Soviet interests in the Middle East have been conditioned by certain geopolitical factors that have influenced Russian policy since the days of the Tsars. While the contiguous Middle East countries have served as a buffer protecting Russia’s southern borders, they also proved to be a barrier toward Russia’s expansion southwards.
The advent of U. S. power in the Middle East and Mediterranean in World War II constituted a challenge to the age-old Russian ambitions of penetration of the Middle East and entry to warm water ports on an open sea. The erosion and eventually the withdrawal of U. S. power, particularly naval power, became Soviet aims.
Soviet interests derive further from the region’s importance to the Western nations. The Middle East lies across the shortest route between Europe and the Far East. It guards NATO’s southern flank. Most of the fuel for the NATO forces in Europe comes from the Middle East. In fact, the region provides almost 80 per cent of the oil consumed in Western Europe, and contains more than three-fifths of the known oil reserves in the world. Soviet access to bases in the Middle East is a first step toward contesting the NATO nations’ unchallenged use of the Mediterranean and toward disrupting military and oil transit between Europe and the Persian Gulf, once the Suez Canal is reopened. Moreover, landing and refueling rights on the southern Mediterranean littoral facilitate Soviet entry into Africa.
Still, were there no other interests at stake, the region’s proximity to Russian borders makes it a paramount factor in Moscow’s foreign policy calculations and guarantees an abiding Soviet concern.
A number of developments have made the Middle East somewhat less important to the United States and even to the European allies than it once was. The development of long-range and sea-based missiles has obviated the need for U. S. land bases in the Middle East. The use of giant tankers has reduced the cost of taking the longer route around the Cape from Europe to the Far East, and has, thereby, lessened the value of the Suez Canal. The discovery of oil fields outside the Middle East has made the West less dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Nevertheless, for the European powers, and by implication for the United States, the Middle East retains in large measure its strategic, transit, and economic value.
After Stalin’s death in 1953, changes in Communist doctrine permitted a considerable degree of flexibility in the Soviet approach toward neutral nations. A policy of “peaceful coexistence” evolved which included cooperation with the bourgeois nationalist regimes of the Third World in order to ease their eventual entry into the Communist camp. The revolutionary slogans of Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt fitted into the new Soviet concept of the nationalist bourgeoisie. Equally important, Egyptian and Russian leaders shared the basic objective of eliminating Western influences from the Middle East.
Nasser’s principal aim was the unification of the Arab nations under Egyptian leadership. Believing that the tide of popular feeling in Egypt, and in the Middle East in general, favored a show of independence from Western influence, Nasser opposed any alliances between Arab and Western nations. At the Afro-Asian Conference in April 1955, Nasser became a self-appointed spokesman of the neutralist world.
During the same period, 1954-55, the United States was building a system of mutual security pacts among the so-called northern tier countries along the Soviet border in order to contain Soviet expansionism in the Middle East and Asia. Efforts to forge a defensive alliance system met with a major success in January 1955 when Iraq signed the Iraqi-Turkish treaty—the forerunner of the Baghdad Pact—which undermined Nasser’s advocacy of Arab nonalignment and challenged his claim to supremacy in the Arab world.
From a Russian standpoint, this event accentuated the need for a strong response to counter the emergence of an anti-Soviet coalition in the Middle East. To dissuade other Arab states from joining the Western- sponsored alliance, Moscow began to demonstrate support for Arab nationalism by establishing close ties with Cairo. Realizing that the United States was identified in Arab minds with the Israeli side in the Arab-Israeli dispute, the Russians began to champion the Arab cause, even though in 1948 they had been among the first to endorse the establishment of the state of Israel.
The Arab-Israeli problem, the most persistent source of conflict in the Middle East since the founding of Israel, offered Moscow frequent opportunities for cementing Soviet-Arab ties, for hostility to the Jewish state was the single important issue on which the otherwise feuding Arab countries could unite. No Arab ruler who sought lasting power at home and in the Arab world could afford to compromise on his opposition to Israel.
When the Egyptian army in February 1955 suffered a crushing defeat in the Gaza clash, Nasser came under mounting pressures from his officers to acquire weapons that would match Israeli equipment. Unable to obtain arms from the West on terms acceptable to Egypt, Nasser turned to the Soviet Union. In September 1955, the first arms aid agreement with Czechoslovakia, acting as an intermediary for the Soviet Union, was announced. This accord covered some $250 million in arms aid credits. Although the terms were not publicized, they were probably similar to those of most subsequent Soviet bloc weapons deals, which called for repayment in commodities or local currency over a 10 or 12-year period at 2 to 2½ per cent interest. Communist-made weaponry which reached Egypt as a result of the 1955 negotiations included MiG-15 fighters, Il-28 bombers, a few destroyers, tanks, heavy artillery, and infantry weapons. Egyptian personnel went to Eastern Europe to learn how to handle the new equipment, while Russian and Czech military instructors went to Egypt to provide training.
The Soviet Union hoped that its military co-operation with Egypt would meet with widespread approval throughout the Arab world and tend to keep other Arab nations from joining the Baghdad Pact. Military assistance was thus seen as a means of reducing Western influence, increasing that of the Russians, and securing a long sought foothold adjacent to vital Mediterranean waterways.
The arms deal with Egypt was acclaimed by militant Arab nationalists throughout the Middle East, and particularly in Damascus. Long the focus of extreme Arab nationalism, Syria had become intransigently anti-Western since its defeat in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Like other extreme Arab nationalists, Syrian leaders deeply resented the creation of Israel for which they blamed the West. The formation of the Baghdad Pact only intensified their resolve to resist Western influence. This sentiment was exacerbated when Turkey, as well as Iraq, tried to persuade Syria to join the Baghdad Pact. Lacking the power to resist these moves, Syria accepted military aid from the Soviet bloc early in 1956 and became thereby the first country to emulate Egypt’s example.
The consternation in London and other Western capitals over the Egyptian arms deal was not lost on Yemen’s royalist government. Yemen’s major foreign policy objective was to regain Aden and the Protectorate of South Arabia from Britain, and its traditional policy was to develop close ties with any rival of Britain. In 1956, shortly after the dramatic Egyptian arms deal with the Soviet bloc, Yemen applied to the same Communist donor for military assistance. Although the Soviet Union displayed a certain ambiguity in its attitude towards Yemen’s virulently anti-colonial, but nevertheless feudal, regime, it decided to support the Imamate as a means of impairing the British position in the Arabian peninsula. In the next few years Yemen received some $30 million in Soviet bloc arms. The Russians also constructed a port at Hodeida and improved the airport at Sana. Both projects had military implications.
Egypt, Syria, and Yemen all signed their initial arms aid agreements with Czechoslovakia, which the Soviet Union used as a cover for its early arms aid. The Suez crisis of November 1956 brought the Soviet Union directly into the Middle East as an arms supplier. In the political arena the Russians espoused the Arab position against Israel, Britain, and France. As evidence of this support Moscow granted new arms credits to Cairo to replace the weapons destroyed by the French, British, and Israeli forces in the Suez fighting, and to Damascus to build up Syria’s military capability. As a result, in the first half of 1957, Egypt obtained new submarines and doubled the strength of its air force. Syria received MiG-15 and MiG-17 fighters, motor torpedo boats, armored personnel carriers, and artillery.
Despite the Egyptian military defeat, the Suez war provided the Russians with one of their most illustrious Cold War victories. This episode, together with the Eisenhower doctrine and the U. S. intervention in Lebanon, contributed to “proving” to the Arab world that all the major Western powers were equally guilty of neo-colonialism and beholden to Israeli interests. In consequence, Moscow’s position as the principal champion and source of arms for the militant Arab world became firmly entrenched.
The polarization of Arab attitudes was illustrated in Iraq, where the pro-Western monarchy was overthrown In July 1958. The new militant government of General Abdel Karim Kassem denounced the Baghdad Pact and negotiated a major arms aid deal with Moscow for MiG-17s, artillery, and infantry weapons as well as the training of air force personnel.
In the following years, arms commitments to Egypt and, on a smaller scale, to other Arab customers were made with marked consistency. Soviet relations with the recipients were not always cordial, nor were American relations with the recipients always distant, but on the whole, the Arabs continued to move closer to Moscow. Their demands for weapons increased. Arab leaders argued that the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict necessitated a high armament level in their states, while the protracted civil war in Yemen, where a republican regime ousted the Imam in 1962, increased the arms requirements in that country.
New states were added to the roster of clients for Soviet weapons. After a short period in which they supplied arms to Morocco (1960-62), the Russians began to concentrate on building Algeria’s military capability. Until the Algerian-Moroccan border fighting broke out in October 1963, Russian arms aid to Algeria remained largely limited to the supply of some MiG-15 jets and training. Moscow’s willingness to reassess its Algerian policy grew, however, with President Ahmed Ben Bella’s criticism of the Western powers and his opposition to moderate African governments. Algeria, moreover, became increasingly an object of Sino-Soviet rivalry for influence in the Third World. The major Russian arms aid commitments to Algeria were made in October 1963 and May 1965 during a period of intense competition in which Moscow and Peking tried to outbid each other in providing aid to Algiers. The May 1965 accord occurred at a time when the Soviet Union sought to persuade the Algerians to reject Chinese objections and sponsor its attendance at the forthcoming Afro-Asian conference in Algiers.
Colonel Houari Boumedienne’s ouster of Ben Bella, a few weeks after the Russians had signed the May 1965 arms deal, was initially greeted with silence from Moscow. Partly to divert domestic attention from the array of socioeconomic problems at home, partly to enhance Algeria’s revolutionary image abroad, and partly to satisfy his own ambitions, Ben Bella had tried to capture the leadership of the Afro-Asian world. He had, therefore, adopted an extremely militant and pro-Communist position on international issues, and had attempted to subvert those regimes in Africa which he considered neo-colonial, i.e., prepared to co-operate with the West. The Russians lost in Ben Bella a collaborator who had been paving the way for the spread of Soviet influence in Africa. Nevertheless, Algeria’s geographical position at the western entrance to the Mediterranean, its oil wealth, and its potential for undermining its Western- supported neighbors led Moscow to retain its close relationship with the new government. Once the Boumedienne regime made clear that, in spite of anti-Communist measures at home, it would maintain its anti-Western and militant stance in foreign affairs, the Russians resumed their courtship of Algeria. In December 1965, they officially confirmed that arms aid to Algeria would continue.
From Moscow’s point of view, closer relations with the revolutionary states in the Middle East began to assume growing importance at the end of 1965, for a split between the conservative and militant Arab states had emerged. Under the guise of an “Islamic Alliance,” Saudi Arabia was trying to rally the conservative Middle Eastern states against Egypt and other revolutionary regimes. Concerned that the conservatives might coalesce and a pro-Western bloc reappear in the Middle East, the Russians bitterly denounced the Islamic Alliance as a new imperialist plot. They encouraged the militant Arabs to step up their opposition to Saudi Arabia’s scheme: Iraq was granted substantial Soviet arms aid credits in April 1966; Syria received new military and economic aid, while Egypt and Algeria were permitted to draw extensively on past arms credits.
Like the Arab-Israeli controversy, the rivalry between conservatives and revolutionary regimes of the Arab world became a major issue which stimulated the flow of Soviet arms into the Middle East. The heavy military buildup continued until the war in June 1967. At the same time, the eruption of a new Arab-Israeli round of fighting served to galvanize the factious Arabs into a show of unity. The defeat of the Arabs in the Six Day War triggered a massive new infusion of Soviet arms aid into the Middle East.
Since the beginning of Soviet arms aid in 1955, sufficient time has elapsed to permit drawing a distinction between the more enduring and the more ephemeral patterns in Soviet arms aid diplomacy and to determine the criteria for selecting an aid customer. Most candidates for military aid have to meet certain qualifications, although these have been relaxed somewhat since 1964-65.
A basic characteristic of Russian arms aid policies was the relative ease with which ideological principles were jettisoned in evaluating a recipient’s worthiness. In most recipients local Communist parties were proscribed and, at times, harshly repressed. Yet, only once did the Russians halt their aid program to protest against a recipient’s anti-Communist policy at home. This occurred in Iraq, where from February 1963 to November 1963 an extreme nationalist regime violently persecuted indigenous Communists, but after the most extreme leaders fell from power, the Russians quietly resumed their arms aid program.
In no other case did the Soviet Union use the lever of military aid to try to effect a change in a customer’s domestic policies, nor did this aid imply approval or disapproval of the recipient’s ideology. Military aid transactions reflected Soviet recognition of the value in tolerating the personal attitudes and preferences of leaders who had a national—if not also a regional—following. This explains Soviet forbearance of Nasser’s frequently arrogant and scornful attitude toward Communist ideology.
Another key factor in framing Russian military aid decisions was the importance of the military elites in the Middle East. In several Arab countries, notably Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, and Algeria, the military establishment provides the national leaders or the most vital organizational support of the government. In its efforts to penetrate the Middle East, Moscow has not hesitated to exploit the ready perception by military elites that arms aid benefits them as well as their countries.
During the first eight years of the Soviet program certain fundamental criteria emerged that qualified a country for military aid. The client was expected to uphold an anti-Western variant of neutralism and to pursue an aggressive policy toward its regional opponents, especially those oriented toward the West. Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Kassem’s Iraq had these credentials to a high degree. Even Morocco, at the time it obtained Soviet arms aid in 1960, showed some promise of meeting these requirements. It was no accident that King Hassan was dropped as aid recipient in 1962, when his preferences for the West were clearly re-established, while his main enemy, Ben Bella, displayed increasingly desirable attributes.
This aggressive pattern in Soviet military aid diplomacy was basically the outgrowth of bipolar rivalry in the first decade of the Cold War. A major goal of the United States in the Middle East was to protect Western interests against the U.S.S.R., and while this was not synonymous with maintaining peace and order, it automatically brought Washington into the region as the guardian of stability. In defense against the overall Soviet threat, the United States had developed the Truman doctrine and the Baghdad Pact, and established SAC and other bases in Morocco, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. American arms aid programs had been developed to obtain such bases and strengthen the recipient countries.
Moscow’s response was to exploit intra-regional rivalries, an effort which the Arab-Israeli conflict facilitated. Massive Russian arms supplies fanned the local arms races between Arab and Israeli, between revolutionary and conservative Arab, thereby undermining American interests in stability. The only fundamental restraint that the Russians observed in their policies was to avoid the risk of an armed confrontation between the superpowers. During the 1956 Suez crisis, for example, Moscow raised the specter of nuclear retaliation against London and Paris, but only after it was clear that Washington did not support the Anglo-French action.
Gradually another pattern emerged in Russian arms aid diplomacy, which reflected Soviet recognition of the diminishing importance of the Middle East to the West as a result of the changing strategic world context. The perfection of submarine-based Polaris missiles and intercontinental missiles based in the United States decreased the deterrent value of the Western defense pacts along the Soviet border. Accordingly, the Russians could afford to adopt a more flexible approach toward the northern tier countries identified with the West. In turn, these states perceived that the Russian threat began to recede. On the other hand, the credibility of the U. S. commitment to defend these nations against the Russians also declined, which made them even more susceptible to Soviet overtures for improved relations. In addition, in the more relaxed world climate after the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet Union sought to promote a limited détente with the nations along its southern border.
Under these circumstances the Russians in 1963-64 launched a policy of intrusion into countries closely aligned with the West through offers of trade and economic and military aid. Moscow’s long-range goals remained the same, but its immediate objectives were more modest. It tolerated continued ties, including military ties, between its new customers and the United States, but it sought to introduce a limited Soviet presence into areas previously dominated by Western or American influence and to persuade the recipient to adopt a more neutral position in foreign affairs.
Iran, in view of its desirable location along the Persian Gulf and its oil resources, became a major Soviet target. A relatively modest $38 million in economic credits to Iran in 1963 was increased to a $290 million economic aid loan in 1965. When in 1966 it became evident that Iran was growing dissatisfied with American arms aid policies, the Russians sensed another opportunity and in January 1967 signed an accord to supply Iran with $100 million in anti-aircraft guns and military vehicles. To make the deal particularly attractive, the Soviet Union agreed to accept most payments in natural gas, which Iran had not fully exploited and which was, therefore, basically a wasted Iranian asset. Still, Moscow moved cautiously in its first arms deal with Teheran and refused to sell surface-to-air missiles which the Iranians wanted for the defense of the Persian Gulf against a potential Egyptian threat. The antiaircraft guns that the Russians sold were considerably less effective than SA-2 missiles against the threat of Cairo’s supersonic Soviet fighters and bombers.
The pattern of intrusion was also reflected in Soviet relations with Morocco, which, with the help of the Russians, was able to purchase Czech tanks and artillery in 1967.
The newer intrusion theme in Soviet aid diplomacy did not replace the earlier aggressive policy toward the militant Arabs. These patterns continued simultaneously with the earlier policy holding sway as the most distinct theme in the history of Soviet arms aid. As time went by, the aggressive pattern became more and more discernible, for by 1962 Moscow began to intensify its efforts to dominate the Middle East by means of its arms aid program. Whereas, the earlier shipments consisted largely of weaponry that was obsolete or obsolescent by Soviet yardsticks, after 1961, the Russians began to provide more modern and sophisticated equipment, much of it in standard use with their own armed forces. Moreover, a substantial part of Egypt’s new arsenal was of an offensive nature.
The first MiG-21 fighters reached Egypt in 1962 in compliance with Nasser’s request to match Israel’s acquisition of advanced French aircraft. The same year the MiG-21 appeared in Iraq; it could be seen in 1964 and 1965 in Syria and Algeria respectively. Between 1960 and 1962, both Egypt and Iraq received their first Tu-16 bombers, the backbone of the Russian tactical air force at the time. “Komar”-class patrol boats armed with Styx surface-to-surface missiles arrived in Egypt in 1962 and in Syria shortly afterwards. Five years later Egypt would be the first to fire these missiles against an Israeli ship. The larger “Osa”-class guided missile patrol boats reached Egypt some time after 1964; Algeria obtained both types as a result of the May 1965 negotiations. Egypt received SA-2 Guideline missiles in 1963; other Arab states acquired them soon thereafter.
By the eve of June 1967 war, Soviet arms deliveries to the Arab states had reached impressive heights. The U. S. dollar value of Soviet arms aid for the two-year period preceding the Six Day War was:
U.A.R. |
$1,500 (millions) |
Syria |
300 plus |
Yemen |
100 |
Iraq |
500 plus |
Morocco |
20 |
Algeria |
200 |
Cyprus |
28 |
Iran |
100 |
Total |
$2,748 plus |
The Arab arms buildup easily outstripped that of Israel, but the June war showed that a quantitative superiority in weapons cannot compensate for a qualitative inferiority in leadership, training, morale, and tactical competence. Within a week much of the Soviet-distributed armor had been destroyed or captured.
By its vast military aid, substantial economic assistance, and consistent support for the militant Arabs against Israel and the Western powers, the Russians kept tensions in the Middle East at a high level. In particular, Moscow’s policy nurtured Cairo’s expansionist ambitions and eventually set Nasser on his collision course with Israel in the summer of 1967.
The outcome of the Six Day War initially proved embarrassing to Moscow because its huge supply of weapons did not prevent the smashing defeat of the Arab forces, and it could not reverse the new political map of the Middle East. The June war reflected the impact of the nuclear balance of power between Moscow and Washington. Because the nuclear balance has dictated a tacit understanding between the superpowers to avoid a clash between them, Russia did not intervene during the fighting. In fact, both superpowers deliberately limited their actions once the war had erupted; both were eager to halt the shooting. In the end, they had no choice but to accept the fait accompli of Israel’s victory. Moscow’s unwillingness to take up Arab charges of Anglo-American complicity and to come to the aid of the Arabs undoubtedly disillusioned many Arabs and threatened to result in a serious political setback for the Russians. The one option left to Moscow after the defeat of the Arab states was to resupply them with massive military aid. This was the only effective response the Russians could take to retrieve their losses in the Middle East, and although expensive, it turned out to be a highly successful course.
The hostility which the militant Arabs harbored against the Anglo-American powers, moreover, went much deeper than their disappointment in the Russians. Nasser’s charges of Anglo-American air cover for Israeli forces inflamed the anti-Western passions in most of the Arab world. Compounding these sentiments was the realization that in the diplomatic arena only the Soviet Union could be relied upon to defend the Arab cause. Only the Soviet Union had both the means and will to rebuild the crippled Arab armies. Thus, the militant Arabs felt forced to rely increasingly on Moscow for military support and political protection.
As the champion of the Arabs in the political phase of the conflict, Moscow regained much of its lost prestige and partly offset Chinese accusations of having forsaken the Arabs. The prompt and vigorous new military aid program was designed to regain political ground lost by the Russians and to compensate the Arabs for their bitter humiliation. As early as 10 June, the Western press reported that an airlift of Russian arms to Egypt was underway. As a result of the major increases in arms deliveries, Moscow had by 1969 more than replaced Cairo’s losses and left the Egyptian forces better equipped than they were before the war. The Russians also fully replaced Syria’s and Iraq’s equipment lost in the war and shipped them new MiG-21 interceptors and Su-7 bombers. Algeria, which had dispatched MiG fighters to Egypt to participate in the war, also obtained new military hardware.
Moscow further demonstrated its identification with the Arab cause by dispatching units of its Mediterranean task force to the Egyptian ports of Alexandria and Port Said and the Syrian port of Latakia. After Egypt in October 1967 had sunk the Israeli destroyer Elath, and Israel had retaliated by bombing Egyptian oil refineries, Russian ships, which had just left the Egyptian ports, promptly steamed back into the harbors. Russian warships began to make regular calls at Algerian ports, which, in view of Boumedienne’s bitter criticism of Soviet policy in the June war, reflected the deepening dependence of Algeria on Russian aid.
The Russians recognized that costly new equipment could not overcome basic Arab weaknesses in military leadership, discipline, competence, and élan. Moscow was now in a position, however, to lay down conditions for its aid, particularly to Nasser, whose stature was badly tarnished and who was more dependent than ever on Soviet goodwill and aid. Articles in the Soviet press criticizing the Egyptian military performance and recommending the reorganization of the Egyptian command structure and socialization of the officer corps, were indicative of the nature of Soviet pressure on Nasser. In response to Soviet insistence on reforms in the officer corps and in order to forestall a conspiracy against him as well as to appease the students, Nasser purged or arrested a substantial number of officers. The Soviet military advisory group, which counted some 500 before the Six Day War, was expanded to more than 2,000 men and its level of competence upgraded. The number of Russian military advisers in Iraq, Syria, and Algeria was also markedly increased. As a result, well over 3,000 Soviet advisers were attached to the armies, air forces, and navies of the Arab states.
Egypt’s defeat forced Nasser to curtail his military engagements abroad and withdraw his troops from Yemen. As the Egyptian forces departed from Yemen, the civil war between the Yemeni royalists and republicans intensified, giving Moscow the opportunity to step up its direct arms aid to the republican regime of Yemen. The Russians in November 1967 flew in some 24 MiG-19s and about 50 aviation experts to Yemen’s Sana airport. Additional aid, including 11-28 bombers, followed.
The aftermath of the Six Day War showed that essentially the aggressive pattern in Moscow’s arms aid diplomacy had changed little since Russian courtship of the Arabs began in the Fifties. While the Russians sought to exclude the risk of a direct encounter with the United States, they proceeded immediately after the war to try to restore the distribution of military power in favor of the militant Arabs. Soviet efforts to shore up Egypt’s position indicated that Egypt remained the key target of Russian foreign policy in the Middle East, partly because Cairo retained the leadership of the Arab world. Egypt’s privileged position in Russian aid policies also reflected that the Suez Canal remained an Egyptian waterway, which, when it is eventually reopened, will be the major route for Soviet ships to the Indian Ocean and North Vietnam.
The months after the June war further showed the success of Soviet policies. The Russians adroitly used the Arab defeat to establish a substantial naval presence throughout the Mediterranean. Since the war some 40 to 50 Soviet warships cruise the Mediterranean, where only token Russian naval forces had operated before. The Russians obtained permission to use Syrian, Egyptian, and Algerian ports. France’s return of the large naval base at Mers-el-Kebir to Algeria in early 1968—ten years ahead of schedule—raises the possibility that a base across from Gibraltar may become available for use by the Soviet fleet.
The Soviet naval presence in the Mediterranean, however, does not necessarily imply an intention to acquire formal base rights, a step which would not only involve sensitive political issues, but would also have a provocative impact on the NATO powers. The acquisition of naval base rights, which would permit the pre-positioning of Soviet supplies, equipment, and possibly troops, is significantly different from the use of port facilities. The Soviet Union so far appears not to be seeking the establishment of Soviet advance naval bases, but to be developing a capability to project its naval power beyond home waters without the necessity of fixed overseas bases with fuel, supplies, and repair facilities. The Russians are accomplishing this by means of a supporting fleet train consisting of oilers, store ships, tenders, and repair ships which can anchor in a harbor or other sheltered waters. Compliant Arab countries are the likely candidates to supply such harbors and anchorages, especially since the effect of the June war has driven them closer to the Soviet Union.
On the whole, the Soviet Union emerged from the Six Day War with its position in the Middle East greatly enhanced and its leverage in the Arab world substantially increased. At the western gate of the Mediterranean, the Soviet Union has become more firmly entrenched as arms aid supplier to Algeria and has even intruded into Morocco by arranging the purchase of Czech arms for that country. At the southeastern entrance to the Middle East in Yemen, Russian military aid has been expanded. Prospects are that as the Yemeni civil war continues in a desultory fashion, Soviet arms aid will continue at a level sufficient to prevent a defeat of the republican forces. The abandonment of the British role east of Suez opens the door for further Soviet arms aid penetration of the states at the periphery of the Arabian peninsula, as has already happened in the People’s Republic of Southern Yemen (formerly the Aden Protectorate). Unless the United States is willing to offer the Persian Gulf states an alternative to Soviet arms aid, Moscow can be expected to exploit the opportunities presented by Britain’s withdrawal.
At the center of the Middle East in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, Soviet influence as a result of its arms aid presence seems assured as long as the Arab-Israeli conflict continues at its current level. This influence, however, must be carefully managed. The Soviet Union can hardly relish the prospects of a fourth round of fighting: another Arab defeat would increase pressures on the Russians to intervene with force; on the other hand, an Israeli defeat might cause the Americans to intervene. In either situation the chances of an armed confrontation between Moscow and Washington would be measurably greater. The Soviet Union undoubtedly will exercise strict control over the use of the weapons furnished its clients to prevent another Arab-Israeli war. A key mechanism in exerting this restraining influence is in the control of spare parts without which the Arabs cannot maintain combat readiness.
Thus, Soviet arms diplomacy in the Middle East faces a basic problem of trying to convert newly won influence into more effective control over the defense policies of the militant Arabs. Since military aid remains the most important lever for the Soviet Union, its programs can be expected to continue. Soviet statements alleging support for some kind of multilateral arms control agreement for the Middle East, therefore, aim more at scoring propaganda points than they suggest serious intent. The chances of reaching such agreement appear extremely limited.
The Middle East, more than any other developing region, offers the Soviet Union a golden opportunity for replacing the United States as the dominant foreign power. The uniqueness of the Middle East lies in the situation in which a group of Arab states is drawn together by common opposition to the existence of Israel, a state identified with the United States. Recent history demonstrates that the use of military assistance is the most effective Soviet strategy for penetration of the Middle East. We should be prepared, therefore, to expect more of the same.