morale. Economic conditions at

home and mounting pressure from the Soviets were also

beginning to take their toll. In January 1989 Vietnam

announced a complete troop withdrawal by September 1989, if

an agreement were in place. In April 1989 Vietnam amended

the timetable by announcing the unconditional withdrawal of

its troops by September.

The unilateral and unconditional declaration by Vietnam

was a result of three factors: (1) the recognition of the Phnom

Penh regime; (2) the linkage of the end of external assistance

with Vietnamese troop withdrawal; and (3) recognition of the

need to prevent the return of the Khmer Rouge. The

recognition of the Phnom Penh regime followed from its

willingness in the fall of 1987 to discuss issues of national

reconciliation with other Cambodian groups, with the

exception of Pol Pot and his closest supporters. Prince

Sihanouk, who had stepped down from the presidency of the

CGDK for one year in May 1987, accepted the offer. The two

rounds of talks in December 1987 and January 1988 resulted

in little substantive change but did much to reinforce contacts

between a Phnom Penh regime in need of international

recognition and the one member of the resistance coalition

who commanded international support.

Prince Sihanouk’s discussion with Prime Minister Hun Sen

did not sit well with his coalition partners, who feared a

bipartite agreement. But before his contacts could rent the

coalition asunder, an Indonesian initiative under ASEAN

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auspices was gaining momentum. In a joint communique with

Vietnam in July 1987, Indonesia offered to host an informal

gathering of all the parties to the conflict. The Jakarta Informal

Meeting (JIM) took place in July 1988. Despite inclusive results,

the JIM was a boon to Vietnam and its Phnom Penh ally. The

declaration issued by the Indonesian foreign minister in his

capacity as conference chairman established a link between

Vietnamese troop withdrawal and the phased reduction of

external assistance to the resistance forces. ASEAN had resisted

the linkage but was now committed to a position that equated

Vietnamese withdrawal to safeguards against the restoration of

the Khmer Rouge. International reaction following the JIM also

appeared to be one of resurgent condemnation of the genocidal

Khmer Rouge.17

Vietnam and ASEAN nations had found common ground on

the issue of the Khmer Rouge. ASEAN’s flexibility was as much

a product of the battlefield stalemate as the waning influence

of China over the Cambodian issue due to changing great

power relations. Declining influence was due in part to the

initiatives taken by Mikhail Gorbachev. Under Gorbachev, the

Soviet Union formulated a more effective Asian security

strategy that recognized the importance of mutual security

and emphasized the defensive nature of its military

capabilities. Gorbachev also increased the pressure on

Vietnam for a negotiated settlement. One interpretation of the

doubling of Soviet economic aid to Vietnam to $2 billion

annually during the 1986–90 period was to increase Hanoi’s

dependency and thereby Soviet leverage.18

By August 1988 China and the Soviet Union had “found

common ground” on the Cambodian issue. In a joint

communique at the Sino-Soviet summit in May 1989, China and

the Soviet Union defined the common ground as the gradual

reduction of military aid to all the combatants, the establishment

of a provisional government under Prince Sihanouk, and the

conduct of free elections under international supervision.

Within three months of the joint communiqué, China

appeared to abandon its flexibility for a harder line to regain

leverage over the Cambodian issue. Following the Tiananmen

incident in June 1989, relations with China were cooler with

the more reform-minded Soviets and the more human

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rights-minded Americans. In a show of independence at the

August 1989 Paris Conference on Cambodia, China explicitly

rejected a Soviet-American proposal for a temporary end to

foreign assistance for the opposing Cambodian factions. The

intransigence of the Chinese and their Khmer Rouge allies

doomed the international conference to failure.

Following the pattern of other prolonged wars, the

diplomatic gridlock resulted in a shift back to the battlefield.

The completion of the Vietnamese withdrawal in the fall

coincided with the beginning of the dry season. The Khmer

Rouge went on the offensive and succeeded in capturing a

district capital, Pailin. Although an insignificant population

center, Pailin is the gem-mining capital of the country, giving

the Khmer Rouge a valuable source of income. Some

Vietnamese troops returned to support the Phnom Penh

regime. When the dry season ended in the spring of 1990, the

stalemate continued. The Khmer Rouge plan to create a large

“liberated” zone in Cambodia failed to materialize. The Phnom

Penh regime survived the loss of substantial Vietnamese and

Soviet assistance and acquired self-confidence in the process.

By the spring of 1990, China was becoming disillusioned

with the military capability of the Khmer Rouge. Despite

Chinese military assistance and their claims to have liberated

a large section of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge had not

effectively challenged the control of the Phnom Penh regime.

China’s ties with the Khmer Rouge were also becoming a

political liability for attempts at post-Tiananmen diplomatic

rehabilitation. The dramatic diplomatic action of the United

States in July 1990 underlined the liability. Moving closer to

the Soviet position, Secretary of State Baker strongly condemned the Khmer Rouge and withdrew recognition of the

CGDK. With the renewal of dialogue with Vietnam, the United

States clearly signalled its intent to prevent the return of the

Khmer Rouge to power.

A second factor was also driving change in both China and

Vietnam’s policies. The rapid collapse of communism in

Eastern Europe beginning in the fall of 1989 left these two

countries with few ideological allies. With a stalemate on the

ground, China was more eager to mend fences with Vietnam.

With a sharp drop in Soviet aid after January 1990, Soviet

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rapproachment with China gained a new urgency for Vietnam.

At an unpublicized summit meeting in September 1990,

Chinese and Vietnamese leaders reached a broad accord on a

political settlement in Cambodia. The members of the CGDK

were reportedly shocked to learn of the meeting and drew the

appropriate conclusions about the prospects for peace.19

Sino-Vietnamese rapproachment parallelled the multilateral

efforts at a Cambodian settlement. Following an Australian

proposal, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council

drafted a peace plan that dealt with the remaining issues of the

role of the Khmer Rouge—a coalition government—and the UN

role in administration, peacekeeping, and organization of free

elections. The Perm Five plan was finalized in November 1990 and

met the approval of the Cambodian Supreme National Council,

the coalition government of the resistance forces, and the Phnom

Penh regime. Its implementation as the basis of a peace treaty,

however, became the final obstacle on the serpentine road to

peace.

The role of potential spoiler fell to the Phnom Penh regime.

The regime had shown moderation throughout the

negotiations over the Perm Five plan. Moderation was repaid

with the removal of the Khmer Rouge-dominated coalition

from the UN seat, the beginning of direct dialogue with the

United States and assurances from the UN that the Phnom

Penh government would not be dismantled. The essence of the

UN plan, though, was the inclusion of the Khmer Rouge in the

political process. The Phnom Penh prime minister, Hun Sen,

insisted on language that would condemn the Khmer Rouge’s

genocidal past and prevent its possibility in the future,

effectively excluding the Khmer Rouge from the process.

When these demands were first made, Western observers

viewed them as tactical moves to obtain concessions in other

areas. Hun Sen’s persistence suggested that he saw the

benefits of prolonging the war. As the war dragged on,

however, these observers expressed a concern that a return of

the Khmer Rouge might force some governments to recognize

Phnom Penh. By forcing the West in particular to choose

between Hun Sen or Pol Pot, the Phnom Penh regime could

break the stalemate by suggesting the possibility of a stark

future. Some observers also saw another factor behind Hun

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Sen’s moves, namely the popularity of Prince Sihanouk on

whose coattails the Khmer Rouge could return to power.20

Hun Sen’s position was tenable as long as his principal ally,

Vietnam, believed that China was using the Khmer Rouge to

bleed Vietnam. Though concerned about the Khmer Rouge’s

resurgence, the momentum of Sino-Vietnamese normalization

convinced Hanoi to pressure Phnom Penh to abandon its

opposition to the Perm Five plan. Prince Sihanouk’s growing

independence and desire to return to Cambodia also

convinced Hun Sen that he could be a valuable political ally

against the Khmer Rouge. In a series of meetings beginning in

June 1991, the members of the SNC agreed to a cease-fire, to

end the flow of foreign arms, to disband 70 percent of their

forces and place the remainder under UN supervision, and to

an electoral system of proportional representation. The peace

treaty was signed in October 1991. The war was formally over,

but was the basis created for prolonged peace?

Conclusions

Several factors combined to prolong the war in Cambodia.

First, the legacy of over 30 years of war created a complex

situation with different levels of conflict. The regional and

great powers—Vietnam, ASEAN, China, the Soviet Union, and

the United States—used Cambodia as a proxy war to play out

larger conflicts among them. Maintaining a favorable balance

of power was a more important objective than terminating the

conflict. In the process of using Cambodia as a means to

address other interests, external powers contributed to a

prolonged conflict, the roots of which will not necessarily

disappear with the formal end of hostilities.

Second, the war aggravated the geopolitical divisions that

were another legacy of the First and Second Indochina Wars.

The failure of Vietnam to achieve a decisive victory in 1979

heightened these divisions along which coalitions emerged.

They were uneasy coalitions, reflecting the concern for balance

of power over conflict termination. Mirroring US involvement

in Vietnam in the late 1960s, the Cambodian war became one

not to lose. Tens of millions of dollars in military aid was

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poured onto the battlefield to secure the stalemate. The aid

was never quite enough to win, because it was not necessarily

in the interest of the patrons to terminate the conflict. When

reasons were found to negotiate an end to the conflict, they

underscored the sad fact that the war did not have much to do

with Cambodia itself. Despite the fact that the peace treaty

commits the signatories to the reconstruction of Cambodia,

the history of conflicting interests, ambivalent support, and

the magnitude of the task do not ensure Cambodia’s future

prosperity.

Third, as a result of prolonged conflict, diplomacy became

another means of waging war. It is therefore uncertain

whether the October 1991 peace treaty does lay the basis for

prolonged peace. Reflecting on the Cambodian accords, Lee

Kuan Yew, the long-time former prime minister of Singapore,

has argued that the Cambodian pact is “less advantageous to

the non-communist groups.” He states that the settlement was

largely due to a compromise between China and Vietnam.

Therefore, it is not as “clear-cut a solution as it would have

been if there had been no reconciliation between China and

Vietnam.” Lee concludes that because of the interim SNC

power-sharing arrangement, China and Vietnam will continue

to exert influence over Cambodia’s fate.21

Lee Kuan Yew also may be expressing ASEAN’s anxieties

over the pact given the organization’s ambivalence about

supporting the Khmer Rouge. Khmer Rouge officials describe

as misplaced any international concern over a military

takeover by their forces. In a widely circulated 1988 speech,

Pol Pot outlined a strategy in which the Khmer Rouge would be

restored to power through political organization. Building on

its rural base, the group has begun public works projects in

western Cambodia and a public relations campaign to improve

its image. Given the recent violent reception and flight of some

of its leaders from Phnom Penh in November 1991, the Khmer

Rouge remains a cause for alarm.

The reason for this alarm is that the Khmer Rouge

maintains the capacity for independent action. Though China

announced that it stopped shipping arms to the Khmer Rouge

in November 1990, it is believed that the group has stockpiled

a two-to-five-year supply of weapons and ammunition in its

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remote sanctuaries. The Khmer Rouge also has large reserves

of cash and controls lucrative gem mining and teak forests,

which they exploit on the Thai markets. In violation of the

October agreement, the Khmer Rouge has also used their

access to the refugee camps to force the migration of Cambodians into their controlled areas to strengthen their electoral

base.

Given the long-standing concerns of its former allies and

enemy, it is possible that the Khmer Rouge could revert to a

strategy of protracted war if rejected at the polls. Consequently, maintaining a balance of power within Cambodia may

be the most important objective of the noncommunist groups

and the PRK. To that end, the Phnom Penh regime has joined

forces with the mercurial Prince Sihanouk to counter the

Khmer Rouge. Though the Khmer Rouge continues to

participate in the SNC, Hun Sen and Sihanouk have formed a

political coalition to exploit Sihanouk’s popularity and reclaim

the nationalist legacy tarnished by an alliance with Vietnam. It

is uncertain, with less than two years before UN-sponsored

elections, where this political maneuvering may lead. But

since the balance of power continues to be a concern, the

opportunity for external powers’ involvement remains.

The peace treaty stripped away the levels of conflict and

returned Cambodia to its civil war roots. Years of prolonged

war created the opportunities for great power involvement and

the polarization of the conflict into uneasy coalitions. In their

haste to remove Cambodia from the international agenda, the

powers left that nation in the uncertain status of neither war

nor peace.

Notes

1.-Chang Pao-min, “Kampuchean Conflict: The Continuing Stalemate,”

Asian Survey 17, no. 7 (July 1987): 748–52; and Nayan Chanda,

“Indochina,” in Anthony Lake et al., After the Wars (New Brunswick, N.J.:

Transaction Publishers, 1990), 79–80.

2.-David W. P. Elliot, “Deadlock Diplomacy,” in David A. Ablin and

Marlowe Hood, eds., The Cambodian Agony (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe,

1990), 69.

3.-David P. Chandler, “A Revolution in Full Spate: Communist Party

Policy in Democratic Kampuchea, December 1976,” in Ablin and Hood, 178.

4.-Nayan Chanda, “Cambodia in 1986: Beginning to Tire,” Asian Survey

17, no. 1 (January 1987): 116–17.

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5.-Chandler, 177.

6.-Sheldon Simon, “Vietnam,” in Edward A. Kolodziej and Robert E.

Harkavy, eds., Security Policies of Developing Countries (Lexington, Mass.:

Lexington Books, 1982), 147.

7.-For an overview of Vietnam’s efforts to avoid the polarization of

regional politics, see Alexander Woodside, “Nationalism and Poverty in the

Breakdown of Sino-Vietnamese Relations,” Pacific Affairs, Autumn 1979,

381–409.

8.-Simon, 145.

9.-“Vice Premier Teng Visits Thailand,” Peking Review, 10 November

1978, 3–4.

10.-R. Bates Gill, “China Looks to Thailand: Exporting Arms, Exporting

Influence,” Asian Survey 31, no. 6 (June 1991): 224–25.

11.-Donald E. Weatherbee, “The Diplomacy of Stalemate,” in Donald E.

Weatherbee, ed., Southeast Asia Divided: The ASEAN-Indochina Crisis

(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), 4.

12.-Ibid., 5.

13.-Chang Pao-min, 756–57.

14.-Ibid., 754.

15.-“Deng on Sino-Soviet, Sino-American Relations,” Beijing Review, 15

September 1986, 5.

16.-Weatherbee, 14–22.

17.-Khatharya Um, “Cambodia in 1988: The Curved Road to Settlement,”

Asian Survey 29, no. 1 (January 1989): 75–76.

18.-Hiroshi Kimura, “Gorbachev’s Agenda for Asia,” The Pacific Review 1,

no. 3 (1988): 220.

19.-Nayan Chanda, “Cambodian Talks Bear Fruit of Uneasy Peace,” Asian

Wall Street Journal Weekly, 30 September 1991, 24.

20.-Nayan Chanda, “Hope for Settlement in Cambodian War Wanes As

Hun Sen Government Hardens Its Position,” Asian Wall Street Journal

Weekly, 25 February 1991, 20.

21.-Nayan Chanda, “Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew Airs Reservations About

‘Fuzzy Situation’ After Cambodian Pact,” Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, 4

November 1991, 1, 14.

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El Salvador’s Prolonged Civil War

Steffen W. Schmidt

Most wars are fought to obtain maximum gain, at least

expense, in the shortest time. Most wars or conflicts, however,

are not short—they continue over long periods of time. These

wars can be either prolonged wars or protracted wars. A

prolonged war is a conflict which the relevant protagonists

would like to win promptly and decisively; however, its

resolution is delayed unintentionally. Karl P. Magyar argues

that protracted conflict, on the other hand, is war in which one

or more of the contending parties develop a deliberate strategic

plan of incremental, gradual, or extended fighting.1 In modern

times, protracted conflict is principally associated with

Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Tse-tung and his disciples.

This chapter describes the dynamics of protracted conflicts

in El Salvador with special emphasis on the most recent one

(i.e., from 1979 to 1991)—a war which killed almost 1 percent

of El Salvador’s population, displaced from their homes over

20 percent of the population, and cost the United States over

$4 billion in assistance.2

My description and analysis of El Salvador’s conflict begins

with a reference to Harry Eckstein, who argues that

explanations for the cause of internal war can be found in

some combination of five basic clusters of hypotheses. These

are as follows:

1.-Hypotheses emphasizing intellectual factors such as “the

failure of a regime to perform adequately the functions of

political socialization or the alienation (desertion, transfer of

allegiance) of the intellectuals.”

2.-Hypotheses emphasizing economic factors: increasing

poverty, imbalances between the production and distribution

of goods, and so forth.

3.-Hypotheses emphasizing aspects of social structure such

as the “inadequate circulation of elites,” “too much

recruitment of members of the non-elite into the elite, breaking

down the internal cohesion of the elite,” and social stagnation.

315
4.-Hypotheses emphasizing political factors, among them

the “estrangement of rulers from the societies they rule,” bad

and/or oppressive government, and divisions among the

governing classes.

5.-Hypotheses emphasizing no particular aspect of societies

but general characteristics of social process, including rapid or

erratic patterns and pace of social changes.3

I will not test these assumptions and hypotheses in depth.

However, if one disaggregates the Salvadoran conflict into

cycles or phases, one finds that many of the five factors apply.

The long and arduous war has been extended over time by the

division among the governing elites, subelites, and the

counterelites (the insurgents). This conflict has produced an

unusually complex, shattered pattern of elite political

behavior. This fragmentation, in turn, resulted in a failure by

the elites to reach sufficient consensus to rule effectively and a

lack of cohesion on the part of the insurgents on how to win

the war against the government.

I consider it imperative to add to Harry Eckstein’s inventory on

the importance of externalities (i.e., global affairs) to internal

war. The convergence of global events in 1980 hardened both

sides in the new cold war between the evil empire as Ronald

Reagan called the Soviet Union and the USSR (Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics), which projected force into Afghanistan, for

example. This force spilled into El Salvador by way of Managua,

Nicaragua, and Washington, D.C.

These factors can be conceptualized in an interactive model

with three dimensions, each consisting of two dynamics. First,

socioeconomic conditions and trends in the aggregate can

have either centripetal effects (i.e., pulling social classes and

regions of a country together) or they an be centrifugal (i.e.,

tearing groups apart and pitting them against each other).

Second, on the ideology and political dimension, we can

broadly identify center-seeking trends (i.e., in which

polarization grows as groups abandon moderation and recruit

from left and right extremes). Third, we can identify

international dimensions—I call them global affairs or

externalities. These can have the effect of encouraging

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consensus, on the one hand, or they can exacerbate conflict,

on the other hand.

A review of events that contributed to El Salvador’s war is

necessary to understand how these events contributed to the

protracted nature of that conflict. In reading the material on

the following pages, one should note the strategic importance

to the guerrillas in conducting a protracted struggle. Tactics

within this strategic plan for victory by the insurgents have

included a vast and complex arsenal of terrorism, conventional

warfare, kidnappings, economic warfare, provocation of

institutional elites and other techniques. The overall objective

sought to exploit real, structural grievances and to provoke a

host of atrocities and calamities over time. In the end, the

objective was to demoralize, to cause collapse in the domestic

structure, and to erode outside support.

The Salvadoran military and government on the other hand

initially sought a quick victory. However, for them and their

US allies, the conflict soon became a prolonged war, one which

continued longer than they wanted. Circumstances beyond

their control dragged the war out. These included guerrilla

determination, their own interminable internal quarreling, and

a lack of cohesion as rulers. On the other hand, the conflict

endured because of strategic decisions on how to pursue the

war. A low-intensity conflict policy—a protracted conflict

strategy—became an integral part of the government’s strategy

to check and block the insurgents.

Background to the War

Inside El Salvador a complex brew had been cooking for

decades.4 The military, the 14 leading families, and the

revolutionary communist party had been locked in a

no-holds-barred struggle for power long before the United

States discovered the Salvadoran issue in the 1970s. In

addition, there were labor groups, small reformist parties,

farmers’ organizations, clergy, student groups of diverse

coloration, and a host of other factions, all seeking their rights

in a fertile soil of chaos and injustice.

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Some of El Salvador’s political forces indeed shared the

American liberal vision of reform. They called for judicial

change, fair and open elections, the end of violence, land

reform, and an expansion of health, housing, and educational

programs for El Salvador’s people. But by 1970 the

opportunity for reformist change had long passed for many

Salvadorans. The left had grown weary of repression and

violence. Reformism smacked of a tactic by the forces of the

status quo to avoid change. Moreover, the left perceived

reformists largely as agents of the right rather than as viable

alternatives. The hard left had come more and more to despise

any of the bourgeois forces. To a sizeable right-wing faction,

reform was nothing more than an open door to Marxism. To

others, reform meant a radical change not too far removed

from outright revolution. The antireform faction in El Salvador

did not consist solely of the extreme right, but it could count

on a sizeable portion of the middle and professional classes.

This paranoia about reform had its roots in the 1930s.

The Legacy of the Left

The seeds of the Salvadoran insurgency are found in the

1932 massacre of peasants, the same insurgency in which the

young Trotskyite, Agustin Farabundo Marti, the son of Indian

peasants and one of the founders of the Salvadoran Communist party in 1930, was killed. The Salvadoran guerrilla forces,

the FMLN, bears his name.

After crushing the communist rebellion, President (general)

Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez ruled until a 1944 coup removed him from power. This marked the emergence of the

military as the dominant force in Salvadoran politics.

The Right Attempts Top-Down Reform

Following the overthrow of Martinez, Gen Castañeda Castro

gave Salvadorans socioeconomic reform through martial law

and strong repressive measures which ended in the

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“Revolution of 1948.” In this so called radical leaning, colonels

and majors, backed by reformist civilians, removed the

incumbent government and set up a five-man military-civilian

junta. The 1948 revolution sought to make a transition in the

face of an increasingly polarized political foundation, in

particular the acceleration of center-fleeing political parties

and structure.

A 1950 constitution provided new and more liberal political

ground rules. The armed forces were to be nonpolitical and

obedient to the government in power. Nonetheless, reformist

factions in the military saw an activist role for themselves. A

new political party, the Partido Revolucionario de Unificación

Democratica, was founded by Col J. M. Lemus, who won the

presidency in 1950 and again in 1956. Still, the fragmentation

of the political elites around a series of alternative and often

deeply conflicting alternatives continued and set the stage for

political breakdown and finally all-out war. A fragile economic

infrastructure is often the weak link in the process of social

change and political reform. Compounding the interelite

quarrels and fragmentation was the economic vulnerability of

El Salvador, a tiny, overpopulated, resource-poor country.

Political unrest grew. A recession led to conspiracies by

powerful economic groups who feared that the modest

socioeconomic reforms would undermine their wealth and

power. Both the left and the right yearned for an opportunity

to reverse the modest reforms of the past 10 years.

Prelude to War

In 1960 and 1961 the military overthrew incumbent

governments, as leftist violence escalated and groups allegedly

controlled by admirers of Fidel Castro and by communists

were blamed for the chaos. Another military man, Col Fidel

Sanchez Hernandez, was elected president in 1967. His move

into the presidency was a commitment to continue the

top-down reforms initiated by his predecessors. However, he

inherited a nation plagued, as never before, by land shortage

and poverty. It is estimated that by the late 1960s, over

300,000 desperate, landless Salvadorans had illegally

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migrated across the border to Honduras. This serious problem

was to erupt into perhaps the major crisis of contemporary

Salvadoran political history—the 1969 war with Honduras.

This, the so-called Soccer War, seriously disrupted trade and

created a massive flood of Salvadoran refugees who poured

back into their homeland.

The 1972 election was to be the culmination of a gradual

process through which electoral blocks and moderate reform

policies gained ground. However, the extreme left repudiated

the election and launched a series of attacks against the

national guard. Arson broke out in the capital city.

Government agents raided the university, turning up caches of

arms and communist pamphlets. The atmosphere, particularly

in San Salvador, was electric.

The Start of War

On 19 July 1972 the army occupied the university’s grounds

and buildings. The government claimed that a university

under communist influence and control was not in the

national interest. The crisis and the war that were to take

shape and grow over the next 19 years began with these

events. On 16 February 1973 the government reported the

discovery of an “international terrorist plot” led by the

Salvadoran Communist party. More than 100 left-wing labor

leaders and politicians were arrested.

Once again, the fragmentation of the military and political

elite precipitated a crisis which played into the hands of the

protracted war strategy that was now being crafted by the

opposition. The left began to refine and intensify its use of

guerrilla attacks on the government. On 27 February 1973 a

bomb exploded outside the police station in Chachualpa. On 3

March, less than a week later, members of the People’s

Revolutionary Army (ERP) seized two radio stations in San

Salvador and began to broadcast revolutionary messages.

Three days later, guerrillas attacked the National Elections

Council, where two soldiers defending the offices were killed.

These acts, preceding the 10 March elections, underscored the

contempt opposition groups, including the extreme left, felt

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toward elections in El Salvador. Usually elections lend

credibility to a government. In El Salvador hostility had

developed toward elections because of fraud.

When peasants organized and began to voice demands, they

were terrorized and allegedly even massacred by government

and paramilitary forces. As a consequence of this violence,

new insurgent groups were formed, including the ERP. ERP

kidnapped wealthy industrialist Francisco Sola, collecting

$2-million ransom, then issued a pamphlet calling the ransom

“a war tax for the Salvadoran revolution.”5 The technique of

raising funds through abduction and bank robbery became a

powerful tool in financing revolutionary activity and was

widely used by leftist groups. The abductions as well as death

threats precipitated the creation of “self-defense” organizations

by business and agricultural leaders. These groups were the

initial seeds for the “death squad” that later became one of the

instruments of war against the left.

Clearly, this period represents a distinctive phase in the

evolutionary development of the war in El Salvador. In

protracted war unconventional combat techniques play an

important role. In the case of El Salvador, terrorism and

unconventional war were at a developmental, low-intensity

conflict stage in the early 1970s. They produced the structures

and defined the battle lines for more intensive protracted war

later on.

The armed forces then entered a period of soul-searching

and of political alignment—left, right, center, or apolitical.

Caught in the tide of forming an active part of the process of

political action and of political change, many of the armed

forces leaders felt increasingly uncomfortable with the role

they were playing. However, the treasury and cantonal police,

the national guard, the federal police, and the paramilitary

ORDEN were heavily involved in these political battles. By

1976 the regular armed forces were also engulfed in the

violence.

In the degenerating environment, the opportunities for

personal and institutional enrichments were growing.

Robbery, rape, theft, extortion, and appropriation of land and

property were increasing daily. These variables are not

elements of political value but simply opportunistic “benefits”

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of war. Unless these factors are structured as a permanent

backdrop to the war in El Salvador, the analysis will be flawed

because this war would appear as a “high road” of ideology,

reform, high politics, and principle. A substantial explanation

for the protracted nature of the conflict is personal greed and

opportunism.6

The 1977 Elections—The Eve of War

The next phase in Salvadoran politics centered on the new

president, Col Carlos Humberto Romero, elected in March

1977. His election was widely reputed to have been fixed.

President Romero unsuccessfully attempted to organize a

forum to explore ways to end violence.

One reason for this failure was that aside from the official

policy emanating from the executive office of the president,

there were innumerable minipolicies undertaken by various

elements in the five or more security forces. Local commanders

and even noncommissioned officers often made local

decisions. This factor is important because, as we shall see

later, the US Congress increasingly attempted to hold central

commanders and national leaders responsible for events in

their country (especially human rights violations). It is clear

that central command in a country such as El Salvador has

ineffective command and control over military and police

units.

Externalities 1979—The War Escalates

On 17 July 1979 the Sandinistas overthrew Anastacio

Somoza in neighboring Nicaragua. On 15 October 1979

another military coup d’état was carried out in El Salvador.

Former US ambassador to El Salvador, Frank Devine, noted,

“We were told that the point of no return had been passed,

that President Romero’s statements had lost credibility, and

that he was incapable of providing the moral, effective

leadership to carry the nation to honest elections.”7 According

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to Devine, young, reform-minded officers were responsible for

the coup. He denied rumors that the US State Department was

involved. But after evaluating the five political choices

available in El Salvador (a leftist revolution, an election, a

continuation of the status quo, a hard-line right-wing coup, a

reformist coup) the United States sent out signals that it

favored the last alternative.

One of the first actions of the new junta was to abolish the

paramilitary organization ORDEN. The junta also promised to

investigate incidents of torture, murder, and abduction. The

junta planned to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba and

to strengthen ties with the new Sandinista government in

Nicaragua; offered amnesty to political prisoners and exiles;

reshuffled the military command, retiring officers closely

implicated with the Romero regime; and proposed presidential

elections as soon as possible.8 The junta also issued a decree

prohibiting owners of more than 100 hectares of land from

transferring or encumbering their property to forestall plans

for a new land-reform program. These actions triggered a

strong resistance from the right, especially landowners. At the

same time, these moves were not sufficient to convince the left

and the insurgents that there was now reason to cease

hostilities.

In Washington, the Carter administration believed that the

junta was the best alternative to the Salvadoran crisis. Devine

argues that the left, after assessing the situation created by a

reform junta, “came to recognize displacement of the Romero

administration as a serious blow to their revolutionary

interests.”9 American conservatives, however, were clearly

distressed fearing the political slide leftward could seriously

reduce the strength of conservative, anticommunist groups in

El Salvador. The leftists simply dismissed the junta as a device

that would temporarily delay a future and an inevitable

revolutionary victory.

Ronald Reagan’s election as president of the United States

on 4 November 1979 added another clear-cut externality,

which hardened both sides. Reagan already had projected a

strong stance against the Soviet’s “evil empire” in his

campaign. The Salvadoran right liked this position. The left

stiffened. In late 1979 the armed, insurgent left worked on

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strategic, tactical plans to obtain either a political or a

militarly victory. The insurgents also sought help from

socialist countries and other international revolutionary

forces. They also stepped up their military activities.

In 1980 El Salvador’s national guard chief of investigations

was gunned down, and two major newspaper offices were

bombed. The Popular Revolutionary Bloc emerged as the most

aggressive insurgent group, claiming responsibility for political

shootings, bombings, kidnappings, and seizing buildings.

Most damaging to a possible rapprochement between the

political extremes was the internal fragmentation of the left.

Just as the Popular Revolutionary Bloc negotiated a truce with

the junta, the United Action Front announced an all-out war

against the government. Eventually the cleavages in the

guerrilla movements even led to internal purges (one of these

cost radical Salvadoran Cayetano Carpio his life).

One point is clear from the events that unfolded in El

Salvador in 1979 and 1980—reconciliation, reform, and peace

became unacceptable to both the extreme right and the

extreme left. In either case, politics was considered an allor-nothing proposition—a zero-sum game. The rightists were

justifiably anxious about the friendly gestures the government

made toward Cuba and Nicaragua. Land redistribution and

other reforms perceived as anticapitalist were distasteful to

both Salvadoran and US conservatives.

In turn, the left believed that it could eventually win an

outright victory. The strategy of protracted war had set a

precedent in Nicaragua. Moreover, leftists did not trust a

government which had vast connections with existing rightist

institutions, particularly the military. It is difficult to

second-guess the intentions of the junta, but it appears that,

given half a chance, it might have tried to restore stability and

a measure of civil rights and push for economic reforms. To do

this, however, moderates needed the cooperation of armed

groups from both the left and the right. Neither group was

prepared to yield to an uncertain compromise.

After the Sandinista victory and the election of Ronald

Reagan, the role of the polarizing, conflict-based externalities

became extremely important. In fact, the strategy of protracted

conflict was given renewed viability by the external political,

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financial, and military resources which suddenly became

available to both sides in El Salvador from the concatenations

of the 1980s.

In 1982 the US magazine The New Republic, reflecting on US

options, argued that roughly four options were available for

solving the problem of El Salvador: The first was to simply

concede the country to the guerrillas, end all US support to El

Salvador (which was now growing), and then contain the leftist

regime, which had gained power.10 A second alternative was to

push for negotiations and arrange a coalition between the

revolutionaries and the government. The third option was to

place priority on winning the war militarily, even if it meant

using US forces in El Salvador. As a fourth option, the United

States could pressure the existing Salvadoran government to

hold elections and expand land reform and human rights.

El Salvador held an election in 1984. Officials decided to

hold this election after months of consultation, both within El

Salvador and with the United States. Christian Democrat José

Napoléon Duarte, himself a victim of corrupt elections, said, “It

would be the first free election in the history of this country.”

The United States hoped that Duarte and his Christian

Democrats would win and then forge a peace settlement to end

the growing war.

The Salvadoran guerrillas ridiculed the elections by labeling

them “By the right, for the right; by a minority, for a minority.”

The guerrillas promptly called for a boycott, threatening to cut

off the fingers of, or kill those who voted (in El Salvador after

voting, one’s finger is dipped in indelible ink).

The scenario, which both Washington and the Duarte

government hoped for, was risky. Salvadorans, it was said,

were tired of violence, war, terrorism, and repression (i.e.,

prolonged war). The efforts by moderate and conservative

Christian Democrats to implement reforms would be an

incentive for voters to pack the political middle. Since no

leftists presented themselves as candidates, the choice would

be between extreme rightist candidates and the moderate

center-right Christian Democrats.

As the campaign began to unfold, the vigor and

determination of rightist groups surprised many. Especially

disturbing was the prominent role assumed by Roberto

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d’Aubuisson of the newly created political party, Alianza

Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA). Youthful and surrounded

by a mystique of violence, d’Aubuisson would be precisely the

wrong person to win the contest from the US perspective. A

former army major, he was linked to the death squads. The

38-year-old d’Aubuisson had been drummed out of the army

after he had plotted a coup against the government in 1978.

The United States and Salvadorans also accused him of excessive brutality in the war against leftist groups. D’Aubuisson

said on several occasions that if elected, he would exterminate

the guerrillas within three months (i.e., that he would end the

prolonged war with a quick and decisive—and also terribly

bloody—victory).

Despite the pre-election violence, the turnout at the polls was

large. However, the distribution of the votes was far from

promising. The elections had pitted six political groups against

one another. The Christian Democrats received roughly 41

percent of the vote, giving them 24 seats in the 60-member

constituent assembly (seven short of a majority). D’Aubuisson’s

ARENA with 29 percent got 19 seats. The results of the election

disturbed Washington. ARENA and d’Aubuisson had formed a

coalition which would, in effect, give them the power to

influence, or even dictate, postelection policies. Alvaro Magaña,

an independent, was elected provisional president. He saw

himself more as an administrator than as a political leader.

The new and tenuous Salvadoran government’s cabinet

included ARENA on the far right, the centrist National

Conciliation Party (PCN), and the Christian Democrats to the

left. As a concessionary and bargaining gesture, d’Aubuisson

was given the presidency of the constituent assembly.

D’Aubuisson, no novice to hardball politics, had a powerful

tool with which to rule: “Decree No. 3,” which gave the

assembly the authority to name top officials in the provisional

government, the authority to ratify all cabinet appointments,

the authority to make all legislative decisions, the power to

write a new constitution, and the initiative to organize new

national elections.

This election, reinforced the center-fleeing trend already

under way and therefore injected further energy into the

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confrontational environment between the government and its

opposition.

The worst fears of the United States came true when a

Salvadoran deputy acknowledged that the next step might be

the breakup of the farm cooperatives which had been formed

during phase one of the agrarian reform movement. It seemed

as if the clock was turning backward (assuming that the

“reforms” pushed by Washington were a viable means to

ending the war). The weakening of distributive policies, such

as land reform which can (at least temporarily) reduce

socioeconomic divisions, contributed to the centrifugal

socioeconomic trends.

The election came at a time when the junta was faltering. It

injected new life into the Salvadoran government (albeit

shifting it to the civilian right) and forced the guerrillas to

temporarily rethink their tactics. But late in the summer of

1983 nothing had really changed in San Salvador. The election

seemed more like an expedient excuse to delay the

implementation of a real solution.

Major Factors in the War

First, a growing number of politically mobilized Salvadorans

came to view the crisis in their nation as not only domestic but

international as well.

Second, as Mexican journalist Mario Menendez Rodriguez

wrote in 1981, El Salvador’s elite were to be maintained by the

United States; thus, the fate of that nation was controlled by

the interests defined and manipulated from Washington.

Menendez concluded with the warning, “El Salvador is the

strategic piece of the United States in its game of Central

American dominoes. If it falls, it will drag along with it

Guatemala and Honduras.”11

Third, the Marxists in El Salvador saw the United States as

their enemy and El Salvador as America’s next Vietnam.

Commander Isabel, one of the leaders of the Farabundo Marti

Popular Liberation Forces, the most powerful of the guerrilla

groups, said it in no uncertain terms: “The fundamental point

in the strategy of confronting imperialism is the Central

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Americanization of the revolutionary struggle because the

United States considers Latin America as its exclusive

property in which it can directly intervene when its interests

and those of its associates are threatened.”12 Vietnam, in fact,

became a metaphor for El Salvador. Even Salvadoran

revolutionaries believed they were the cutting edge of a battle

against imperialism in all of Central America.13

In the eyes of the left, events in El Salvador were a function of

global forces manifesting themselves with increasing ferocity in

Central America. Opposed to the freedom fighters was the

international imperialist alliance headed by the United States. In

this way Salvadoran Marxists saw their struggle as one part of a

global anticapitalist and antiimperialist war and at the same

time as a convenient vehicle for greatly increasing the support

for their cause by the Soviets, Cubans, and Nicaraguans, as well

as supporters in the United States and Western Europe.

Fourth, there was the conservative view of El Salvador in the

United States. This was expressed by Brig Gen Albion Knight,

director of the National Security Task Force of the

Conservative Caucus, retired, in his testimony before the US

House Committee on Foreign Affairs: “The main source of

trouble in El Salvador is not a relatively small group of

left-wing guerilla fighters,” he said, “but the Soviet Union and

its American agent provocateur, Castro’s Cuba.” He continued

by tying the fate of El Salvador to the rest of Central America,

and indeed, to the third world.14 Again I note the importance

of this perspective to my thesis that conflict-based global

affairs were instrumental in adding vigor and resilience to the

protracted conflict approach.

Fifth, from the moment the Republican convention picked

its national ticket in Detroit (with Ronald Reagan at the head),

the situation in El Salvador sought another metaphor in the

United States shift to the right. When Ronald Reagan won the

1980 presidential election, Secretary of State Alexander Haig

defined it as the natural place to draw the line on communism.

In El Salvador several corpses were found with signs around

their necks saying, “Now that Reagan is President, we will kill

all communists.” The election of Reagan (and of the Thatcher

government in Britain) served as further externalities in global

affairs, which breathed legitimacy and self-confidence into the

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right in El Salvador. This was extremely important and has

been generally overlooked in the literature.

Sixth, overcoming the post-Vietnam isolationism was said to

be a necessary catharsis to bring maturity and renewed

self-confidence to the United States. The necessity of such a

cleansing was shared by the right in El Salvador, Chile, and

many other countries, where anticommunism played an

important domestic role. Perceived US policy needs to “take a

strong stand against communism,” and the perceived domestic

policy preferences by the center and center-right in El

Salvador both converged seamlessly on a policy of winning the

war. This policy was especially salient when the time came to

apply the “lessons learned” in Vietnam about how to fight a

protracted guerrilla conflict with a counterstrategy of

protracted and nonconventional warfare.

Finally, the Carter administration was seen by conservatives

in El Salvador as the best proof that an emphasis on human

rights was not rational. The Carter presidency witnessed sharp

increase in global violence and strife, reversal of women’s

rights, liberal use of capital punishment, and repression of

regional, ethnic, and religious minorities. Iran fell to radical

fundamentalist Moslems and the USSR invaded Afghanistan.

These global developments indeed helped to shape the battle

lines inside El Salvador and were the subject of intense debate

in that country.

As this analysis strongly suggests, the struggle in El

Salvador was seen by many by the early 1980s as an

international and regional crisis, not just a domestic conflict.

In September 1981 the US Senate attached provisions to the

foreign aid bill which required a review of human rights

conditions in El Salvador twice a year. US aid to that country

would be contingent on “progress” in several areas.

While admirable, the emphasis on human rights produced a

warning flag against all-out war, which might exact a quick

victory for the government but with a heavy toll in civilian

casualties. The extremely important point we must make here is

that this reinforced the option of a prolonged, low-intensity war.

In sum, political and economic reforms in El Salvador may

have been doomed from the start, because, as former US

ambassador to El Salvador Robert White once stated, the

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United States was anxious to support a “contrived” political

center in El Salvador even though most analysts would agree

that there was no such political center. Moreover, the

“reforms” (i.e., land distribution) were seen as coming from the

outside and therefore were cynical moves to avert more

profound change (i.e., a victory by the insurgents). Also, there

was a mistaken notion, especially among US development

agencies, that the initiation of reforms automatically and

concurrently generated political support for the regime. Since

the land reforms envisioned would eventually affect most

farmers in the country, the first effect was to drive all existing

landowners from supporting these reforms. Another result of

the land reform was the false assumption that newly propertied peasants would become visible, articulate, and passionate

supporters of the center, and thus help build this as a base on

which future stability might rest. On closer inspection it

becomes clear that there was never an effort to mobilize the

supporters and beneficiaries of these reforms. Without conscious political mobilization such support could never materialize, and indeed, it did not.

Attacked by the right and the left, and not fully in control of

its own security forces, having cut itself off from the last

vestige of support of the conservative center, the government

of El Salvador lurched from crisis to crisis. Each week that

passed exacerbated the government’s problems with human

rights. President Duarte soon found his base of support

limited to a small segment of the US government and a portion

of the armed forces of El Salvador.

Some observers argue that even the US government never

really believed that the center could maintain its power.

President Reagan and Secretary of State Alexander Haig really

hoped for a tough rightist solution. Liberals in the United

States hoped Duarte would leave gracefully, making room for

only people who, in their eyes, could give the Salvadoran

people a better life, namely the coalition of leftist antigovernment forces.

The United States began to transfer millions of dollars in

economic and military assistance to the Salvadoran government. Looking back at most of the 1980s, one must conclude

that it may indeed have been the United States-backed reforms

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which made it possible to fight a protracted war. Land reform,

food marketing to low-income groups, massive spending on

public works to rebuild damaged bridges and other infrastructures carried out regularly by the guerrillas, and the trickledown effect even of military assistance certainly had an effect

on the country’s socioeconomic conditions. The rich fled El

Salvador to safer havens, and some of the most ostentatious

examples of wealth and power were eroded because of the war

and because of distributive policies. These may in the long

run, say by 1990, have reduced the centrifugal socioeconomic

forces which were such important contributing factors to the

war.

Talks with the rebels never got far, even after moderate

president José Napoléon Duarte was elected in 1984. These

peace talks took place in 1984 and again in 1987 as part of a

Central American peace plan to control irregular forces (i.e., El

Salvador’s guerrillas, the Contras fighting in Nicaragua and El

Salvador, and Guatemalan death squads). In 1987 Rubén

Zamora and Guillermo Ungo, two prominent leftist leaders

connected to the insurgents, returned to El Salvador from exile

as part of a tenuous political opening (apertura).

In March of 1989 the far right ARENA party, the party of

Colonel d’Aubuisson, won the presidency with Alfredo

Christiani at the head of the ticket. The insurgents launched

the largest offensive of the war in November of that year.

Killing more than 2,000 people, the insurgents controlled

substantial parts of the capital city of San Salvador for several

days. The evidence suggests that the insurgents had prepared

for this offensive for a long time, supplying and hiding

ordnance and personnel in various parts of the city (again

typical of prolonged war, where the belligerents prepare and

wait for opportunities to engage the adversary).

One of the important components of this prolonged war is

the role of the church and religious persons. In El Salvador, as

in the rest of Latin America, the Roman Catholic Church has

always played a significant role in politics. Father Jon Sobrino,

a Jesuit priest affiliated with the Jesuit University in El

Salvador, wrote a fascinating piece called “Death and Hope for

Life.”15 In it he indirectly argues for the legitimation of

insurgency, prolonged struggle, and war of liberation by

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elements of the Catholic church. This was an important factor

in the guerrilla strategy of prolonged conflict in that it gave

moral sanction to the process. Moreover, the world paid little

attention to El Salvador until three momentous events

occurred—the killing of San Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar A.

Romero on 24 March 1980, the murder of four American

church women on 3 December 1980, and the killing of several

Jesuit priests and two lay women at Jesuit University in

November 1989.

Rafael Minjivar, in his excellent analysis of Salvadoran

politics, sees the church as a tactical instrument in the

Central American war. “The CIA,” he observed, “counsels not

to attack the church as an institution, but instead to establish

a division between progressives and those who are not.”16 In

his view, having identified communist priests who are

betraying the evangelical message of Christ, the CIA would

then be able to kill or persecute the clergy in the name of God.

Interestingly, during the mid- and late-1980s, conservative

evangelical groups and even representatives of the Unification

Church founded by the Reverend Moon became active in El

Salvador with the intent of winning the war against

communism. Thus, religion came to be a moral sanction for

the justification for prolonged struggle for both sides, the

government as well as the guerrillas.

Modalities of Violence and Protracted War

El Salvador’s death and injury rate climbed to over 36,000

people by 1982, and by 1991 almost 100,000 people had lost

their lives in this war. The war precipitated a variety of forms

of violence which are important in understanding the effects of

protracted conflict.

One type of violence, the direct-revolutionary and counterinsurgency-operations types, pits government troops against

guerrillas. The purpose of these operations has been to win

ground, control the populace, and eventually win the war.

When guerrillas clashed with troops, many people died both

intentionally and accidentally. Many of the troops and

guerrillas in the early years were inexperienced youngsters

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who had a tendency to shoot indiscriminately. The enemy was

everywhere and could be anyone.

Terrorism is a more widespread type of violence used by

both left- and right-wing extremists. The existence of terrorism

on one side is given as justification for its use by the other

side. Terrorism is also a tactic for killing the trained personnel

of the opposition and for forcing an adversary into submission.

Left-wing extremists often use terrorism to force excesses on

incumbent governments to erode their public support. In a

turbulent situation such as El Salvador’s, a death threat from

the left or right is enough to make people flee. This type of

violence also paralyzes the economy; its practitioners, primarily the guerrillas, blew up electrical power grids and

bridges, destroyed crops, burned buses, blocked highways,

ambushed railroad cars, and bombed buildings.

Salvadoran revolutionary groups have used terrorism to

frighten away foreign capital and business, to encourage flight

of money from the nation’s economy, to cast an aura of fear

over soldiers and security troops, to persuade villagers into

supporting the revolution, and to encourage defection from the

government’s armed forces.

According to James Berry, the terrorist justifies his actions

by arguing that “society is sick and cannot be cured by

half-measures of reform. The state is violent and can be

overcome only by violence, and the truth of the terrorist cause

justifies any action that supports it.”17

National armies find it hard to deal effectively with

prolonged terrorist violence. Police intelligence services and

paramilitary forces are often even less capable. The secret

police has been used for decades as an instrument of political

control by the government; therefore, they have no long-term

perspective on security, making them little more than “hired

guns” ruling politicians. Of course, the average citizen is the

least prepared to cope with terrorist brutality.

A third type of violence is the crime of opportunity, which

accompanies all unstable situations. Just as looting inevitably

follows natural disasters; theft, kidnapping, and holdups have

followed political chaos in El Salvador. Personal and impulsive

crimes are easily committed when large quantities of guns are

accessible, and law enforcement is almost nonexistent.

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Fourth, many societies use violence as a tool of justice.

Chain gangs, public beatings, solitary confinement, stocks,

and capital punishment are common forms of official violence.

In traditional societies, personal vendettas are often accepted

as justice. Feuding and crimes of passion are often personally

vindicated.

Fifth, a more sadistic type of violence took place in El

Salvador. It was caused by the deep scars and traumas of war

and brutality. This violence produced horrendous cases of

torture and mutilation, which became a powerful personal

reason for revenge on all sides. These acts transform a

significant part of politically motivated war into communaltype violence and deepen legacies, which prolong violence

(even after the strategy of deliberate protracted war ends).

The annual human rights report to the US Congress

explained the historical background of Salvadoran politics

thusly: Killings and terrorist acts are the work of both leftist

“Democratic Front” forces who often claim responsibility for

them, and of rightist elements with whom some members of

the official security organizations are associated.

There is little to quarrel with because a substantial

explanation for killings and tortures is the same strategy and

tactics of protracted, nonconventional, diffuse, permeable war

in which there are no clear battle lines and in which the line

between civilian and combatant is deliberately and tactically

blurred. The report also indicated that summary executions

were common. Both the government and the guerrillas went

into villages carrying lists of suspected opponents and

executed those whose names appeared on the list.

A further feature of political violence is the “join us or die”

tactic used to intimidate people and to trigger violence. Lists of

victims published by the human rights organizations clearly

show that such groups as labor organizations, peasant

leagues, and clergy were targets of violence. These groups were

often created outside the traditional structures of authority.

Violence was directed at some government-sponsored farmer

groups by both right and left forces. The remaining

reform-oriented segments of Salvadoran government were also

being attacked by the same right and left forces.

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In sum, the prolonged conflict of El Salvador grew out of (1) an

environment of totally fragmented political elites and

counterelites fleeing the political center and creating ideological

polarization; (2) a fragile economy, several economic crises

(recession, the Soccer War, and the economic devastation of war

and fighting), and socioeconomic conditions; (3) the self-feeding,

multiplex dynamics of the extensive violence itself; and (4) the

convergence of international forces and externalities which

contributed to the conflict. Moreover, violence and protracted

conflict also allowed many to enrich themselves financially, and

they became important sources of institutional identity (a new

raison d’étre) and resources (US aid) for the El Salvador military.

Low-Intensity Conflict and

the War in El Salvador

In completing the analysis of the El Salvadoran struggle, we

must now look at the strategic elements that have made it a

protracted conflict. For 12 years both political and military

strategies unique to El Salvador turned a small-scale internal

conflict into a long-term protracted war. We have already

analyzed the political elements of weak reform governments

pitted against a powerful oligarchy and a radical left guerrilla

movement that have drawn out the war and still today prevent

any sort of real compromise and peace in El Salvador.

Observers of the 12-year strife have also identified specific

military tactics to help explain the protracted conflict. In

particular Kate Doyle and Peter S. Duklis, Jr., have written an

excellent research article on this factor, and it warrants

extensive review.18 They argue that the United States’s

involvement in the war in El Salvador contributed, directly and

indirectly, to the extended nature of the conflict.

US monetary support and advice to the armed forces in El

Salvador, according to their analysis, was based on a security

policy developed by the United States military during the

course of the Vietnam War. This policy was devised to counter

the insurgency movements that were replacing regimes

previously agreeable to the United States. In light of the cold

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war, the United States saw many opposition governments

spring from these small conflicts. The policy was revised to fit

El Salvador. A new doctrine was written to address the new

concept of a low-intensity conflict (LIC) in a third world

country that was considered to be a major foreign policy and

national security concern of the United States.

Low-intensity conflict is a “limited politico-military struggle

to political, social, economic and psycho-social pressures

through terrorism and insurgency.” LIC is usually limited to a

specific geographic area and is distinguished by its “constraints on weaponry, tactics, and level of violence.”19

Doyle and Duklis argue that in its strategy the United States

began to turn its attention from strictly military issues and

pulled together the resources of such government agencies as

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Agency for International

Development, and the United States Information Agency to

reach the core of the armed conflict. LIC coordinators joined

guerrilla-style counterinsurgency strategies with the formulation of civilian juntas and militias for local defense and relief

programs to secure the support of the people. Rather than

placing emphasis on a military victory, the strategy emphasized reform of the entire El Salvadoran system.20

LIC allowed the level of violence to continue while promoting

humanitarian relief and political activities to convince the

people that the government was on the right track. The idea,

according to Doyle and Duklis, was to convince the Salvadoran

people that despite all the pain and suffering, conditions were

actually improving, and there was justification for the war.

Also, an added benefit to the LIC plan enabled the United

States to influence and contain a complicated Latin American

conflict without having to send any American troops, as was

deemed necessary in the Vietnam War.21

As a result of this low-intensity conflict strategy, the United

States has pumped more than $5 billion into El Salvador. This

assistance has helped to increase the Salvadoran military

almost fivefold; paid for six elections; helped redistribute land

to thousands of peasants; helped to create a more modern

judiciary system; established a food management and

distribution system for low-income people; and rebuilt bridges,

roads, railroads, power grids, and other infrastructures.22

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Among the groups formed by way of this new policy were the

Agencia Nacional de Servicios Especiales de El Salvador

(ANSESAL), the elite presidential service that monitored

Salvadoran dissidents, and also the Organizatión Democratica

Nacionalista (ORDEN), the rural paramilitary and intelligence

network. It is unknown whether the United States actually

established these groups. However, CIA operatives appear to

have played an important role in structuring an intelligencegathering system for Salvadoran security organizations.23

Presidential candidate Colonel (later general) Medrano

revealed that ANSESAL and ORDEN evolved from the US State

Department, the CIA, and the Green Berets stationed in El

Salvador going back to the Kennedy administration. Most of

the credit went to Green Beret Col Arthur Simmons and 10

American advisors who devised a plan to “indoctrinate”

peasants. According to Krauss, by 1970 one in every 50

civilians was an oreja (ear) for ANSESAL. Being a member of

ORDEN was a means for gaining status as a peasant. Medrano

claimed that the organizations combined grew to become a

30,000-man military informant network. By the late 1970s,

ORDEN had expanded to an 80,000-member political force

operating in the countryside for the extreme right.24

As indicated earlier, in 1979 and 1980 the new junta of

military moderates and civilians attempted to dismantle the

US-created ORDEN and ANSESAL. However, a junta member

allegedly allowed national guard intelligence chief Maj Robert

d’Aubuisson to remove ANSESAL’s files. These files were

created with the help of the CIA and were allegedly later used

to assassinate thousands and to destroy a junta that originally

had the backing of the Carter administration.

D’Aubuisson was trained in intelligence in the United

States. He later became the deputy director of ANSESAL.

According to Krauss, General Medrano put d’Aubuisson in

charge of secret assassin missions to identify targets for hit

teams. He was later connected to the murder of Archbishop

Romero by information in a notebook from a death squad

member, air force Capt Alvaro Rafael Saravia, that contained

the details of a Romero assassination plot known as Operation

Pineapple. Years later Saravia testified that he drove the

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assassin to the church and later overheard the assassin

confirm to d’Aubuisson that the mission was complete.25

According to Krauss, ORDEN derived its strength and ability

to paralyze an entire nation from two seemingly opposing

forces: the rich and the poor of El Salvador. Because both

classes benefitted in some way from the activities of ORDEN,

both were willing to support the brutal tactics of the national

security organizations. The poor, by becoming informants or

assassins for ORDEN, could achieve the status and respect

that could never be obtained from working someone else’s land

as peasants. The oligarchies kept the status quo of their

wealth and ultimate power by providing the finance for

weapons and equipment. Those who did not belong to or who

did not financially support terror groups were simply too

fearful of these brutal tactics to rebel; they complied, notes

Krauss, to survive, not for any sort of social or monetary

gain.26 If Krauss is correct, ORDEN and other fundamentally

repressive policies may have actually (and in a perverse logic)

helped reduce the socioeconomic cleavages which contributed

to protracted war and helped set the stage for a slightly more

level social and economic playing field in the early 1990s.

Doyle and Duklis argue that in addition to the clandestine

security forces, the structure of the military itself served to

prolong the conflict. The armed forces have been ideologically

divided and unevenly dispersed throughout the country, thus

making it easier for rebel forces to control territory. There has

never been a clear-cut strategy to fight a war. Instead, the

armed forces relied on paramilitary tactics. This was enough to

restrain the peasants from supporting the guerrillas but not

enough to keep the guerrillas from roaming the countryside

and attacking economic and military targets.

When Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency, he sent

some $35 million in military aid along with military advisors to

assess the El Salvadoran Armed Forces (ESAF). The Woerner

Report sketched a plan to retrain and reequip the ESAF and

also noted the analyst’s perception of a “complete lack of vision

on the army’s part.”27 The author of the report, Gen Fred F.

Woerner, noted that

El Salvador indicated somewhere in this process that they had a

national strategy. In fact they did not. I read it, and it was a couple of

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pages of political platitudes but nothing substantive that would

provide an operative plan in order to establish a democratic, pluralistic

society. It was more a statement of grand idealistic, philosophic,

ideological objectives - ideological objectives, not even political

objectives.28

This means that, practically speaking, the externalities

(American concern with security and the concomitant growth

of radicalism in Central America, especially Nicaragua) became

the sources of policy by default. LIC and guerrilla insurgency

(i.e., armed struggle) became the leitmotif discussed earlier

that ran through (and behind) the domestic political scene of

El Salvador. Both of these are protracted conflict strategies.

In reassessing the situation, the United States found the El

Salvadoran army unable to overcome the insurgency. The United

States set a new goal; to produce a military led by skillful soldiers.

This goal not only encompassed the defeat of the guerrillas, but it

also revised the internal structures of the country.

First, the Salvadoran officer corps had to be persuaded to subordinate

itself to civilian authority. Second, the armed forces needed to evince a

respect for human rights. . . . And third, the military needed to

rationalize its own internal methods of governance so that talent was

nurtured, success was rewarded, incompetents weeded out, and the

officer corps in general became operationally effective.29

However, the armed forces proved to be a difficult institution

to reform. As one of the strongest in Central America, it has

been the most powerful force in the country for half a century.

Its main objective over two decades, however, was not

primarily military but rather to promote its own institutional

interests and privileges. The armed forces used the rich and

powerful oligarchy, terrorist tactics, and a tough anticommunist stance to maintain its position.30

The United States has spent billions of dollars in economic

and military aid on El Salvador. But, as Doyle and Duklis

argue, only the military knows the whereabouts of many of

these funds. Much of it (over $1 billion since 1979) has

probably been taken out of the country, funneled into private

endeavors, spent on luxuries, or used as insurance in case the

insurgents won, as they did in Nicaragua or Cuba.31

Minister of defense, Gen Eugenio Vides Casanova, strongly

supported the counterinsurgency strategy. It was General

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Casanova who recognized that El Salvador was engaged in a

long-term, protracted war and that a quick and decisive

victory by conventional means was not possible. Thus, the

strategy was to initiate rural pacification programs and to

deploy small cazador (hunter) battalions that would stamp or

drive out guerrillas. Once the rebels were removed from an

area, authorities established civil militias for local protection.

Economic and social assistance followed. This change in the

Salvadoran forces transformed them into mobile units that

imitated the tactics of the guerrillas.32

According to Doyle and Duklis, another problem area that

exasperated Americans was the El Salvador arm’s dependence

on expensive, high-tech weapons that were impractical for

guerrilla-type warfare. However, even though it was a concern

for US advisors, American security aid allowed the ESAF to

acquire the ineffective equipment.

Another low-intensity strategy was established with the use

of the intelligence network devised by the CIA. This strategy

was intended to infiltrate the left with vast numbers of informants at the lowest local level. In this way, most Salvadoran

citizens were under surveillance at all times, even by their own

neighbors and families. Control was achieved over the

population through fear and intimidation from the knowledge

that one’s every move and exercise of political expression was

under the watchful eye of the government and carried with it

the threat of death. The strategy stressed constant

engagement everywhere in the country, with emphasis placed

on the civilian aspect of the struggle.33

Programs were set up to generate support and loyalty of the

Salvadoran people. The United States encouraged

humanitarian aid and a reduction of the most visible human

rights violations. These strategies enhanced the ESAF

reputation through civic programs designed to improve the life

of the average Salvadoran.34

New security tactics, social assistance programs, and a

reorganization of the army to imitate guerrilla warfare were the

US and the El Salvadoran governments’ new policies,

according to Doyle and Duklis. But the US aid, without direct

American military involvement, created an increasing El

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Salvadoran dependence on economic assistance to keep the

war going rather than negotiate an end.

Other economic factors operated to continue the war.

Reforms in the 1980s, nationalization attempts, promotion of

industry, and the increasing military investment in agriculture

and industry increased the government’s influence over the

economy and made it feasible to continue the war indefinitely.

Moreover, the concentration of the armed forces in protecting

economic resources has led most analysts to argue that the

military itself profited from the war and thus developed a

vested interest in seeing it continue.

According to Enrique A. Baloyra, the LIC-protracted war

strategy of the government forced the FMLN to adjust their

strategies, because the new counterinsurgency strategy by the

military was gaining on the rebels little by little. The rebels

also had to assume a strategy of indefinite low-intensity

conflict. Instead of pressing their national liberation goals, the

rebels felt compelled to turn to acts of terrorism and increased

violence. Their new terror tactics instilled fear and compliance

into the people just as the government’s tactics did. However,

this change in battle plan caused a loss of ideological support

and cost the rebels their status as “freedom fighters.” Their

acts of sabotage against the government induced the armed

forces to support and step up their low-intensity efforts.35

In sum, the strategies of low-intensity warfare practiced by both

sides in the conflict greatly reinforced the protracted struggle.

That’s because LIC is not so much focused on the end of war as it

is based on managing war. As can be seen by the Salvadoran

example, this is achieved by abandoning conventional methods

and then by clustering resources and agencies of the government

to fight the battle at all levels of society.

Peace Initiatives 1990–92

This writer argued earlier that the dynamics of protracted

war in El Salvador were shaped by the convergence of

domestic socioeconomic events and trends, politically and

ideologically extreme (center-fleeing politics) events inside El

Salvador, global events (most importantly, the Reagan election)

SCHMIDT

341
and the fall of Somoza and Nicaragua outside the country. At

the end of the decade of the 1980s, another set of global

circumstances intersected to produce a significant impact on

the strategy of war in El Salvador. I am referring, of course, to

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, to the

rapid decline of Soviet aid to insurgent groups, and to the

sharp reduction of East European and Soviet support for

allies, specifically Cuba. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the

dramatic end of the cold war on 21 November 1990 by way of

the Charter of Paris signed by the United States and the

crumbling USSR and the leaders of Europe forced a sharp

change in the strategies of both the insurgents and the

government of El Salvador. This was because both relied

heavily on the cold war model and thus on externalities for

political, ideological, and material support.

Already in 1990 a series of intensified developments took

place to resolve the 11-year-old civil war. Both sides

approached these developments reluctantly because they

feared giving in to any reforms that might mean a surrender of

power.36 On 4 April 1990 the FMLN guerrillas and the

government of El Salvador signed an accord in Geneva which

endorsed United Nations mediation in peace talks between the

two warring sides. Peace talks also took place in Mexico City

between the leaders of the main political parties. The

negotiations centered around the reduction of the role of the

armed forces, a strengthening of the judiciary, a serious

crackdown on human rights abuses, and an expanded oversight of the electoral process. These were all seen as eventually

leading to the terms of a cease-fire.

In March of 1991 the left agreed to participate for the first

time in decades in legislative and municipal elections. With

substantial international monitoring, these elections were

relatively honest, and the leftist parties obtained seats in the

national assembly and local government.

An accord reached in the April 1991 talks in Mexico City

called for significant curbs on the power of the armed forces by

placing them under presidential control, by rescinding their

public security functions, and also by allowing the National

Assembly to prohibit, by majority vote, any presidential use of

the military in a state of emergency.37

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342
Human rights issues and the electoral process were given

special consideration in the negotiations. An independent

supreme electoral tribunal was established to regulate the

often-corrupt voting process. A permanent government human

rights prosecutor and an independent “truth commission”

were delegated the duties of investigating and making public

the facts surrounding important human rights crimes over the

last decade. The Salvadoran judiciary was also reworked to

eliminate excessive political domination.38

Two crucial problems slowed the negotiation process. The

first was the army’s reluctance to surrender its power and

system of payoffs and corruption that begin with every

graduating military class. Leonel Gomez, an upper-class

Salvadoran who promotes social reform, explained the

phenomenon thusly: “To reach power in the army you have to

reassure those waiting for power that you aren’t ruining the

system. You have to link up with the tandas (military classes)

leaving power and cover their killings and gross corruption.”39

The second problem was the guerrillas’ request to hold on to

several chunks of their territory with an “unarmed” zone

between them and the army. The armed forces have been

understandably suspicious of these demands. A notebook

discovered on the body of Antonio Cardenal, a known

insurgent killed by the army, revealed the rebel’s past use of

talks to further their objectives while “conserving and

improving our military force.” Thus, suspicion clearly remains

high on both sides. The leader of the Christian Democratic

party in 1991, Fidel Chavez stated simply what an end to the

civil war would require: “Peace will entail reorganization and

purification of the army and the political incorporation of the

Farabundo Marti Front—supposedly simultaneously.”40

On 25 September 1991 the FMLN and the government

signed a broad set of accords at the United Nations headquarters in New York. These called for land reform, a civilian

police force into which components of the rebel army would be

incorporated, and a reduction as well as a purge of the armed

forces (the emphasis being on elements in the military which

are suspected of human rights violations).

On 1 January 1992 the two sides signed a permanent

cease-fire. The accord was cobbled together by United Nations

SCHMIDT

343
Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuellar and facilitated by

the so-called Four Friends of the Salvadoran Peace Process—

Spain, Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico. These countries

pledged to help implement and supervise implementation of

the accord. The four are also to help secure funding for the

reconstruction of El Salvador.

What seems to have precipitated the start of reconciliation

between the two sides is the conclusion that a military victory

by either side would not be achieved and that prolonged

conflict based on a virtual stalemate would no longer be viable

either. The guerrillas realized that the original Castroite

revolutionary, insurgency-based model may be outmoded. The

government acknowledged that it would have difficulties

eliminating the military threat of the rebels and their ties with

segments of the impoverished of El Salvador without

unacceptably high costs in lives and with sharply declining US

support in the post–cold war era.

One of the serious problems which arises out of a tenuous

peace accords is how past human rights violations will be

punished. A US military adviser to El Salvador, Maj Eric

Buckland, revealed in January of 1990 that the head of the

Salvadoran military academy, Col Guillermo Alfredo

Benavides, had organized the killing of the six Jesuit priests at

the Jesuit University. Other former American advisers echoed

similar stories of killings and cover-ups and of the American

military being manipulated in such plots.41 Punishment for

crimes on both sides but especially in the highly visible

military will, as it did in Chile and Argentina, require great

political will and finesse.

Conclusion

These elements of the Salvadoran conflict should be kept in

the perspective of larger structural issues which provided a

suitable basic environment for conflict. Returning briefly to

Eckstein’s 20 hypotheses about internal war enumerated at

the beginning of this chapter, we can conclude the following

regarding the protracted war in El Salvador:

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344
First, in regard to the hypotheses emphasizing intellectual

factors, the El Salvadoran conflict was exacerbated by what

Harry Eckstein calls “the failure of regimes to perform

adequately the functions of political socialization.”42 Indeed,

the second hypothesis, which argues that “internal wars are

due to the coexistence in a society of conflicting social myths,”

is clearly borne out by the ideological vacuum in the political

center discussed earlier in this analysis. This also reinforces

the third hypothesis, namely that “internal wars result from

the existence in a society of unrealizable values or corrosive

social philosophies.”43

Second, insofar as the hypotheses emphasizing economic

factors are concerned, El Salvador meets the criteria of

growing poverty, severe imbalances between the production

and distribution of goods, and the phenomenon of some

economic improvements interspersed with short-term,

crisis-oriented setbacks.

Third, the hypotheses emphasizing social structure clearly

demonstrate that El Salvador is characterized by the

“inadequate circulation of elites coupled with too much

recruitment of members of the nonelite [in particular elements

in the military] into the elite, breaking down the internal

cohesion of the elite.”44

Fourth, Eckstein’s hypotheses emphasizing political factors

are also of significance, in particular the estrangement of

many of El Salvador’s rulers from the societies they rule and

“bad government (government which performs inadequately

the function of goal attainment).” Moreover, given the

atrocious human rights environment, the war in El Salvador

was also “a response to oppressive government,” reflecting

another of Eckstein’s indicators.

Fifth, the convergence of global affairs in a new tension

between East and West injected externalities into the process

which increased its intensity and also its prolongation.

Thus, the socioeconomic structural conditions of El

Salvador were the underlying factors which created an

environment suitable for protracted conflict. This was in turn

exploited by various elites and counterelites who, for political

and ideological but also for purely instrumental reasons,

extended the war. Finally, the renewed cold war resulted in

SCHMIDT

345
external support for the insurgents, and the US strategy (LIC)

provided infusions of resources and tactics to the government,

which allowed for a “managed war.” The objectives of LIC were

not to terminate the fighting but instead to “remake El

Salvador.” In theory this would bring an end to war by

eliminating the underlying factors, which were seen as the

fundamental causal factor of war.

Indeed, one can argue that LIC may not have allowed for a

fast and decisive military victory over the insurgents, but on

the other hand, it did ultimately make it impossible for the

guerrillas to win the war. In the long analysis, it may even be

demonstrated that the social and economic policies aimed at

the population and the “mobilization” of people to help fight

the LIC did affect El Salvador enough to legitimize genuine

sociopolitical reforms in the future.

I would argue as well that the tremendous power of the armed

forces during the past 12 years was itself a levelling factor. Most

of the officers and soldiers in the various services of the armed

forces are at best lower middle class and include substantial

lower-class peasants and urban lower-class recruits. The rich

don’t fight in the military in countries such as El Salvador. The

“trickle down” to the middle class produced by this phenomenon

should be studied in more detail.

In spite of the formal end to hostilities by way of the 1992

peace agreement, the technique of grinding down and

defeating one’s adversary will in all probability shift (hopefully

more than temporarily) to the political arena. In the classic

reasoning behind protracted conflict, as Karl P. Magyar and

other scholars have so cogently argued, it is not clear if 1992

marks the permanent end of El Salvador’s protracted war or

merely a strategic shift in tactics dictated by internal

stalemate and changes in the external (global) environment.

That final verdict requires the passage of more time.

Notes

1.-Karl P. Magyar distinguishes between the use of the terms war and

conflict. “Prolonged Wars,” unpublished draft discussion piece, 1990.

2.-New York Times, 31 December 1991, A3.

3.-Harry Eckstein, “On the Etiology of Internal Wars,” History and Theory

8, no. 3 (1965): 143–44.

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346
4.-Substantial portions of this narrative and analysis are taken from

Steffen W. Schmidt, El Salvador: America’s Next Vietnam? (Salisbury, N.C.:

Documentary Publications, 1983).

5.-Ibid.

6.-The case resembles the political violence in Colombia between 1949

and 1965.

7.-Frank Devine, El Salvador: Embassy under Attack (New York: Vantage

Press, 1981).

8.-The victory by the Sandinistas in Nicaragua nourished the Salvadoran

war with a whole new element of ideological, political, as well as logistical

(i.e., hardware) inputs.

9.-Schmidt, 91.

10.-I review this here because US media coverage was important in the

decision by Washington to try and keep a relatively low profile, to avoid

using troops, and to design a low-intensity conflict strategy for El Salvador.

Cited in Schmidt, 59.

11.-Ibid., 68.

12.-Ibid., 59.

13.-I chose the title El Salvador: America’s Next Vietnam? for my 1984

book.

14.-Schmidt, 102.

15.-Jon Sobrino, “Death and the Hope for Life,” Catholic Worker 11, no. 4

(September 1980).

16.-V. Autores, El Salvador: El Eslabón Mas Pequeño (San José: EDUCA,

1980).

17.-“International Terrorism: A New Mode of Warfare,” International

Security Review 6, no. 1 (1981): 93–111.

18.-Kate Doyle and Peter S. Duklis, Jr., “The Long Twilight Struggle:

Low-Intensity Warfare and the Salvadoran Military,” Journal of International

Affairs 43 (Winter 1990): 434.

19.-Ibid., 435.

20.-Ibid.

21.-Clifford Krauss, Inside Central America (New York: Summit Books,

1991), 14.

22.-Ibid., 55.

23.-Doyle and Duklis, 433–34.

24.-Krauss, 64, 66.

25.-Ibid., 72, 75.

26.-Ibid., 73.

27.-Doyle and Duklis, 436.

28.-Ibid., 438–39.

29.-Ibid., 438.

30.-Ibid., 440.

31.-The numbers on funding are quite unreliable. See Doyle and Duklis,

447.

32.-Ibid., 448.

33.-Ibid., 449.

34.-Ibid., 450.

SCHMIDT

347
35.-Enrique A. Baloyra, “Negotiating War in El Salvador: The Politics of

Endgame,” Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 28 (Spring

1986): 123–24.

36.-New York Times, 30 April 1991.

37.-Ibid., 29 April 1991.

38.-Ibid.

39.-Ibid., 4 May 1991.

40.-Ibid.

41.-Miami Herald, 6 August 1991.

42.-Eckstein, 143.

43.-Ibid., 144.

44.-Ibid., 147.

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Nicaragua’s Prolonged Contra War

Charles L. Stansifer

Grounded in the historically bitter Nicaraguan political

rivalry, the conflict between the Nicaraguan government and

its most determined opponents in the 1980s evolved into the

Contra War, one of the decade’s most destructive wars. The

war involved, on one side, the Sandinista government and, on

the other, its opponents known as “contras,” who were backed

by the United States. The Frente Sandinista de Liberación

Nacional (Sandinista Front of National Liberation or FSLN)

came into power in Nicaragua in July 1979 with

overwhelming popular support as victors in a revolutionary

effort against the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle.

Within a year the contras (short for contrarrevolucionarios or

counterrevolutionaries) began to organize an army of

resistance. The war of the contras against the Sandinistas,

which began in earnest in late 1981 with the organization of

the Nicaraguan Democratic Front (FDN), continued

throughout the rest of the decade. By 1989 it was winding

down and could be said to have ended with the electoral

victory of President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro over the

Sandinistas in February 1990.*

*Vast quantities of documentation of the Contra War are available in the Report of

the Congressional Committees Investigating at the Iran-Contra Affair, 23 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1988) and more recently in publications of

the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research institute. The two microfiche publications of the National Security Archive, which successfully persuaded the United

States government to declassify Contra War documentation, massively illuminate the

details of the war: Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1978–1990 and The Iran-Contra Affair: The Making of a Scandal, 1983–1988 (Washington, D.C.: National Security

Archive, 1991). The first contains 13,000 pages of documents and the second 20,000.

Although these publications have been consulted, the present narrative rests primarily on the extensive secondary literature of the Contra War.

349
The Three Phases of the War

The war had three phases. The first phase, lasting from 1981 to

1984, involved a buildup of men and munitions on both sides. By

the end of 1984, contra forces numbered approximately 15,000

soldiers, with supply bases and other facilities established in

neighboring Honduras with the help of the United States. A

smaller contra force under the leadership of former Sandinista

commander Eden Pastora operated from less well-established

bases along the Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border. In 1984 the

Popular Sandinista Army of the Nicaraguan government consisted

of 60,000 troops backed by a militia force of over 100,000. Military

advice and supplies came to Nicaragua from various countries of

the Soviet bloc. Cuban military officers, experienced in guerrilla

warfare in Africa, were especially influential in Nicaragua’s war

planning. Fighting during this phase consisted primarily of contra

raids into Nicaragua from Honduran bases, although occasionally

contra columns operated temporarily deep in Nicaragua. Mining of

Nicaraguan harbors and a few light air attacks on Nicaraguan

facilities in 1984 seemed to signal an escalation of the war, but

this scale of warfare could not be sustained. Invasion scares

pulsed through Nicaragua for a year following the United States

invasion of Grenada in October 1983, but by the end of 1984,

these fears had begun to diminish. Contra raids had damaged the

public’s morale in Nicaragua, but in the November 1984

presidential elections, the Sandinistas still harvested nearly 67

percent of the votes.

The complementary buildup resulted in the second phase, a

stalemate, during the 1985–86 period. By early 1985 the

forces facing each other along the Honduran-Nicaraguan

border constituted the largest concentration of military forces

ever seen in the history of Central America. However, with far

fewer soldiers than the Nicaraguan government and with little

prospect of parity, the contras could not and did not threaten

the Nicaraguan capital or any other major city. Financial

support for the contras from the United States waxed and

waned with the domestic political concerns of the United

States Congress during this period, leaving the contras

dependent on private aid projects of questionable legality and

with little prospect of further buildup and dictating a war of

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350
attrition rather than full-scale assault. Dreams of a quick

contra victory now necessarily yielded to reliance on a long

and multifaceted campaign of lower intensity. Contra raids

continued steadily, and the contras targeted civilians more

frequently than before; but the Sandinista defense was

adequate to deter threats of a broad-front invasion. The arrival

of several Hind helicopter gunships from the Soviet Union gave

the Sandinistas added confidence that they could control any

substantial contra invasion. Knowing the dangers of antagonizing the United States by attacking contra base camps in

Honduras, the Sandinistas remained essentially on the

defensive; they were not able to eliminate bands of contras

operating inside Nicaraguan territory nor to eliminate bases on

foreign soil. Good offices extended by various nations and

international agencies during this period did not succeed in

bringing the opposing sides to the bargaining table.

Continuing casualties and economic exhaustion on both

sides, plus a realization that neither side could eliminate the

other, led to fewer military confrontations and a greater

emphasis on diplomacy in the 1986–90 period. The contras had

to consider negotiations because they recognized that without

substantially increased support from the United States, which

was clearly not a prospect, they had no chance to increase the

size of their forces. Capture of the North American soldier of

fortune Eugene Hasenfus, who had been on a mission to supply

the contras in southern Nicaragua in October 1986, began the

unraveling of the Iran-contra scandal and completely eliminated

the possibility of significant United States military assistance to

the contras. Managua’s leaders, on the other hand, although

they now spoke more optimistically about the prospect of final

defeat of the contras, faced declining public support due to

continuing political uncertainty and the steadily deteriorating

economy. The Sandinistas were therefore increasingly ready to

compromise. Leadership of peace negotiations, which had been

proceeding desultorily under the sponsorship of the Contadora

nations (i.e., Panama, Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela) now

shifted to Central America with the presidential victory of Oscar

Arias in Costa Rica in January 1987.1

Diplomacy began to show promise in August 1987, with the

agreement of the five Central American republics on the

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351
Central American Peace Plan (often called the Arias Plan), and

therefore diplomacy took the spotlight from the fighting. The

Arias Plan won support from people throughout Central

America, including Nicaragua, and ultimately forced the

Sandinistas to do what they had said they would never do:

negotiate directly with the contras. No doubt the award of the

Nobel Peace Prize to President Arias in 1987 gave momentum

to the peace movement. The end of the Reagan administration

in January 1989 removed another obstacle to peace

negotiations. After several cease-fires unilaterally declared by

the Sandinistas, the two opposing forces finally met in the

Dominican Republic in November 1988 to talk peace. When

the talks were moved to the town of Sapoa, Nicaragua (near

the Costa Rican border), four months later, the two sides

clearly stated they intended to stop the war. On 23 March

1988 the two combatants signed a cease-fire agreement. In the

succeeding months, violations of the cease-fire occurred but

peace talks continued. Shortly after taking office in 1989,

President Bush and the United States Congress arranged for

the last significant aid package, consisting of humanitarian

aid but no weapons, to be sent to the contras in a forlorn

gesture to keep the forces intact. By the time the campaign for

the Nicaraguan presidential election of 25 February 1990 got

under way, the contras had largely dispersed and were no

longer a threat to the existence of the Nicaraguan

government.2 Sporadic fighting between contra and FSLN

bands still occurred, but the war was over.

The Issue of Victory or Defeat

Who won? The question is not so easily answered, for the

answer, as in many wars, depends on one’s perspective.

Clearly, from the point of view of the Sandinistas, they had

won because they had steadfastly resisted all counterrevolutionary efforts to overthrow them for 10 years. As of

January 1990, as the fighting subsided and the contras drifted

back to Nicaragua, the Sandinistas were battered, but they

were still in power.

PROLONGED WARS

352
Contra leaders also claimed victory. At the end of the

prolonged war, the contras had to accept reentry into

Nicaragua with the Sandinista government still intact, yet

they maintained that they had altered Nicaraguan political

realities to the extent that the Sandinistas could not win a

free election. The decisive victory of Violeta Chamorro in the

presidential election of February 1990 over the FSLN proved

them correct, although, it must be added, the Chamorro

victory did not mean that contra leaders were in power.3

Following the election many contras were enraged by

Chamorro’s perceived softness on the Sandinistas and

demanded their elimination from government.

As for the United States, an ally of the contras, victory was

also indistinct. Washington had failed to remove the

Sandinistas by force, but contra pressure had undoubtedly

helped to prepare the way for the Sandinistas’ electoral defeat.

The goal of removing the Soviet Union as a presence in Central

America was accomplished by 1990, although it was debatable

whether United States action had more to do with this result

than the collapse of the Soviet Union as a world power. The

United States, in its zeal to destroy Sandinismo, not only had

helped to enfeeble the Nicaraguan economy but also had

strengthened militarism in Honduras and Costa Rica. None of

these were long-term goals of the United States. Ironically,

even though Washington had frequently stated its support of

democratization and even contributed substantial funds to

Violeta Chamorro’s campaign, United States authorities were

not completely satisfied with her victory. The problem was that

Chamorro, once in office, did not move rapidly enough to

de-Sandinize the government. She decided that to rule, she

had to compromise with the Sandinistas as well as with the

contras. in short, neither the contras nor the United States

government could claim a clear victory.

Was It Really a War?

Does the conflict between the Sandinistas and their

opponents deserve to be considered a war? This also is a

debatable question. No nation officially declared war,

STANSIFER

353
although relations between Nicaragua and Honduras,

Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and Nicaragua and the United

States were severely strained for a prolonged period. The United

States declared an economic embargo on Nicaragua in 1985,

and both the United States and Costa Rica broke diplomatic

relations with Nicaragua. More importantly, spokesmen for the

United States government, including President Ronald Reagan,

although not calling for a declaration of war and not calling for

direct United States involvement, stressed the danger to United

States security and repeatedly called for the removal of the

Sandinista government even after it had been formally elected to

office in November 1984.4

To the Nicaraguan government, it was unmistakably a

war—a prolonged war for survival, leading to massive mobilization, rationing scarce commodities, including food, and suppressing dissent. Casualties including civilians, numbering in

the tens of thousands, intensified the feeling inside Nicaragua

that the country was unquestionably at war.

It was, in essence, a civil conflict between two opposing

Nicaraguan forces, but the imbalance was such that the

contras, unaided, could not hope to win. Massive United

States assistance to the contras raised the stakes, moving

the conflict from the civil to the international level and

turning it into a war, whether officially declared or not.

Given the magnitude and duration of the United States

commitment to eliminate the Sandinista government, it was

a war. From the perspective of the United States, the most

appropriate descriptive modifier is not “total,” or “popular,”

but “surrogate”; it was a war fought by contra surrogates in

defense of the national interests of the United States as

perceived by Washington. The role of the United States was

crucial; the war would not have been fought without the

commitment of the United States.* To some observers, the

war might better be called a low-intensity conflict from the

*Similarly, the Filibuster War in Nicaragua in the 1856–57 period would not have

been fought without the involvement of the filibusterer William Walker, a United

States citizen. Walker’s band came to Nicaragua at the invitation of Nicaraguan liberals and ended up taking control of the country. After he took the presidency, liberals

and conservatives united to drive him out of the country. Walker received unofficial

support from the United States government and from many United States citizens.

PROLONGED WARS

354
point of view of the United States, since few United States

troops were directly involved. Economic destabilization

measures climaxed by total embargo, the propaganda

campaign against the Sandinistas, clandestine support of

Sandinista opponents, intimidation tactics such as the

unprecedented scale of United States military maneuvers in

Honduras, and diplomatic efforts to isolate Nicaragua

internationally all support the categorization of low-intensity

conflict from the United States perspective. Nevertheless, the

crucial measure of casualties forces the observer to tip the scale

toward war rather than low-intensity conflict.

Lives lost on both sides reached approximately 40,000.

The Sandinistas claimed that 30,000 Nicaraguans, including

civilians, died by the violence of the war. The physical and

economic devastation of Nicaragua, while difficult to

measure, was so great that any impartial visitor to Managua

or any other city in Nicaragua in 1990 would have concluded

that a war had been fought. If one embraces the figures

agreed to by the World Court decision of 1986, Nicaraguan

losses as a result of the war amounted to approximately $3

billion.5 Financial losses to the United States were not so

easily quantifiable due to a partial clandestinity, creative use

of military assistance to Honduras, diversion of National

Guard detachments from various states and regular Defense

Department expenditures, and congressional appropriations

for the contras, but by any financial measure, they were

substantial.

Considering the length of the war, the degree of

mobilization, the level of military expenditures, the number

of casualties, the physical destruction, the intensity of the

debate in the United States about United States indirect

military involvement, the degree of international

participation, and the devastation inflicted on Nicaragua,

the conflict deserves to be designated a prolonged war.

Writers who deal with the history of Nicaragua during the

1980s generally agree that the Contra War was indeed a

prolonged war.6 Nevertheless, it should be added that in

official communiques and press releases throughout the

decade, Washington policy was never to use the “w” word.

STANSIFER

355
The Issue of Prolongation

Neither the Sandinistas nor the contras expected a long war.

It is arguable that the Sandinistas were aware that leftist

governments in Guatemala in the 1950s and in Chile in the

1970s both failed because of the inadequate attention given to

military defense. The Sandinistas were also aware that the

survival of the Fidel Castro revolution in the 1960s was due in

part to military preparedness, and they began to form

alliances and to build military strength in the expectation of a

counterrevolution. It is doubtful, however, that they anticipated a 10-year-long struggle for survival.7

The contras must have expected major resistance in view of

their initial efforts to build up an invasion force, but few

contra leaders could have imagined a decade of fighting. They

made two critical mistakes: they exaggerated the weaknesses

of the Sandinista government, and they overestimated the

commitment of the United States to victory. Deprived of even a

good opportunity to invade in force, contra leaders had to

settle for a war of attrition. A number of historical circumstances, particularly the larger-than-expected support of the

Sandinistas by the Soviet bloc and uncertainty of continued

support by the United States, brought about a prolongation of

the war, which left the contras exhausted, their United States

ally divided, and the Sandinistas still in power but ruling over

a prostrate nation. The following pages analyze the factors

responsible for the prolongation of the war.

Historical Perspectives

This author has attempted to explain the reasons for the

prolongation of the Contra War, but I must first deal with

Nicaragua’s history. Nicaragua’s political history since

attaining independence in the early nineteenth century has

been marked by partisan strife. The strength of the two

traditional political parties, conservative and liberal, remained

approximately equal well into the twentieth century, when

regional and family rivalries centering on the liberal capital of

PROLONGED WARS

356
León and the conservative headquarters of Granada had

become deeply entrenched. Even the establishment of

Managua as a compromise capital in the middle of the

nineteenth century failed to blunt the partisanship.

Unfortunately, for the establishment of a stable political

system and peaceful political exchange, it had become

customary for the party in power not only to repress the

opposition but also to make the out-of-power party pay

economically in various ways for its political misfortunes.

Outside forces contributed mightily to political

partisanship. Since Nicaragua had originally been a part of

the Central American Confederation (1821–38), it was

common for the losing political party to call for assistance

from ideological compatriots beyond the national

boundaries. In a period of growing nationalism, as was the

nineteenth century, one can see that this behavior opened

the parties to charges of treason, thereby aggravating the

political debate. In 1856, when the Liberal party found

itself in an unusually desperate plight and resorted to

calling on United States citizen William Walker and his

band of filibusterers for military assistance, the breach

between liberals and conservatives widened seriously. In

1909 conservatives compounded the problems of political

divisiveness when they accepted official support from the

United States government to overthrow a liberal dictator. In

effect both political groupings in Nicaragua could accuse the

other of treasonous complicity with the colossus of the

North. United States military occupation from 1912 to 1928,

at a time of conservative ascendancy, further embittered

Nicaraguan politics.

The United States agreed to supervise the Nicaraguan

elections of 1928 and 1932 from registration to vote counting.

Both elections resulted in liberal victories. By 1933 the United

States troops had been withdrawn, and a Liberal party

president was left in charge. But in the meantime the

Nicaraguan National Guard had been trained by United States

Marines, who had placed control of the guard in the hands of

Anastasio Somoza Garcìa, a Liberal party member. Somoza

proceeded to throw out the duly elected president in 1936 and

thereafter ruled as a dictator until he was assassinated in

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1956. Luis Somoza Debayle, then president of Congress,

automatically succeeded his father as president, thus

establishing a pro-American dynasty of political hegemony. In

the popular Nicaraguan mind, the Somoza dictatorship had

become identified with the United States.

From 1956 to 1979 the Somoza family controlled the

destinies of Nicaraguans. When Luis died of a heart attack in

1967, his brother Anastasio Somoza Debayle ascended to the

presidency and served as president or chief of the National

Guard from 1967 to 1979. Each of the Somozas was successful in persuading Nicaraguan citizens that the United States

unconditionally supported the Nicaraguan government.

Nicaraguans felt they could do nothing to break the Somoza

political stranglehold because of perceived United States

backing. As the Somoza dynasty grew more opportunistic and

more repressive in the 1970s, Nicaraguans directed their

antagonism to both the dictatorship and its ally, the United

States. The United States, preoccupied with major problems in

China and the Soviet Union, gave Central America little

attention and allowed itself, almost inadvertently, to become a

factor in intensifying Nicaraguan partisan rivalry.

The traditional conservative opposition, which like the

Somoza family, was pro-American and ineffectual during the

Somoza period and lost its primary opposition role. Some

conservatives were co-opted, some were content to divert their

energies to cultural and entrepreneurial pursuits, and others

were silenced. With minor exceptions, conservatives chose not

to advocate violence. Nicaragua was approaching the point in

its history where liberal-conservative arguments were meaningless and neither party seemed aware of a surging antiAmericanism. Into the breach stepped the Frente Sandinista

de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) which was organized in 1961 as

a Marxist guerrilla movement to overthrow the dictatorship.

Small at first and on the verge of extinction at times, the FSLN

grew in prestige and in numbers as it carried out successful

raids and attacks on the government in the 1970s. The legacy

of partisanship and violence was intact but dormant; the

Sandinistas revitalized it, linked it with antiimperialism, and

rode into office with it.

PROLONGED WARS

358
Sandinista Rule

Having led the insurrection against the Somoza dynasty, the

FSLN was rewarded with power in July 1979, when Anastasio

Somoza Debayle, his cabinet, and the highest officers of the

National Guard fled the country. Of the five-person

government junta of national reconstruction, two positions

were held by conservatives, while Sandinistas retained the

remaining three. No one in Nicaragua at this time doubted,

however, that the real authority resided in the hands of the

nine commandants who staffed the National Directorate of the

FSLN.

The Sandinista government sought, as indicated by

statements of the junta and the commandants, to establish a

government of political pluralism, mixed enterprise, and

non-alignment. Nevertheless, it was clear from the expressed

Marxist-Leninist commitment of some of the commandants

and from the early steps taken to establish relationships with

Cuba and the Soviet Union, and with such other national

liberation movements as that of Vietnam that fear of

Sovietization among Nicaraguans—especially middle- and

upper-class Nicaraguans—was palpable. Outspoken antiCommunist opposition and disillusion with Sandinista

leadership appeared in March 1980, giving greater Sandinista

representation than before in the junta and in the Council of

State. As the Sandinistas tightened their grip on political and

economic institutions and revealed the depth of their

commitment to redistributive politics, opposition increased. By

September 1980, when the Sandinista government announced

that it would postpone elections until 1985, the gap between

the Sandinistas and the anti-Sandinistas (made up of adherents of all political parties) was sufficiently wide that violent

resistance became a distinct possibility.8

A nucleus of resistance to the Sandinistas was already in

place, in the traditional Central American manner, in border

states. Honduras, on the northern border of Nicaragua, gave

refuge to a substantial number of ex-National Guardsmen.

Costa Rica, the customary haven for middle-class Nicaraguans

in exile, already provided sanctuary for many conservative

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anti-Sandinistas. Guatemala and the United States, especially

the State of Florida, housed additional dissidents.

An additional circumstance favoring armed resistance to the

Nicaraguan government was the hostility of the Miskitos and

other Indian groups toward the Sandinistas. The Indians had

lived along Nicaragua’s Caribbean shore for centuries and

along the Honduran border in relative isolation and had

seldom had good relations with any government in Managua,

least of all with governments with such centralizing tendencies

as the Sandinista government. The Indians were among the

first contra recruits.

Throughout Central American history, political exiles have

clustered in border countries for the purpose of conspiring

against the government in power. Historically, any personal or

ideological grievance held by persons in power in one state in

Central America against another may have resulted in these

individuals taking action to weaken or overthrow a neighboring government. Since several Central American governments, particularly Costa Rica, Panama, and Honduras, had

helped the Sandinistas to drive Somoza out, they tended to

believe that they had a special responsibility for the behavior

of the Sandinistas. When the Sandinista government turned

more sharply toward the Soviet bloc than they expected,

governments in Costa Rica, Panama, and Honduras—all

anti-Communist—began to consider giving aid to the enemies

of the Sandinistas. The logical place for staging a counterrevolution was Honduras, which was closest to the Miskito

homelands and where most Nicaraguan exiles with military

training were located. In addition to being close and available,

Honduras also proved to be far more submissive than any

other Central American country to United States pressure to

assist opponents of the Sandinistas.

A comparison with circumstances respecting Cuba in 1959

and its anti-Castro exiles is instructive. Anti-Castro Cuban

refugees in Florida who planned armed resistance were forced

to attack by commando-like raids across water. A large-scale

invasion was impossible without large-scale United States

logistical support and training, and as the Bay of Pigs fiasco

shows, even that was inadequate. Once on Cuban soil, there

was little possibility of returning to a safe refuge. AntiPROLONGED WARS

360
Sandinista refugees, however, could organize and train

military resistance with relative impunity in border states, and

support from the United States, which they also counted on,

could be carried on in friendly countries without exposure to

attack. Both the Castro and Sandinista governments enjoyed

widespread popular support in the beginning and thus were

not likely to be easily toppled by raids or guerrilla warfare.

Circumstances favored Castro in Cuba, resulting in a

confrontation and a Cuban victory. Circumstances in Central

America favored a buildup of forces, clandestine penetration,

and guerrilla raids, resulting in a prolonged war.

Role of Ideology and Religion

The intensity of the Nicaraguan political conflict was not

unlike previous conflicts in its history. This time, however,

ideological differences played a greater role in the division than

regional or family ties, and for the first time in Nicaragua’s

history, Marxism and anti-Marxism replaced conservatism and

liberalism as the fulcrum of political debate. Sandinistas

minimized but did not conceal their ideology with that of

Augusto César Sandino, who had successfully fought against

United States Marines in the 1927–33 period. Sandino was

neither an ideologue nor a Marxist. In his early years, he was a

typical liberal with strong anticlerical views. He became a

spiritualist, a nationalist, and an antiimperialist, whose

principal motivation was hatred of United States occupation of

his country. His sympathies were with the peasants and the

workers.9 Nevertheless, the most determined opponents of the

Sandinistas tended to equate the new Sandinismo with

Marxism, and the official Washington interpretation supported

this contention.

Sandinista leaders of the 1970s and 1980s, who were

inspired by Sandino’s stand against the United States Marines

and who were guided to some extent by his guerrilla strategy,

were motivated by Marxism, Leninism, and liberation theology.

They cultivated Sandino’s nationalism and his sympathy for

the masses, but they gave greater attention than he did to the

idea of solidarity with liberation causes around the world. In

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361
his later years, Sandino did show interest in international

issues, but his principal objective was to remove the occupying

forces. The Sandinistas planned to decrease Nicaragua’s

historical dependency on the United States by fostering close

relationships with Cuba, Vietnam, East Europe, the Soviet

Union, and, it should be added, with Western Europe and the

Arab countries. Although Sandinista leadership did not call for

public ownership of all enterprises in Cuba and in the Soviet

bloc, the commandants did insist that private enterprise be

rigidly controlled by the state and that entrepreneurs as a

class be excluded from political power.

Contra ideology is not as easy to characterize. For one thing,

leadership of the contras changed frequently and different

leaders emphasized different programs. For another, the

contras concentrated on the war and not on their ideology;

they had no specific constituency to respond to and held no

significant ideological congresses. Furthermore, the contra

leadership, especially in the early phases of the war, consisted

primarily of ex-National Guardsmen, who looked to a

restoration of a Somoza-like regime and who had little interest

in ideology or even in specific political programs.10 As the FDN

organized and civilians took over the role as interpreters of the

contra platform of the resistance, expectations of ideological

clarity were raised. Changes in leadership orchestrated by the

United States and personal rivalries among contra leaders

nevertheless prevented a clear, consistent exposition of the

contra position. Furthermore, contra military commanders

operating from Honduras, Costa Rica, or the United States

were isolated from their natural political allies inside

Nicaragua. Political opposition to the Sandinistas inside

Nicaragua had to minimize contact with the contras lest they

expose themselves to the charge of treason. This situation

deprived contra leaders of domestic political input. Contras

and political opponents of the Sandinistas inside Nicaragua

generally agreed on opposition to communism but had little

opportunity to carve out a common platform. Some political

opponents of the Sandinista government inside Nicaragua, it

should be added, were more fearful of a return to Somocismo

under the contras than they were of a continuation of

PROLONGED WARS

362
Sandinismo. Political ideology, in short, was not a powerful

contra weapon.

Religion played a special role in Sandinista ideology and in

the Contra War. Students of the Nicaraguan war generally

agree that the Nicaraguan Catholic Church before 1979 was

weak institutionally and tended to identify with the oligarchy.

Conservatives in Nicaragua, as elsewhere in Latin America,

were the principal defenders of the church establishment.

Thus, the doctrine of liberation theology, which attempted to

turn the hierarchy’s attention to the poor and which had

growing influence in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s

had a special appeal to those who opposed the Somoza

dictatorship. Indeed, of the three branches of the FSLN, the

largest branch, the insurrecionistas or the terceristas, was the

least Marxist and the most closely identified with liberation

theology. It should be pointed out, though, that Christian

revolutionaries like Father Ernesto Cardenal, a Trappist monk,

not only saw no conflict between Sandinismo and Christianity,

but he maintained that being a twentieth-century Christian in

Nicaragua made it necessary to be a Sandinista.11

To the extent that the Sandinistas sought to capture

religious sentiment for their revolution, they constituted a

significant threat to traditional Catholic values. The contras

successfully courted the Nicaraguan Catholic hierarchy for the

purpose of weakening internal support for the Sandinistas.

Although their hierarchy never explicitly endorsed the cause of

the contras, Catholic refusal to condemn the contras was

considered by the Sandinistas as equivalent to an

endorsement. Miguel Obando y Bravo, a Nicaraguan priest

designated as archbishop of Nicaragua in March 1970 and

elevated to the rank of cardinal in June 1985, played a vital

role in all major events of Nicaraguan politics during the

Sandinista insurrection and the Sandinista government.

During the last years of the Somoza dictatorship, he had his

own popularity by distancing himself and the church from the

government, supporting human rights, and displaying

evenhandedness in mediation between the Somoza

government and the Sandinistas. As opposition to the

Sandinistas grew after 1979, he increasingly identified with

this opposition. Although he was never immune to Sandinista

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363
criticism and even calumny, his stature as an unimpeachable

religious figure rose enormously when he became a cardinal.

As in Poland in the same period, the Catholic church became a

refuge for opponents of the Sandinista government. As the war

came to a close, the Sandinistas and the contras turned to

Obando as a mediator. Pope John Paul II’s visit to Nicaragua

in 1983 was an additional inspiration to Catholic opponents of

the Sandinistas, as the Pope made it clear that he disapproved

of extremist Sandinista measures.12

Antidictatorship was another facet of the ideological

confrontation. An intense hatred of dictatorship had united

nearly all Nicaraguans behind the Sandinista leadership

against Somoza in 1978–79. To the extent that the Sandinistas

could identify the contras as somocistas, they won popular

support at home. By the same token, the contras attempted to

minimize any connection with the former Somoza regime. But

as the Sandinista-controlled junta and Council of State

marched steadily leftward, courting friendly economic

relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and

friendly ideological dialogue with Vietnam and North Korea,

and as the Sandinistas began to arrest dissenters, prohibit

strikes, censor the press, and in general take arbitrary

measures, the advantage of antidictatorial ideology shifted to

the contras. In the propaganda war, it was important to be

antidictatorial; the contras, despite their past connections to

Somoza, shed the mantle of dictatorship, became “freedom

fighters,” and gained the advantage.

The Role of the Cold War

The cold war fueled the Contra War. The leftist pronouncements of the Sandinistas, their anticapitalist policies, their

open harassment of their domestic enemies, their friendship

with Fidel Castro, their cultivation of and ultimate dependence

on the Soviet bloc, and their attempt to disguise or cloak their

affiliation with the Soviet bloc by emphasizing their “nonalignment” overshadowed every moderate policy and action in

the minds of contras and Washington policymakers. This was

particularly true in the first two years of the Reagan adminisPROLONGED WARS

364
tration, when Gen Alexander Haig served as secretary of state.

In reality differences among the nine commandants, who ruled

Nicaragua through the directorate of the FSLN and the

international pressures of Nicaragua’s neighbors, dictated

many compromises and concessions to the opposition inside

Nicaragua. These concessions slowed the revolutionary

process. But Washington’s belief in Nicaragua’s allegiance to

the Cuban model and its fear of the introduction of a

substantial Soviet military presence caused it to take the

position that tolerance of the Nicaraguan revolution was not

possible. President Reagan and his closest advisers were

determined to bring down the Sandinistas. The result was

all-out support of the contras, even if the American public and

the Congress were not as apprehensive about the possibility of

a Soviet satellite in Central America as was the Reagan

administration.

Polls taken throughout the 1980s revealed conclusively that

Americans, while concerned about the Soviet presence on the

continent, never supported the policy of removing the

Sandinistas from power.13 Congress’ ambivalence is clearly

shown in the occasional support of the contras in response to

the president’s repeated and urgent requests and its

contradictory support of the various Boland amendments.

These amendments, which were passed by large majorities,

prohibited the executive branch from using funds supplied by

Congress to overthrow the Sandinista government. This

anomaly forced the Reagan administration, in an effort to

placate Congress, to resort to clandestine and private

measures on behalf of the contras and to moderate its publicly

stated aims in the war. While few observers doubted that the

Reagan administration sought to destroy the Sandinista

government, none of the contra leaders would dare suggest to

their own followers that they intended anything less than the

destruction of the Sandinistas. To appease Congress, however,

Reagan administration spokesmen usually referred to war

aims as stopping the Nicaraguan-El Salvadoran arms flow and

forcing the Sandinistas to take a more moderate position.

Nevertheless, the war aim of the Reagan administration, as

carried out in policy and actions, was to remove the

Sandinistas from power. This was a position based more on

STANSIFER

365
preoccupation with Soviet-United States rivalry than on

opposition to the internal dynamics of the Sandinista

revolution.

Failure to bring down the Sandinistas eventually drastically

modified the war aims of the contras. As the fighting

diminished in 1988 and 1989 and as contra hopes for a contra

government in Managua evaporated, the Sandinistas began to

relax the harsh measures previously taken in response to the

Arias Plan and promised to move up the presidential elections

originally scheduled in November 1990 to February 1990. The

Sandinistas also promised to invite international election

observers, including officials from the United Nations and the

Organization of American States. Contras, with no hope of

replacing the Sandinistas, could congratulate themselves that

they had been at least partially responsible for the change.

Conclusion

Civil conflict in Nicaragua has been recurrent and harsh.

Nothing, however, in its history has been as destructive as the

Contra War of 1981–90, which caused approximately 50,000

deaths and brought economic devastation to most of the

country. While bitter ideological differences and political

rivalries contributed to the intensity of the fighting, it seems

clear that this civil conflict was particularly profound and

prolonged because of the decision by the United States to

support one side, that of the contras. Alone, the contras could

not seriously have challenged Sandinista power. Allied to the

United States, they had a chance. From 1981 to 1989 the

policy of the United States, although not always expressed

openly in these terms, was the use of contra forces to remove

the Sandinistas from power and replace them with a

government friendly to Washington. For that reason, no diplomatic initiative which fell short of dislodging the Sandinista

government was received seriously in Washington during that

period. The determination to extract the Sandinistas from

Managua was the principal factor in the prolongation of the

war. And President Ronald Reagan was the principal reason

for this determination.

PROLONGED WARS

366
President Reagan was not alone in his conviction that the

Sandinista ideology was communist and therefore

unacceptable and that the Sandinista alliance with the Soviet

Union posed an inadmissible threat to the security of the

United States. But in contrast to the presidents before and

after him, namely Jimmy Carter and George Bush, both of

whom were willing to accept the Sandinistas in office as long

as they did not convert Nicaragua into a Soviet military base,

Reagan adamantly insisted on unconditional surrender and

resorted to extraordinary, questionable measures to bring the

Nicaraguan government down. Despite Reagan’s popularity as

president and his determination of this issue, he never

convinced the United States’ public and Congress to give

Nicaragua the same priority he gave it. As a consequence, the

war dragged on.

Looking at it from the opposite perspective, that of the

Sandinistas, there are several determining factors in their

commitment to the war, despite the political and financial cost

and despite the seeming futility of resisting forces supported

by a superpower. First, students of previous revolutions in

Latin America knew that massive mobilization was necessary

to preserve their victory, and they were willing to risk the

economic distress to carry out the mobilization. Second, the

nine commandants who governed Nicaragua through their

control of the FSLN were experienced guerrilla fighters who

had learned patience in the protracted insurrection against

the Somoza regime. Third, following the Cuban example, the

Sandinistas counted on financial and military support from

the Soviet bloc. The Sandinistas did not expect the Soviet

Union or Cuba to fight in the trenches in their behalf, but they

knew that their Marxist-Leninist outlook, while not a slavish

copy of the Soviet or Cuban political model, would force the

Soviet bloc to render assistance. Fourth, the Sandinistas came

into power in 1979 with an enormously popular following.

They had, after all, toppled the hated Somoza dynasty, and

their success banked respect and popularity for them, which

did not dissipate until the economy was in ruins. And lastly, at

least some Sandinistas saw the war and deprivation as an

advantage, because it justified the radical measures they

favored in the first place. The longer the war, the more radical

STANSIFER

367
the revolution. These factors contributed to determined

resistance and a prolonged war.

Notes

1.-Norma Hamilton et al., Crisis in Central America: Regional Dynamics

and U.S. Policy in the 1980s (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988), contains

several articles pertinent to diplomatic negotiations concerning the Contra

War. Various Contadora documents are contained in Bruce Bagley et al.,

eds., Contadora and the Central American Peace Process: Selected

Documents (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985). For the Arias Plan, see

Charles L. Stansifer and Michael E. Conroy, eds., Extraordinary

Opportunities and New Risks: Final Report of the LASA Commission on

Compliance with the Central American Peace Accord (Pittsburgh: Latin

American Studies Association, 1989); and Marc Edelman and Joanne

Kenen, eds., The Costa Rica Reader (New York: Grove Press, 1989).

2.-Stephen Kinzer, Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua (New

York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1991), 341–75.

3.-For a full report on the election and its aftermath, see John Booth et

al., Electoral Democracy under International Pressure: The Report of the Latin

Americana Studies Association Commission to Observe the 1990 Nicaraguan

Election (Pittsburgh: Latin American Studies Association, 1990).

4.-For a summary of President Reagan’s statements concerning the

overthrow of the Sandinista government and the roles of Central Intelligence

Agency director William Casey and others in the formulation of policy, see

Roy Gutman, Banana Diplomacy: The Making of American Policy in

Nicaragua, 1981–1987 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 272–76.

5.-Daniel Ortega, “Address by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to the

United Nations,” 8 October 1987, in Daniel Sheehan and Daniel Ortega,

Assault on Nicaragua: The Untold Story of the U.S. “Secret War” (San

Francisco: Walnut Publishing Company, 1987), 81.

6.-See William I. Robinson and Kent Norsworthy, David and Goliath: The

U.S. War against Nicaragua (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987); Holly

Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua (Boston: South End Press, 1988); E.

Bradford Burns, At War in Nicaragua: The Reagan Doctrine and the Politics

of Nostalgia (New York: Harper & Row, 1987); Thomas W. Walker, ed.,

Reagan versus the Sandinistas: The Undeclared War on Nicaragua (Boulder,

Colo.: Westview Press, 1987); and Stephen Kinzer, Blood of Brothers: Life

and War in Nicaragua (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1991). In the many

journalistic accounts of Nicaragua in the 1980s, sympathizers with the

Sandinista government generally refer to the United States-Nicaragua

confrontation as a war. One example is Salman Rushdie, who says, “When

the Reagan administration began its war against Nicaragua, I recognized a

deeper affinity with that small country.” See Salman Rushdie, The Jaguar

Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 12. Early in

the Contra War Sandinista leaders, accustomed to military metaphors in the

guerrilla campaign against Somoza and in the organization of civil matters

immediately after their victory in 1979, referred to counterrevolutionary

activity as warfare. For example see Daniel Ortega, “An Appeal for Justice

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368
and Peace” (speech before the United Nations General Assembly on 7

October 1981), in Sandinistas Speak: Speeches, Writings, and Interviews

with Leaders of Nicaragua’s Revolution (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1982),

150.

7.-Thomas Borge, one of the founding members of the FSLN and minister

of interior in the Sandinista government, was the acknowledged head of the

FSLN faction known as the Prolonged People’s War (Guerra Popular

Prolongada or GPP) during the 18-year campaign of the FSLN against the

Somoza regime. Relying to a degree on the Chinese and Vietnamese

experience, Borge emphasized the need to educate the Nicaraguan

peasantry in socialism and gradually to build a powerful rural base before

confronting the Somoza regime. However, Borge’s faction lost favor at the

time of the Sandinista victory in 1979 because the guerrilla strategy of the

other two factions, the proletarians (proletarios) and the Insurrectionists

(insurrecionistas), proved to be successful. The Proletarians advocated a

showdown with the government in the form of an urban workers’ revolt, and

the insurrectionists favored capitalizing on the growing anti-Somoza

sentiment of all classes on behalf of an immediate confrontation with the

dictator. In view of the long counterrevolution of the 1980s and the electoral

defeat of the Sandinistas in February 1990, one might expect the GPP

faction to recover its ascendancy in the FSLN.

8.-The best overall account of the fall of the Somoza dynasty and the first

few years of the Sandinista government is John A. Booth, The End and the

Beginning: The Nicaraguan Revolution, 2d ed. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview

Press, 1985).

9.-The best source on the ideology of Sandino is Donald C. Hodges,

Intellectual Foundations of the Nicaraguan Revolution (Austin, Tex.:

University of Texas Press, 1986). See also Robert E. Conrad, ed., Sandino:

The Testimony of a Nicaraguan Patriot, 1921–1934 (Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton University Press, 1990).

10.-Who Are the Contras? An Analysis of the Makeup of the Military

Leadership of the Rebel Forces, and of the Nature of the Private American

Groups Providing them Financial and Material Support (Washington, D.C.:

Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus, 1985).

11.-Ernesto Cardenal, La santidad de la revolucion (Salamanca:

Ediciones Sigueme, 1976), 20. See also Alvaro Arguello, ed., Fe cristiana y

revolucion sandinista en Nifaragua (Managua: Instituto Historico

Centroamericana, 1980).

12.-For a comprehensive analysis of the role of religion in the Sandinista

revolution, see Michael Dodson and Laura Nuzzi O’Shaugnessy, Nicaragua’s

other Revolution: Religious Faith and Political Struggle (Chapel Hill, N.C.:

University of North Carolina Press, 1990).

13.-Washington Office on Latin America Staff and William M. LeoGrande,

Central America and the Polls (Washington, D.C.: Washington Office on Latin

America, 1987).

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369
The Prolongation of the

United States in Vietnam

Earl H. Tilford, Jr.

War is the most complex of human undertakings and defies

definition. To some observers, war is a condition of formally

and legally declared interstate violence. To others, the word

war can be used to describe a condition of intense economic

competition, such as trade war. Modifiers cloud its meaning as

they allude to limited war and total war. While wars manifest

themselves in many ways, they do not just happen.

How the United States and the communist Vietnamese

approached their war is illustrative. For the communists, their

fight with the United States and the Saigon regime was

purposeful. Their objectives were constant, achievable, and

better defined. Their political and military leaders, in working

to achieve those objectives, devised superior strategies which,

eventually, produced victory. The communists wanted to make

the Americans suffer—over an extended period of time—until

they gave up. Washington, on the other hand, constantly

changed its ill-defined goals. Three presidential administrations

avoided declaring war, and one of the biggest complaints of the

generals and admirals who fought—and lost—America’s war in

Vietnam was that they were never allowed “to win.” Whether

they could have won or not is, at best, a matter of conjecture.

Without clearly defined political goals, however, the generals

found it impossible to devise a coherent strategy. The result

was a prolonged conflict.

Indeed, the American war in Vietnam was long. It spanned a

generation, from 26 September 1945, when Office of Strategic

Services Capt Peter M. Dewey was shot by Viet Minh troops at

a roadblock near Tan Son Nhut, until 29 April 1975, when US

Marine Cpl Charles McMahon, Jr., was struck by shrapnel

from a North Vietnamese rocket during the final American exit

from Saigon.1 In the years between 1945 and 1975, 58,000

Americans died in Indochina—46,000 of them in combat—and

300,000 were wounded.2 The war tore at the fabric of

371
American society, directly causing the demise of the Lyndon B.

Johnson administration and indirectly that of his successor,

Richard M. Nixon. For a decade after the fall of South Vietnam to

communist troops in 1975, the American nation seemed at times

to suffer from self-doubt or, at best, a lack of self-confidence.

Origins of the Vietnam War

Historians do not agree on when the Vietnam War began.

Those who examine the war from the Vietnamese perspective

trace its beginning to 1885, when Emperor Ham Nghi joined

the resistance against the French, which had been sputtering

in the countryside since 1859.3 For the French, their Indochina War began on 19 December 1946, when Viet Minh

guerrillas attacked their installations throughout Vietnam and

then melted into the jungles as a prelude to an eight-year-long

protracted struggle.4 For the United States, the official casualty

count—the one reflected on the Vietnam War Memorial in

Washington, D.C.—begins with the names Maj Dale Buis and

MSgt Chester Ovnard. They were killed by Vietcong snipers at

Bien Hoa on 8 July 1959.5 Historians do not agree when the

war began, or for that matter, when—or if—it has ended.

Another ambiguity is that what is referred to as the Vietnam

War involved a number of related conflicts going on

throughout Indochina simultaneously. In Laos, there was a

civil war between neutralists and pro-American rightists on

the one side and communist Pathet Lao and pro-Communist

Neutralists, allied with North Vietnam, on the other. In

southeastern Laos, the North Vietnamese occupied the border

area, where they operated their extensive infiltration and

logistical system known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In northern

Laos, the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao struggled among

irregulars under the command of Gen Vang Pao, a chieftain

supported by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In northwestern Laos, former Chinese nationalist army units,

along with Lao and Burmese warlords, struggled for control of

the hills on which opium poppies were grown and the

mountains, where jungle laboratories processed opium into

heroin. To the south, there was a communist-supported

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insurgency in northern Thailand. Another separate

communist-inspired insurgency simmered in the Thai portion

of the Malay Peninsula. In Cambodia, the North Vietnamese

and Vietcong occupied sanctuaries along the border of South

Vietnam and with the approval of the government of Norodom

Sihanouk until 1970. With the approval of the same Sihanouk

government, the US Air Force began to bomb those

sanctuaries in March 1959. In March 1970, after Sihanouk’s

generals overthrew him, the Cambodian army turned on the

Vietnamese communists in the border region, and before long

the whole country was engulfed in war.

These wars notwithstanding, the United States, North

Vietnam, and South Vietnam were the principal protagonists.

Therefore, as one considers the dynamics of prolonged conflict

and protracted war, one must focus on the national objectives

and military strategies of the parties involved. Ultimately, the

only national objectives that mattered were those of the United

States and North Vietnam. Furthermore, the years 1959 to

1975 form a unified period during which the United States

was militarily involved.

The United States and

Prolonged Conflict: 1959–1968

The United States became involved in the Vietnam War as a

part of the cold war struggle against what was perceived as an

international communist movement. A cold war mindset led

the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations into the initial

commitment, prevented Lyndon Johnson from reversing that

commitment, and defined the way Richard Nixon extricated US

troops from Vietnam. In 1959 Washington believed the real

enemy was a Peking and Moscow cabal bent on world

domination, not someone in the rice paddies and jungles of

South Vietnam. From the beginning, the United States made

its commitment to Vietnam as a part of a larger and prolonged

ideological struggle against international communism.

Until 1965, American foreign policy tended to be declamatory and morally based. The cold war was a moral crusade for

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both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. President

John F. Kennedy set the tone of American foreign policy in his

inaugural address when he vowed to “pay any price, bear any

burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any

foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.”6 This was an

open-ended commitment to employ the resources of the United

States to accomplish whatever needed to be done to support

“the success of liberty.” Since liberty was assumed to be morally

superior to totalitarian communism, this was the equivalent of

Woodrow Wilson’s pledge to “make the world safe for

democracy.” Such commitments failed to advance specific

goals pertinent to the interests of the United States.

Part of the ideological struggle was to support virtually any

regime which depicted itself as being “anticommunist.” From 1955

to 1963 Washington’s commitment to support the Ngo Dinh Diem

regime was part of that effort “to assure the success of liberty.”

While Diem was a nationalist, his regime—in addition to being the

creation of the United States—was hardly democratic.

Another factor leading to the prolongation of the conflict was

the way America introduced its forces into combat. A great deal

of the initial military commitment was made covertly and in

small, seemingly tolerable, if not insignificant, amounts. Even

among those American units assigned to Vietnam, there was

little understanding as to what their mission was supposed to be.

For example, the US Air Force’s 4400th Combat Crew Training

Squadron, sent to Vietnam in later 1961 in Operation Farm

Gate, had as its overt mission the training of pilots for the South

Vietnamese Air Force. Its covert mission, however, was to fly

close-air-support missions for the Army of the Republic of

Vietnam (ARVN). The pilots in Operation Farm Gate had

volunteered for this outfit thinking they would be flying into

places like China or Cuba to insert agents or saboteurs. One of

these pilots remembered that “no one bothered to tell us this

wasn’t an insurgency operation. It would be counterinsurgency,

or maybe the Air Force didn’t know the difference.”7

After the ARVN generals deposed and murdered Ngo Dinh

Diem in early November 1963, it became increasingly more

difficult to depict United States policy as assuring “the survival

and success of liberty.” In this crucial period, while the Kennedy

administration reexamined its Vietnam policy, an assassin

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claimed the life of the president. Lyndon B. Johnson inherited

the approach of his predecessor’s administration and, from 22

November 1963 until the presidential election one year later,

he focused mainly on getting elected. America’s Vietnam policy

went on hold during a critical phase of the political and

military conflict in Indochina. During that year, as South

Vietnamese generals busily overthrew each others’ regimes,

the Vietcong grew in power in the countryside. Furthermore,

Hanoi increased its aid to the Vietcong, rearming them with

such Soviet-bloc weapons as the AK-47 assault rifle.

Domestic political considerations also served to prolong the

conflict. Johnson did not want to cope with the Vietnam War. He

wanted the Great Society and Vietnam intruded on that. But the

two were related, whether he liked it or not. Johnson could not

have the Great Society unless he was elected in 1964. He

believed that United States’ involvement in a large war in Asia

might jeopardize that election. On the other hand, if the

Communists succeeded, even if he were elected president in 1964,

Johnson believed the right wing of the Democratic party would

have all the ammunition it needed to thwart his liberal domestic

agenda. In early 1964 the president and his cabinet, and by

extension the Pentagon and State Department, were prisoners of

election-year politics. According to the Pentagon Papers, the

decision to bomb North Vietnam was made in the aftermath of

the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964. But until he had

won the presidential election, Johnson wanted to keep his

initiatives in Vietnam as low key as possible. American policy in

1964 revolved around covert actions, which were a prelude to

what was to be an expanded commitment in 1965. Throughout

1964, a crucial year in which the North Vietnamese rearmed the

Vietcong and increased their own commitment to the struggle,

US policy was indecisive and ambiguous, because of domestic

political considerations. The result was that the Communists

took the initiative and never relinquished it. While Washington’s

half-hearted efforts did nothing but prolong the conflict, Hanoi

was left free to protract the war as a part of its overall strategy.8

In 1965, the war went to a new level of intensified fighting,

with increased involvement by both sides. Operation Rolling

Thunder, the bombing of North Vietnam, got underway on 2

March. It became the longest bombing campaign ever

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conducted by the US Air Force, lasting some three years and

five months. During Rolling Thunder, Air Force, Navy, and

Marine Corps planes bombed roads and bridges, military

barracks and radar installations, railyards and petroleum

storage areas, as well as airfields and military headquarters.

The bombing had three objectives:

1. Strategic persuasion. To persuade Hanoi to stop supporting the

Vietcong and to negotiate an end to the conflict.

2. Interdiction. After July 1965, the focus switched to cutting the flow

of men and supplies moving south toward battlefields inside South

Vietnam.

3. Morale. To boost the morale of South Vietnamese military elites who

were too busy overthrowing each others’ governments to effectively

prosecute the war.9

Three years and five months after the first strikes, Rolling

Thunder failed to achieve its objective, even though the United

States had flown a million sorties, had dropped nearly 800,000

tons of bombs, and had lost 900 American aircraft.10 In addition, Rolling Thunder was counterproductive in that it prolonged the war. The objectives of Rolling Thunder were based on

misperceptions concerning the sociocultural values of the North

Vietnamese and some erroneous assumptions about Hanoi’s war

goals.

First, there was the assumption that since North Vietnam had

only a handful of industries, the threatened destruction of these

factories would deter the politburo from supporting the Vietcong.

Industries were not targeted immediately. Second, it was

assumed that the bombing would affect the will of the people of

North Vietnam by depriving them of electricity and by disrupting

their transportation system. However, since the bombing was

restrained, and its intensity only gradually increased, the people

had plenty of time to adjust to it. In fact, the bombing played into

the hands of Hanoi’s propaganda machine by galvanizing the will

of the people behind the war effort.11 Finally, as for Hanoi’s war

goals, the United States made what was perhaps its most crucial

error of the war by assuming that because Washington’s goals

were limited, Hanoi’s were as well, and that the North

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Vietnamese leadership could be dissuaded with limited

applications of force.

Further contributing to the prolongation of the conflict, Rolling

Thunder escalated, and the target list was expanded over time,

giving the North Vietnamese not only the time to get used to the

bombing but also time to compensate for its destructive effects.

When North Vietnam realized what little impact the bombing

was having on their ability to move supplies south, they

increased the flow of men and materiel to escalate the ground

war in the South. From 1965 to 1968, the flow of men and

supplies doubled each year.12 Furthermore, the North

Vietnamese built redundancy into their transportation system

throughout the southern panhandle so that by 1968 it was

capable of handling three times as much traffic as it did in

1965.13

Rolling Thunder ended on 31 October 1968. As British

counterinsurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson put it:

If it is accepted, as on the surface it must be, that the bombing had a

minimal effect on infiltration and on the capacity of North Vietnam to

wage this type of war, which were the only two advantages the

Americans may have got out of it, then all the benefits have been

derived by Hanoi.14

Rolling Thunder may have been “full of sound and fury,” but it

truly signified—if not “nothing”—very little. When it began in

March 1965, infiltration was at a relatively low level, as was

Hanoi’s support for the Southern insurgency. As Hanoi saw

that it could endure the bombing and increase its support for

the Vietcong, they did so, escalating the war accordingly. As

historian Larry E. Cable of the University of North Carolina at

Wilmington has pointed out, “What Washington did was to

apply a remedy to a problem that hardly existed and, in the

process, created a problem it could not solve.”15

The Ground War: The Agony

of Prolonged Conflict

Inadvertently, the air war led to and then fed the ground

war. First, the deployment of large numbers of combat aircraft

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prompted Washington to dispatch combat troops to protect

airfields from Vietcong attack. Second, the presence of US

warplanes on those airfields, and the troops sent to protect

them, enticed the Vietcong into action against them. Increased

action in and around the airfields caused the change in

mission for the troops deployed to protect those installations

from static defense to spoiling operations. Each side escalated

in reaction to the other, ratcheting up the level of violence and

expanding the very notion of “limited war” beyond recognition.

In July 1965, when Gen William C. Westmoreland asked

Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara for the deployment

of 44 combat maneuver battalions, the big unit war was on.16

Westmoreland oversaw the massive buildup of American

forces to support a three-phase attritional strategy using the

mobility of the air cavalry bolstered by artillery, helicopter

gunships, and the Air Force to ultimately drive the Vietcong

into the kind of annihilative, large battles they could not win.

Westmoreland envisioned a three-phase buildup, culminating

in 1969 when, with over one-half million American troops at

his disposal, the United States would find, fix, and annihilate

the enemy. In phase one, from 1965 to 1966, Westmoreland

planned to build and secure the base network needed to

support expanded operations. In phase two, from 1966 to

1967, US troops would begin to conduct offensive sweeps

through the countryside to take the initiative from the

Vietcong and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). In phase

three, beginning in 1968 or 1969, he planned to have the kind

of forces in South Vietnam which would force the enemy into

battles where mobility and firepower would be decisive.17

What evolved was a strategy of attrition in which the Army

and Marine Corps went on the tactical offensive. The strategy

depended on three factors, all of which prolonged the war past

a point of possible victory. First, the attrition part of the

strategy depended on building a massive infrastructure to

support the high-firepower tactics used in the field. It had to

be manned and operated by a force so large that the logistical

“tail” stretched far beyond the fighting “teeth” of the American

force in Vietnam. Second, the attrition strategy was resource

and time dependent. The United States had the resources to

support this strategy; what it did not have was the patience to

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fight a war which would last—at best estimate at the

time—into 1969. The third factor upon which the strategy was

dependent was beyond the control of Westmoreland or anyone

in Washington—the enemy. For this strategy to work, the

Vietcong and the North Vietnamese had to make war on the

terms defined by the Americans. They did not cooperate.

North Vietnam defeated the United States, because its

leadership pursued goals which were both more clearly

defined and more encompassing. The Communists had three

objectives: two of them nearly “total” and one of them limited.

First, they planned to use a combination of military force and

political activity to destroy and supplant the government in

South Vietnam. To accomplish this goal, they pursued their

second “total” objective, which was to destroy the enemy army

(i.e., the ARVN). They went about that through a combination

of subversion and by mauling it in combat. Taken together,

they eventually depleted the ARVN’s morale so that it finally

collapsed. The third objective was more limited. Hanoi did not

have to defeat the United States militarily. It only had to

compel the United States to withdraw its forces. To do that the

PAVN and Vietcong inflicted casualties which, over time,

frustrated the Americans to the point that they disengaged

from battle.

While Westmoreland had decided to fight on the tactical

offensive to attrit communist forces to the point that they

would run out of troops, Gen Vo Nguyen Giap, Hanoi’s defense

minister and commander of its military forces, decided to fight

on the tactical defensive, giving battle only when the prospect

of inflicting casualties on the Americans made it worthwhile.

Westmoreland believed that if American forces could inflict 10

casualties for every one they suffered, a “crossover point”

would be reached in about 1969, at which time the war would

become too costly for Hanoi and the National Liberation Front

to pursue. General Giap did not have the luxury of American

firepower. But he had people who were either committed, or

could be forced to endure, the costs and to outlast—and to

defeat—the Americans. Giap believed that after the United

States had suffered approximately 50,000 dead, the American

public would make its government change its policy, and the

troops would be withdrawn.

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Hanoi’s strategy was to use time to prolong the agony of the

war and to wear down both the American forces in the field

and the will of the people back home. In this view, Douglas

Pike quotes Ho Chi Minh:

Time is the condition to be won to defeat the enemy. In military affairs

time is of prime importance. Time ranks among the three factors

necessary for victory, coming before terrain and support of the people.

Only with time can we defeat the enemy.18

If time was the ally of the North Vietnamese, it was the

enemy of the Americans. At one level, Westmoreland’s strategy

had been tied to a timetable culminating in 1969, when he

believed he would have the numbers of troops and machines

needed to force the enemy into battles of annihilation. His was

a time-sensitive strategy in two ways. First, the logistical

system became an end unto itself. As the war continued, efficiency counted for as much as, if not more than, effectiveness

in determining how the Americans perceived what they were

doing. With no enemy cities to be captured or borders to be

crossed, the United States saw the war become a numbers

game for measuring efficiency. This game ran the gamut from

body counts in the field to the number of sorties flown in the

air to the number of slides processed for the generals’ morning

briefings. Over time a myriad of means for measuring success

supplanted the need to win on the battlefield. Although the

managerial impulse had taken root in the American military in

the 1950s, the Vietnam War exacerbated the situation and, in

Vietnam, efficiency was more valued than effectiveness. Or

maybe too many officials in responsible positions did not know

the difference.

Second, at another level, the American public does not like

long wars. Gen George C. Marshall, Army chief of staff during

the Second World War stated, “A democracy cannot fight a

Seven Years War.”19 Vietnam’s time-oriented strategy of

protracting the war worked against the American tendency to

see time as linear. By 1968 time had run out on the

Americans, and war weariness was setting in at home as

casualties mounted on the battlefield with no end in sight.

The year 1968 was a culmination point in the war. Arguably,

the United States lost the war in 1968. It lost it because after

seven years of military involvement, the world’s greatest power

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had not accomplished its tenuous, dubious, and constantly

changing goals. Meanwhile, nearly 30,000 Americans had

been killed in combat and over one-half million men and

women were serving in Vietnam each year.20 The war was

hotly debated on college campuses, in the media, and in the

halls of government. American society was in turmoil over civil

rights, the role of government in fostering social change, and

the nearly revolutionary changes in the relationships between

the classes, races, and sexes. All this came together in 1968

with the Vietnam War as the focal point of contention.

Meanwhile, throughout 1967 the rhetoric emanating out of

Saigon and Washington held that the United States was

winning the war. If the military could not win the war on the

battlefield, it seemed determined to win the war on the briefing

charts, where numbers relating the body count, the sortie

count, bomb damage assessments, and countless lists measuring every kind of statistical indicator seemed to show that the

strategy of attrition was working. The phrase commonly heard

around the Department of Defense was that there was “light at

the end of the tunnel.”

That light, some pundits have quipped, was on a communist

locomotive on a collision course with United States policy. The

locomotive hit with full impact in late January 1968 with the

start of the Tet offensive. The Vietcong, with considerable

support from the North Vietnamese, struck throughout South

Vietnam. They attacked in 36 of 44 provincial capitals and a

Vietcong suicide squad got inside the compound of the US

Embassy in Saigon. Although American and South

Vietnamese forces were surprised by the Tet offensive, their

military units recovered rapidly to limit the extent of the

attacks and, within 48 hours, had taken the initiative from the

Communists.21

Tet was the turning point in the war. Despite their battlefield

losses, the Communists won their most important and

significant victory prior to those of 1975. In the sense of

winning the war, this was a strategic rather than a tactical

victory. It was a strategic victory because the Tet offensive

changed the course of United States policy from Americanizing

the war to Vietnamizing the war; from buildup to withdrawal.

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Shifting Goals and Shifting Gears

The battles of 1968 also served to prolong the conflict. The

Vietcong had been decimated to the point of tactical impotence

by the 85,000 or so estimated casualties they suffered at Tet.22

North Vietnamese troops began taking over the fighting inside

South Vietnam. This should have vindicated Westmoreland’s

strategy because by 1969, as intended, the US Army was on

the offensive in the countryside, seeking to fight the kind of

battles for which it was organized and equipped: the large unit

engagements where firepower can be decisive. But, again, the

enemy was not obliging.

In the aftermath of Tet, the United States began its

withdrawal from Vietnam. Retreat, however, proved as difficult

there as it has in every conflict, and disengagement from the

Vietnam War was a long and torturous process, which took

four years and claimed 20,000 additional American lives.

President Lyndon Johnson’s announcement on 31 March

1968 that he would not seek a second term paved the way for

Richard M. Nixon’s successful bid for the White House. Nixon

ran for the presidency by implying he had a “secret plan” to

end the war. That plan, announced after the Guam Conference

in July 1969, was Vietnamization.

Vietnamization, which actually had its origins in the last

days of the Johnson administration, served neither to prolong

nor protract the conflict. It simply played out the dynamics of

a sad situation which had evolved as a result of two decades of

the ambiguity and naivete that guided American policy. The

inability of the United States to define goals and the incompetence of the military commanders who could not devise a

strategy applicable to the war presented to them by their

civilian leaders, combined with the purposeful protraction of

the war by the communist Vietnamese, had already led to

America’s longest war. Getting out was not going to be quick

or easy. Whether Vietnamization succeeded depended on two

factors.

First, South Vietnam had to accept the policy of

Vietnamization. With over 500,000 US military personnel and

several thousand other Americans inside South Vietnam, there

was no simple way to go home. The Saigon regime controlled

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the harbors and the airports, and the South Vietnamese were

not about to allow the United States to “cut and run.” By 1969

the United States was hostage to its own failed policy in

Vietnam.

Second, for Vietnamization to work the North Vietnamese

and what was left of the Vietcong could not be allowed to

indulge themselves in another offensive of the magnitude of

Tet 1968. Such a military debacle would derail Vietnamization.

In its aftermath, the Saigon government would insist that US

combat troops remain to prosecute the war.

Additionally, there were both domestic and international

political reasons arguing against any withdrawal which might

be construed as defeat. The Republican right wing, which had

been powerful within the party since the early 1950s, might

turn on Richard Nixon, crippling his presidency. Overseas,

Washington’s credibility among its European allies and other

friends would be severely shaken if the United States sold out

Saigon in the face of military defeat.

For the United States, its extrication from Vietnam involved

a prolonged agony. There were, quite simply, a great many

Americans to be withdrawn. Force levels in South Vietnam

peaked at 549,000 in April 1969. Withdrawals began in June

of that year and by December the force level had dropped to

434,000.23 As forces withdrew, the killing and dying continued. Of the 45,929 US soldiers, sailors, marines, coast

guardsmen, and airmen killed in Vietnam, 29,907 died

between 1968 and 1972, with the pivotal year, 1968, being the

bloodiest for Americans, with 14,592 individuals being

killed.24

After 1969, although the war was lost, Washington at last

had a clearly defined goal toward which a military strategy

might be devised and applied. Withdrawal of all US combat

forces could, however, proceed only if the North Vietnamese

army was kept at bay. Air power covered the retreat.

A week before the 1968 presidential election, on 31 October

1968, Johnson ended Rolling Thunder. Two weeks later, on 15

November 1968, Operation Commando Hunt began. Commando Hunt campaigns involved attacks along the Ho Chi

Minh Trail to disrupt the flow of men and supplies moving

toward the battlefields of South Vietnam. During Commando

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Hunt, the air forces of the United States dropped nearly

3,000,000 tons of bombs on Laos, most of it along the

250-mile long infiltration corridor.25 Air Force AC-130

gunships roamed up and down the Trail at night searching for

trucks with infrared sensors and attacking them with

computer-aimed 40-mm cannons and, on some models,

105-mm howitzers. Each day, up to 30 B-52 sorties dumped

bombs into the pass areas leading from North Vietnam into

Laos and from Laos into South Vietnam and Cambodia. The

Air Force seeded the trail with sensitive electronic sensors to

analyze the truck traffic and to target strike aircraft against

truck parks and storage areas.26

For all its sound and fury, Commando Hunt was only the

facsimile of a strategy. But it did cover the retreat, and

fundamental to the process of Vietnamization was the

perception that if the United States and the South Vietnamese

were not “winning,” they were not exactly “losing.” To prevent

the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong from launching

another Tet-style offensive, the United States bombed Laos

and Cambodia secretly in 1969 and 1970, joined the ARVN in

invading Cambodia in May and June 1970, and supported an

ARVN invasion of Laos in the spring of 1971, with helicopters

and fighter-bomber sorties. The secret bombings of Laos and

Cambodia, when revealed, combined with the perception that

the Nixon administration was widening the war by invading

and supporting invasions of those nations, undermined the

credibility of the administration and worked against its

political viability.

Dissension over the war grew, along with frustrations over

the seeming duplicity of the Nixon administration. To many it

seemed that to extricate itself from a war in one country, the

United States had invaded and secretly bombed Cambodia

while also secretly bombing Laos. While these actions were all

part of “buying time” to accomplish Vietnamization and the

withdrawal of American forces, the collateral damage was to

the credibility of the Nixon administration. These actions,

however necessary to the continued withdrawal, put the Nixon

administration on somewhat of the defensive in that the

president could not take concerted action to end the war

quickly, except in reaction to communist initiatives.

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The Year 1972: The Prolonged

Agony of Withdrawal Ends

North Vietnam’s strategy since 1968 had been to protract

the war, while shifting gears from what had been an

unconventional war, albeit one with occasional conventional

aspects, to a conventional war, which relied heavily on

unconventional tactics. Small unit actions and attacks on fire

support bases kept the pressure on the Americans without

prompting the kind of military responses that might have led

to defeat for the Communists. After the ARVN’s invasion of

Laos in the spring of 1971—Lam Son 719—failed, Hanoi

figured the United States had supported its last significant

ground operation.

Vo Nguyen Giap and Le Duan, the former head of the

Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), made the case in

the politburo for a large-scale offensive in 1972. The time

seemed propitious. The American ground combat presence

was negligible, as withdrawals continued to draw down US

forces. Also, there would be a presidential election in 1972,

and American peace activists visiting Hanoi had convinced the

North Vietnamese leadership that the antiwar movement was

much more influential than it in fact proved to be. The

politburo figured Nixon would be reluctant to risk a major

military venture in an election year. Finally, as Sir Robert

Thompson has suggested, the politburo was comprised of old

men in a hurry. All were over 60 years of age. Most had been

fighting since the 1930s, and they wanted to see their life’s

work completed before joining Ho Chi Minh in some eternal

communist pantheon of heroes.27

The North Vietnamese “Nguyen Hue Offensive” began on 31

March 1972. Fourteen PAVN divisions and 26 independent

regiments invaded South Vietnam. Initially, the North

Vietnamese were successful in capturing most of Quang Tri

Province and in pushing ARVN units back from the

Cambodian border to the town of An Loc, west of Saigon. With

massive American air support, the ARVN bent but did not

break, and the North Vietnamese ground assault was

contained.

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American air power was absolutely fundamental in defeating

the North Vietnamese spring offensive of 1972. In a series of

redeployments, known as Operation Bullet Shot, fighterbombers and B-52s were sent back to Southeast Asia to

reinforce the 15 squadrons of fighters and the B-52s already in

the theater. They were on hand to begin an air campaign

which got under way in April. Throughout the first month of

increased air operations, the US Air Force and Navy planes

supported the hard-pressed ARVN units inside South

Vietnam. The bombing, which brought Hanoi to a politically

amenable position, however, began on 8 May 1972 and was

called “Linebacker.” Later, it was known as Linebacker I. This

campaign lasted from 8 May to 23 October 1972, and it was

the most successful use of air power in the Vietnam War. It

was successful because the political objective and the strategic

military objective came together. The goal was to compel Hanoi

to sign a cease-fire agreement acceptable to the United States.

The strategy to accomplish this was to isolate North Vietnam

from its outside sources of supply by mining its harbors and

destroying its internal transportation system while pounding

PAVN units inside South Vietnam. The strategy worked

because it was appropriate to the military situation. There

were 14 PAVN divisions and 26 independent regiments inside

South Vietnam, on the offensive, consuming up to 1,000 tons

of supplies each day. With Haiphong closed to shipping by

mines and with the northwest and northeast rail lines and

highways destroyed at key bridges and tunnels in the rugged

mountains near the Chinese border, the flow of supplies

needed to sustain the southern offensive diminished. Furthermore, after some initial reversals, the ARVN fought doggedly.

While they lost some territory, the ARVN contained the PAVN

offensive with massive American air support. By June Hanoi’s

politburo knew it was not going to win the war in 1972.

The United States had won an important battle, one which

contributed to ending its prolonged conflict. But containing

the North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue offensive was hardly a

“clean” kill. Part of “winning” was that Washington had

changed vastly its political goals since first becoming involved

in South Vietnam a decade earlier. From 1965 until May 1972,

the American position was that it would withdraw its troops

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provided Hanoi remove its forces from South Vietnam. In

effect, that policy changed in 1969, when Washington

undertook Vietnamization and unilaterally began to withdraw

its forces. All the while, Hanoi insisted that it had no troops in

South Vietnam, and even if some volunteers had gone south to

fight, Vietnam was all one country in any event. After 31

March 1972 Hanoi could not deny that its units were inside

South Vietnam. In Moscow, in May 1972, Nixon’s national

security advisor, Dr Henry Kissinger, told Soviet Premier

Leonid Brezhnev that the United States would accept a

cease-fire in place in South Vietnam in exchange for the

removal of only those PAVN forces that had entered South

Vietnam since the start of the offensive.28 The peace talks in

Paris proceeded quickly through the summer of 1972, until 26

October, when Kissinger announced, “Peace is at hand.” It

wasn’t.

Saigon balked at the peace agreement Kissinger had

reached with Le Duc Tho, Hanoi’s chief negotiator. This forced

Hanoi and Washington to return to the negotiation table. From

this point, it was to Hanoi’s advantage to prolong the fighting

through January 1973. Although Nixon had won a resounding

victory over Democratic party candidate George McGovern, a

more liberal, Democratic-controlled US Congress would be

seated immediately after his inauguration. Hanoi was

convinced (probably rightly so) that this Congress would

curtail or terminate spending on the Vietnam War contingent

only on the return of American prisoners of war. On 13

December Le Duc Tho went back to Hanoi and Kissinger

returned to Washington with the peace talks stalled.

What Nixon offered to break the impasse was Linebacker II.

It was an act of political urgency. He wanted the peace

agreement signed before the new Congress convened. The

political objective was to secure a peace agreement; the

military strategy was to convince Hanoi that it was in its

interest to sign sooner than later.

In the 11 days of Linebacker II, 739 B-52 sorties bombed

rail yards, supply depots, airfields, and petroleum storage

facilities. Some 1,200 fighter-bomber sorties struck at the

North Vietnamese air defense system, cratering runways,

bombing surface-to-air missile sites, and blasting the Hanoi

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power plant with laser-guided bombs. The North Vietnamese

launched virtually every SA-2 missile in their inventory to

shoot down 15 B-52s. Nine fighter-bombers, a reconnaissance

jet, and a rescue helicopter were also lost. But on 26

December 1972, the air forces of the United States destroyed

what was left of North Vietnam’s air defense command and

control capability and then, that night, put 120 B-52s over 10

targets within a 15-minute period.29 The North Vietnamese

informed Washington that they wanted to reopen negotiations.

On 29 December Nixon limited the bombing to the area below

the 19th parallel and the peace talks in Paris resumed. During

the 11 days of Linebacker II, B-52s dropped 15,237 tons of

bombs and fighter-bombers added another 5,000 tons.30 The

targets struck were not themselves fundamental to Hanoi’s

decision to come to terms. Tactically and operationally, Linebacker II did little more than rearrange the rubble caused by

Linebacker I. Hanoi agreed to negotiate seriously to end the

war quickly for three reasons. First, their air defense system

was in shambles; they were out of SA-2 missiles; and B-52s

could roam over North Vietnam virtually unopposed after 26

December. Second, virtually all legitimate targets had been

destroyed. Left were only the dikes containing the Red River

and the neighborhoods in the major cities. Only Richard Nixon

knows if he would have bombed these targets, but Hanoi did

not need to find out. They had already agreed to sign the

cease-fire documents—it was Saigon that had balked, prompting everyone back to Paris with additional demands. Hanoi

had secured a good peace agreement in October and the

changes required to bring it into effect were minimal and not

worth the risk of further destruction. Third, after Hanoi agreed

to return to the peace negotiations, Nixon did not stop the

bombing; he just curtailed it and changed its focus to the

southern panhandle of North Vietnam and to South Vietnam,

where the planes focused on PAVN units still battling the

ARVN. Hanoi knew that if it was ever going to win the war, it

had to retain a viable army. The peace talks in Paris moved

ahead quickly until 27 January 1973, when the United States,

the Republic of Vietnam, and the National Liberation Front

signed a cease-fire agreement which did little more than

conclude America’s combat role in the Vietnam War.

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Concluding Thoughts on America’s Prolonged

Conflict and Vietnam’s Protracted War

The United States lost its prolonged conflict in Vietnam

because until 1969, its political goals—and what passed for

military strategy—were uncoordinated. When political goals were

finally—and clearly—established, they revolved around withdrawal. Ultimately, it was the inability of the political leadership

to define national goals and the ineptitude of military commanders in dealing with the war at hand that resulted in the

prolongation of the war past the possible point of victory if there

ever was one. Incompetence wore pin-striped suits as well as

green, blue, and brown uniforms.

Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger changed US goals in

Vietnam to limit the damage from defeat. By focusing on

Vietnamization and “peace with honor,” Nixon and Kissinger

defined goals which could be achieved. When the United States

changed its negotiation position to agree to North Vietnam

retaining over 100,000 PAVN troops inside South Vietnam, the

cease-fire could be achieved. Additionally, by making an issue of

the return of American prisoners of war—something normally

done when hostilities are concluded— Nixon set not only another

achievable goal, but also exploited an emotional issue. By

comparison to the goal of “going anywhere to assure the survival

and success of liberty,” Nixon’s goals were modest; but they were

also more realistic.

Hanoi won the Vietnam War. That fact, so often overlooked

by American historians and political scientists (and ignored or

denied by American military leaders of the Vietnam era) intent

as they were on investigating the sociopolitical, diplomatic,

military, and cultural reasons for the American debacle in

Vietnam, is important to students of war. The Vietnamese

Communists understood war as a sociopolitical and cultural

phenomenon to be prosecuted at a number of levels simultaneously. In May 1959 the Hanoi politburo set its goal as the

unification of Vietnam under a single Communist system. To

attain that goal, they were willing to engage in total war—

using every resource at their disposal—to achieve victory. After

the United States entered the conflict in 1961, Hanoi adopted

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an additional limited goal: convincing the United States to

withdraw its military and to curtail its political support for the

regime it created in Saigon. Then, as the war escalated, Hanoi

pursued that goal with every military, political, and diplomatic

resource at its disposal.

Clausewitz wrote in chapter two of book eight, “No one starts

a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without

first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that

war and how he intends to conduct it. The former is its political purpose; the latter its operational objective.”31 The nation that knows what it wants to accomplish in a war can

better regulate the violence to protract the war if it so desires

or to conclude the war quickly if it sees fit. The nation that

begins a war without a clear sense of what it intends to

achieve, or how it plans to fight that war, invites the agony of a

prolonged conflict.

Notes

1.-See Archimedes L. A. Patti, Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s

Albatross (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 320; Harry G.

Summers, Jr., Vietnam War Almanac (New York: Facts on File Publications,

1985), 59. President Gerald R. Ford declared the Vietnam War “over” for the

United States the day before Saigon fell on 30 April 1975. The killing and

dying did not stop, even for Americans. A little over two weeks later, on 15

May, 15 Americans were killed and three listed as missing during efforts to

rescue the crew of the Mayaguez from the Khmer Rouge. See John

Guilmartin, Jr., and Michael O’Leary, The Illustrated History of Helicopters:

The Vietnam War (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1988), 151.

2.-Thomas C. Thayer, War Without Fronts: The American Experience in

Vietnam (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), 107.

3.-Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Viking Press, 1983),

107–8.

4.-See Bernard B. Fall, Street Without Joy (New York: Schoken Books,

1972), 27; Edward Dole, Samuel Lipsman, and Stephen Weiss, Passing the

Torch (Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1981), 26.

5.-Summers, 29.

6.-Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper and Row

Publishers, 1965), 246.

7.-Lt Gen Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History, 1946–1975

(Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1988), 312.

8.-Covert actions in 1964 included Operations Plan 34A (OPLAN 34A).

These actions entailed raids by ARVN units along the coast of North Vietnam

and into Laos as well as increased bombing along the Ho Chi Minh Trail by

American-piloted, usually unmarked, single-engine T-28 fighter-bombers.

See Cablegram from the United States mission in Saigon to the State

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390
Department, 18 August 1964, in The Pentagon Papers, New York Times

edition (New York: Quadrangel Books, 1971), 358–59.

9.-Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of

North Vietnam (New York: The Free Press, 1989), 61–65.

10.-See Raphael Littauer and Norman Uphoff, eds., The Air War in

Indochina (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), 44; John Morrocco, Rain of Fire: Air

War, 1969–1973, The Vietnam Experience (Boston: Boston Publishing

Company, 1985), 9.

11.-William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and

Military History, 1954–1975 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1986), 90.

12.-Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1978), 84.

13.-Pentagon Papers, Sen Mike Gravel edition, vol. 4 (Boston: Beacon

Press, 1971), 222.

14.-Sir Robert Thompson, No Exit from Vietnam (New York: David McKay

Co., 1969), 139.

15.-This argument is well developed in Larry E. Cable, Unholy Grail: The

US and the Wars in Vietnam, 1965–68 (London: Routledge, 1991), 109–18.

16.-Memorandum from the Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara to

Lyndon Johnson, “Recommendation of Additional Deployments to Vietnam,”

20 July 1965 in Pentagon Papers, Gravel edition, vol. 4, 619–22.

17.-See William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (New York:

Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976), 172; Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Army

in Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 164–68.

18.-Douglas Pike, PAVN: People’s Army of Vietnam (Novato, Calif.:

Presidio Press, 1986), 219.

19.-Quoted in Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War (New York:

Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1973), 5.

20.-Thayer, 107.

21.-The Tet offensive became the great paradox of the Vietnam War.

United States Army Col Harry G. Summers, Jr., raised the issue in the

introduction to On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War (Novato,

Calif.: Presidio Press, 1982), 1, where he related his story of a conversation

which took place between himself and a North Vietnamese colonel just as

Saigon was falling in April 1975. According to Summers, he stated, “You

know you never defeated us on the battlefield.” The PAVN colonel answered,

“That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.” The Vietcong carried the brunt of

the Tet attack, throwing themselves on American and ARVN bayonets to

suffer devastating casualties. The United States lost 1,100, and 2,300 South

Vietnamese troops died. See George C. Herring, Jr., America’s Longest War:

The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,

1979), 188.

22.-Dave Richard Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet: U.S.-Vietnam in

Perspective (San Rafael, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1977), 200.

23.-Thayer, 38.

24.-Ibid., 107.

25.-Littauer and Uphoff, 67–72.

26.-John C. Frisbee, “Igloo White,” Air Force Magazine, June 1971,

48–53.

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27.-Sir Robert Thompson, Peace is Not at Hand (New York: David McKay,

1974), 82–84.

28.-Nguyen Tien Hung and Jerrold L. Schector, The Place File: Vietnam

Secret Documents (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), 58.

29.-See Air Force Intelligence Service briefing script, “Linebacker Two,”

18–29 December 1972," in History, Air Force Intelligence Service, fiscal year

1973, 11–12; Clodfelter, 188.

30.-House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on the

Department of Defense, DOD Appropriations: Bombings of North Vietnam,

Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Department of Defense, 93d Cong.,

1st sess., testimony of Adm Thomas H. Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff, 18 January 1973, 40–41.

31.-Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and

Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), 579.

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The Soviet War in Afghanistan

Stephen Blank

When Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan at the end of 1979,

they hardly expected to leave there ignominiously in 1989. A

prolonged war ending in defeat was the last thing they

expected. Yet that is exactly what ensued and what they

experienced despite their expectations. Moscow intervened to

retrieve a Marxist-Leninist revolution that went off course due

to the tribalism, erratic radicalism, and incompetence of local

radical revolutionaries allied to it. The misplaced native radicalism of the Afghan Communists under conditions of

profound socioeconomic backwardness and intense religious

and tribal identification had triggered an uncontrollable

rebellion against the government. In turn, the spread of the

rebellion and the Afghan government’s refusal to accept

complete Soviet control and a less inflammatory domestic

course threatened to bring Islamic religious national elites to

power in another country on the Soviet border, and overturn a

government that was previously allied with Moscow against

the West. To avert this outcome and to replace the Amin

regime with a more compliant one, the Soviet Union invaded

Afghanistan.

As in all wars, the reasons for the initial invasion and for the

ensuring defeat are many. While many observers have

analyzed the background to the invasion and the course of the

war, more operational analyses have been few. There have

been few, if any, published analyses in the former USSR and

an apparent inclination to use Afghanistan to settle political

scores rather than for public analytical discussions until now,

though this tendency may now be changing. Our efforts focus

on the major causes that brought about—against all Soviet

planning—a prolonged war.

Prolonged war results from a failure in strategic planning.

That is, prolonged war emanates from a failure on one or both

sides to read the nature of the theater correctly and thus

accurately to forecast the course and outcome of the war.

393
Prolonged war can be conventional or unconventional in

nature (e.g., World War I, Operation Barbarosa in 1941, or

Vietnam from the American standpoint). When it occurs,

prolonged war signifies a massive or gross failure of the

military-political leadership at the strategic level of war with

effects that resonate down to operational art and tactics.

This analysis highlights four linked structural causes for

this strategic-level failure to understand both the nature of the

theater and the nature of the peculiar military challenge posed

in Afghanistan. They are (1) the corruption of the Soviet intelligence process in Afghanistan that was linked to; (2) a sclerotic,

narrowly ideological, excessively secretive, decision-making

process; (3) a fundamental misreading of the nature of warfare

in the third world and Afghanistan’s requirements in particular that was expressed in the doctrine of local war; and

(4) a force structure, operational doctrine, and tactics that also

were fundamentally maladapted to the theater.

It was the Soviet invasion that made a local civil war an

international crisis that drew in outside forces to a degree

much greater than was the case before 1979. Throughout this

paper I focus on the Soviet side of the war and argue that it

was exclusively in Moscow’s hands to initiate what turned out

to be a prolonged war in Afghanistan. In other words, Moscow

alone retained the strategic initiative to decide for or against

military intervention that would expand its participation in the

war to the strategic level. The Mujahideen were quite incapable

of organized strategic action. In the absence of a high degree of

outside support for the Afghan belligerents, they could not

have mounted more than a series of uncoordinated insurgent

actions from a variety of centers. These certainly constitute

hostilities and hostile action, but they do not make up the

strategic direction needed for a truly protracted war by

conscious decision. The splintered nature of the Mujahideen

precluded any strategic decision for coherent protracted war

other than traditional rebellions and tribal conflicts. Without

Soviet and US (and the latter’s allies) intervention, this would

have never gone beyond the level of a long-term guerrilla war

involving many rival insurgents and a traditional Afghan form

of conflict and one lacking a clear strategic direction or goals.

Moreover, we can demonstrate that the Soviet decision to

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394
intervene and the way in which it was carried out embodied

profound structural barriers to coherent strategic planning for

any local war after 1979. This means that the structural

factors underlying the intelligence, decision making, and

strategic processes leading to intervention were the factors

that prejudged the intervention’s failure and hence the war’s

prolongation.

The Intelligence Failure

Writing in the open about Soviet intelligence activities is, for

obvious reasons, a hazardous venture. Nevertheless, both

before and after the invasion of Afghanistan, there were signal

failures in the way in which the KGB and GRU went about

their main mission of intelligence gathering and other

activities related to installing pro-Soviet regimes in the third

world. Those failures corrupted the process of intelligence

gathering and assessment in Afghanistan and contributed

substantially to the defeat of the Soviet army.

Intelligence agencies figured prominently as instruments of

Soviet third world policy during the period 1964–85.1 These

agencies went beyond intelligence gathering and traditional

forms of espionage and recruitment of agents to encompass

aid to revolutionary movements, terrorism, and actual

involvement in coups, revolutions, and insurgencies.2 KGB

and GRU agents’ involvement in such activities, frequently in

defiance of or without the knowledge of the foreign ministry

personnel in the host country, reflected both the tight

compartmentalization of intelligence and the lack of horizontal

coordination in policymaking for the third world. Only at the

very top was there a means of coordinating the intelligence

agencies, military, foreign ministry, International Department

of the Central Committee, and Politburo and its agencies.

Effective policymaking necessarily depended on vigorous

oversight and discussion in the Defense Council or Politburo,

and by 1979 under Leonid I. Brezhnev this was out of the

question.3

The point transcends Brezhnev’s and the other leaders’

illnesses. Were they physically alert and vigorous, they still

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might have fallen into this trap because structural and

institutional-political factors were also present in the decision

to invade. In assessing the role of Andropov and the intelligence agencies, several of these aspects must be considered.

First, in 1968 the KGB in Czechoslovakia manufactured evidence of an American “conspiracy” that swayed the Politburo

and played on its members’ ingrained convictions regarding

imperialism’s conspiracies. Thus, the KGB went beyond being

an instrument of policy to become an advocate and maker,

and even fabricator, of policy. It and Ambassador Chervonenko

reported that the Czechoslovakian people eagerly awaited

Soviet intervention and would support it. The fact that

intervention revealed the opposite to be true did not have any

repercussions and encouraged a repeat of such behavior.

Some analysts also believe that the Soviets deliberately fabricated the crisis leading to the 1967 Six-Day War as a disinformation exercise targeted at the Arabs and Israel, a fact, which

if true, makes Czechoslovakia a continuation of an already

established trend.4

Two other potentially harmful effects of this pattern occurred. One, it reinforced the belief that no internal opposition

could exist in countries under communist or Sovietizing leaderships. Such manifestation were only conspiracies manufactured by Washington or other Western agencies. This

perspective reinforced the disposition of some observers to

view conflicts abroad mainly through the prism of the superpower conflict and not on their own merits. Second, agents

likely concluded that successful intervention atoned for reporting what the bosses wanted to hear rather than the truth. And

successful intervention abroad carried its own reward as

Moscow would undoubtedly favor those who helped expand its

power and influence abroad.

The second contextual consideration of the decision to

invade Afghanistan was that it took place when Andropov had

clearly begun to make his move to succeed Brezhnev. Exactly

how this consideration figured in the KGB’s entire threat

assessment and analysis process up to Andropov may never

be fully known. But when combined with the third contextual

factor, its importance is seen as a major factor.

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The third factor is the fact that in the years since 1967,

policy conflicts over intervention in the third world had been

the pretext, if not the cause, of major shakeups at the top. In

1967 Shelepin and his clique went down to defeat and

Andropov took over the KGB over the issue of aid to the Arabs

and the fomenting of the Six-Day War.5 In 1977 there is

reason to believe that failures in African policy were used

against President Podgorny even to the degree of using Castro

to show up Podgorny’s failures in Africa.6 If one considers that

the period after 1973 was one of almost constant detailed

Soviet involvement in third world crises and that the issues

involved there stimulated high-level political discord that often

played out in analysts’ commentaries, the importance of the

succession factor in connection with a potential military

intervention in the third world becomes visible. More recently

the rival policy postures on third world issues of contending

leaders have become much clearer.7

In the late-seventies controversies involving all aspects of

Soviet “national security policy” spread throughout that elite.

Already in 1967 these issues had fused with the struggle for

power. The “wrong position” on crucial issues involving the

use of Soviet forces abroad was not just a losing effort

comparable to supporting the wrong region or sector in

investment policy. A “mistake” here, pace Talleyrand was

worse than a crime: it could cost one his political life. Since

détente declined after 1975 and Soviet interventions succeeded, there was probably little political capital to be gained

from counselling restraint, especially when the leadership

perceived that a Western conspiracy coupled with an erratic

Afghan leader were leading to a “rollback” of socialism on Moscow’s border. If an elite consensus leaned towards intervention, any contender for the top job would join it. It also

bears noting that at no time in 1980–82 was there any attack

on the KGB for getting Moscow into this mess as there would

have been if Andropov’s rivals seriously felt that he had helped

shape this policy debacle.

The subsequent trenchant critiques of the restrictive

ideological perspectives about proletarian internationalism,

vanguard parties, and states of socialist orientation that

dominated professional and political discourse under

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Brezhnev confirm that this cognitive map among key

policymakers undoubtedly shaped the intelligence process.8 If

one conjoins the political factors and atmosphere of ubiquitous conspiracies that pervaded the intelligence agencies with

those notions, ideas about local war and the external mission

of Soviet forces, and the sclerotic nature of the decisionmaking process at the top, the entire context of the failure in

strategic intelligence assessment becomes clearer.

This sclerosis at the top reflected not only age and debility

and factors such as the policy of intervention in the third

world and the succession, it also stemmed from the a priori

belief in ideological notions that could easily be corroborated

by fabricated intelligence, as in Czechoslovakia, and the

narrowing of the leadership that resulted from the power

struggles at the top.

We now know that the Defense Council, the main organ that

decided crucial aspects of Soviet national policy, neither

enjoyed a regular composition nor scheduled meetings. It met

at Brezhnev’s convenience and evidently with a composition

(and presumably agenda) that reflected his choices. Hence, it

could be rigged in terms of agenda, membership, and

preceding staff work to come with a predetermined outcome.

In this case, only five men, Brezhnev, Andropov, Suslov,

Gromyko, and Ustinov (perhaps the already ailing Kosygin as

well), made the decision. We also know that the decision to

invade flew in the face of professional opinion of the general

staff and experts on Afghanistan, who were either disregarded

or seldom, if at all, consulted.

The relationships among the institutions these men

represented (i.e., KGB, GRU, Ministries of Foreign Affairs and

Defense, and the International Department of the Central

Committee) were both tangled and uncoordinated. These

relationships were structured to prevent the open advocacy

within and among them of dissenting views and their mutual

coordination. The International Department (ID), led by the

veteran Stalinist, Boris Ponomar’ev under Suslov’s watchful

guidance, monitored CPSU relationships with foreign

communist parties. Interviews with officials in the Middle East

Department of the MFA have informed us that the MFA’s

proposals had to go through the ID, which functioned as a

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gatekeeper. The ID could thus easily frustrate the MFA’s

initiatives. In view of its much more Stalinist and antiAmerican ideological bent and commitment to an expansive

third world policy than the MFA had, that relationship set the

stage for unresolved conflict.9

Precedents for Afghanistan previously appeared in Soviet

African policy, where Soviet policymaking tended to favor the

military and ID working in tandem. Brezhnev’s regime

preferred to work in Africa through the MOD and viewed Africa

mainly in terms of East-West conflicts. All questions of arms

transfers and military strategy in Africa were exclusively

reserved for the general staff and MOD. The ID directed the

ideological and political relationships, often appointing veteran

party hacks with no expertise as ambassadors. Generally, as

in Afghanistan, these men proved to be poor analysts.

Ideology, personal ambition, and politics dictated their

opinions. They were intolerant of dissent or of facts at variance

with whatever Moscow wanted to hear.10 In Africa, and

probably Asia, too, these alliances, and the autonomy of intelligence agents from ambassadorial scrutiny, led to such

fiascos as the abortive coups in Sudan in 1971 and in Zambia

in 1977–78.11

Whatever Andropov’s and the KGB’s actual role was, it

appears that KGB relationships with the MFA were bad. This

was evidently a general condition that was fully operative in

Afghanistan. KGB cadres there believed the MFA made several

strategic errors in policy, and coordination between them was

poor. Certainly Andrei Gromyko was unalterably opposed to

close working ties of his men with the KGB.12

The ID was driven by its congenital and visceral antiAmericanism and an ideologically based concept of expanding

socialism abroad that made a state where communists or proMoscow socialists ruled a state of socialist orientation or one

having a vanguard party. These terms meant that these states

and ruling parties had thrown in their lot with Moscow and

were building along Soviet lines towards replicating Soviet

sociopolitical and economic structures. ID spokesmen clearly

were inclined to label Afghanistan according to such criteria

and thus created the notion of an ideological commitment,

reinforced by the Soviet-Afghan Treaty of 1978 (i.e., to extend

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Soviet “protection” should Afghanistan be threatened from the

West or by its own “counterrevolutionaries” acting with

Western help). This commitment, embodied in the treaty, also

was a critical part of the Brezhnev doctrine. This doctrine did

more than just limit the sovereignty of satellite states. Moscow,

under its terms, obligated itself to protect its clients in the last

resort or else call into question the reliability of its other

commitments to satellites. Defense of the socialist bloc was

indivisible, and no breaches could be allowed in the bloc. The

hidden side of the Brezhnev doctrine was that it conceptualized the bloc as if it consisted of potentially falling dominos

and assumed that any one state falling victim to communist

(or anticommunist) insurgency immediately threatened its

neighbors and all “friendly states.” That doctrine fostered a

disposition to view intervention as a last, but necessary and

justifiable, resort because it explicitly stated that socialist

revolutions were irreversible. No political leader, certainly not

Brezhnev in 1979, could then turn around and expose himself

to “having lost Afghanistan.” Finally, in binding clients to itself

Moscow had bound itself to guaranteeing their continuation in

office. Moscow raised the stakes of failing to intervene against

threats to its clients. The prospective threat of doing nothing

and letting the situation develop was, therefore, never a real

option, particularly after Moscow had started an incremental

intervention (like ours in Vietnam but more telescopic in time)

of its forces in Afghanistan in April 1979, Moscow was hoisted

on the petard of its “commitment.”

The lack of structural coordination and cohesion in policy

process, the rivalries among the players and their constituencies, and the deliberate narrowing of both the institutional

focus of decision making and of possible policy options

contributed substantially to the ensuing intelligence and strategic debacle of a prolonged war. But, within the individual

institutions; especially the military, MFA, and intelligence

agencies, the specific situation in Afghanistan was still worse,

making it virtually impossible for anyone either to transmit or

receive (i.e., relatively) unbiased or accurate intelligence

assessments of internal political situations, the proper strategic mission of any military action, and the right forces for the

job, if that was necessary.

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In Afghanistan itself the crucial burden of misrepresentation

fell to the MFA’s ambassadors and the intelligence operatives

there. Studies of Soviet policies in the Muslim world show a

high quality of Soviet ambassadorial appointments there.

These envoys played important and useful roles in contacts

among those states, Moscow, and Washington.13 In Kabul,

however, Ambassador Safronchuk, who was sent there as a

demotion from his UN post, was unable to refrain from

meddling in internal Afghan policies. His successor, Ambassador Puzanov, fared no better. Puzanov’s plottings against the

Amin government resulted in his being sent home as persona

non grata, a fact which undoubtedly led him to counsel the

coup against Amin.14 The narrowness of official decision

making also contributed to the failure of the MFA to argue

against the invasion. Other ambassadors, who could be

expected to report accurately on the impact of invasion in the

states where they served (e.g., Dobrynin in Washington), were

not informed about what was coming. Predictably, one of the

most grievous failures of calculation was precisely this failure

to gauge accurately international reaction and capacity to

make invasion cost much more than had been assumed.

Just as MFA officials corrupted their reporting due to their

involvement in factional infighting and became partisans for

rival Afghan factions, so too did KGB and GRU men tend to

assume the viewpoints of the faction to which they were

accredited. Strong institutional pressures to report what

Moscow wanted to hear existed. And there was also a corruption of the responsibility to report objectively that was due to

their partisan involvement in Afghan politics.15 Whatever

Andropov’s views really were or however they evolved over

time, it is by no means clear that he or his colleagues ever

received accurate intelligence assessments.

The role of the KGB and GRU has come in for controversy

both between the two agencies and among defecting or

dissident ex-KGB men. An account in 1989 claims that the

KGB general in Kabul, General Ivanov, strongly advocated

intervention, while the GRU man, General Gorelov counseled

against it.16 A dissident KGB agent, V. Iu. Korolev, argues that

the KGB, virtually alone, instigated the crisis that led to war.

He states:

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It has now become clear from reports in the press and on television,

from reports in both Soviet and foreign publications, how great was the

role of our country, particularly our intelligence service, in the

organization of local wars, in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and so forth.

As soon as the CPSU changed its policy in the international arena, as

it has done now, all these wars stopped—almost all of them, at any

rate, all those that were initiated by the Soviet Union. And the initiative

came via the KGB. In other words, the KGB executed this policy.17

Andropov’s role is harder to determine. At a meeting in

August 1979, where Andropov was said to oppose intervention

the chief of the GRU, General Invahutin, however, insisted on

intervention. Andropov also supposedly opposed

assassinations in general and of Amin in particular.18 Yet in

Asia and Africa at that time Soviet officials and agents were

deeply involved in coups and the like, as well as in the assassination attempts made against East European dissidents and

even perhaps Pope John Paul II.19 Gordievsky also confirms

that within a month of this August meeting (i.e., once Amin

had launched a successful countercoup against the one

plotted by Taraki in Moscow against him) Moscow did indeed

plan to assassinate Amin and replace him with a more pliable

government led by the reputed KGB agent, Babrak Karmal.20

Any component analysis should have told Andropov and

other leaders that such action could only deepen Soviet

involvement and commitment to Afghanistan’s new government and weaken that regime at the very same time. Popular

support for a Soviet-made government in Afghanistan would

collapse, foreign reaction would be intense, and the regime

itself, as any expert on Afghan history could foretell, would not

survive without constant Soviet support that entailed heavy

and rising costs.

This September 1979 decision meant throwing good money

after bad to retrieve the original investment in Afghanistan.

And this decision was evidently made in spite of reports from

KGB agents advising against intervention. Former KGB agents

claim that intelligence from Afghanistan said that any

intervention on this scale would only lead to disaster.21 One of

these dissenting KGB men went so far as to assert that

Andropov deliberately “disinformed” the Politburo, as he had

done in 1968 in the Czech case, feeding it with false reports

that the population would greet Soviet troops with open arms

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while his agents reported that war would break out in that

event.22

From the foregoing it certainly seems that the KGB

leadership failed to appraise the situation correctly and may

have even deliberately misled the political leadership to bring

about a desired command decision. The KGB failed to gauge

Afghan reaction to an invasion, the capacity of Karmal’s

faction to gain legitimacy, the reaction of the Afghan army and

foreign states, or the viability of the “surgical” short coup de

main as a military option. These failures evidently lend

support to the observations of Artem Borovik that the

preinvasion operatives in Afghanistan lacked expertise in the

area.23

Intelligence failures in other organizations and the fact that

the commander in chief and decision makers were civilians do

not, however, exonerate the military and the general staff.

Much blame must fall upon both the MOD and the general

staff. Members of the general staff claimed that it, led by

Marshal Ogarkov, opposed the invasion and proposed instead

a kind of garrison strategy and that dissent risked Ogarkov’s

position. This garrison strategy entailed a limited invasion and

seizure of key urban areas and bases, a change in government

and the stabilization of a situation from which the Afghan

armed forces could then either overcome the opposition or the

government could bring about an armistice or a negotiated

settlement.24 Supposedly, this took them off the hook for being

responsible for the invasion. Since the public debate has

begun, the military press has sought to glorify those soldiers

who fought in Afghanistan as fulfilling their internationalist

duty and stress that they were acting under civilian command

and orders which they had no choice but to obey.

Although there is some truth in this line, the point is that

even such a limited intervention as proposed by the general

staff was based on incredible assumptions that could only

have led to much the same outcome. These assumptions are

(1) that Afghans would see this as a limited operation just as

the general staff did, and not as an invasion or coup from

abroad; (2) the new government, clearly dependent on Soviet

forces, could command legitimacy in a society that is fiercely

Islamic and intolerant of outside invaders; and (3) that the

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Soviets could then simply pick up and leave, having

accomplished their mission.

In other words, the notion that Moscow could completely

control the outcome of a limited intervention abroad in the

tense international situation of 1979 and run no strategic

risks or unforeseeable liabilities governed this aspect of the

general staff’s plan. No allowance was made for the fog or

friction of war, let alone resistance or intensified foreign

support for the rebels. Like many other military plans there

and elsewhere, this one lost sight of its entire political

dimension. Inasmuch as it is generally agreed that Soviet

forces only intervened abroad when the government was

confident that no Western or US response sufficiently

deterrent in its effect would occur; this plan, like the ultimate

invasion plan, disregarded what could have been assumed to

be a predictable strategic American and Western (Muslim, too)

response. Failure to consider sufficiently the international and

local risks of continued resistance and foreign support for it

along with the possible collapse of Afghan willingness to

support Moscow signify a strategic-level political failure, a

failure to weigh sufficiently the likelihood of surprises, “fog,”

and “friction.”25

The general staff and the MOD are as guilty of this failure as

are Andropov, the KGB, and the other players in this drama.

The plan for a limited intervention lost sight of the fact that for

Afghanistan this signified a total war. Moscow thereby triggered an asymmetric conflict, a total war for Afghanistan and

one that, in keeping with past history, would be fought by

guerrilla means for which limited intervention by a conventional Soviet force was maladapted. Not only did the

military misjudge the political dimension, but even the general

staff plan failed to reckon with the prospect of continuing

military resistance. We may phrase this point in another way

because it is of profound importance for Soviet military

doctrine as a whole, not just the war in Afghanistan.

Until Gorbachev, it was an axiom of Soviet military thinking

that any country occupied by the Soviet armed forces must

undergo a socialist revolution in its rear for the Red Army to

secure the front. Or, in other words, wherever the Red Army

was engaged, it had to revolutionize the country, and this was

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a paramount strategic objective or outcome of that war. This

meant that for the invaded country, the war was a total war.

There could be no question of limited objectives or of limited

war. Of necessity, wherever Soviet forces were engaged, the

war became total, and it duly became incumbent on the Soviet

command to achieve a total victory. In practice there were no

limited objectives in such campaigns. Accordingly, the effort to

induce total changes as in Afghanistan by purely limited

means, either the garrison strategy or the invasion strategy,

was a non sequitur since the war immediately became total

(i.e., a war to revolutionize Afghanistan).

Since guerrilla warfare was the only option open to the

Mujahideen and the Afghan people, resistance had to become

a total war for them. And since guerrilla warfare is in its

essence one that trades space for time, the war preforce

became a long one. Soviet sources now admit that Moscow was

unprepared to fight this kind of war. In effect the effort to

secure total ideological objectives by limited means helped

cede the strategic initiative to the Mujahideen. Even though

they could not fully exploit this gift by virtue of their own

defects, that fact alone made Soviet victory unlikely, if not

impossible. The Mujahideen determined the nature of the war

and much of its tempo. This can be seen in the fact that

Moscow never achieved a single strategic objective throughout

its occupation. The inability to resolve the unlimited nature of

war aims with the limited forces available made it virtually a

certainty that the war would be protracted—the last thing

Moscow expected.

Many factors contributed to this military-political blindness.

First, the Soviets were contemptuous of the Afghans and their

capability to mount a successful resistance. Second, this

contempt was strengthened by the utter disdain of both Soviet

military men and doctrine for guerrilla warfare, whose utility

they consistently disparaged and derided. Hence, Afghan

guerrillas were doubly regarded as being of little consequence.

Third, Soviet experience of recent “local wars” in the third

world, where the “revolutionary forces” had won, misled them

into thinking that such campaigns would inevitably lead to

their allies victory if Moscow backed them up suitably. And

these wars also showed that Soviet conventional doctrine,

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strategy, operational art, and tactics were universally correct

in such theaters of war; this conclusion also reinforced the

disdain for guerrilla war. A fourth factor was the specific

branch of military thinking dealing with local wars (i.e., those

in the third world) and embracing both purely conventional

and guerrilla wars. This branch of Soviet military thinking also

contributed to the misperception of the Afghan theater and its

requirements. All those factors blended with the institutional

and strategic ones described above to bring about the

catastrophic decision to invade.

In applying these factors into the decision-making process,

those forces, in and out of the military, who favored an

aggressive policy in the third world, allowed ideologically based

notions to dominate strategic thinking.26 Undoubtedly, there

were divisions within the military and other centers about the

utility of intervention abroad in general and in Afghanistan in

particular.27 But those who prevailed here allowed ideology to

become a force subtractor, not a force multiplier, that masked

real strategic considerations. They believed that what was

needed was a brief “stability operation,” an economy of forces

operation with little or no risks abroad. This is what they

believed doctrine had told them. Not only did it become

apparent that they had been wrong, after 1985 it became

policy to recognize that the doctrine itself had been wrong. And

even before that, it became clear that the Soviet army could

not fulfill its own doctrine and requirements in Afghanistan or

elsewhere.

Military Failure

One ideological factor that consistently blinded Soviet elites

and commanders was their contempt for Afghans and their

belief that they could not fight a true “people’s war” of national

resistance out of any but mercenary motives. Afghans were

viewed as violent, backward, corrupt, and ready to sell out

their country to the highest bidder.28 And the conduct of

Soviet troops in Afghanistan, their ultimate resort to indiscriminate terror, testified to their belief in the essential inferiority of the Afghans. This refusal to accept their Asian opponents’

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humanity showed that the Soviet troops in Afghanistan were

ready descendants of the imperial Russian tradition.29 And the

resort to terror certainly provided more reasons for Afghans to

resist, thus prolonging the war.

Such chauvinism and professional disdain for the enemy

clearly contributed to the misplaced optimism of those

generals who reportedly first told Brezhnev and his colleagues

that the operation would be over by the time the 1980 Summer

Olympics began. When that failed, they then revised their

estimate to the Sixteenth Party Congress in February 1981,

only to demand 300,000 more soldiers in the fall and winter of

1980–81.30 Another outcome of the war that certainly has its

roots in this contempt for the Afghans is the struggle over

learning from the war.

There is clearly a struggle over this going on in Soviet

military literature. Naturally, many high officers are reluctant

to admit that they lost and that therefore doctrine, strategy,

operational art, and tactics were at fault. And secondly, they

refuse to admit that the despised Afghans beat them. On the

other hand, others insist that the armed forces must learn the

lessons of this war. One finds this debate today in the

comments of military men in the media (or their lack of

comments there) and in private opinions they have expressed

to Western observers.

Military commanders attempting to glorify the Afghan

veterans and retain them in the army for purposes of

enhanced professional training and public propaganda, like

General Varennikov, former deputy chief of the general staff,

strongly advocate disseminating the lessons of the war (of

course, this begs the issue of what issues and lessons he has

in mind). The aim is to prevent further occurrences of such

situations.31 Similarly, an All-Service Scientific Conference in

late 1990 attended by then-Defense Minister Marshal Yazov

and Chief of Staff General Moiseyev decided that military

historical research must be fundamentally restructured to

include recent local wars, specifically Afghanistan.32 Lastly,

some have already begun to draw operational conclusions

from the war (e.g., regarding the operation and training of

troops in mined terrain).33 Writers on tactics have demanded

wholesale reconsideration of tactics away from the

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stereotypical, parade-ground, strictly European, and

exclusively offensive-minded tactical training of the Brezhnev

era.34 These calls, along with the historical debate opened up

by Safonov in 1990, cited below all are campaigns for more, if

not all, of the truth about operations there. The opposing

forces prefer silence as indicated by former air forces

commander in chief, Marshal Efimov. His 1990 “Air Force

Day” article recounted every campaign where the Air Force

participated, even the ignominious Finnish war, but said

nothing about Afghanistan or lessons learned there as if the

war never happened for the air force.35

This debate goes to the heart of analyzing the military failure

because unwillingness to admit the shortcomings of Soviet

policy processes or military doctrine, especially about war in

the third world, will block prospects for military reform.

Military reformers, like Lopatin, have singled out this war as

highlighting the need for reform. Lopatin has written,

The state of the USSR Armed Forces, however, does not correspond to

the command of the times. And the measures which are being adopted

are of a cosmetic nature and prevent the army (from) being brought to

a new quality level, which was reflected in concentrated fashion in the

course of the “Afghan campaign.” Military reform encompassing all

spheres of defense building are essential to achieve this goal.36

The other side of this debate was voiced by General Bazhenov,

the editor of Voennala Mysl (Military Thought). He stated that

Afghanistan witnessed a limited contingent of Soviet forces, and their

operations demonstrated that the method of preparing for war and

conduct of operations in mountains were correct. We left Afghanistan

not because of defeat but because of political resolution of the Afghan

question. I don’t know of anywhere that our forces were driven out.

Our Airborne performed particularly well. The situation is moving

toward stability.37

Such attitudes block reconsideration of the concept of local

war and the issue of war in the third world that Soviet military

men have studied since 1917. An enormous effort went into

such studies in the Brezhnev period and since—only to have

led to a dead end. Though some, like Vorob’ev and Safonov,

have some inkling or understanding of this; even they cannot

do more than rationalize the failure of the campaign. Safonov

rightly complains that among the major faults were the neglect

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of unconventional war, partisan activities of Soviet and other

forces, and counterpartisan campaigns against such forces.

This neglect encompassed doctrine, strategy, operational art,

and tactics. Furthermore, the use of Soviet forces in such a

scenario was never even considered.38

These are telling criticisms, but in the end they are no more

than rationalizations. This is because the Soviet military, like ours

in Vietnam, learned the wrong lessons already in the 1930s about

small-scale war from the Spanish civil war. Whereas correct

lessons that were “in the blood” of the generation of commanders

that Stalin purged were either forgotten or cast aside.39 Since

1940, despite the experience of partisan warfare in World War II

and the Soviet counterinsurgency campaigns in the Baltic after

1944, unconventional wars or operations were neglected or utterly

discounted. When it came to warfare in the third world, such

examples as the Arab-Israeli wars—classic conventional operations from 1956 to 1982—were stressed, and little was learned

about other kinds of war. For example, it appears that even in

Vietnam’s case, at the operational and strategic levels, the Soviets

learned only ideological lessons that socialism would always win.

Tactical, operational, and even many strategic issues or

considerations of Vietnam’s specific characteristics appear to have

been discounted except for the need not to tie down large numbers

of troops in such a war.40

The apparent digression into the issue of lessons learned

and the Soviet debate was taken to emphasize that intelligence

failure at the strategic level as well as a comparable ideological

failure took place in military doctrine, operational art,

strategy, policy, and tactics in the Afghan theater. As noted

earlier, a basic error of Soviet military strategy was its attempt

to envision conflict in third world theaters as strictly a

smaller-scale version of the theater strategic conventional

option in Europe that was its most abiding military concern. In

the Afghan instance, this vision of warfare became a cropper;

yet, it has strong roots in Soviet experience that date back to

the civil war, when the founders of the Red Army waged an

intense struggle against independent commanders of irregular

formations precisely because they were independent of

Moscow.41 Subsequent counterinsurgency campaigns on

Soviet soil only reinforced Soviet notions that guerrillas could

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not defeat regular armies. This became an article of faith for

Soviet commanders and remained so even after the war in

Afghanistan. A leading Soviet military figure quoted Lenin

approvingly on this subject in 1989. Lenin wrote his

correspondent, “Your appeals to create partisan detachments

to combat the regular imperialist army are amusing to every

soldier.” Lt Gen V. Serebriannikov’s comment was, “As you

see, he had the same approach as Engles. Only a regular army

can oppose another regular army.”42

In 1979 this notion went even more unchallenged among

senior military and political figures. Soviet views on guerrilla

warfare and terror as practiced by their friends and clients

abroad sanctioned these two types of campaigns only with

misgivings. These forms of warfare were really ultimately

acceptable only if they led to the growth of fully conventionally

trained, equipped, and deployed armies. And wherever the

Soviets could exercise influence on training and deployment in

Asia and Africa, they emphasized that type of warfare rather

than counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare.43 The

net result was that Soviet clients in Mozambique, Angola, and

Ethiopia and the Soviet army itself were unable effectively to

counter unconventional guerrilla warfare in these countries.

Indeed, as of 1979, Soviet suspicion about guerrilla warfare

reached such a level that some writers denounced a positive

outlook on it as Maoism—the greatest imaginable heresy then. For

instance, G. Mos’ko, writing in Military-Historical Journal, stated,

Mao Tse-Tung and his supporters frequently absolutized a partisan

war as practically the only form of people’s war. In that way the

Maoists ignored such an important question for the national liberation

movement as the creation of an army of a new type in order to

accomplish the tasks facing it. It is appropriate here to recall V. I.

Lenin’s attitude toward partisan war. He said “that never can the party

of the proletariat consider a partisan war to be the only or even the

chief means of struggle; that this means has to be subordinated to

others and has to be commensurate with the chief means of struggle,

ennobled by the enlightening and organizing influence of socialism.”44

Another result of this disparagement of and antipathy towards unconventional warfare was that Soviet writers on conflict in the third world increasingly focused on purely militarytechnical issues as bringing about the conditions for victory

rather than on the difficult political tasks required. In this

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regard, they slighted even the Vietnamese experience, a war

that Moscow should have appreciated in all its details. As one

Western analyst of Soviet writings on the military lessons of

such wars observes,

The change by Soviet military thinkers in the evaluation of American

actions in local wars from an emphasis on sociopolitical factors during

the Vietnam war to an emphasis on military ones after it represented

an important progression of ideas. No longer was the outcome of local

war seen as being determined solely by sociopolitical factors involved

in it. Indeed, such wars were won or lost depending on the degree of

military skill each side exercized.45

As we noted above, military planners completely lost sight of

the political dimensions of any potential war in Afghanistan.

Inasmuch as many Soviet commanders and even the official

view in the Soviet military encyclopedia voiced the view that

local war no longer necessarily risked world war, if the USSR

entered it, and that the USSR’s military force not only deterred

American intrigues in the third world but actually was the

main force guaranteeing its allies’ victory, there were less

restraints on Soviet intervention abroad.46 Viewed in retrospect, it is clear that the decision to commit forces abroad,

when the situation warranted it and where the risks seemed

manageable, took place around 1967 in conjunction with the

Six-Day War and Soviet participation in the Nigerian civil war.

Since 1967 intervention abroad, supported often by

powerful military-political patrons, steadily grew in both size

and depth until Afghanistan. During that decade-long growth

in interventionary capabilities in both airlift and sea lift,

airborne forces, and air defense, the experience and force

posture of foreign interventions helped to shape Soviet

doctrine for conventional war in Europe. Soviet successes

seemed to confirm the denigration of unconventional warfare

in the third world.47 To say this is not to ridicule all the Soviet

lessons learned from local wars. In principle, they should be a

most valuable learning instrument, and in conventional

warfare, the wars in the Middle East have had visible impact

on Soviet military developments. Indeed, for a time it appeared

that the Soviet conventional warfare emphasis was actually

winning, as the Ogaden war between Somalia and Ethiopia,

backed by Cuban forces and Soviet commanders and

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equipment in 1977–78, strongly suggested.48 Accounts of the

climatic battle of Jijiga in the Ogaden war and of Ethiopia’s

subsequent campaigns against the Eritrean rebellion could be

taken easily for Soviet operations in Europe.49 Therefore, such

experiences could easily mislead Soviet commanders into

conceiving of a lighting fast coup de main for their initial

operation in Kabul. That operation looked backward to Prague

1968 and incorporated an operational art and force structure

that was wholly reminiscent, albeit on a smaller scale, of what

a European theater-strategic operation might have looked

like.50

Thus, Soviet notions of local war, as much as intelligence

failure, led them astray in Afghanistan. Here, too, ideological

conceptions overshadowed true strategic thinking. Although

some have argued that Afghanistan was not typical of Soviet

interventions or involvement in the third world, Soviet military

experience there during the invasion and subsequent military

writings on that war do typify Soviet military thinking.51 As

Eugene B. Rumer observes, most of the press coverage of the

war in military journals examined tactical situations and

provided “cookbook” recipes for various tactical engagements,

mainly of airborne troops in Afghanistan or theaters similar to

it (i.e., mountains and deserts). Articles in Voennyl Vestnik

(Military Herald) that dealt with airborne troops in other

theaters also were generally “how to” writings occurring in

generic theaters and examining generic tactical missions.

Accompanied by all the necessary ideological preambles, these writings

have a great deal in common with Soviet coverage of local wars waged

by “imperialist” states. It appears that the authors of these two types of

articles are concerned with generic tactical experience of local wars

which could be just as useful in a large conventional conflict in a

continental theater and display little interest in peculiarities of local

warfare.52

Rumer even maintains that Soviet military writers show little

interest in past and present third world conflicts except insofar

as they can be used to draw generic conclusions about modern

theater operations.53

Though his conclusion may seem exaggerated, the evidence

does not. Prominent Soviet military authors also now admit

that tactics were stereotyped under Brezhnev and unsuited for

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any but standardized European-theater conditions.54 In

tactics, as in logistics, preparation of the theater,

infrastructural construction of transport and communication,

and so much else, this “out of area” operation failed to win the

careful attention it merited before troops were committed. As

Paul Kennedy notes about operations in the Middle East in

World War I, “Sideshows, in other words, made their own

operational demands, which armies neglected at their peril.”55

Certainly Moscow neglected these operational demands.

Though Soviet military writers did study the experience of

wars in the third world, they realized that their findings

virtually omitted any mention of tactics for fighting either as

insurgents or counterinsurgents. I. E. Shavrov’s collected

analyses of such wars, published as a manual for Soviet

commanders on which to reflect, focused exclusively on classic

conventional forces and operations, even though he and his

collective fully understood that “partisan” operations, as in

Vietnam, did exercise an influence on American tactics,

operations, and strategy.56

Shavrov and his collective also cannot be accused of

ignoring the importance of such wars in world politics. Indeed

Shavrov, in 1975, called them “the epicenter of the superpower

conflict.”57 So too did the author’s collective recognize the

centrality of the time factor, observing that often as time went

on, it favored the revolutionaries who restored to guerrilla

tactics and (it is implied) made it impossible for the “imperialists” to fight their kind of war. Therefore, all these wars started

with surprise attacks aimed to achieve a decisive victory in the

initial phase.58 Thus, while Soviet commanders understood

the need to win quickly, they employed operational means and

tactics that were utterly unsuited to the theater. A typical

example is the many sweeps through the Panjshir valley in

1980–85, each of which followed stereotypical manuals for

tactics in armored sweeps for conventional warfare, and each

of which failed to secure the valley, as any Vietnam war

commander could have expected. One feels they believed they

simply had to show massive force and the opposition would

crumble at once. They believed and acted this way in

Czechoslovakia and miscalculated. And, in August 1991 in

Moscow, coup plotters made the same mistake, failing to think

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through their political strategy and allow for popular

resistance by believing they only needed to show force to

intimidate potential resistance.

It should be obvious from the foregoing that Soviet tactics

too were, for a long time, unsuited to Afghanistan or to the

requirements of low-intensity conflict.59 Analyses of their

tactics show that tactical adaptation was slow, partial,

incomplete, and ultimately a failure.60 Soviet logistics took a

long time to adjust to Afghan requirements and never fully

succeeded in keeping troops supplied with adequate water,

food, medical, and other supplies. Tactical intelligence was

inconsistent and poorly coordinated with actual combat

operations. Soviet troops were slow to pursue intelligence

reports of enemy forces. Command, control, and communications were far too centralized to allow for rapid mobility.

Soviet forces too often did not dismount from road-hugging

APCs or infantry fighting vehicles suited for Europe but not for

Afghanistan, where maintenance of equipment was a constant

problem. For a long time, operations lacked surprise and were

generally standard sweeps or hammer-and-anvil vertical envelopment operations. The nights belonged to the resistance.

And one can go on. After 1980 Soviet commanders began to

realize they were in for a long war and restructured training

and force structure gradually to bring about a more mobile

force and more integration of air and land power. But these

adaptive responses were too little and too late. Even though

Moscow now reconciled itself to fighting a long war, it had lost

both time and the strategic initiative. The multiple failures of

Soviet forces in Afghanistan in this phase reveal a strategy and

tactics that, in the end, basically updated classic Tsarist wars

of conquest in Asia and the Transcaucasia. In those wars,

Tsarist and Soviet governments resorted to holding the urban

centers, devising divide-and-rule tactics—often of a form of

class warfare—among the “natives,” undermining the rural

economy of the area over time, and, first of all, sealing the

borders. Having begun those operations, the Russian forces

usually projected power outwardly by building fortified

encampments or towns behind which came Russian settlers

and governments. All of this, including the specific Soviet

policy of forced hunger due to agricultural destruction, took

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place in Afghanistan.61 The fundamental difference between those

wars and previous Soviet counterinsurgency campaigns is that in

Afghanistan the Soviets were unable to seal off the country and

could not spare or would not spare the troops to do so.

Failure to seal off the borders or politically isolate the rebels

from support abroad appears to have been a decisive

operational failure that nullified whatever gains and destructiveness the Soviet forces developed. This failure to seal the

borders also cancelled out the gains Moscow and Kabul should

have harvested from the Mujahideen’s spectacular and

continuing political failures. Finally, that failure to close the

borders, in the international conditions of the early 1980s,

would have alone sufficed to keep outside aid coming and

prolonged the war beyond original Soviet intentions.

Once the forces, mission, operational art, and tactics of the

invading forces were adapted to the theater and moved towards an airborne- and lighter infantry-type force, the process

took several years. Unwilling to risk repeating the American

debacle in Vietnam, Moscow then sought to fight a war of

attrition, substituting mass and fire for mobility. In effect it

accepted the resistance’s kind of war, adapted itself in historically stereotypical fashion to the challenge and then failed to

achieve the most elementary strategic military mission of

sealing off the borders. At the same time, the Soviet military

showed absolutely no interest in civic affairs, being utterly

contemptuous of Afghan officialdom, and thus divorced operational concepts from political and strategic considerations.

This line of conduct flouted the insight that “ultimately attrition warfare is likely to shift the focus of military effectiveness

from the operational level to the strategic and political, as was

the case with the Vietnam war.”62 As we now know, unconventional warfare requires attention first to answering the

insurgents’ political challenge, not exclusively military replies.

The failure in Afghanistan, therefore, suggests a continuing

inability of Soviet military and political commanders to see

warfare as specific to a theater and a unique concatenation of

political and military conditions, as well as a generic form of

social conflict. A recent history of the Russo-Finnish war

could, in many respects, be inserted into a history of this war

and few would know the difference. This is especially true

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regarding the Soviet disparagement of enemy resistance and

reliance on incredibly primitive and stereotyped tactics.63

There, too, Moscow believed it could “hustle” the Finns by showing force that would intimidate them and lead to a quick victory. The same belief apparently occurred in Czechoslovakia,

Afghanistan, and Moscow in 1991.

In these instances the ultimate costs were ruinous. Whereas

Moscow learned something from the Finnish war and the

ensuing disasters of 1941–42, they learned little from the

subsequent Afghan disasters of 1979–80. Indeed, at the strategic

level commanders in both the civilian, intelligence, and military

leadership continued to make the same mistakes. Both the

Afghanistan and the Moscow coup of 1991 were products of “old

thinking.” In both cases the leaders of the operation failed to

ponder Bismarck’s advice mentioned earlier to those who would

readily unsheath their swords in crisis periods. It is not clear

whether Kipling, as quoted above, meant “hustle” to speed up or

force the pace, or in its colloquial usage of swindling. Certainly,

in Afghanistan in 1979 Moscow sought to force the pace and

propel the country into socialism, even if it was ready tactically

to moderate Amin’s breakneck and rush efforts in this direction.

But one can argue that in 1980 that the mode of operations

that Moscow chose first in 1979 then in 1980 also represented

a form of hustling, in this case a swindle. In both phases of the

war, Moscow sought to achieve maximum, and even unlimited,

aims with only minimum force. In general, economy of forces

is to be desired. But an economy of force operation can

succeed only where there is “an economy of aims,” for the

operation and the forces at hand are optimally combined and

deployed. The pursuit of unlimited aims in a theater can never

be attained with limited forces, especially when their strategic

and tactical guidance was as bad as was the case here. In

Afghanistan as in Moscow the army sought to make a genuine

counterrevolution with only a handful of its forces and

miscalculated the entire “correlation of forces.” In both cases

the failure is ultimately a strategic one based on the no-longer

sustainable contradictions of Leninism and its postulates on

force and politics. In Afghanistan and the USSR these

operations make clear the end of the road for socialism and

Leninism.

PROLONGED WARS

416
Lenin introduced a permanent state of siege into both

domestic and world politics, where it flourished. Now that

Leninism is finally discredited, new thinking of many kinds

has a chance to offer both societies respite from internal and

external strife. In Afghanistan and the former USSR, civil and

external peace are inextricably tied together. As regional

conflicts, like the one in Afghanistan, draw to a close, that

former “epicenter” of ideological and superpower conflict may

become dormant for a long time to come. Ideological conflicts

and wars are almost invariably protracted since basic values

are at odds, and the social consensus of society is shattered.

Hopefully, civil peace in once-conflicted areas will usher in a

period of consensus that will last as long, if not longer, than

the period of war.

Notes

1.-Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its

Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (New York: Harper Collins,

1990), 495–510, 543–63, 574–78.

2.-Ibid., Stephen Larrabee, “Moscow, Angola, and the Dialectics of

Détente,” The World Today, May 1976, 177; Robert G. Patman, The Soviet

Union and the Horn of Africa: The Diplomacy of Intervention and

Disengagement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), passim; and

Peter Vanneman and W. Martin James III, “The Role of Opinion Groups in

the Soviet African Policy Process,” Journal of Contemporary African Studies

2, no. 2 (April 1983): 224–33.

3.-Vernon V. Aspaturian, “The Role of the International Department in

the Soviet Foreign Policy Process,” and David E. Albright, “The CPSU’s

International Affairs Commission and the Third World in the Gorbachev

Era,” The International Department of the CC CPSU Under Dobrynin

(Washington, D.C.: Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, 1989), 5–41,

143–45; and David E. Albright, “Vanguard Parties in the Third World,”

Walter Z. Laqueur, ed., The Pattern of Soviet Conduct in the Third World (New

York: Praeger Publishers, 1983), 208–25.

4.-Andrew and Gordievsky, and 483–88; and Michael I. Handel, “A

‘Runaway Deception’: Soviet Disinformation and the Six-Day War, 1967,” in

David A. Charters and Maurice A. J. Tugwell, eds., Deception Operations:

Studies in the East-West Context (London: Brassey’s [UK], 1990), 159–70.

5.-Galia Golan, Soviet Policies in the Middle East from World War II to

Gorbachev (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 58–67; Dina

Rome Spechler, “The USSR and Third World Conflicts: Domestic Debate and

Soviet Policy in the Middle East, 1967–1973,” World Politics 38, no. 3 (April

1986): 435–61; and Ilana Diamant-Kass, Soviet Involvement in the Middle

East: Policy Debates, 1966–1973 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978).

6.-Patman, 243–46.

BLANK

417
7.-Ibid.; Ilana Diamant-Kass and John W. Parker, The Kremlin in

Transition (Winchester, Mass.: Unwin Hyman, 1990); David E. Albright, “The

USSR and the Third World in the 1980s,” Problems of Communism 38, nos.

2–3 (March–June 1989): 50–70; and Francis Fukuyama, Soviet Civil-Military

Relations and the Power-Projection Mission (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand

Corporation, 1978).

8.-Stephen Blank, Afghanistan: Strategic and Operational Lessons

Learned (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War

College, 1991), chap. 1; idem, and “Soviet Forces in Afghanistan: Unlearning

the Lessons of Vietnam,” in Stephen Blank et al., Responding to Low-Intensity

Conflict Challenges (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1990), 53–79.

9.-Karen Dawisha, “Soviet Decision-Making in the Middle East: The 1973

October War and the 1980 Gulf War,” International Affairs 57, no. 1 (Winter

1980–1981): 43–59.

10.-Alexander Rahr and John Richmond, “Wind of Change in South

Africa from Unexpected Quarter,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Report

on the USSR 1, no. 19 (May 1989): 25–33.

11.-Vanneman and James, 224, 233; Ilyda Dzhirkvelov, Secret Servant:

My Life in the KGB (New York: Harper & Row, 1988).

12.-Arkady N. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow (New York: Alfred A.

Knopf, 1985).

13.-Dawisha, 57.

14.-Jiri Valenta, “Soviet Decision-Making on Afghanistan, 1979,” Jiri

Valenta and William C. Potter, eds., Soviet Decision-Making for National

Security (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984), 226; “Soviet Motives for

Invasion Are Beginning to Lose Their Veil,” Insight 5, June 1989, 30–31;

Andrew L. Eiva, “The Russian Invasion of Afghanistan: The Facts Behind the

Takeover,” Islamic Defense Review 6, no. 1 (1981): 9; Lt Jacob P. Wilkins,

USN, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Trends and Precedent in Soviet

Foreign Policy (Monterey, Calif.: Naval Postgraduate School, 1984), 43; and

Andrew and Gordievsky, 574–75.

15.-Wilkins; Blank, Afghanistan, chap. 1; and Blank, “Soviet Forces,”

69–72.

16.-“Kak Prinimalos Reshenie,” Krasnaia Zvezda, 18 November 1989,

3–4.

17.-“Former KGB Officers on Need for Reform,” Foreign Broadcast

Information Service, Soviet Union (Hereafter FBIS SU), 2 July 1991, 25.

18.-“KGB’s Kalugin Interviewed on Career,” FBIS SU, 29 June 1990, 58.

19.-Vanneman and James, 224–33; Vladimir Solv’ev and Elena Klepikov,

Yuri Andropov: A Secret Passage Into the Kremlin (New York: Macmillan,

1983), 180–83; and Galia Golan, “Gorbachev’s New Thinking on Terrorism,”

The Washington Papers, no. 141 (New York and Washington, D.C.: Praeger

Publishers, 1990), 1933.

20.-Andrew and Gordivsky, 574–75.

21.-Ibid.; and “Coups and Killings in Kabul: A KGB Defector Tells How

Afghanistan Became Brezhnev’s Vietnam,” Time, 22 November 1982, 33–34.

22.-“KGB Colonel Condems Andropov Corruption,” FBIS SU, 14

September 1990, 58.

PROLONGED WARS

418
23.-Artem Borovik, remarks, The Seapower Forum of the Center for Naval

Analyses, Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, Va., 25–26 September 1990.

24.-“Afghanistan-Podovdiia Itog,” Ogonek, no. 12 (March 1989): 6.

25.-Patman, 115.

26.-Oliver Roy, The Lessons of the Soviet/Afghan War, Adelphi Papers,

no. 259 (Summer 1991): 13.

27.-Blank, “Soviet Forces,” 53–79; and Blank, Afghanistan, chap. 1.

28.-Boris Petkov, Afghanistan Today: Impressions of a Journalist (New

Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private, Ltd., 1983), 11; and Aleksandr

Prokhanov, “Afghanistan,” International Affairs (Moscow), August 1988, 20.

29.-Alvin Z. Rubinstien, “Speculations on a National Tragedy,” Orbis 30,

no. 4 (Winter 1985): 599.

30.-Wolfgang Berner, address to the twenty-second annual convention of

the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Honolulu,

Hawaii, 20 November 1988; and Karen Sawhny, “The New Afghan Military

Balance,” Contemporary Review, November 1988, 233.

31.-“Varennikov at Internationalists’ Meeting,” Joint Publications

Research Service (Hereafter JPRS), Soviet Military Affairs, 21 June 1991, 18.

32.-Maj Gen I. N. Vorob’ev, Retired, “Pochemu Taktika Okazalas’ v

Zastoe?” Voennaia Mysl’ (Military Thought), no. 1 (January 1990): 37–44;

and “Defense Under Conditions of Remote Minelaying,” JPRS, Military

Thought, no. 1 (14 June 1991): 1–2.

33.-“Defense Conditions,” 8.

34.-Vorob’ev, 37–44.

35.-“AF CIC Rationalizes Offensive Characteristics of Air Force,” JPRS,

Arms Control, 16 July 1990, 1–2.

36.-“Draft Concept of Military Reform Proposed,” FBIS SU, 21 June 1990,

66.

37.-Lt Gen V. Serebriannikov, “Armiia-Kakoi ei Byt,” Krasnaia Zvezda, 12

February 1989, 2.

38.-Col V. G. Safonov, “Afghanistan: Itogi i Vyvody Kak Eto Bylo,”

Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal, no. 4 (May 1990): 68.

39.-Jacob Kipp, The Spanish Civil War and the Politics of Future War;

The Red Army’s Assessment of War Experience and the Fate of the Theory

of Deep Operations (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Soviet Army Studies Office,

1990).

40.-William Zimmerman and Robert Axelrod, “The Lessons of Vietnam

and Soviet Foreign Policy,” World Politics 34, no. 1 (October 1981): 16.

41.-Francesco Benvenuti, The Bolshevika and the Red Army, 1918–1922

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), passim.

42.-Serebriannikov, 2.

43.-Golan, “Soviet Policies,” 117–19; Golan, “Gorbachev’s New Thinking,”

8–11, 31.

44.-Mark N. Katz, The Third World in Soviet Military Thinking (Baltimore,

Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 105.

45.-Ibid., 112.

46.-Ibid., 65–122; and Patman, 247.

47.-Lt Col David Eshel, “The Soviet Expeditionary Force, 1970: A Lesson

in Organizational Flexibility,” Born in Battle, no. 9 (1980): 42–48.

BLANK

419
48.-Patman, 232–33.

49.-“Foreign Report,” The Economist, 16 August 1978, 2.

50.-Blank, Afghanistan, chap. 2.

51.-Eugene B. Rumer, “The Third World in Soviet Professional Military

Thinking,” Kurt M. Campbell and S. Neil MacFarlane, eds., Gorbachev’s

Third World Dilemmas (London: Routledge, 1989), 122.

52.-Ibid., 123.

53.-Ibid., 126.

54.-Stephen Blank, “Imagining Afghanistan: Lessons From a ‘Small

War’,” Journal of Soviet Military Studies 3, no. 3 (September 1990): 468–90.

55.-Paul Kennedy, “Military Effectiveness in the First World War,” Allan

R. Millett, Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness: Volume I, The

First World War (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1988), 336–37.

56.-General of the Army I. E. Sharvov, Lokal’naia Voina: Istorlia i

Sovremennost’ (Moscow: Voennoe Izdatel’stvo Ministerstvo Oborony SSSR,

1981), 124–26; “Lokal’nye Voiny i ikh Mesto v Global’noi Strategii

Imperializima,” Voenno-Ostoricheskii Zhurnal, March–April 1975, JPRS,

translation, September 1975, pt. 2, 21.

57.-Ibid., pt. 1, 8–9.

58.-Ibid., pt. 2, 20–21.

59.-Rod Paschall, LIC 2010: Special Operations & Unconventional Warfare

in the Next Century (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s [US], 1990), 45.

60.-Blank, Afghanistan; idem, “Soviet Forces”; Stephen Blank, “Soviet

Forces and Low-Intensity Conflict in Central Asia: Three Case Studies,”

Lewis B. Ware, ed., Low-Intensity Conflict in the Third World (Maxwell AFB,

Ala.: Air University Press, 1989), 37–39; Roy, passim; Robert H. Scales, Jr.,

Firepower in Limited War (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University

Press, 1990), 155–97; Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The

Lessons of Modern War: Volume 3: The Afghan and Falklands Conflict

(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), 3–237, 362–433; David C. Isby, War

in a Distant Country: Afghanistan: Invasion and Resistance (London: Arms

and Armour Press, 1989); and Lt Col Scott R. MacMichael, US Army, “Soviet

Tactical Performance and Adaptation in Afghanistan,” Journal of Soviet

Military Studies 3, no. 1 (March 1990): 102–7.

61.-Roy, 21–22; Blank, Afghanistan, chap. 4; and idem, “Soviet Forces,”

102–7.

62.-Kennedy, 338.

63.-William R. Trotter, A Frozen Hall: The Russo-Finish Winter War of

1939–40 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1991), 7, 35–41,

74–75, 205–6.

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Northern Ireland

A Prolonged Conflict

Benjamin Kline

The “troubles” in Northern Ireland erupted in 1968 and

continues after more than 20 years of bloodshed. The

combatants have been haphazardly labeled Catholic versus

Protestant or Republican versus Loyalist, but neither of these

generalizations sufficiently helps readers to understand the

forces which have motivated the unceasing violence. Yet, the

primary protagonists are more readily identified as the Irish

Republican Army (IRA), with its numerous factions, and the

British army, with its Loyalist allies. In this particular case,

the struggle clearly illustrates that the differences between an

intentionally “protracted” conflict and one which is unexpectedly “prolonged” is often determined by the success of the

former. Britain had no intention of becoming involved in a

lengthy war in Northern Ireland, but its failure to recognize

that the causes of unrest were social rather than political has

forced Britain into what it terms a prolonged conflict. In

contrast, the IRA has deliberately chosen an “armed struggle,”

one designed to be protracted, to win a war of attrition. That

warfare still torments Northern Ireland, despite British efforts

to halt it, indicates that the IRA’s protracted strategy has

become the most appropriate definition of the conflict.

The ability of the IRA to persevere is remarkable, if not

surprising. Above all other aims, the IRA is determined to

maintain a protracted conflict, however destructive it may be.

A protracted conflict holds the key to the organization’s

existence and is the core of its philosophy. In the words of

Terence MacSwiney, an Irish Republican who died during a

hunger strike in 1920, “It is not those who can inflict the most,

but those that can suffer the most who will conquer.”1

According to his belief, an exhausted Britain will eventually

retreat from Northern Ireland when the cost of maintaining its

presence becomes prohibitive. When the enemy is thus

vanquished, Ireland will be reunited, and the problems of the

421
persecuted Catholics of Northern Ireland will be rectified. It is

a simple argument, based on the historical myths and truths

of British imperialism and designed to elicit the support of

Catholics and Irish Republicans. According to this scenario,

the British army represents the power of past and present

rulers, and only a war of attrition will dislodge it. However, targets and strategies are secondary issues compared to the necessity of keeping the struggle alive. In such a conflict, military

aims are based on winning the propaganda war and demonstrating that no solution will succeed except that of the armed

struggle. In the end the IRA is confident that history will judge

it right in spite of its faults.

Despite numerous setbacks, the IRA has successfully won

the public relations battle among the Catholic population in

Northern Ireland. Much of this success emanates from the

vacillating nature of Britain’s policy. The British government

has no interest in a protracted conflict and consequently can

only interpret the unceasing opposition to its rule as

regrettably prolonged. However, in searching for a solution to

the troubles, the British government has become a major

cause of its own problem. British troops have become the ideal

target for IRA resentment, which depends on traditional

Catholic and Republican hatred of Britain for its support.

Once embroiled in an armed conflict with the IRA, the British

have found it impossible to withdraw without appearing to be

surrendering a region of Britain to a minority paramilitary

group. In its defiance the British government and its army

have, at times willingly, associated themselves with the cause

of the Loyalists, thus validating IRA claims.

While justifying its presence by citing the democratic will of

the people and the need to prevent civil war, the British

government has striven to construct a political solution which

would establish the best conditions for an honorable withdrawal. This apparent willingness to leave only convinces the

IRA that its policy of protracted conflict is working. Furthermore, in attempting to find a political answer to their problem,

British authorities have worked to prevent the alienation of

their Loyalist supporters and consequently have refused to

become completely committed to the real issue—social reform.

Thus, without an effective policy to solve the problems of

PROLONGED WARS

422
unemployment, housing, and Catholic grievances, Britain has

prolonged the conflict by contributing to the social instability

which sustains the IRA. Conor Cruise O’Brien, a leading

moderate, has stated the case clearly:

The real options in Northern Ireland are just two: either continue

direct rule or withdrawal. By constantly seeking some attractive but

nonexistent option in between, successive governments have given the

impression that they crave withdrawal even while they reluctantly

stay. That is an important part of the political culture in which the

Provisional IRA has flourished.2

Background to the Troubles

Although the IRA traces its beginnings to the Irish

Republican Brotherhood, a nineteenth century revolutionary

movement which sought an independent Irish republic, it was

not officially established until 1919. When members of the

Republican Sinn Fein party were returned to power in the

general election of 1918, they declared Ireland’s independence

from Britain, and the IRA was formed to defend the newly

created Irish republic. As the military wing of Sinn Fein, the

IRA fought British forces in the Anglo-Irish War, a conflict

which would ravish the land for two years. The war finally

came to an end in December 1921, when a controversial

agreement, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, was signed. This treaty

allowed the loyal northern six counties to remain a part of

Britain on a temporary basis and granted dominion status to

the southern counties. Opposition within Ireland appeared

when Eamon de Valera led the antitreaty delegates out of the

Dail and declared their commitment to a united Irish republic.

The IRA then split between those who accepted or rejected the

treaty. The latter group, keeping the name IRA, continued to

demand the unification of all Ireland in one republic. The

protreaty advocates formed the Irish Free State and for two

years fought a bloody civil war. Finally, the IRA was defeated

in the south in 1923, was later outlawed, and was generally

inactive until the present troubles began in 1968.

The government in Dublin refused to recognize the legitimacy of Northern Ireland, despite the apparent permanency of

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the border. In 1949 Ireland became a republic and included in

its constitution the right to govern the entire island. Yet, this

ideal remained unfulfilled by a government which was too

weak to assert its authority against Protestant and British

opposition. Furthermore, although the Protestant majority of

Northern Ireland had established a state which discriminated

against the Catholic minority in government, employment, and

housing, Britain continued to support them. Britain assisted

the Northern Ireland parliament at Stormont by subsidizing

northern industries and maintaining a staunch recognition of

the existing partition. This support became particularly

apparent after the Second World War, when an infusion of

British finance and favor rewarded Northern Ireland’s loyalty,

as opposed to Ireland’s neutrality. The continued denunciations of British imperialism and colonialism, which emanated

from Sinn Fein headquarters in Dublin, could do little against

the power of the London government. The use of force to

champion Republican aims was beyond the means of the

small Irish military while the IRA remained ineffectual. This

deficiency was made clear by the IRA’s failed military

campaign against the border from 1956 to 1962. During these

years it had demonstrated an inability to win battles or to

enlist the support of northern Catholics.

The failure of the IRA to gain Catholic support in Northern

Ireland reflected its general ignorance of the discrimination

and prejudice which Catholics suffered during this period.

These tendencies were certainly issues which could have been

exploited. Unemployment was a major problem in postwar

Northern Ireland. It hovered, from 1945 to 1963, between 5

and 10 percent, outdistancing the numbers in the depressed

regions of Scotland and Wales. By 1971 male unemployment

among Catholics was even higher, reaching 17.3 percent, as

compared to 6.6 percent among Protestants.3 The Protestant

monopoly of political power used gerrymandering of voting

districts and a housing shortage, which often left the Catholics

with little recourse but to live in overcrowded slums, to add to

this problem. These social conditions were not incorporated

into the IRA’s strategy and were thus left to be taken up by

other organizations.

PROLONGED WARS

424
The campaign for social justice (CSJ) initiated the first

significant effort to improve Catholic living conditions. Organized

by a group of middle-class Catholic activists in 1964, the CSJ

began to publicize and agitate against sectarian discrimination in

Northern Ireland. It had some minor successes and became the

forerunner of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association

(NICRA). In February 1967 NICRA, building on the experiences of

the CSJ, chose to demonstrate against the poor housing

conditions of Catholics and to draw attention to the abuses of local

authorities. It further demanded one man-one vote in local

elections, no gerrymandering of constituency boundaries, and fair

distribution of local council houses. Its criticism of the autocratic

nature of the Stormont government was expressed by calling for

the repeal of the Civil Authorities Act, which gave the government

the power to “take all such steps and issue orders . . . to preserve

the peace,” and by disbanding the B-Specials, an almost exclusively Protestant and notoriously anti-Catholic part-time police

force.4 These demands were soon followed by public meetings

sponsored by NICRA.

Stormont’s reaction to the marches and demonstrations of

the civil rights movement was uncompromising. The Royal

Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the B-Specials were mobilized

to confront the agitators forcefully. It attributed the causes of

the disturbances to the IRA and communist instigators. Stormont deplored the uncontrollable sectarian violence which

resulted but considered it unavoidable. The violence was a

clear and concise strategy which, if kept within the confines of

Northern Ireland, might have succeeded. Unfortunately for the

Stormont government, the scenes of riots and violence in the

streets could not be kept out of the news. Each night television

transmitted the images of police brutality, Protestant mobs,

and Catholic marchers into the homes of Britain and the rest

of the world. As the drama unfolded and continued unabated,

the media publicized each event. Background reports on the

discrimination of Catholics, the religious segregation in

housing and jobs, and the cases of detention without trial were

presented in detail. Northern Ireland had been put under the

magnifying glass of worldwide observation. The streets of

Northern Ireland were uncomfortable places for the Stormont

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government as well as for the British government. For the civil

rights movement, the exposure created support and momentum.

The effectiveness of global awareness of the civil rights

movement took the IRA by surprise. It had not initially been

involved, but it soon found that many of its followers were

participating in the marches. As the inspector general of the

RUC, Anthony J. Peacocke, stated, “I do not think the [IRA] are

organizing it, but it fits in with their long-term plans for

uniting Ireland forcibly.”5 In fact, the rank and file of the IRA

had chosen to participate in a movement which seemed to be

succeeding where its own organization had continually failed,

the undermining of Protestant power. This was an outburst of

discontent, deep and resolute, emanating from the core of

Northern Ireland society. In essence, the early stages of a

prolonged conflict had been reached.

The Intervention of the

British Army 1969–1972

None of the antagonists could claim an effective strategy for

achieving their goals. Decades of religious, political, and

economic divisions had erupted in communities throughout

Northern Ireland, resulting in uncontrolled sectarian strife.

With few lines of communication, efforts to find solutions were

hampered by fear and mistrust on both sides. Instead, an

environment was being created in which small violent factions

could come to the forefront and be perceived by many as

protectors. The emergence of these protectors depended on the

escalation of a conflict in which they would be sustained by an

atmosphere of insecurity and pessimism. Unfortunately, the

British government unintentionally but effectively became the

catalyst to establish this condition and thus contributed to its

prolongation.

On 20 April 1969 a pipeline at the Silent Valley reservoir

was destroyed and seven post offices were burned in Belfast.

Responsibility for the bombings remained a mystery—the IRA

and the Loyalists blamed each other—and Stormont’s inability

to quell this new stage of unrest was apparent. Sectarian

PROLONGED WARS

426
clashes continued unchecked, and riots in Derry resulted in

an estimated 100 casualties. In August Protestants in west

Belfast joined the police in tearing down Catholic barricades.

The situation quickly deteriorated, and the Catholic Falls area

of Belfast was invaded by Protestant civilians, who joined the

B-Specials in destroying the homes of Catholics and in beating

residents. On the night of 14 August alone, six people died and

150 families were burned out.6

Unable to deal with the growing conflict and fearful that it

would spread to other communities, Stormont called to Britain

for assistance. Subsequently, 10,000 British troops were dispatched to the north, arriving in Derry on 14 August and in

Belfast on 15 August. Two companies of the Third Light Infantry arrived with fixed bayonets, loaded machine guns, and

armored cars. Wire barriers were soon set up to divide the

Protestants from the Catholics. Ironically, in view of later

developments, Catholics widely welcomed the move.

It was greeted with profound relief on the Catholic side, where

community leaders had been attempting all day to communicate their

plight after last night’s widespread house-burning and shooting by

Protestant extremists and police. But the troops were met with a cold

and hostile reaction from many on the Protestant side.7

Richard Crossman, a minister in the British cabinet, was

less optimistic and wrote in his diary an insightful prophecy, “I

fear that once the Catholics and Protestants get used to our

presence they will hate us more than they hate each other.”8

Few leaders in Northern Ireland or Britain shared Crossman’s

foresight and thus were unaware that this latest event would

be an escalation rather than a curtailment of the conflict. The

British government had failed to realize it could not maintain

its position of neutrality in a society in which a large percentage of the population viewed it as the traditional imperialist enemy.

These events significantly influenced elements within the

high command of the IRA. In the past the IRA had held

staunchly to its principle of not recognizing the Stormont

government or British rule. Subsequently, it abstained from

political involvement. Yet, by the late 1960s, a strong

Marxist/Socialist following had emerged among the IRA

leadership, which was anxious to exploit the power in the

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mass demonstrations. As the civil rights movement grew in

power, the IRA altered its tactics to emphasize a socialist

agenda and a willingness to become involved in the social

movement.9

To become more politically active, the IRA recognized the de

facto existence of two Irish governments and Westminster in

December 1969. Abstentionism thus was eliminated as a basic

principle of the IRA. It subsequently became more closely

associated with Sinn Fein and its political agenda. This apparent repudiation of traditional republican ideals appalled many

of the old guard. The dissenters withdrew and formed the

Provisional Army Council (provisionals). Devoid of socialist

aims and committed to abstentionism, the provisionals called

for a simpler goal: “the eventual achievement of the full political, social, economic and cultural freedom of Ireland.”10 It

renewed its commitment to the protracted armed struggle. The

division created the officials, who primarily associated with

Sinn Fein, and the provisionals, who committed to the armed

struggle, but the term IRA is more commonly used to identify

the latter.

By August 1969 the British government was prepared to

take steps to head off the growing social unrest. As a result, it

obtained from Stormont a promise to institute a program to

reform those institutions criticized by the Catholic civil rights

movement. The stipulations of this program included equality

in employment and housing, the prevention of religious discrimination and incitement to religious hatred, the development of the Northern Ireland economy, the fostering of better

community relations, and the examination of the roles and

functions of the police. By 1971 an ombudsman had been established to investigate the central government, and a similar

official had been appointed to do the same in local affairs;

electoral changes had brought the franchise at last into line

with that of Britain; a points system based on need had been

adopted for the allocation of houses; and a ministry of community relations had been created and a community relations

commission set in motion.11

However, reforms took time and there were signs that their

implementation was not popular within the Stormont

government. Other areas where there had been little or no

PROLONGED WARS

428
movement included the appointment of a public prosecutor

distinct from the police, the introduction of antidiscrimination

clauses into government contracts, and, according to a British

government report, the unemployment rate, whereby Catholics

were two and one-half times more likely to be unemployed than

Protestants.12

In October 1971 Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian

Faulkner published proposals for proportional representation

and for a larger House of Commons and Senate at Stormont.

He also appointed to a cabinet post Dr Gerard Newe, the first

Catholic to hold such a post in the 50-year history of the state.

But the effect of both gestures was muted by the fact that, in

putting forward his suggestions, Faulkner made it absolutely

clear that his administration was still committed to the

maintenance of Northern Ireland as an integral part of the

United Kingdom and also that it regarded as fundamentally

unrealistic the idea of a mixed government of Catholics and

Protestants, which was being touted at the time.

Consequently, the Catholic community, impatient at the lack

of visible progress and deeply confused about the direction of

that progress, inclined more and more to the view that reforms

received in response to the threat or the actuality of violence

were insufficient substitutes for the recognition they sought as

full citizens in the province.13 During this period Northern

Ireland suffered from the anxiety of expectations as Catholics

sought changes which could not come soon enough, while

Protestants dreaded the slippery slope of social reform.

As attempts to resolve the problems of bias and discrimination in Northern Ireland society had been meeting with

difficulty, the violence continued to escalate. By the summer of

1970, the relationship between the British army and the

Catholic community had eroded into chronic street fighting.

British efforts to halt the growth of the IRA and to separate the

religious communities had involved crude tactics of mass

evictions, dawn raids, and blockading of streets. The Sunday

Times reported that “the idea, we have been told, was to cut

the Provisionals down to size by demonstrating that the army

could invade their home territory whenever it wished.”14

Catholics felt particularly targeted, since their communities

were identified as IRA havens, and claimed that the British

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army ignored the illegal activities of Protestants. Whether

there was favoritism or not, the strategy to cordon off areas

resulted in further polarization and added to the siege

mentality, which engulfed many neighborhoods. The British

strategy thus had contributed to the prolongation of the

conflict by further destroying its credibility as a neutral

participant.

Catholic bitterness produced an atmosphere in which the

IRA could represent themselves as the defenders of the

community in a way that had not been possible since 1922.

The situation was quickly exploited by the IRA in January

1970 when it decided to set in motion a three-part strategy,

which it hoped would initiate the protracted armed struggle it

sought. As nationalist defender it would organize and arm a

“militia” secret army. Retaliation would be made possible by

gradually provoking the British security forces so that they

would alienate the nationalists. This would allow the IRA, as a

secret urban-rural guerrilla army, to engage the British

whenever and wherever possible with the accumulated arms

and the new and trained volunteers. Thus, a constituency

would be created from which an army would be equipped to

provoke the British army into committing to a serious and

costly armed struggle.15

The first step in instituting this plan was to attract support

from the Catholic population. The IRA’s success in achieving

this goal can be significantly attributed to the actions of the

British army. The army’s behavior was often crude,

considering the complexity of the society in which it fought,

and seldom responded to the sensitive nature of a sectarian

conflict. Brig Gen Frank Kitson, who supervised the British

army’s counterinsurgency strategy in 1971, described the

army’s approach as “a sort of game, based on intense mental

activity allied to a determination to find things out, and an

ability to regard everything on its merits without regard to

customs, doctrine or drill.” However impartial this plan might

attempt to be, it ignored the fact that the British would almost

always be associated with the Loyalists. Catholic suspicions

were further incensed by Kitson’s assertion that the legal

system should be manipulated “for the disposal of unwanted

members of the public. . . . For this to happen efficiently, the

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activities of the legal services have to be tied into the war effort

in as discreet a way as possible.”16

The result of such tactics, and a turning point in Catholic

attitudes towards the army, was the 34-hour curfew imposed

on the Falls in July 1970 to facilitate arms searches. The IRA

quickly assumed the position as the sole protector of the

Catholic community, while the British army, forced to carry

out the searches, was associated with the unionist side. IRA

membership mushroomed from about 100 to about 800 in the

second part of 1970. The IRA became so formidable that when

a sniper killed the first British soldier, Gunner Curtis, on 6

February 1971, the Stormont prime minister, Maj James

Chichester-Clark, announced, “Northern Ireland is at war with

the Provisional IRA.”17

Such a situation, where public authorities had neither the

machinery nor the information to act effectively, was

tailor-made for the intervention of paramilitary groups, who

came to win control of, and therefore allocate, housing in

many areas. The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster

Defense Association represented Loyalist efforts to counter the

IRA. These organizations began to control neighborhoods and

enforce their particular versions of law and order. Their

effectiveness led many people, in both Catholic and Protestant

areas, to praise these actions as valuable community services,

while the bitterness of their victims provided fertile ground for

extremist politicians. Thus, criminals, gangsters, and extremists were tolerated as the only effective means of protecting the

sanctity of the community. Accordingly, the IRA continually

claimed to be the only defense force that the Catholics of Belfast could rely on to protect their lives and homes. The bulk of

the Catholic population accepted this claim, and although

many of them thoroughly disliked the bombing and murdering, they were not prepared to cooperate with the forces of

Britain to destroy the IRA. Loyalist extremists were successful

at gaining new recruits by making similar claims.

The arms searches had further damaged Catholic perceptions of the British army and enhanced the position of the IRA.

Only 47 of the 1,183 houses searched between 30 November

1971 and 30 January 1972 produced any arms. However, the

disruptions caused by early morning raids, the kicking down

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of doors, and instances of vandalism had turned many

moderate Catholics against the British army. Northern

Ireland’s prime minister, Brian Faulkner, and the British

army, vastly aggravated their problems by introducing

internment in August 1971. When the Stormont government

was finally allowed to implement large-scale internment

without trial, on 9 August 1971, over 300 IRA suspects were

lifted in one operation, and rioting once more broke out on a

major scale.18 The effect on the Catholic community was

devastating. Family members and friends of the arrested men

turned against the British army, criticizing their methods as

unwarranted and barbarian, and looked to the IRA for

protection. An atmosphere in which the IRA could attract

support for its protracted conflict had thus been intensified by

British tactics.

Internment also increased IRA support abroad, particularly

among Irish Americans, thus augmenting Provo’s financial

resources. American politicians of Irish descent have often

exploited the plight of Northern Ireland to attract

Irish-American voters. Sen Edward Kennedy, certainly the

most well-known Irish-American politician, expressed the

feelings of many Irish-Americans when he condemned

internment, called for the dissolution of the Northern Ireland

parliament, the immediate withdrawal of British troops, and

the reunification of Ireland. He warned that the Ulster

government’s rule “by bayonet and bloodshed” would rapidly

turn the situation into “Britain’s Vietnam.”19 Such anti-British

rhetoric has often coincided with the Irish-American support

for the use of force as a tactic in achieving reunification. Accordingly, such groups as Irish Northern Aid (NORAID) have

continually supplied the financial backing for the IRA and

other Republican paramilitary groups. The amount of such

contributions varies yearly but can rise significantly following

a high-profile IRA success. A clear example of this occurred in

1979, following the assassination of Lord Mountbatten.

NORAID received $350,000 in donations following this

incident, $100,000 more than it obtained in 1978.20

As the situation deteriorated, the British government found

itself in an uncomfortable predicament. It was forced to defend

its presence in Northern Ireland by arguing that its army was

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needed to defend democracy and prevent civil war. In support

of this claim were Loyalists who argued that Britons could not

abandon those who wished to remain British and claimed the

democratic will of the people of Northern Ireland. British

domestic support for such a cause had to be heeded by the

government. Yet, the British army represented the ideal target

for those committed to destroying the state. It could not stand

by idly or the IRA would eventually achieve the strength to

mount an aggressive campaign against it. However, by seizing

the initiative through arms searches, it only contributed to the

further alienation of the Catholic community. By 1971 there

had already been 17,262 houses searched with the inevitable

cries of outrage.21 It was a war in which traditional tactics of

warfare could not be engaged if Britain were to win the hearts

and minds of the Catholics. Yet, supporting loyal Protestants

would antagonize the Catholics, thus increasing the appeal of

the IRA, and neutrality would do the same thing. A prolonged

conflict seemed inevitable in a situation in which neither

withdrawal nor engagement would achieve Britain’s objectives.

In 1972, 468 people died from the “troubles.” Numerous

incidents, in which innocent people were injured and maimed,

caused many deaths. One example occurred in March 1972

when an explosion in a crowded cafe claimed 143 casualties.

Continuing initiatives were buried completely by Bloody

Sunday, 30 January 1972, when paratroopers opened fire on

demonstrators, killing 13 civilians. A few weeks later a bomb

attempt by the official IRA to take revenge on the battalion

responsible resulted instead in the deaths of six civilian

women cleaners and a Catholic priest at a barracks in

England. On Bloody Friday, in July, the Provisional IRA set off

22 bombs during one afternoon in Belfast, killing nine civilians

and two soldiers. The IRA campaign in the north continued to

escalate, as international and domestic support increased,

following the reactions to Bloody Sunday. The power of the

Republicans had grown to such a degree that large sections of

Derry and west Belfast were declared ungovernable “no-go”

areas for the security forces.22 The IRA’s tactics for a

protracted conflict appeared to be succeeding as the British

government failed to halt the prolongation of its troubles.

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Struggling to Find a Solution

Conditions were deteriorating by the beginning of 1973, and

the British government discovered that it was being trapped by

the social quagmire of Northern Ireland. Attempting to avoid a

prolonged conflict, it made the fatal error of initiating a

process in which it would become a more active participant in

the complexities of Irish politics. It would seek a political

compromise by sponsoring talks between Northern Ireland

and the Republic of Ireland in which it would act as mediator.

The strategy was ill-conceived at best, since the British

government would hardly be viewed as an unbiased spectator.

More importantly, it gave the impression that it was

weakening in its resolve and thus encouraged the IRA to

continue its armed struggle. In this particular case the

nonmilitary approach significantly contributed to the

prolongation of the conflict. Perhaps a truly neutral agency,

like the United Nations, would have had more success in

forwarding a political solution. Instead, in a white paper

published on 20 March 1973, the British government

proposed the abolition of Stormont and its replacement by an

assembly which would govern Northern Ireland through a

power-sharing executive.

In pursuance of its diplomatic strategy, the British

government achieved the signing of the Sunningdale

agreement on 9 December 1973. Here, the British and Irish

prime ministers and representatives of the Northern Ireland

government agreed to the establishment of a council of

Ireland. To Brian Faulkner, prime minister of Northern

Ireland, this was purely a token concession designed to ensure

that the Irish government “fully accepted and solemnly

declared that there could be no change in the status of

Northern Ireland until the majority of the people of Northern

Ireland desired a change in that status.”23 However, Faulkner

was immediately repudiated by the Ulster Unionist Council,

which opposed any negotiations with the republic, and was

forced to resign as leader in January 1974. The Sunningdale

agreement was a breakthrough as far as relations between the

Irish Republic and Northern Ireland were concerned, but on 5

January 1974, when the executive formally took office, the

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Unionist party rejected Sunningdale and power-sharing. In

any case, the effort had done little to deal with the complaints

of Catholics and only served to demonstrate that Britain was

unwilling to deal directly with this element of society.

Sectarian antagonism had not lessened despite British

efforts to find a diplomatic solution. The war between the IRA

and the loyalist paramilitaries and the British army continued,

marked by great ferocity, bombings, and assassinations. The

situation had polarized and, by its refusal to disassociate itself

from the cause of the Loyalists, the British government

seemed trapped by the uncompromising conditions. In November 1974, immediately after the deaths of 19 people by IRA

pub bombings in Birmingham, the government passed the

Prevention of Terrorism Act, making the IRA illegal and

granting the home secretary powers to exclude from Britain,

but surprisingly not Northern Ireland, persons suspected of

terrorist involvement.24 This act further evidenced Britain’s

decision to react to the problems of a prolonged conflict rather

than combat the IRA’s protracted strategy.

By the mid-1970s, the IRA and its supporters had targeted

Britain as the source of Irish political evils. Added to this belief

was an almost fanatical faith in the power of armed struggle to

eventually break the will of the British government and end its

occupation of Northern Ireland. However long this struggle

might take, the IRA was confident that history was on its side.

The IRA had learned from history that successful revolutions

often started off badly and looked hopeless but were inevitably

victorious if pressure were maintained. Therefore, solutions

which involved negotiations, the ballot box, diplomacy, or

compromises were criticized as mere diversions, which

weakened the needed resolve. The dream, and the dream

alone, would sustain the revolution.

The commitment to preserve the impression of a continued

armed struggle dictated the tactics of such a revolution. As a

relatively large fighting force—from April 1973 to April 1974,

1,292 terrorists were arrested—the IRA had difficulty

controlling these actions. Prevented from exercising a strong

central command and given the difficulties of communication

and British surveillance, the IRA saw the initiative for attacks

often delegated to individual units. These groups chose

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bombing sites and identified persons to be killed or maimed

according to local interests and interpretations of IRA policies.

While the army commanders may set down general principles

and strategy, they could not completely control their followers.

The IRA’s internal structure therefore hindered its ability to

institutionalize doctrines of discipline and command. Its

day-to-day decisions are made on the streets, thereby relying

on local intelligence or stumbling on some vulnerable target,

with little direction from central leaders. Objectives often

varied according to specific needs; sometimes, they organized

as formal attacks for psychological reasons. The IRA sometimes made mistakes, killed innocent people, and chose

inappropriate targets. Yet, they still believe these problems

have little importance in the long run. They want the armed

struggle to continue at all costs. IRA supporters willingly

endure the problems of inefficiency and poor judgment as the

price for victory.

The British government had developed its own rationale for

continuing the conflict in Northern Ireland. There was the

foreign threat. Ted Heath, the former Tory prime minister,

while visiting the US late in 1975, argued that Britain could

not leave the six counties, because “if we withdrew, there

would be a Cuba on the fringe of Europe.” Many British

leaders shared the fear of Soviet intervention on the side of the

Republicans. Yet, it was a question much closer to home

which made the strongest impression. Where would the scenes

of secession end if Britain were to surrender to an armed force

and relinquish its hold on Northern Ireland? Will Scotland and

Wales wish to imitate the example some day? There was also

the possibility that a victorious IRA would encourage such

disgruntled elements in Britain as minorities and the working

class, of which the Irish constituted a large percentage, to

press for significant social reforms. Roy Mason, Northern Ireland secretary in 1976, cited this possibility.

We would be fooling ourselves if we thought that the bloodletting that

would flow from the precipitate withdrawal of troops would be confined

to Northern Ireland. The undoubted violence could easily spread to the

mainland [Britain] with its large Irish population.25

Yet, the British government was not attracted to the

prospect of ruling Northern Ireland indefinitely. While it

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436
defended its presence by arguing that it had a responsibility to

recognize the democratic rights of the majority and to prevent

civil war, Britain believed the cost of a prolonged conflict was

daunting. It needed to find a solution which would not leave it

with the stigma of defeat and yet free it from something

Reginald Maudling, home secretary in 1970, caustically

described, as “a bloody awful country.”26 The answer which

succeeding British governments would become increasingly

attached to was the creation of some sort of cross-community

devolved government. Such an arrangement served two

purposes: it would undermine Catholic support for the IRA by

attracting moderates, and it would give Britain an opportunity

to depart gracefully.

Diplomatic efforts had broken down in the face of sectarian

mistrust and violence. Terrorist activities continued during the

latter half of the 1970s but with less ferocity. The conflict

claimed 252 dead in 1973, 221 in 1974, and 244 in 1975. This

lull can be attributed to an IRA cease-fire that lasted for most

of 1975. Attempts to reconcile Republicans by phasing out

internment by the end of 1975—when all 2,000 suspects, 95

percent of them Catholic, were released—also contributed to

calming matters. During this period the British government

tried to transfer some of its security responsibilities by

gradually reducing the British army from 21,000 in 1975 to

12,000 by 1980, while increasing the various police forces

from 14,500 to 19,500.27

The death counts continued to decline. In 1978 and 1979

only 31 civilians were murdered, compared with 55 in 1977

and 221 in 1976. This decrease can be credited to the renewed

efforts of the British government and the army to counter the

tactics of both sectarian groups. The IRA suffered severe losses

to the security forces in 1976 when they were penetrated

increasingly by army intelligence. It responded in 1978 by

augmenting the independence of the small military cells, thus

decreasing the possibility of spies discovering the identity of

the top leadership, but also expanding local initiative and the

possibility of civilian victims. The Loyalist paramilitaries

suffered a setback in May 1977 when the British authorities

refused to back down to the second Loyalist strike, which had

attempted to obtain greater self-government for the north.28

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Despite British successes, by the end of the 1970s the

political future of Northern Ireland appeared little clearer than

it had been at the fall of the Stormont parliament in 1972. In

all, between 1969 and 1979, 1,994 people died, including 573

members of the security forces.29 During this period the IRA

held fast to its doctrine of maintaining the armed struggle

against all odds. It reorganized when necessary, recruited new

soldiers to replace those who were killed or imprisoned, and

strove to stay in the public eye. Maintaining the appearance of

a viable force was imperative and probably was the reason for

the purely symbolic and high-profile assassination of Lord

Mountbatten in August 1979. However, the ambushing of

British troops in County Down in the same month resulted in

the killing of 18 soldiers and proved that the IRA could still

strike military targets.30 The conflict had been kept alive and

after nearly 10 years had enlisted a new generation. For a

decade the children of Northern Ireland had existed in a war

zone, witnessing killings and growing accustomed to violence.

It was their participation that the IRA and Protestant

paramilitaries sought. In particular, it was refusal of the

British government to effectively address the problems of

unemployment, poor housing, and the perception of biased

British justice among Catholics that significantly assisted the

IRA recruitment program.

The Ebb and Flow of a Protracted Conflict

By 1980 the IRA seemed to be in a state of stagnation. Its

numbers remained stable, but its support among the general

Catholic population lacked the fervor of the 1970s. Years of

sectarian murders, street fighting, failed initiatives, and

botched strategies had weakened its mass appeal. The

sentiment was creating a feeling among many Republicans

that the IRA was simply a group of killers who had lost the

higher moral ground. The IRA did not understand that killing

more Protestants and British soldiers would not regain this

desired public support. Instead, they sought an issue which

would portray it as the defender of Irish rights and the British

as the oppressors of the weak. Reinforcing the social divisions,

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and the IRA’s position, was a crucial factor in sustaining the

protracted conflict. The timely appearance of this issue

emerged in 1976, when Merlyn Rees, British secretary of state,

ended the special category status for prisoners claiming

political motivation for their crimes. As of 1 March 1976, these

prisoners would lose such privileges as wearing civilian

clothing and living in specially designated compounds and be

treated as ordinary criminals instead.

The order resulted in a protest in which prisoners refused to

wear clothes, keeping only their blankets. It soon escalated

when the British denied them permission to leave their cells

unless they were wearing the prison uniform. In reply, the

protestors chose to live in the growing filth of their cells rather

than comply with the British demand. When this tactic failed,

the prisoners decided to stage a hunger strike on 7 October

1980. Eventually, after failed compromises and a further

escalation, 10 prisoners would die. The most celebrated being

the death of Bobby Sands, the IRA officer-commanding, on 5

May 1981. Pressure from family members and small concessions from the British government finally ended the hunger

strike on 3 October 1981 but not before the IRA had won a

resounding public relations victory. The hunger strike had

been followed daily by the mass media in Northern Ireland, the

Republic, and Britain, as well as in the United States. Subsequently, the IRA’s strategy for a protracted conflict was

reenergized as the drama attracted renewed backing for its

cause.

With its support bolstered, the IRA decided to escalate its

attacks. In July 1982 it set off two powerful bombs. The first

exploded in a car just as the Household Cavalry was trooping

past Hyde Park in London en route to Buckingham Palace. The

second went off under a bandstand in Regents Park, just a few

hours later, as British army musicians were about to give an

afternoon concert. The blasts took the lives of 11 soldiers. The

bombings had coincided with Britain’s successful war with

Argentina over the question of who ruled the Falklands/

Malvinas Islands. The IRA ridiculed Margaret Thatcher’s claim

that the war with Argentina was justified under the United

Nations charter. In its London bombing communique, the IRA

taunted Thatcher by declaring, “Now it is our turn to properly

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invoke Article I of the UN statute and properly quote all

Thatcher’s fine phrases on the right to self-determination of a

people.”31 In all, a core of British soldiers were killed by the

IRA in 1982, along with 12 police.

The British army and its Loyalist allies further intensified

the situation by initiating what appeared to many to be a

shoot-to-kill policy. On 11 November 1982 a special unit of the

RUC killed three IRA volunteers, Gervase McKerr, Sean Burns,

and Eugene Toman. A total of 109 shots were fired at the car

carrying the unarmed men. Three members of the elite unit

were eventually charged with murdering Toman. However, all

were acquitted by Lord Justice Maurice Gibson, who declared

them to be “absolutely blameless” and praised their “courage

and determination in bringing the three deceased to justice—

in this case the final court of justice.”32 Gibson and his wife,

Cecily, were later killed by a car bomb by the IRA in April

1987. An RUC special unit was soon involved in a similarly

controversial incident when it killed a 17-year-old farm boy

named Michael Tighe. He had no IRA connections, but he and

a friend had been caught handling illegal weapons in a barn.

Tensions heightened when the IRA attempted to kill

Margaret Thatcher and members of her Tory party during the

October 1984 Conservative party conference in Brighton.

Thatcher survived the 100-pound bomb planted on the fifth

floor of the Grand Hotel but five people were killed, including

three wives of party officials. The IRA’s statement of responsibility, “Today we were unlucky, but remember—we only have

to be lucky once; you have to be lucky always,” was consistent

with its protracted philosophy. However, it did more to bolster

Thatcher’s public support that to weaken her resolve.

Speaking to the press at the conclusion of her November 1984

Chequers summit with Ireland’s Taoiseach (prime minister),

Garret FitzGerald, Thatcher made reference to suggestions

which had been made by the New Ireland Forum, declaring, “I

have made it clear that a unified Ireland is out. A second

solution was confederation—that is out. A third solution, joint

authority, that is out.”33

Thatcher’s bravado did little to deter the IRA, which had

been encouraged by the publicity gained during the hunger

strikes and the recent attack on the Tory party. Assaults on

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Royal Ulster Constabulary installations increased, including

the killing of nine members of the police at Newry RUC in

February 1985, and resulted in the death of 23 constables by

the end of the year. A new phase in the conflict emerged when

the IRA warned that they would prevent the rebuilding of these

fortifications by civilians. Any and all civilians who aided in

the construction of the British war machine were considered

legitimate targets. In August 1985 this threat was fulfilled

when Seamus McAvoy, a building contractor in Dublin, was

murdered. Three months later the German manager of a

company which provided catering services to the RUC was

killed in Derry. Terrorism is an important factor in maintaining a protracted conflict, and this new phase was specifically

designed to accentuate this element of the IRA’s strategy.

Considering the emphasis which the IRA put on local

initiative, it is not surprising that this policy led to carelessness. In the same month as the McAvoy death, a 65-year-old

Catholic was accidentally killed by an IRA hit squad which

mistook him for a Protestant building contractor. The resulting

negative publicity was compounded by the killing of a man

who was driving a car similar to one driven by a known Ulster

Defense Regiment (UDR) soldier. Even when the assassins got

the right victim, their choice sometimes did little to enhance

their popularity. The execution of Catherine Mahon, the first

woman killed by the IRA for being an informer, and her

husband was widely condemned.

Popular support for a protracted conflict often follows an

ebb-and-flow pattern, rising and falling according to the latest

atrocity. Subsequently, a reliance on violence, poor judgment,

and mismanagement had seriously damaged the positive gains

which the IRA had enjoyed following the hunger strike. Added

to these setbacks was the diplomatic manueverings of the

British government. In the Anglo-Irish agreement (the Hillsborough accords) of 15 November 1985, signed by Thatcher

and FitzGerald, the Republic gained a voice in Northern

Ireland affairs by establishing an Intergovernmental Council,

which would cooperate on such matters as security, administration of justice, border problems, and political questions.

Thus, in principle, Britain recognized the right of the Republic

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to participate in Northern Ireland affairs and that its alliance

was crucial to settling the sectarian strife.

However, Britain also achieved a diplomatic victory by

including a clause which reaffirmed its policy in Northern

Ireland by stating, “Any change in the status of Northern

Ireland would only come about with the consent of a majority

of the people of Northern Ireland.”34 As many Republicans

argued, this stipulation depended on the Irish government’s

repudiation of its own constitution, which affirmed the

essential unity of the country. Furthermore, the influence of

the Catholic religion in the legal system (e.g., making divorce

illegal) would hardly be welcomed by a majority of the

Protestant north.35 As long as such provisions remained a part

of the Irish constitution, it could not fulfill the promise of the

Anglo-Irish agreement.

Yet, for the British government, the significance of the

Anglo-Irish agreement was more than an effort to increase the

participation of Dublin. It represented another attempt to

undermine public support for the IRA. Military tactics had

failed, and authoritarian methods could be exploited but

convincing Catholics, many of whom viewed the IRA as their

only defender, that the Irish government could be a viable

alternative had been a major goal in the propaganda war. The

Anglo-Irish agreement seemed to suggest that the British were

closer to achieving this aim.

Despite the diplomatic achievement of the Anglo-Irish

agreement, there remained a serious flaw in Britain’s strategy

to combat the IRA. The British government still failed to realize

that the IRA and sectarian strife were only symptoms and not

the cause of the war. At the core were centuries of Catholic

persecution and segregation. These social problems could not

be confused with military or political priorities if the conflict

were to end. While the IRA might convince Irish Americans

that a united Ireland was the goal, it depended on the

perceived and actual cases of social inequality in Northern

Ireland for its recruits and public support. Thus, while

unemployment had soared to 22 percent in 1987, the Fair

Employment Agency, created by the Northern Ireland office in

1976, admitted that male Catholics were still twice as likely to

be jobless as Protestant men.

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To avoid alienating its Protestant/Loyalist supporters,

Britain had refused to effectively enforce its own guarantees

for the protection of civil rights in Northern Ireland. In this

study of the northern Ireland war, Kevin J. Kelley cited blatant

cases of prejudice in employment.

At three of the North’s major industrial firms—Harland & Wolff

shipbuilders, Mackie & Sons textiles, and Shorts Brothers aircraft

manufacturers—the disproportion between the number of Catholic

and Protestant employees is nearly as pronounced in 1987 as it was in

1967. The Catholic share of Shorts’ workforce actually declined in

1985, the FEA reported, falling from 17% to 14%. Mackie’s 90%

Protestant factory can only be expected to become more segregated as

it considers a move from the Springfield Road dividing line in Belfast to

an exclusively loyalist enclave. Britain meanwhile provides Harland &

Wolff with a 68 million pound annual subsidy that helps it retain a

4,000-strong work force containing fewer than 500 Catholics.36

Jobless young men, standing on street corners, with nothing

to do and little hope, are easily attracted to groups like the IRA

and its promises.

By the late 1980s the war of attrition had gained a life of its

own. Causes and solutions continued to be debated but had

been dimmed by the dedication of both sides to violence. None

of the combatants were prepared to compromise or retreat,

fearing that any ground given would bring victory to their

enemy. In 1988 a chain of events began in March, which

symbolized the “tit-for-tat” nature of the conflict. Three

unarmed IRA volunteers were killed by the British army in

Gibraltar. During their funeral in Belfast, a group of loyalist

gunmen opened fire on the crowd, murdering three mourners.

This was followed by the deaths of two plainclothes British

soldiers who were beaten and shot when their car approached

the funeral procession for one of the cemetery victims. The

following year witnessed few innovations in the pattern of

incessant murders and poor judgment. In 1989 the IRA killed

two top RUC officers and accidentally murdered three civilians

at an alleged UVF meeting place. They continued to carry the

conflict outside of Northern Ireland when a bomb in England

killed 10 English army bandsmen and a shooting in West

Germany killed a British soldier and his infant daughter.

These public relations blunders were soon offset when the IRA

won a propaganda victory in October. The impartiality of the

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British legal system was brought into question after the

Guildford Four were declared innocent by a court of appeal,

which found them wrongfully convicted of a 1974 English pub

bombing.37

By the summer of 1991, the chief constable of the RUC

warned that the threat from paramilitary groups in Northern

Ireland was at its highest level in two years and that an

increase in violence was likely. In particular he was concerned

that “if the Loyalists come back into the fray with more

random killings, then it will be grim.” He considered the IRA to

be less of a problem, arguing, “They are not actually going

anywhere. . . . Their political mandate is reducing.” He

predicted that eventually the IRA would be forced to give up its

campaign of violence and join constitutional talks.38 British

officials have speculated about the demise of the IRA before

and have continually been found to be wrong. It is unfortunate, in view of past history, that the only forecast which may

be reliable is the one which sees the continuance of the IRA’s

protracted conflict.

Conclusion and Future

The IRA’s strategy for a protracted conflict is based on a

purposeful continuation of the armed struggle while Britain’s

regrettably prolonged conflict is an admission of Britain’s

failure to halt the hostilities. After more than 20 years of atrocities, killings, and social unrest, it is therefore evident that

Northern Ireland’s troubles are most closely defined by the

IRA’s terminology.

The reasons for the success of this strategy are certainly

complex, but perhaps they can best be illustrated by the

teachings of one of this century’s most successful revolutionaries. Mao Tse-tung, nearly 30 years after the IRA had committed itself to a war of attrition, described the conditions

necessary for a successful protracted war. In his metaphor

about the fish and the water, he argued that small persistent

revolutionary movements could win victory if they existed in

an environment which would sustain them. If the IRA is the

fish and the approximately one-third of the population which

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supports it is the water, then the situation in Northern Ireland

becomes clearer. As long as circumstances allow the IRA to

attract recruits, sympathizers, arms, and finance, they will

have the capability to continue their terrorist activities. Added

to this is a society which has access to targets, publicity, and

safe havens. For over two decades these elements have existed

in Northern Ireland. Subsequently, the IRA, and to a lesser

degree the Protestant/Loyalist groups, have survived in a supportive environment.

While the environmental conditions maintaining this conflict

include objective, traditional, religious, and political divisions,

they particularly involve perceptions of actual injustice. The

conventional divisions are constantly exploited by antagonists

who seek to polarize camps but who do not address the injustices themselves. The concrete social basis for maintaining

this environment among Catholics is that they feel they would

be better treated as citizens of the Republic of Ireland, while

the Protestant majority seeks to protect its culture by

preserving its link to Britain.

Whether these injustices could be corrected within the

existing state is irrelevant to the IRA. The IRA has incorporated this resentment into its program for uniting Ireland and

ending British rule, while the actual persecution of Catholics

becomes a secondary concern relative to this goal. Britain has

done little to undermine this strategy. Far from building a

social base for its point of view, the British government has

substantiated IRA claims by steadfastly maintaining its

presence in Northern Ireland and by refusing to effectively

institute the social reforms needed to correct Catholic grievances. As a result it has further alienated Catholics and

inevitably allied itself with its Protestant/Loyalist supporters.

A guerrilla war cannot be fought by traditional tactics of

combat. The British government finds itself faced by an enemy

which it cannot easily identify or flush into the open.

Therefore, military methods are often useless and prone to

cause more problems than they solve. Realizing this, the

British government has turned to a political strategy in their

attempt to undermine IRA support by establishing diplomatic

compromises involving the Republic of Ireland and Northern

Ireland leaders. Unfortunately, this approach has done more

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to compromise the British government’s position by conveying

the impression that it would like to find an honorable means

of retreating from Northern Ireland. Thus, the IRA and its

constituents have been emboldened by this apparent weakening of British resolve. Such beliefs nourish the environment in

which the IRA can attract support and can increase the efforts

of the Protestant/Loyalists to oppose any negotiations which

they might interpret as being “sold down the river” by the

British government. Successive generations have become

accustomed to such extremist views and have come to accept

violence as a way of life. Therefore, the environment remains

stagnant, unmoved by an ineffective British government and

exploited by the IRA. Until real social reform is instituted or

the British government leaves Northern Ireland to struggle

with its own devils, the situation will remain the same;

namely, a society in which violent agitators can feed and thrive

on the fear of the community.

Pessimism about the future of Northern Ireland is easy. In

fact, there is little middle ground from which peaceful solutions can be attained. However, speculations about the future

of the military factor offer some intriguing possibilities. If the

breakdown in the Eastern Bloc continues and the immediate

threat to Britain declines, the usefulness of the British army

may convince a cost-conscious parliament to deplete its

numbers. In Northern Ireland, the effect of changing priorities

has been felt already. In the summer of 1991 the UDR, a

military force designed to assist the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was disbanded. Yet, this demobilization may make the

military solution in Northern Ireland more feasible. As the

British army limits its activities, it has one remaining foe in

the IRA. Subsequently, while it decreases in size, those troops

and resources available could be concentrated within Northern

Ireland. A much more aggressive and ambitious military campaign against the IRA would consequently follow. The Irish

Republican Army government would have little force to oppose

this, even if it wished to, and the Catholics and Republicans in

the north would be faced with the choice of either surrendering or turning to the IRA for protection. Still, if the British

strategy were quick and decisive, it could eliminate its military

enemy and dictate its own solution. The social and economic

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costs would be high, but if successful, it might allow a British

government to force the antagonists to accept a scheme as a

precursor to its own departure. The result would hardly be

ideal, leaving a volatile society, but if peaceful political

solutions continually fail, a future British government might

gamble on the military path as an expedient alternative.

The other factor in the equation is the Republic of Ireland.

While it has limited resources, it nonetheless is the key to a

peaceful resolution to the Northern Ireland question. Many

northern Catholics perceive it as a protector. However doubtful

its ability to protect Catholics may be, the Republic of

Northern Ireland remains the only accepted alternative to the

IRA. If it can enhance this perception with the support of the

British government and initiate effective social changes, then

IRA enlistments will decrease. Simultaneously, it must

convince Protestants that Dublin will not interfere with their

way of life. If these goals are achieved, the next step will be to

unite Ireland, while ensuring that the predominantly

Protestant countries are guaranteed a great deal of local

autonomy. Such a solution would necessitate an alteration in

the Irish constitution, eliminating such religious and social

clauses which are abhorrent to Protestants. A type of federation would thus be created between the Irish state and the

Protestant counties. It would depend on the flexibility of all the

groups involved. At present such a solution seems beyond the

capabilities of the existing powers.

Notes

1.-J. Bowyer Bell, IRA Tactics and Targets (Dublin: Poolbeg Press, 1980),

11.

2.-The London Times, 6 July 1991.

3.-J. J. Lee, Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society (Cambridge, Mass.:

Cambridge University Press, 1990), 412–13.

4.-D. J. Hickey and J. E. Doherty, A Dictionary of Irish History 1800–1980

(Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1987), 70.

5.-J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: A History of the IRA 1916–70 (London:

Spere Books Ltd., 1972), 420.

6.-Lee, 429.

7.-The Observer, 17 August 1969.

8.-R. H. S. Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister (London: Fontana

Press, 1973), 620.

9.-Bell, The Secret Army, 424.

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10.-Ibid., 431.

11.-F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland since the Famine (London: Fontana Press,

1973), 767–73.

12.-A. C. Hepburn, The Conflict of Nationality in Modern Ireland (London:

Edward Arnold Ltd., 1980), 196.

13.-Lyons, 776–77.

14.-James Kelley, The Courage of the Brave (Meath: Kells Publishing Co.,

1989), 3.

15.-Bell, IRA Tactics and Targets,17.

16.-Kelley, 16.

17.-Kevin J. Kelley, The Longest War: Northern Ireland and the IRA

(London: Zed Books, 1988), 150.

18.-Lee, 438.

19.-The Guardian, 21 October 1971.

20.-Kelley, The Longest War, 309.

21.-Lee, 433.

22.-Hepburn, 191.

23.-Lee, 444.

24.-Kelley, The Longest War, 227.

25.-Ibid., 222.

26.-Lee, 434.

27.-Ibid., 450.

28.-Ibid., 451.

29.-Hepburn, 191.

30.-Bell, IRA Tactics and Targets, 75.

31.-Kelley, The Longest War, 352.

32.-Ibid., 353.

33.-Ibid., 368.

34.-Kelley, The Courage of the Brave, 4.

35.-Arthur Mitchell and Padraig O’Snodaigh, Irish Political Documents

1916–1949 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1985), 216–17.

36.-Kelley, The Longest War, 366.

37.-Ibid., 382.

38.-The London Times, 6 July 1991.

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Tentative Observations and Conclusions

Constantine P. Danopoulos with Rebecca R. Ruelas

Utilizing the analyses and the conclusions reached in the

preceding case studies, the concluding essay draws some

broad prototheoretical generalizations and patterns regarding

the nature and setting of prolonged wars/conflicts and the

factors that contribute to their prolongation.

The Nature and Setting of Prolonged Wars

Prolonged wars are not new phenomena. They have occurred

throughout human history with considerable frequency and

have involved Asian, African, Middle Eastern, Latin American,

and European nations. Yet, in the post–World War II period,

the majority of such conflicts have taken place on the soil of

the developing societies of the third world; they also were

influenced by the cold war conditions and the pervasive

involvement of outside forces, especially the two superpowers.

With few exceptions, most of these wars have involved

multiregional and multiethnic societies that were characterized by social and ethnic fragmentation, political instability,

and low levels of economic development. These societies

experienced a period of political upheaval—much like European states and the United States did over a century ago—

which often served as a catalyst to external aggression. This

unfortunate situation remains relatively unchanged even to

this day. Most developing countries have made little physical

progress toward economic development, political stability, or

social consensus. By comparison, advanced industrial

societies with high standards of living tend to be satisfied and

less likely to go to war, which might risk that valued status.

For example, it is estimated that since 1945, all but one of the

60 civil wars took place in developing states, and 14 of these

conflicts became internationalized. Western European and

449
North American nations and Japan fit the category of

advanced industrial societies.

Colonial domination and specific historical circumstances

often provide the background for the emergence and

sustenance of prolonged conflict. Analyzing the impact of

colonialism on the Ethiopian conflict, Cobie Harris contends

that the “Italian role stimulated and nourished Eritrean

national consciousness . . . and planted the seeds of Eritrean

nationalism which made the fusion between semi-capitalist

Eritrean and feudalist Ethiopia inherently unstable.” He then

concludes that “Italian imperialism and the rise of the

Ethiopian nation-state set the stage for the drama of the

longest war in post-colonial Africa.” Charles L. Stansifer’s

discussion of the Nicaraguan civil war is also instructive. He

states that the country’s “political history since attaining

independence in the early nineteenth century has been

marked by partisan strife.” Centered around “family rivalries,”

this conflict made “peaceful political exchange” impossible and

led to the unfortunate practice where “the party in power not

only represses the opposition but also makes the out-party

pay economically in various ways for its political misfortunes.”

The Vietnamese people’s long struggle against colonial

domination also set the stage for the emergence of a mind-set

which perceived the presence of the United States as a continuation of foreign imperialism that they had single-mindedly

committed themselves to eradicate. Garth Shelton and Karl P.

Magyar attribute the emergence of “violent independence movements in Portuguese Africa to the failure of the Lisbon

authorities to feel the winds of change sweeping the continent”

and the inability of insurgents to comprehend Portugal’s

“determination to maintain control.” Similarly, the ability of

the Ian Smith government “to withstand sanctions by developing alternative domestic industries and by circumventing

United Nations sanctions,” in Herbert Howe’s estimation, was

responsible for the long and violent conflict in Rhodesia.

In addition, prolonged conflicts seem to occur almost

exclusively among authoritarian societies, where loss of

human life and the heavy damage that such wars inflict can

be concealed and those who speak out can be muzzled or even

liquidated. By contrast, prolonged wars are more difficult to

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sustain in democratic settings. “[C]onstitutionally secure

liberal states,” says Michael W. Doyle, “have yet to engage in

war with each other.”1 The nature of democracy, constitutional

restraints, and public opinion makes it difficult for democratic

governments to fight prolonged wars. Earl Tilford credits Gen

Vo Nguyen Giap of North Vietnam as having correctly

reasoned “that after the United States had suffered

approximately 50,000 dead, the American public would make

its government change its policy, and the troops would be

withdrawn.”

Yet democratic governments “have reasons to be skeptical of

their counterparts that cannot claim to represent their

peoples” and may “go to war for crusade reasons—that is, in

order to promote democratic values.”2 Discussing the particulars of the conflict in Northern Ireland and British involvement in it, Benjamin Kline states that London has “defended

its presence by arguing that it had a responsibility to recognize

the democratic rights of the majority.” Tilford sees American

involvement in Vietnam in similar terms. He argues that

Washington’s Vietnam policy “tended to be declamatory and

morally-based.” Its fundamental aim was “to support the

success of liberty,” which “was assumed to be morally superior

to totalitarian communism.”

Prolonged war/conflicts (both domestic and international),

says Karl P. Magyar, “often degenerate into purposelessness,”

inflict heavy material, social, political, and psychological

damage, and take a heavy toll on human life but rarely

accomplish the intended goals of the participants. Frequently,

there are no victors or vanquished in the traditional meaning

of these terms. In some cases, a participant may realize its

goals and objectives not by scoring a decisive military defeat

over its opponent but through the other party’s decision to cut

its losses and to withdraw from the conflict, rather than risk

additional loss of life or further economic and social damage.

According to Stephen Blank, when the Soviets entered the

conflict in Afghanistan, “[a] prolonged war ending in defeat

was the last thing they expected.” But when it became

apparent that the war had become “a bleeding wound” for his

country, Mikhail Gorbachev decided that the humiliation of

withdrawal without achieving stated goals was preferable to

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the continuing agony of prolongation. Though difficult to

gauge due to press and other restrictions prevailing at that

time, Moscow’s decision to terminate the conflict may have

been forced by the unpopularity of the war. This unpopularity

manifested itself in a number of ways, including draft evasion

and military defections. US involvement and final withdrawal

from Vietnam displayed remarkable parallels, so did Israel’s

withdrawal from the Lebanese conflict in the 1980s. In all

cases, though tired and frustrated, the “vanquished” party still

had sufficient military force and the wherewithal to continue

fighting but chose to cut its losses. By comparison, the

winning side won by not losing—not because it managed to

score a decisive military victory.

The immense human and material toll prolonged wars take on

the combatants eventually hampers the ability of combatants to

continue the fight. In such cases, the objective of each side

remains unrealized, and the disputes between them remain far

from resolution. Under such circumstances, the warring parties

may seek a truce, accept third party mediation, or agree on

different ways of conflict resolution in fratricides. In the Iran-Iraq

War, the combatants eventually exhausted themselves, and

though none of the disputes that led to war had been resolved, the

combatants reluctantly decided to accept a truce. By July 1988

Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, became convinced

that “further prolongation of the war would . . . destroy the

Revolution.” The war nearly bankrupted the regime of Saddam

Hussein and forced the Iraqi dictator to call for a cease-fire

followed by a negotiated settlement when it became apparent that

an all-out victory would become less likely. Similar considerations,

according to Stewart Reiser, forced Israel and some of its Arab

neighbors to seek a negotiated settlement to their disputes. A

stalemate ultimately forced the Sandinistas and the Contras in

Nicaragua and the government and FMLN forces in El Salvador to

seek to resolve their conflict through electoral means.

The Prolongation Factors

Since the original intention to achieve quick military victory

does not materialize, why do the warring parties continue

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fighting? Why do wars or conflicts become prolonged? Clearly,

each conflict has its own idiosyncrasies and character, and its

own victims. Yet, we can make some generalizations. Generally

speaking, we can divide the factors that contribute to the

staying power of certain wars or conflicts into three separate

but often interrelated categories: general societal, international/

regional, and strategic/military. Let us be more specific.

Societal Factors

Societal refers to specific political, social, ideological, and

economic factors that provide the means to continue the

conflict or create a social milieu that makes termination of the

war unrealistic or socially unacceptable. Even though wars are

destructive, they benefit some groups. Supplying and

smuggling weapons and supplies can be profitable. Finding

the resources to pay for these necessities can lead to the

cultivation and sale of narcotics and other illegal commodities.

The Nicaraguan Contras, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and

numerous other groups have been linked to such activities as

have the militaries of El Salvador, Panama, Guatemala,

Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Rebel groups and drug cartels in

Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia are said to have developed

synergic relationships. Colombian farmers benefited more

from Pablo Escobar’s narcotic-financed philanthropy than the

policies of the government in Bogotá. Stopping the drug trade

and the low-intensity guerrilla war going on in these countries

is clearly antithetical to the economic interests of many

Colombian, Peruvian, and Nicaraguan farmers. Right-wing,

left-wing as well as Muslim and Christian militias in Lebanon,

notes As’ad AbuKhalil, “developed their own economic network

that relied for revenues on narcotics and arms smuggling.”

Civil conflicts generate mass mobilization and sectarian

agitation which further divide the multiethnic and already

fragmented political cultures of developing societies. The

“demonization of the other sect,” argues AbuKhalil, “has

helped traditional leaders in presenting themselves as

champions of the interests of the community.” Demonization,

coupled with regional imbalances in economic development,

leads people “to attribute their dissatisfaction to the tyranny or

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misguidedness of the other sect.” Under the circumstances,

compromise becomes unacceptable and continuation of the

conflict is an inevitable outcome. Frédérick Torimiro depicts

the Chadian situation in similar terms. The country’s

lackluster economy and fragmented political culture prompt

those groups not in control of the levers of authority to view

the “political group in control of the government . . . [with]

suspicion,” making civilized politics difficult to sustain.

Social mobilization and sectarianism have two additional

spin-offs, which contribute to the prolongation of war. One is

the multiplicity of dimensions of the conflict, and the other is

the emergence of war elites or warlords. The more multidimensional the conflict, the more complicated the process of

conflict resolution becomes. Meddling by outside powers often

sustains or even exacerbates the number of participants and

the dimensions of the conflict. The particulars of the Lebanese,

Ethiopian, Sudanese, Afghan, and Liberian cases lend support

to the argument. Cobie Harris, for example, feels that the

collapse of the central government of Haile Selassie and its

replacement by the brutal and illegitimate Mengistu regime led

to the emergence of competing secessionist movements in

Eritrea and Tigre. Having to deal with a number of movements,

each of which had its goals and perceived the Ethiopian

problem in different terms, hampered Addis Ababa’s ability to

defeat the rebels and added to the prolongation of the war

between the two main protagonists: the Amhara-dominated

central government and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front

(EPLF). Divisions and splits among the different rebel groups

in Liberia and in the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army are

seen by Karl P. Magyar and Ann Mosely Lesch, respectively, as

having played a similar role in the staying power of the

Liberian and Sudanese civil wars. AbuKhalil is even more

candid. “A main reason for the prolongation of violence in

Lebanon which produced the civil war and which could

produce more bloodshed and strife in the future, lies in the

multiplicity of dimensions of the conflict.” He places the blame

on the “connection between the various internal and external

factors that perpetuated the war.”

The emergence of a new war elite, exemplified by the

warlords in Chad, Liberia, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, is the

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other derivative of social mobilization and sectarian agitation.

The weakening of the central government, itself a product of

strife and social fragmentation, gave rise to a new breed of

military leaders who replaced the traditional ethnic or

sectarian politicians. In Lebanon this new elite set up “a

sophisticated bureaucracy . . . to cope with the rising needs of

the thousands of fighters . . . and inherit[ed] the state

responsibilities” in different parts of the country. The new

leaders who speak “for the war activists” tend to be “youthful

and experienced on the battlefield. They are trusted by their

fighters for their closeness with the average people on the

streets.” “This new elite,” concludes AbuKhalil, “represented

the militancy of the civil war; a militancy that was responsible

for the brutality and savagery that characterize it.” Prince

Johnson and Charles Taylor in Liberia and Hisséne Habré and

Goukouni Oueddei in Chad played similar roles in the

prolongation of the civil war in these two countries. UNITA

leader Jonas Savimbi and the different guerrilla leaders in

Afghanistan also fit the warlord category.

Political considerations contribute to the prolongation of

conflicts as well. Nothing can unite a society more than an

external threat. Outside encroachments against a nation’s

national interests, pride, and physical integrity usually serve

as rallying-around-the-flag movements which mobilize the

citizenry to close ranks behind the leadership to save the

country in times of peril. This reaction can give a weak and

tottering regime a chance to buy time and to cloak itself with a

mantle of legitimacy and national pride. In addition, by

keeping the armed forces preoccupied with the war effort, the

government can neutralize military coups aimed against it.

Conflict prolongation, then, can serve politically useful

purposes for unconsolidated or illegitimate governments and

can lead to regime consolidation.

The Iran-Iraq War had significant consolidation benefits for

the Baathist Baghdad regime and for the theocratic republic of

Ayatollah Khomeini. Shirkhani and Danopoulos note that “the

war demonstrated that an external threat could overcome

religious loyalties, as the Baath party successfully mobilized

the Shiaa majority population in the war effort against the

Islamic Republic. Iraqi Shiaa did not switch sides and did not

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support their Iranian brethren in the war, as expected.” The

Iranian “clergy’s drive to consolidate their rule also benefited

from the war [for it] became the vehicle of control and

cohesiveness . . . and established the religious fundamentalists as the dominant political group among the heterogeneous, divided forces of the revolution.” One could argue

also that the bombing of North Vietnam by the United States,

instead of forcing Hanoi to submit, strengthened the resolve of

the Vietnamese to carry on the war and helped the communist

leaders to present themselves as the only legitimate and

national-minded force striving to extricate the country from

colonialism.

Finally, religious or ideological considerations are important

prolongation factors. Ideology, which is often based on

religious doctrines, can be a catch-all vehicle that serves as a

framework for action, analysis, moral justification, and

rationalization, as well as a blueprint for the present and the

future. Wars fought on ideological or religious grounds tend to

be cast in messianic or apocalyptic terms and promise higher

spiritual rewards for those who give up their lives by elevating

them to the realm of martyrdom, thus assuring their souls a

place of repose, glory, and fulfillment. Such attitudes help to

mobilize, galvanize, and maintain popular support for the

continuation of the war.

The Sudanese civil war is a good example. The country’s

dominant political groups (which are Arab and Muslim and

live in the North), in Ann Mosely Lesch’s words, feel that they

have “the right to institute Islamic legal codes concerning not

only their own personal matters, but also political, economic,

and social life.” By contrast, they view the southern-based and

predominantly Christian Sudanese People’s Liberation

Movement (SPLM) as “insubstantial” and its values

“threatening” to the wishes of the Muslim majority. The SPLM,

on the other hand, wants to create “a united Sudan under a

socialist system that affords democracy and human rights to

all nationalities and guarantees freedom to all religious beliefs

and outlooks.” The wide gulf that separates the two

communities made “accommodation . . . impossible,” thus

contributing to the prolongation of the war.

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The Anglo-Irish Treaty of the 1920s allowed the northern six

counties of Ireland to remain part of Britain while their

Catholic southern counterparts were granted Dominion

status. This move led to “bitterness” on the part of the

Catholics of Northern Ireland and, in Benjamin Kline’s

estimation, produced an atmosphere which allowed the IRA to

recruit sympathizers and to organize a prolonged campaign

against the British. Steffen Schmidt, too, believes that the

Catholic Church “has always played an important role in [El

Salvadoran] politics.” Citing an article in which a Jesuit priest

sanctions “the legitimation of insurgency prolonged struggle,

[and] war of liberation” by elements of the Catholic Church,

Schmidt concludes that “this was an important factor in the

guerrilla strategy of prolonged war. It gave moral sanction to

the process.”

Religious or ideological considerations contributed to the

prolongation of war in Vietnam, Lebanon, Cambodia, and

Nicaragua. Even the Arab-Israeli conflict was in part

influenced by differences in religious outlook. Both sides made

references to their respective holy books to substantiate their

conflicting claims of landownership. However, nowhere was

the role of religion more powerful than in the Iran-Iraq War.

Shirkhani and Danopoulos contend that “the factor most

responsible for the prolongation of the war was the Islamic

orientation of the Iranian Revolution with its religious

psychology and the messianic zeal of its leaders and their

followers.” Seeing Saddam as “a puppet agent carrying out

foreign satanic orders” and their revolution as a vehicle to

“reverse the penetration of Western values into Iran and other

Islamic cultures,” Khomeini and his colleagues dismissed

efforts to bring about cessation of hostilities as “a retreat from

religious duties.” Rejecting Saddam’s cease-fire offer,

Khomeini thundered: “We cannot compromise the ‘Hussein,’ a

perpetrator of corruption. . . . We [are] bound by our religion to

resist as much as we [can].” Though badly divided the Afghan

Mujahedin saw the Soviet “infidels” in remarkably similar

terms.

Finally, fear that cessation of hostilities would allow the

status quo—against which they rebelled—to return is another

consideration that prompts warring factions to continue their

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457
fighting. After having suffered heavy casualties and

destruction, leaders find it difficult to convince their followers

that a return to the status quo ante is desirable. Thus, even

though wars may degenerate into purposelessness, leaders

believe that a continuation of the struggle may be more

justifiable or even preferable than returning to the conditions

that caused the conflict in the first place. The Arab-Israeli

conflict as well as the Sudanese, El Salvadoran, Chadian,

Northern Ireland, and Lebanese fratricides illustrate this

thesis. For example, AbuKhalil argues that the Lebanese

feared that the peace plans would result in partial or

temporary cease-fire but “would not lead to a final resolution

of the war.”

International/Regional Factors

Decisions or developments beyond the domain of the

warring parties often provide the necessary weapons and the

logistical, intelligence, diplomatic, and ideological support that

contribute to prolongation of the war. This practice was

standard during the cold war, when the two superpowers

supported opposing sides. Almost all conflicts during this

period, domestic or international, were characterized by

superpower involvement of one form or another. None of the

preceding case studies were exempted from the spin-offs of the

Washington-Moscow ideological rivalry and hegemonic

tendencies. By supporting opposing sides, the two

superpowers strengthened the ability and the wherewithal of

each side to continue the fight. In so doing the superpowers

promoted their own conflicting national and strategic

interests.

The cold war, says Stansifer, fueled the Contra war. Without

foreign support, argues Herbert Howe, Zimbabwean “guerrillas

could not have prolonged their struggle” against the well-oiled,

white Rhodesian regime. Steffen Schmidt’s conclusions

regarding El Salvador are remarkably similar. Both sides (i.e.,

the government and the FMLN) “relied heavily for political,

ideological, and material support on the Cold War model, and

thus on externalities.” He agrees with Kate Doyle and Peter S.

Duklis’s language (which he cites) “that the United States

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involvement in the war in El Salvador contributed, directly or

indirectly, to the extended nature of the conflict.” Likewise, in

the words of Stansifer, “the Sandinistas counted on financial

and military support from the Soviet bloc,” while the Contras

benefited from President Reagan’s “determination to extract

the Sandinistas from Managua.” Finally, Stewart Reiser

attributes the prolongation strategies adopted by the Arabs

and Israelis as reflecting “each side’s perception of their

respective natural advantages as well as their abilities to

extract resources from the great powers. . . . External forces

helped the conflict,” he concludes, “by giving each side the

means by which to exercise their protracted strategies.”

In addition to the two superpowers, other states, wittingly or

unwittingly, have contributed to the prolongation of wars as

well. Balance-of-power considerations, national interests, or

the desire to play a regional role can be cited as factors that

prompt states to intervene in civil wars or conflicts between

other states in their region. The Angolan and Namibian civil

war offers a case in point. According to Shelton and Magyar,

the civil war became a regional war by directly involving South

Africa and Cuba, in addition to the two superpowers whose

involvement was more indirect. Discussing the civil war in

Mozambique, Christopher Gregory believes that the “principal

reason for the prolongation of the war [in that country] was

and is South African support for the insurgents. Were it not

for South African support the RENAMO insurgency might well

not have become prolonged.” Magyar’s findings regarding

Liberian fratricide are remarkably similar. He states that

Sierra Leonean, Libyan, American, and ECOMOG involvement

“ensured . . . a classic tenet of prolonged wars.”

In the Sudanese conflict, the SPLM benefited from Ethiopia’s

“substantial support,” Cairo’s “credible diplomatic” assistance,

and the logistical aid extended by a number of neighboring

countries, including Kenya, Zambia, and Uganda. J. Richard

Walsh is even more direct. He asserts that “Cambodia’s

prolonged war was precipitated by the Vietnamese invasion in

December 1978.” He attributes this to “Vietnam’s belief that it

must be treated as the dominant player in Indochina”—an

attitude that “conflicted with China’s own historic interests in

the region.” Interestingly, decisions by outside powers to

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remain neutral or to lend support to more than one of the

warring parties also contribute to conflict prolongation. French

neutrality with respect to the Chadian conflict is a case where

a hands-off strategy helped to keep the flames of war alive.

Paris’ decision deprived the warring factions the crucial

support needed to break the stalemate.

On the other hand, by employing the old divide-and-rule

tactic of giving simultaneous support to different parties in the

conflict, an outside force perpetuates the conflict. Perceiving

the Chadian conflict “as part of its anti-Western campaign,”

the Libyan regime of Colonel Quaddafi lent support to the

different warlords, sometimes selectively and other times

simultaneously. “The protraction of the conflict,” contends

Torimiro, “was boosted by Quaddafi’s ability to use the

principle of ‘divide and rule’. . . . [Thus] Libya became one of

the patrons whose activities intensified the [Chadian] conflict.”

Syria’s “no victors, no vanquished” policy on Lebanese

fratricide was similar to Quaddafi’s. By pursuing “a policy that

allowed Lebanese factions and militias to combat one another

without allowing any side to achieve total victory,” Damascus

managed to retain its influence and thus became “one of the

most important reasons behind the prolongation of the

Lebanese civil war.” Finally, regional considerations guided

Arab policies regarding the Iran-Iraq War. Shirkhani and

Danopoulos assert that “Arab leaders did not want either side

to win and seemed to have reasoned that prolongation of the

war would weaken the warring sides and would force

Khomeini and Saddam to shelve their respective hegemonic

designs.” Ironically, they conclude, “stalemate and bloodshed

appeared more desirable to a clear victory by either side” as far

as neighboring Arab states were concerned.

Strategic Factors

Strategic decisions made by the political and military

leadership regarding the conduct of the war are another

pivotal factor that helps to explain prolonged wars. While

societal and external considerations provide the supporting

reservoir that generate, nourish, and sustain the conflict,

strategic or military actions often determine the nature and

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the outcome of the war. Strategic or military decisions can be

deliberate, or they can be forced by existing realities and

circumstances. Incompatibility of strategies can lead to

prolongation, and so can the use of similar forms of warfare.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a case in point where the

adversaries, having failed to achieve victory “during the two

wars (1948–49 and 1956), gradually developed . . . strategies

of protraction.” In the Vietnam War things were quite different.

According to Tilford, US involvement in Vietnam and the

conduct of the war suffered from lack of “clear political and

military goals.” Having made erroneous assumptions regarding Hanoi’s war goals and the sociocultural values of the North

Vietnamese, Washington pursued a strategy of attrition which

relied on bombing enemy supply lines and employing ground

forces heavily. By contrast, the Vietcong and the North

Vietnamese adopted a strategy designed “to deliberately

protract the war.” Thus, while Washington’s hazy objective

was to defeat the enemy, Hanoi “did not have to defeat the

United States military. It only had to compel the United States

to withdraw its forces.” Over time, the Americans became

frustrated by their inability to defeat the enemy. The strategy

of “tactical offensive” proved too costly and unsuccessful. Gen

Vo Nguyen Giap’s “tactical defensive” strategy ultimately

forced Washington to disengage.

The conflict in Northern Ireland and the Soviet war in

Afghanistan display considerable parallels. According to

Blank, for the Afghans “guerrilla warfare was the only option

open,” their objective was to force Moscow to withdraw. Soviet

military thinking was based on the axiom that “any country

occupied by the Soviet armed forces must undergo a socialist

revolution in its rear in order for the Red Army to secure the

front.” This meant that “there could be no question of limited

objectives or limited war.” Much like Washington, Moscow

failed to understand the true nature of the Mujahedin’s

objectives and underestimated their capacity to resist and

endure. Blank attributes these failures, in part, to the nature

of the Soviet policy-making processes. He states that “[t]he

lack of structural coordination and cohesion in the policy

process, the rivalries among the players and their

constituencies, and the deliberate narrowing of both the focus

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of decision making and of possible policy options contributed

substantially to the ensuring intelligence and strategic debacle

of a prolonged war.”

While military superiority of the enemy and the nature of the

conflict forced the IRA, the North Vietnamese, and the

Mujahedin to adopt limited, defensive, and hit-and-run

tactics, additional considerations have forced insurgents in

other settings to resort to similar strategies. These included

geographical, economic, and sociopolitical factors. For

example, Eritrea’s “unaccessible terrain,” according to Harris,

“allowed the guerrillas to maintain a permanent presence

inside the country . . . [which, in turn] . . . created a symbiotic

relationship between the armed forces and people.” The

relative success of RENAMO’s “strategy of limited or low

intensity” in Christopher Gregory’s assessment, can be explained by FRELIMO’s “implementation of highly interventionist agrarian policies [that] antagonized the local inhabitants into either active support for RENAMO or passive

neutrality.” Adopting Maoist “protracted war strategies . . .

gave ZANA time to muster political and manpower support

from its greatest potential strength—the overwhelmingly, and

increasingly politicized [Rhodesia’s] black population.”

A final factor that affects the combat strategy of insurgent

forces is the sharp separation between rural and urban sectors

in developing societies. Urban centers, and particularly capital

cities, tend to dominate the political and economic landscape

while the countryside remains remote, less developed, and

often outside the administrative purview of the regime in

power. Indeed this gulf is frequently at the center of domestic

conflict in African and, to a lesser extent, in Latin American

societies. It makes possible the emergence and sustenance of

resurgent forces in rural areas who, using low-intensity

tactics, often end up dominating the countryside but are

unable to capture the capital city, which is controlled by

government forces. The ensuing result is “classic protracted

struggle.” Magyar captures the essence of this dichotomy by

stating that

[a]uthoritative power in Africa is almost totally concentrated in the

capital city. . . . In effect, the struggle continues with two governments;

one dominating the formal accouterments of state authority in the

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capital . . .; the other gains incremental legitimacy in the countryside. . . . [I]nsurgents rarely topple the government, but by retaining a

credible capacity to survive and by launching an occasional terrorist

act or attack on a government installation, . . . their fortunes are

determined at international negotiations . . . or they fight on

sporadically and interminably without resolution.

A Parting Word

This project did not aim to develop a general or comprehensive theory of prolonged war. Its goals were more modest.

The introductory chapter sought to define the concept of

prolonged war and differentiate it from the classic Maoist

theory of protracted war. The case studies dealt with specific

conflicts and sought to identify and analyze the factors that

contributed to the prolongation of war in different settings.

The concluding chapter drew some generalizations and

recurring patterns. What we came up with was a number of

theoretical propositions that need further empirical testing

before a general theory of prolonged war is developed.

Though modest in its aims, we hope our project manages to

call attention to a subject that has not been dealt with in the

literature on war or international relations. Additional work is

needed before we can fully comprehend this rather pervasivebut-little-understood phenomenon. Prolonged wars are neither

new nor likely to disappear. As long as poverty, disease,

economic disparities, social and ethnic cleavages, unemployment, hopelessness, and the desire for power exist—the

factors that generate conflicts—the flames of prolonged wars

are unlikely to be submerged, now or in the future.

Notes

1.-Michael W. Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs,”

Philosophy and Public Affairs 12, no. 3 (Summer 1983): 205–35; and Steve

Chan, “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall . . . Are the Freer Countries More Pacific?”

Journal of Conflict Resolution 28, no. 4 (December 1984): 617–48.

2.-George Sorensen, Democracy and Democratization (Boulder, Colo.:

Westview Press, 1993), 95.

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