The attached paper sets forth our preliminary views of Soviet options and
constraints in Southwest Asia following the invasion of Afghanistan. Its
focus is on the major actors in the region from the Soviet perspective; it
does not deal explicitly with possible US policies or how those might
influence Soviet positions.
Attachment
Memorandum Prepared in the Central Intelligence
Agency3
Washington, undated
SUBJECT
- Soviet Union and Southwest Asia
1. It is unlikely that the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan constitutes
the preplanned first step in the implementation of a highly articulated
grand design for the rapid establishment of hegemonic control over all
of Southwest Asia. Rather than signaling the carefully timed beginning
of a premeditated strategic offensive, the occupation may have been a
reluctantly authorized response to what was perceived by the Kremlin as
an imminent and otherwise irreversible deterioration of its already
established position in a country which fell well within the
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Soviet Union’s legitimate
sphere of influence. However, there is no reason to doubt that the
Soviets covet a larger sphere of influence in Southwest Asia or to
suppose that their decision to occupy Afghanistan was made without
reference to broader regional objectives. On the contrary, their
willingness to incur what they almost certainly anticipated would be
serious costs strongly suggests a belief that their occupation of
Afghanistan would improve their access to a number of extremely
lucrative targets of opportunity and might eventually lead to a highly
favorable and enduring shift in the regional and perhaps even global
balance of power.
2. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was probably predicated on a
belief that Afghan resistance would prove relatively short lived. Among
other things, their historical experience in their own Central Asian
republics may have persuaded the Soviets that a strategy combining
military intimidation, political conciliation, and economic enticement
would quickly reduce resistance and enable their puppet regime to
acquire at least a modicum of grassroots political authority and
administrative control. If this turns out to be a miscalculation and
Afghan resistance becomes or remains persistent and widespread, the
Soviets could become so bogged down in guerrilla warfare that they
abandon any hopes of further near-term expansion. However, they are
unlikely to withdraw their forces from Afghanistan and might well try to
alleviate their problems there by intensifying pressure on or expanding
the conflict to Pakistan.
3. In the face of intractable Afghan resistance, the Soviets are likely
to attribute much of the blame to direct or indirect Pakistani
involvement and to take what they deem to be essential deterrent and
retaliatory measures. These measures could include not only cross-border
raids by loyal Afghan and/or Soviet forces, but also extensive Soviet
support for anti-Pakistani tribal insurgents and intimidating demarches
on Islamabad by the Soviets’ Indian allies.4 In extremis, moreover, the Soviets might press a
not-too-reluctant India to join them in an all-out campaign of political
subversion or even in a concerted invasion. Although the inevitable
costs of such a drastic action might give the Soviets pause, their
behavior in Afghanistan (as well as the earlier escalatory behavior of
the United States in Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia)
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suggests that they might be undeterred by anything
short of a credible threat of direct US military retaliation.
4. Unless their position in Afghanistan impels them to take a harsh
anti-Pakistani line, the Soviets are likely to give Islamabad time to
adjust to the “realities” of its new situation and adopt a more
conciliatory approach to the USSR. In
this case, the Soviets are more likely to let their presence in and
growing control over Afghanistan speak for themselves than they are to
underscore Pakistani vulnerabilities by issuing explicit threats. While
exercising such self-restraint, moreover, the Soviets are likely to
offer the Pakistanis substantial inducements to distance themselves from
the United States and the PRC. Although
they will have to guard against jeopardizing their close relations with
India in the process, the Soviets are likely to try to woo the
Pakistanis not only with pledges of noninterference and offers of
economic aid but also with offers of at least limited military
assistance and promises to use their good offices to keep
Pakistani-Indian relations on an even keel. Should India take serious
umbrage at such initiatives, the Soviets might temporarily take a less
forthcoming line. But they would also be mindful of the extreme
improbability of a markedly anti-Soviet realignment of Indian policy and
might be willing to expend a substantial amount of the capital they have
accumulated in Delhi in order to secure Pakistani acceptance of the
Soviet Union’s growing regional influence.
5. If Islamabad were to prove insufficiently responsive to their
blandishments, the Soviets would probably use less subtle means to try
to encourage greater “realism.” As already indicated, the means at their
disposal would include military intimidation, political subversion, and
tribal insurrection, as well as the activation of longstanding Afghan
and Indian claims on Pakistani territory. If these tactics also fail to
produce the desired results, the Soviets might eventually conclude that
it was advisable to allow Pakistan an interlude in which to work out its
own destiny. A decision to this effect would seem particularly
appropriate if attempts to escalate the pressure on Islamabad seemed
likely to increase US involvement in Pakistan and to limit Soviet
opportunities elsewhere in the region. Such an interlude would not
necessarily be long lasting, however, and could come to an abrupt halt
if subsequent developments expose additional Pakistani
vulnerabilities.
6. Of all of the objectives that their occupation of Afghanistan may have
placed within easier Soviet reach, a pro-Soviet Iran is almost surely
the most tantalizing. Although the Soviet occupation of an Islamic
country has undoubtedly confirmed and strengthened the anti-Communist
sentiments of Iran’s fervently religious ruling elite, it has also
emplaced Soviet forces on Iran’s eastern as well as its northern border
and has created possibilities for direct large-scale Soviet aid
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to Baluchi as well as to Azari
and Kurdish separatist movements. Furthermore, it has done so at a time
when Iran is going through a paroxysm of anti-American hysteria and may
be on the brink of political, social, and economic chaos. Since this is
also a time when the Soviets are about to encounter significant
shortfalls in domestic energy production, it seems probable that the
expansion of its influence over Iran will rank at or near the top of the
Kremlin’s hierarchy of regional priorities.
7. Although the possibility cannot be excluded, it does not seem likely
that the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan will turn out to have been a
dress rehearsal for an impending gala performance in Iran. Unlike
Afghanistan, Iran is clearly too important to the West to make the risk
of a counterintervention seem negligible, and the exercised American
reaction to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan has probably convinced
even the Kremlin’s most unreconstructed hawks that a frontal attack on
Iran could lead to a full-fledged military showdown with the United
States. However, fear of such a showdown will not lead the Kremlin to
forsake its ambitions or prevent it from pursuing them by more
circuitous means. At the margin, apprehension that any important Soviet
breakthrough in Iran would elicit a determined US military reaction may
exercise a restraining influence, but the Soviets will probably still
have extensive room for maneuver in a situation in which American
options are severely circumscribed and Iranian vulnerabilities are very
large.
8. At least for the immediate future, the Soviets are likely to make
assiduous efforts to improve their relations with the Khomeini regime. Among other things,
they will probably signal their willingness to be supportive
diplomatically and to provide Tehran with economic and military aid.
Such overtures will not prevent the Soviets from entrenching themselves
on Iran’s Afghan border, cultivating their contacts with anti-Persian
nationalist movements, and supporting the Tudeh’s efforts to build up its organizational
infrastructure and penetrate the country’s governing elites. Instead of
flaunting these activities, however, the Kremlin will probably try to
keep them inconspicuous and take special precautions to neutralize their
potentially provocative effects.
9. Although the Soviets can have few illusions about the possibility of
altering the fundamentally anti-Communist ideological tenets of the
Khomeini regime, they
probably do foresee a possibility of growing Tudeh influence over current governmental policy and of a
significant Tudeh role in a more
secular and “progressive” post-Khomeini regime. The early emergence and smooth
stabilization of such a non-Communist but Communist-tinged regime
probably represents the Soviets’ preferred outcome to the Khomeini succession, since they could
then
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look forward to the
establishment of much more intimate Soviet-Iranian relations which it
would be extremely difficult for the United States or other foreign
countries to disrupt. Outside powers would be hard pressed for an excuse
to interfere with a legitimate and viable Iranian regime, and any
credible threat of hostile action on their part could provide the
Soviets with a welcome opportunity to extend protection to a friendly
neighboring country which also shared a common border with the Soviets’
Afghan allies. While the experience of President Amin, et al., would doubtless make many
Iranian leaders question the wisdom of signing a Treaty of Friendship
and Mutual Assistance with the USSR,
the external (and/or internal) pressures upon them might make their
position seem too precarious to allow them any choice.
10. Given the extremely remote prospect of an early pro-American
reorientation of Iranian policy, the Soviets would probably not attempt
to overthrow or subvert a post-Khomeini regime which denied the Tudeh access to position of influence
power. However, if they were persuaded that such a regime was developing
real durability and becoming so anti-Communist that their potential
leverage in Tehran was in jeopardy (e.g., as a result of a credible
threat to crush the Tudeh), the
Soviets would probably not hesitate to take strong counteraction. Unless
it were firmly convinced that such behavior would boomerang, the Kremlin
might well resort not only to stern diplomatic protests but also to
military intimidation and even, if necessary, to the encouragement and
support of intense centrifugal pressure on Tehran by anti-Persian
nationalist forces. So long as they themselves stopped short of direct
military intervention, the Soviets would probably discount the
possibility of US military action to save the incumbent regime. If, as
also seems probable, they were highly skeptical about the likelihood
and/or efficacy of US nonmilitary responses to a possible request by
Tehran for help, the Soviets might well risk the possibility that Tehran
could successfully resist their pressure and become militantly
anti-Soviet for the sake of the probability that it would bow to their
pressure or be replaced by a more accommodating successor.
11. Unless they become convinced that Iran was otherwise almost certain
to become a US client or was caught in the throes of an irreversible
process of fragmentation and disintegration, the Soviets are not likely
to become wholehearted supporters of any of the country’s
ethnonationalist secessionist or independence movements. If they were so
convinced, however, the Soviets would probably jettison Tehran with
alacrity and encourage the formation of Soviet-backed provisional
governments in Iranian Azarbayjan, Kordestan, Baluchestan, Khuzestan,
etc. Although the Kremlin would recognize that such a patent effort to
establish Soviet controlled mini-states could precipitate a US military
intervention (presumably to try to preserve the integrity of Iran but
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possibly—and in a possible
de facto and ad hoc alliance with a severely chastened Iraq—to simply
occupy Khuzestan), it might well try to deter such an intervention by a
preemptive intervention of its own. Moreover, if they felt that their
only other real choice was acquiescence in what they would almost
certainly envision as a more or less permanent US military presence on
or close to their southern border, the Soviets might not be averse to
confronting the United States in an area in which the local population
was strongly anti-American and the USSR could benefit from many logistical advantages.5
