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Decision makers of both the United States °nd the Soviet Union are impaled on the Dorn of African dilemmas as they attempt to ehoose the better of equally bad policy °ptions toward Ethiopia and Somalia. Meanwhile the current famine at the horn has complicated matters.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union encountered a number of policy options regarding the Horn of Africa in the 1970s. How did they decide upon the policies that are in effect today? Graham T. Allison’s decision-making model lends some insight into the answer to this question.
Allison certainly did not invent the Rational Actor Model for governmental decision making.1 Yet the format for current armed forces’ staff studies is a modem manifestation of the application of this model to current problems. The model can be expressed in varying formats, one °f which follows:
^ Recognize and define the problem ^ Gather all the pertinent data ' Make the requisite assumptions ' Define the objectives ' Conceive all possible options £ Select the one best solution
* Implement the one best solution and monitor goal achievement ^ Modify as required
Allison described the limitations of the Rational Actor Model and offered alternative explanations for those outlines of the governmental decision-making process that do not fit that model. One thing that deflects the process from the Rational Actor path is the complication arising from bureaucratic politics. The Rational Actor Model assumes a unitary decision maker who makes his choices on logical grounds based on data gathered from the external world. But the governmental decisions in pluralistic societies are really the outputs of numerous organizations having responsibilities for various parts of foreign policy problems. Consequently, various motivations arise from organizational goals and personal ambition that have little to do with the external world. Organizations generally strive to get as large a “piece of the action” as possible because they will then receive larger budgets and more personnel. Heads of organizations generally identify the' goals of their own offices with the national interest and, unconsciously perhaps, their own personal advancement with the goals of their units.
Decision making, according to Allison, is also deflected from the rational pathway by the constraints arising from organizational processes. Organizations must develop certain sets of standard operating procedures, for they cannot accomplish complicated functions without practice and drill. Thus, they achieve their tasks by developing a repertoire of standard responses to anticipated problems and by preparing for the latter with practice and drill. The actions of large numbers of people can be coordinated only if a standard set of expectations is developed to guide the force. The larger the set of processes in the repertoire, the less expert the organization will be in the performance of each of them; the fewer the items in the repertoire, the better trained the bureaucracy will be in the achievement of any one of them. This would be fine except that the real problem is seldom exactly like the anticipated one.
Allison himself realized there would be problems in the application of his models to decision making. In a crisis, there is not enough time to fully develop the analysis his theory would require. The bureaucratic politics and organizational processes underestimate the power of a willful president to overcome the jealousies of the bureaucracies. The Rational Actor Model artificially separates the various steps of the decision process for simplicity of analysis, but actually many of the steps are performed simultaneously in the minds of the decision makers. Decision Theory can single out only one situation (such as the rivalry at the Horn of Africa) for analysis at any one time. Such a problem, however, is embedded among a large set of other
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and to do all those things with a minimum expenditure
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funds and no expenditure of U. S. lives in combat.
domestic and foreign troubles, all of which are interrelated and interdependent.
Finally, analysis of current problems is necessarily founded on incomplete data because of time and security limitations. If the decision maker waits for all the facts to become available, then the march of events will have passed him by and made any such information irrelevant to current problems. The information base will never be adequate, and every important choice will be based in part on intuitive judgment rather than on either pure logic or empirical research.
The stakes are high at the Horn of Africa. Though neither Somalia nor Ethiopia is especially rich except in the potential sense, the region is a kind of crossroads of many great currents of world concern. The oil line of communications from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and beyond passes within sight of the Horn. Islam and Christianity meet in the region. Asia and Africa collide there. Communism and capitalism compete for influence all along the shores of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. The Red Sea carries the commerce of the Orient to Israel. Black Africa and the Arab world eye each other warily over the Horn. The Organization of African Unity (OAU) has sanctified the borders it has inherited from the imperialists of the past century, but the Somalis have a holy mission to break some of those lines to bring their brethren in other lands under their flag. In short, the Horn of Africa is a nodal point in world politics, and one that is liable to be the scene of serious conflict.
Dilemmas in Gathering Information: Some of the dilemmas of the Horn for the superpowers arise from the want of information. Gathering of data is one of the early, vital steps of the scientific problem-solving process. Yet Africa, in general, is not well known to either the Soviets or the Americans. Until recently, at least, neither the security nor the prosperity of the superpowers was in any way dependent upon events on the Dark Continent. Consequently, the intelligentsia of both countries were much more oriented toward Asia and Europe than they were toward Africa.
Furthermore, the cultural heritages of both the Soviet Union and the United States had no decisive inputs from Africa. The slaves brought important cultural properties with them when they were imported to the United States in the 17th and 18th centuries. But because the cultures from which they sprang had not generally reached the stage of being civilizations, their impact on the Americans was limited—especially since the blacks remained a small minority and a repressed one at that. That, too, limited the data available to decision makers. Because of the blacks’ low status, they had insufficient political clout to force U. S. involvement in African politics. There was no important constituency in the Soviet Union to compel its interest either.
Until very recently, the oil line of communications around both ends of Africa and the oil fields on the continent were of no concern because the United States was self-sufficient in energy, and the British fleet could repress any threat to Europe’s oil supply insofar as it was at all dependent on petroleum in those days. Nor was sub-Sahara Africa the seat of great interest to either the Soviets or the Americans and thus could not serve as a channel 0 communications. In short, both superpowers’ information base for African policymaking is more limited than it is f°r Asia and Europe. Hence, there will likely be a much larger element of intuitive judgment in decisions on Africa than is the case for other parts of the world.
Dilemmas in Establishing Objectives: In abstract terms, there is no problem in defining the objectives of both the superpowers. The problems arise in trying to apply these abstractions to their policies at the Horn. In general, bot the Soviet Union and the United States are interested in: D preserving their national security, 2) avoiding war, especially nuclear war with the other superpower, 3) making economic gains for their country and citizens, and 4) stimulating the spread of their ideals, be they socialist or liberal-capitalist.
U. S. Objectives at the Horn: Although the United States has been accused of ignoring the requirements ° security in favor of idealistic concerns, it has realized the need to protect the West’s oil line of communications m the vicinity of the Horn.2 Of course, this is both a security and an economic objective. President Jimmy Carter demonstrated the U. S. concern for regional and world peace in his arms policy for Africa, which also entailed ideolog1' cal considerations in terms of human rights. Partly f°r human rights reasons, he cut off the flow of arms to Ethi°' . pia; this was perhaps the prime stimulant for the move o that country from the Western camp to the arms of the Soviets who were waiting to become the new weapons supplier.3 As a result, the United States lost influence m Africa along with profits.
Whatever the success or failure of the policy, it is aP' parent that its objectives were the furtherance of peace an an ideological concern for human rights. The general objectives of security, peace, prosperity, and the sustenance of liberal ideals when applied to the Horn seem to transit into the need to acquire bases for aircraft and ships where possible, to protect the oil lines of communications com ing out of the Persian Gulf, to gain influence among t e states around the Horn, to limit the flow of arms to the region through voluntary restraint or agreement, to stimu late local states to honor human rights more than they d° those goals are thought to be best served by stimulating stability in the region and opposing any attempts to desta bilize the situation.4
Soviet Objectives: The Soviet Union appears to pursue the same sort of abstract goals as does the United States* but its means are often quite the opposite. Being self-sU* 1 cient in energy, neither the Soviet Union’s prosperity n° national security seem as closely engaged in the Horn 0 Africa as are those of the West. Yet the Soviets do show continuing concern for the acquisition of bases for thel^ ships and aircraft.5 Conceivably, the Soviets could deen
these bases good for their national security in that they could threaten the oil of the West in order to deter damaging acts by the United States in other arenas. Although it is hard to imagine a real threat to the Soviet homeland arising from U. S. naval units in the Indian Ocean, perhaps the Soviets do perceive such a menace from the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) based at Diego Garcia. Too, they may think there are some missile-throwing submarines deployed in the vicinity. Consequently, the base they formerly had at Berbera in Somalia and the ones they seem to desire in Ethiopia may be sought mainly for the sake of security.
It is hard to find a peaceful intent in the Soviet and Cuban actions in Africa since the 1970s, but perhaps some evidence of that does arise from the experience at the Horn. For some time, the Soviets had been aiding the Somalis and had helped them fashion one of the better armies in that part of the world.6 However, their clients undertook to use that army to cross an international boundary in a clear aggression to deprive a beleaguered Ethiopia of one of its provinces (Ogaden). Perhaps this was one of the provocations that caused the Soviets to change sides and build the army for the Ethiopians that turned back the intrusion. Perhaps the Soviets came to think that the Somalis had become too dangerous to serve as clients. After the massive airlift of Soviet arms and Cuban troops to Ethiopia in the winter of 1977-78, the tide was turned, and the Somalis were driven helter-skelter southwards. Every instinct of the soldier urges him to keep up the pressure of the pursuit in such a situation. Yet the United States warned the Soviets that it would take a dim view of any attempt to cross into Somalia, and the Soviets knew that the sanctity of borders was a central principle of the OAU. The Cubans halted their march at the frontier.7
It is hard to find much positive evidence that the Soviets had economic ends in mind when developing options for the Horn of Africa. If one does accept the argument of many scholars that the Soviets view the world as a ‘ ‘Zero Sum Game,” then anything that disturbs the Western energy supply damages the economy of the NATO allies. Any loss there, according to the Zero Sum Theory, would be a Soviet gain. The cost of aiding the Ethiopians did not seem to be much of a concern, for the Soviets delivered about a billion dollars in arms in two months’ time, and they sent much of it by expensive aerial transportation.8
Of course, it would be easy to argue that anything that
Because the Soviets changed sides in the middle of the struggle, Soviet-armed Ethiopian troops, left, marched against Soviet-armed Somalis and drove them out of the Ethiopian province of Ogaden in 1977. A year-and-a-half later, Somali guerrillas, also Soviet-armed, were back, fighting to take control of the Somali-populated area.
tends to tip the ‘‘correlation of forces” in the direction of the Soviet Union will hasten the creation of the worldwide classless society and the final fulfillment of the communist ideology. Most Western authors, however, view the Soviet use of ideology more in terms of an instrument than an objective of foreign policy. They cite the ease with which the Soviet Union has abandoned the Egyptian and Sudanese communists to the purges of the local dictators and the aiding of the Ethiopian junta in the repression of the Eritrean national liberation movement as proof of the point.9 (Eritrea is a province in north Ethiopia.)
The interests that the Soviet Union seems to pursue at the Horn in the name of the objectives of security, peace, prosperity, and the spread of communist ideology include: the acquisition of bases wherever possible, the increase of Soviet influence among the local states whatever their ideological coloration, the posing of a threat to the West’s oil line of communications, and the undermining of Western
and Chinese influence wherever that is feasible. It tries to do these things without an undue risk for war and with some regard for costs, for its economic aid is meager by Western standards and it usually tries to get a good price for arms that it ships into Africa. The Dilemmas in Developing All Possible Options: As mentioned, both superpowers are limited in their knowledge about the Horn of Africa, and both lack insight into the African cultures. Hence much decision making is intuitive. The more decision making is based on assumptions | Somalia was not much better. Somalia’s population an resources are much, much smaller than those of Ethiopia Although its army was temporarily superior, in the long term, it may have seemed that the odds favored the Dergue, and the United States had backed enough losers to discourage the practice. Saudi Arabia favored the Somalis, and this country is key to U. S. policy in the Middle Eastern arena. Yet the Somalis had ambitions to conquer not only Ethiopia’s Ogaden, but also to take the |
and less on facts, the fewer real options will appear and the less reliable will be the final choice. | '/ 1 v : MM ! *1 ■ f i -X" |
U. S. Choices: Some critics of the Rational Actor Model have argued that the real world decision process is not one of selecting the best from among several good possible solutions. Rather, they say, it is a process of finding that almost all conceivable options are infeasible for | m/m iy -: .^Si ^£dH ^___________________________________ • ■" |
one reason or another and that through a process of elimination, the leader arrives at the least bad course of action even though it is not altogether satisfactory in many of its dimensions. For instance, President Carter’s policy for the |
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Horn has been roundly criticized for its lack of forcefulness and its excessive idealism. Yet, all of the other possible options seem to have their defects also. |
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Of course, to do nothing is itself a policy. Sometimes it |
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is a good one. The United States has had an association with Ethiopia almost dating back to World War H. It had a communications station in country, which was a vital link with U. S. fleet units in the Indian Ocean. U. S. relations with Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia were fairly tranquil. In exchange for the communications site, the United States provided him with some economic aid and all of his arms. For years, the Soviet Union was preoccupied farther north and did not have any power projection capability to speak of, so there was nothing to disturb the relationship. Haile Selassie’s absolute monarchy finally fell in 1974, and, after an internal struggle, the Dergue Committee led by Haile Mariam Mengistu took control. By then, technology was lessening the need for the communications station, and the United States had begun to reduce its aid to Ethiopia even before the U. S. presidential election of 1976. After President Carter came to office, the disappearance of the need for the transmitter site, the general policy of arms restraint in the Third World, and the murder and mayhem that obstructed ideals of human rights in Ethiopia caused the United States to halt the flow of arms to the Dergue. The Israelis, U. S. allies, worried that such a cut-off would make the Ethiopians all the more dependent on the Soviets. But the Saudis, also U. S. allies, were supporting the Eritrean rebels and the Somali aggressors, both of which were Islamic. This caused the United States to follow a policy of doing nothing. The choice was not an enviable one: there were murderers and repressors of Eritrean national liberators on one side and Somalian international aggressors on the other. Each side had various other U. S. friends supporting each of the actors. If the option of continuing the U. S. connection with Ethiopia was undesirable, the course of shifting support to | " ' V SVGMAIWC"*'*" northeastern comer of Kenya, which is also occupied by people of Somali blood. Of course, the Kenyans arc against this, and they are key to U. S. sub-Sahara Africa0 policy. Kenya is perhaps America’s best friend in tha region—a region in which there are few U. S. friends- Moreover, if the United States aided Somalia, it wou have been aiding a transgressor of the OAU principle 0 border sanctity. U. S. policy in southern Africa waS aligned with that of the OAU, and the idea of getting int0 opposition to the OAU at the Horn cannot have been at^ tractive. Furthermore, President Carter’s policy pursuing the limitation of conventional arms in the Third Wot would be violated if the United States supported the Somalis with the same amount of arms the Soviets ha been sending them.10 Of course, one option would have been U. S. militar^ intervention. But that option was unworkable. The curren howls about U. S. activities in El Salvador (which are much closer to home and much less dangerous and expe° sive than intervention in Africa would have been) are su ficient proof of that point. Yet the U. S. concept for a R^ was then in its genesis. This concept depends heavily °n prepositioning weapons and supplies and on off-loa^111^ terminals in the theater. The problem is the anti-coloma spirit in both Africa and the Middle East makes the perma nent stationing of white troops there an anathema to t peoples of both regions. Consequently, bases for the RH and other forces are very difficult to acquire. The Sovie • had developed a substantial one at Berbera, Somalia, ne‘l the entrance to the Red Sea. They were ejected from t place in 1977, and the possibility of the United State |
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Saining a foothold there (as the Soviets have done at the former American base at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam) cannot have escaped U. S. consideration.11 Of course, this immediately arouses the suspicions of those Americans committed to preventing any more Vietnam Wars and those who see any expenditures overseas or on military items as losses to domestic reform programs. Thus, any conceivable military options at the Horn in the late 1970s were out of the question.
The employment of economic solutions was as impractical as the notions of military courses of action. The economic conditions in both Somalia and Ethiopia were then (and are now) dismal. The U. S. potential for the use of economic instruments in Africa far outclasses that of either the Soviet Union or the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Perhaps that will be decisive in the long run, but the immediate problem at the Horn is not simply an economic one. It is political: who is to rule? Until that question is settled, economic and nonmilitary technical aid is simply irrelevant. Victory goes to the side with the biggest battalions—though they cannot be U. S. battalions. Unfortunately, perhaps, the United States does not have surrogate troops that can be deployed to the Dark Continent *n the way the Cubans have been many times.12
Even the mention of going to international organizations for aid in stabilizing the politics of the Horn will cause many Americans to scoff. Neither the United Na- but, again, the immediate problem at the Horn is one of security, not only economics. The European international organization that is concerned with security is NATO. But the Horn is outside the geographical limits specified by the NATO Treaty, and the European members therefore have a convenient legal escape clause. Although Europe’s economic and physical security is even more dependent on the free movement of oil out of the Persian Gulf than is that of the United States, Europeans proved during the Arab-Is- raeli War that they could not be counted on to assume a large share of the risk to keep the oil flow going.
What, then, are the options? Doing nothing risks permitting the Soviet Union a “walk-in” at the Horn. Attempting to use the economic instrument in the short term does not hold much promise because the problem is one of political, not economic, power. Distance, cost, and domestic political considerations inhibit any thought of militarily supporting Somalia. The Third World majorities in the United Nations and the OAU prohibit any collective action from that quarter, and the irresolution of the NATO alliance probably prevents any decisive action on its part. Ideology, cost, and doubts about the long-term effectiveness inhibit shipping U. S. arms to the arena.
In short, the choices open to U. S. decision makers are limited. The U. S. position at the Horn is a weak one for many reasons. Some have suggested that the United States should attempt to shift the competition with the Soviet
tions nor OAU has the power to do much that is tangible, and both fora are so heavily dominated by Third World states with such strong anti-Western and anti-colonial biases that anything proposed by the United States is not likely to get much of a hearing. Thus, any possible course °f action involving collective responses by organizations with Third World majorities is probably doomed from the outset. Of course, the European Economic Community has been doing important things with foreign aid in Africa,
Union to another arena wherein the U. S. position might be stronger. Then, links could be established between Soviet conduct in Africa and U. S. behavior in SALT II, international trade, credit, and technology transfer. This has been tried in connection with the invasion of Afghanistan and elsewhere and the skeptic doubtless would see little immediate profit. But there are those scholars who argue that the United States can find evidence of Soviet restraint.13
The United States has more than its share of disagreeable choices to consider, but what is the case for the decision makers in the Kremlin?
Soviet Choices: Although the Soviet dilemma is not quite so acute as that of the United States—because the Soviet Union is closer to the scene and because the Soviets have available good surrogate troops which are perceived by Africans as being nonwhite—it has nonetheless been faced with some painful choices. To some extent, the Soviet Union has itself to blame for this for it arises directly from the country’s general Third World policy, which is to win friends and bases wherever it can do so in the Third World without taking undue risks.
The Somalis have been longing for the unison of their ethnic relatives inside Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya for centuries. However, had the Soviets not been following a pragmatic policy of taking advantage of whatever opportunities seemed to appear, then the Somali aspiration would have remained no more than a vague dream. One of the symbols of great power status has been the possession of bases in remote regions. The Soviets undertook to build an army for the Somalis and were granted base rights at Ber- bera in return.14 We cannot know what the Soviets thought the purpose of that army would be. Meanwhile, the U. S. connection with Ethiopia was weakening and yet another opportunity for the Soviets appeared to be developing farther north—in a country having two ports on the shores of the Red Sea that are even better than Berbera and having a population and economic potential substantially greater than those of Somalia.
When the new opportunity for the Soviets appeared, it may be that subsequent events provided evidence to substantiate one of the criticisms of the Rational Actor Model: decisions are not really made in nice, neat steps as the model depicts. Rather people and states drift along making partial choices in a pragmatic way without fully thinking out or understanding where they will lead.
The Soviets could have done nothing. That, of course, does not fit with their world view that events are moving inexorably in the direction of the communist world revolution and that the correlation of forces, already in their favor, must continually shift in the direction of the socialist camp. The combination of the Dergue’s preoccupation with the Eritrean rebellion in the north and with the maturing of the Somali armed forces in the south made the time ripe for the fulfillment of Soviet dreams. But this would have violated the Soviet pretensions of cultivating a peaceful world. Thus, the choice of doing nothing was not a desirable one, and continuing the support of Somalia as before had important defects.
Committed as they are to the Marxist notion that the world turns on economic factors, the Soviets nonetheless seem to have even less confidence in the economic instrument of policy than do many Americans. Beyond the fact that it simply did not apply to the situation at the Horn, the Soviets argue that since the problems of the Third World arise from capitalist exploitation, it is for the imperialists to make restitution through foreign aid. In 1980, the Soviet expenditure in foreign aid was less than a quarter ot that of the United States in dollar value. It was half as great as America’s in terms of gross national product (GNP). In that year, the Netherlands sent more money overseas in foreign aid than did the Soviet Union. Moreover, 96% of the little aid that was provided by the Soviet Union went to only two of its clients, Vietnam and Cuba.15 Thus, even if there had been any short-term logic in applying rubles to the problem, there is little chance that the Soviet decision makers would have so opted.
Although the choice of dropping Somalia and support' ing Ethiopia had the attractions of siding with the stronger side and gaining access to even better ports for the Soviet Navy, that course of action was not without its dilemmas- First, the Dergue had endured some bloody campaign against its own domestic rivals. Second, it had long been engaged in the attempt to repress the “national liberation movement” of the Eritreans, and the Soviets had been, until then, supporting that movement.16 To help the Dergue and its leader, Haile Mariam Mengistu, would be to betray the Eritreans and that betrayal could not be covered up, for the PRC propaganda mills would surely glV1j it all the publicity it deserved everywhere in the Third World and beyond. As often happens in pragmatic ded" sion making, the Soviets and Cubans seem to have tried to overcome the dilemma by grasping for the best of both worlds through the creation of some sort of socialist confederation of the states of the Horn of Africa that would have brought the Eritreans, the Somalis, and the Ethiopians together in a brotherhood sponsored by the Soviet world.17
The Soviet attempt during early 1977 to make a client out of Ethiopia without losing its connection with Somali3 might have worked had Marxism truly been a primary motivator of both regimes. Both Ethiopia and Somali3 were making socialist noises, but many have argued that the former was interested only in maintaining the regime in power and avoiding the loss of territory, and the latter was moved mainly by considerations of nationalism. The course of trying to build a socialist confederation was therefore unrealistic. And Somalia saw to it that the Sovi' ets would be forced to make their choice no matter hoW disagreeable the alternatives.
During the summer of 1977, Somalia’s capital’ Mogadishu, made plain one of the dangers of trying t0 achieve political ends by supplying arms to a client state; The invasion preparations being made by the Sornah Army (which had been supplied and trained by Moscow) were apparent to the Soviet advisers and the latter begat1 evacuation even before the Somalis crossed into Ogaderl on the far side of the Ethiopian border. Cuban advisers began to appear in Ethiopia, having been transported there >n Boeing 707s from Angola, and some arms began to arrive from the Soviet Union via Aden in South Yemen. The Somalis ejected the Soviets and moved strongly against their neighbors, trying to finish their conquest while the Dergue was still weak enough to handle. The Eritrean contest was still raging, and the Ethiopians could not turn their backs on it.
At that point, Mengistu demonstrated another of the defects of trying to achieve political ends through the supply of weapons to a client: it is easy to lose that way. The movement of arms costs money and takes time. Even after the arms are in place, it takes more time to train the clients to use them. The Somalis had been training for a long time. The Ethiopians were accustomed to U. S. weapons, and antiquated ones at that. The Somalis were bright enough to recognize that and were pressing for a conclusion while the time was ripe.18 At this point, the Kremlin Was apparently confronted with a new choice. The Cuban advisers found that the Ethiopian recipients of the arms which had already arrived could not be trained rapidly enough to be effective. Now the Soviets had to choose between watching the Ethiopians be defeated and losing the investments both there and in Somalia, or escalating the aid to Mengistu to include combat troops and even aircraft.
Had the United States been in the Soviets’ shoes, combat aid would have been out of the question, for black Africa’s perceptions are such that the appearance of any white troops would have immediately raised the specter of the restoration of colonialism and caused strong and damaging reactions. The Soviets have a special advantage over the United States: the Soviet Union supplies aid amounting to a full quarter of the Cuban GNP and the payoff for that seems to be that Castro provides “cannon fodder” in the form of troops for Soviet adventures in Africa. These soldiers are competent and well-equipped and have acquitted themselves well in combat against black Africans in Angola and in Ethiopia. Furthermore, they are perceived in Africa as belonging to the Third World and being nonwhite because of the large proportion of blacks in the units deployed to Africa—this notwithstanding the whiteness of Castro, whose father came to Cuba as a part of the Spanish Imperial Army dispatched to quell the Cuban rebellion in the 1890s and who later became a well-to-do Cuban landholder able to finance Fidel in expensive schools.19 These surrogate troops can be deployed, then, without stimulat- mg the same sort of reactions that would be aroused by deploying, say, the U. S. Marine Corps, the 101st Airborne, or South African mercenaries.
That is not to say that such deployment is without its Penalties and risks. For instance, the Soviets were faced with deploying Cubans equipped and trained by the Soviets to kill Somalians also equipped and trained by the Soviets. Chinese and U. S. propagandists could run wild with this story. It would also be perceived by the Third World as the betrayal of the Eritrean national liberation movement even if the Soviet and Cuban combat assets Were not turned directly against the rebels in the north. The combat aid in the Ogaden would be seen as saving the Mengistu regime from its otherwise inevitable fate and permitting it to survive to turn against the Eritreans. Moreover, as the greater part of the Arab world was supporting the Somalians and Eritreans, even with arms and money, any Soviet move to deploy combat units to Ethiopia would further alienate the Arabs and tend to undermine the Soviet goal of destabilizing the U. S.-sponsored Camp David Peace Accords in the Middle East.20
For the Soviet Union, doing nothing was clearly unacceptable, continuing support for Somalia was not attractive, the construction of a socialist confederation was hopeless, the supplying of arms was obviously not doing the trick for the Dergue, and the deployment of military force to the region had serious costs and risks. Probably, the notion of trying for some sort of collective solution through international organizations did not even enter the Soviet mind. Doubtless, the Soviets are usually ready to use the fora of the United Nations or the OAU for public relations purposes whenever appropriate, but they cannot have expected any definitive results in those arenas. Hence, the Soviets, too, were faced with an array of nothing but disagreeable choices. Whatever the choice, though, the risks were moderate because in 1977, there was no chance of a violent reaction from the West, and the Soviets knew it.
Dilemmas in Selecting the One Best Option: Choosing the Least Bad? The United States chose, more or less, to do nothing. During the fall of 1977, the Somalis asked the United States for arms and, notwithstanding the temptation to get a foot in the door for the acquisition of base rights at Berbera, the United States refused. Although it has since begun to build up the RDF and to acquire potential base rights for it in the region, it still seems to be committed to following a low-risk policy at the Horn. That course seemed for a time, at least, to have permitted the Soviets a “walk-in” in Ethiopia and an escalation of the threat to the oil lifeline. Still, the Soviets know that oil is a vital interest to the entire West, and it is something not to be tampered with lightly. Before the troubles at the Horn, the Soviet Union already had the capability to interdict the oil at its source through air or ground attack at the head of the Persian Gulf. That would be done at great peril, to be sure, but at no greater risk than an interdiction of the flow off the Eritrean shore.
The Somalis have not fled back into Soviet arms as some have feared. The United States has a good base at faraway Diego Garcia and some cooperative arrangements with Egypt and some of the states along the East African shore. Thus, the do-nothing option does not seem to have cost the United States a great deal—so far. Doubtless, many in the Third World increased their perceptions that the United States is not a reliable friend, but then, the Soviet Union pays a pretty penny for its Cuban friend, and there is no end in sight for those costs.
The Soviets chose a course with substantial, if not vital, risks. They mounted an airlift late in 1977 and put in nearly 20,000 Cuban surrogates and about a billion dollars worth of arms in a very short period.21 Their aid was decisive and the Somalians were back across the border by March 1978. Mengistu then turned his attention to the
rebellion in the north and good progress was made, again with important Cuban and Soviet aid. Cuban ground troops were not, apparently, used against the rebels, but a Russian general is said to have run the battle on the ground and another managed the tactical air base that was servicing the struggle.22 Some believe that Cubans were flying against the rebels, and it is known that the MiG-21 s and MiG-23s were used against the Eritreans.23 Although the Eritreans were driven out of the cities, the rebellion continues. Rebels are also present in the south in Ogaden. Hence, the Soviets do have new positions on the Red Sea, but it is questionable whether they will be an immediate benefit.
The Soviets have possibly lost more than they gained because they stimulated the fear of yet another new form of imperialism—especially so when their invasion of Afghanistan followed so soon after their Ethiopian intervention. Too, the action was costly in terms of the Soviet Union’s Middle East policy, for it tended to push the moderate Arabs further toward the United States. In addition,
NATO was in serious disarray after the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, but perhaps Ethiopia, among other things, has stimulated greater unity there. Furthermore, the United States and some of the other NATO nations have signifi' cantly increased their defense spending and the Soviet- desired SALT II Treaty has not been ratified by the U- S- Senate. In short, the whole affair may turn out to be a classical example of the difficulty in converting a shortterm military gain into a long-term political profit.
The Horn and the 1980s: The United States will probably not be moved to physically intervene at the Horn any time in the near future. Although its arms policy in Afrjca has been disappointing and it has begun to sell more mil*' tary goods there, the refusal to supply arms to Somalia does not seem to have hurt the United States much. The Kenyans remain friends. The connection with the moderate Arabs remains fairly good. The Middle East policy has so far survived the death of Sadat and events at the Horn- Defense spending has been increased, and the building ot the RDF is progressing. No great economic costs have been incurred at the Horn. If the want of U. S. action there has eroded its reputation as a stalwart friend, then the threat implied by the Cuban and Soviet interventions there and elsewhere has tended to impel U. S. friends back toward the United States. It appears, therefore, that U. S. policy will be more of the same.
Soviet policy has not been uniformly successful in the Third World and even the outcome in Ethiopia has already had its disappointments. Most authorities believe that Soviet policy is pragmatic and aims to make gains where the opportunity is clear, but is cautious whenever serious risks are involved. In short, the interests of the Soviet state seem to prevail over those of the communist world revolution. Because the Ethiopian intervention, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the continuing Warsaw Pact arms buildup seem to have provoked a Western reaction in terms °f increased defense spending, greater alliance unity, and utore attention to strategic interests, the risks for the Soviets in any further Angolas and Ethiopias seem to be rising.
The Kremlin will probably make no additional radical changes to its policy at the Horn. It knows that the West considers the oil line of communications a vital interest, and it is now less inhibited by the Vietnam experience than U used to be. Perhaps these things will induce further caution among the decision makers of the Politburo. If indeed the situation stabilizes, then the strong assets of the West, the economic factors, will tend to become more determinant than the military advantages of the Soviets, their surrogates and their clients. This would indicate continuing care in the maintenance of Western defenses and especially in the development of the RDF.
Meanwhile, the current famine at the Horn may indeed indicate the virtues of the previous policy of restraint. The relative helplessness of the Soviets and Mengistu in the relief effort, and the economic strength of the West in contrast cannot be lost on the Africans and the Third World. The very stringency of recent Ethiopian and Soviet Propaganda trying to place all the blame for the famine on the drought and on Western policy suggests that many of their people may already perceive that the best pilot to the land of milk and honey may not be Karl Marx, especially as interpreted by Mengistu. Agricultural productivity had been declining throughout Sub-Sahara Africa before the current drought set in, and many are beginning to view that as a result of government policy.
The Dilemmas of the Horn and Decision Theory: Even where the most vital interests of the state are not involved, Third World relations are so complex that decision making will forever be less than completely reliable and based in large part on intuitive judgment rather than wholly on logical reasoning and empirical measurement.
The decision maker should never expect final solutions. Partial solutions will be implemented and feedback will quickly demonstrate their defects. Adjustments will then have to be made and the ensuing new, again partial, courses will have similar effects. Further, the “one best solution” probably will never be found in international relations. Almost all policies seem to have serious defects and those that are well-adapted to one particular time and region seem to be interrelated to problems in other foreign arenas and in domestic affairs that are adversely affected. Consequently, the decision maker who is aiming at a moving target in the first place must also expect that his choices will all have disagreeable consequences in one way or another.
The crisis at the Horn of Africa should also suggest to the decision maker that he should try to avoid panic, for the world is no more pliable for the Soviet leaders than it is for the American.
‘Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston, MA: Little, Bj;own, 1971).
2Jon Kraus, “American Foreign Policy in Africa,” Current History, March 1981, p. 98; James M. McConnell and Bradford Dismukes, “Soviet Diplomacy of Force,” Problems of Communism, January-February 1979, p. 23.
3Kraus, p. 98.
4Robert King Morris, “Clientism Unbound: American Policy and the Tactics of Third World Security,” Naval War College Review, May-June 1981, pp. 75-82; Steven David, “Realignment in the Horn: The Soviet Advantage,” International Security, Fall 1979, p. 89; Kraus, p. 97.
5John B. Lynch, “The Superpowers’ TUg of War over Yemen,” Military Review, March 1981, p. 16; L. G. Shelton, “The Sino-Soviet Split: The Horn of Africa, November 1977 to February 1979,” Naval War College Review, May-June 1979,
p. 80.
6Bruce Palmer, Jr., “U. S. Security Interests in Africa,” AEI Defense Review, 1978, p. 21.
7Shelton, pp. 80-81.
Gary D. Payton, “The Soviet Ethiopian Liaison: Airlift and Beyond,” Air University Review, November-December 1979, p. 67.
9Colin Legum, “The USSR and Africa,” Problems in Communism, January- February 1978, p. 8.
l0David, p. 75; Shelton, pp. 78-87; Legum,' pp. 609, 632; Payton, p. 68; Deutsch, pp. 47-49; Lynch, p. 18.
llJ. Bowyer Bell, The Horn of Africa: Strategic Magnet in the Seventies (NY: Crane, Russak, 1973); David, p. 89; M. G. Bayne, “Understanding the US Navy’s Role in the Gulf and Indian Ocean,” Wings of Gold, Fall 1980, pp. 18-22. 12The notion may not be as preposterous as it sounds for the United States has had its own Cubans in the past. It tried to unseat Castro at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 using Cuban exile troops and aviators, and shortly after that, it used Cubans to fly B-26s and T-28s for Moise Tshombe in the Congo (now Zaire); Eduardo Ferrer, Operacion Puma (Miami, FL: Aviation Consultants, 1975); Fred. E. Wagoner, Dragon Rouge: The Rescue of Hostages in the Congo (Washington: National Defense University, 1980); Steven R. Weissman, “CIA Covert Action in Zaire and Angola: Patterns and Consequences,” Political Science Quarterly, Summer 1979, pp. 263-86.
13Robert Legvold, “The Super Rivals: Conflict in the Third World,” Foreign Affairs, Spring 1979, pp. 755-78 argues that the Soviets do show some restraint; David, p. 90 argues that we should establish linkages; Steven S. Kaplan et al.. Diplomacy of Power: Soviet Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Washington: Brookings, 1981), p. 665 shows that the Soviets have hurt their arms control policy with their actions in Africa and elsewhere in the Third World.
14Jim Valenta, “Soviet-Cuban Intervention in the Horn of Africa,” Journal of International Affairs, Fall/Winter, 1980-81, pp. 356-57.
15“Third World: Uncle Sam’s Tough Stand,” US News and World Report, 26 October 1981, pp. 20-30.
16Shelton, pp. 78-87; David, pp. 74-77.
17Emilio T. Gonzales, “The Development of the Cuban Army,” Military Review, April 1981, p. 62; Morris, p. 78; Shelton, p. 77.
18Palmer, p. 21; David, p. 78; Valenta, pp. 358-60.
,9Hugh Thomas, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom (NY: Harper and Row, 1971). 20Legum, p. 606.
21Payton, pp. 66-73; Bonner Day, “The Soviets Exercise their Airlift Capability,” Air Force, March 1978, p. 27.
22Legum, pp. 626-27, 630-35.
23Shelton, p. 80.
Colonel Mets graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy with a BS in engineering, and he earned a PhD in U. S. diplomatic history from the University of Denver. He is currently a historian at Armament Division, Eglin Air Force Base. He was commissioned in the Air Force upon graduation and completed a 30-year career in 1979. His service included work as an instructor navigator in Military Airlift Command, instructor pilot in the Air Training Command, aircraft commander in Strategic Air Command and in Vietnam, and command of an AC-130 gunship squadron in Thailand. Colonel Mets has published articles in Proceedings and other military magazines, and his book, NATO: Alliance for Peace, was published in 1981 by Julian Messner.