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Soviet Relations with Africa

After colonial empires in Africa collapsed, Moscow did all it could to make “African comrades” embrace socialism – but the romance didn’t last long. Africa started to become a matter of concern for some Russians during the 19th century and the Second Boer War. The next period of Africa obsession began with the Comintern [an international union of the communist parties led by the USSR, which was active 1919-1943]. It was interested in the communist movement in South Africa and insisted on creating there ‘an independent aboriginal republic’, without explaining precisely what was meant by that.

Although the Comintern previously had made low-level contacts with local communist parties, sub-Saharan Africa was an area of limited concern to the Soviet Union until Khrushchev's reassessment of the Third World in the mid-1950s. Until 1958-1960, though, the USSR didn’t pay much attention to Africa and the issues of the continent, being too occupied with maintaining its industry and safety and fighting in Europe during World War II. Several students from Africa studied in Moscow, some money was sent to African communists, but it really was a drop in an ocean. Moscow paid little attention to Africa’s specifics for they didn’t really know Africa at all.

Khrushchev initiated economic "show projects" in several African countries, Soviet efforts to foster socialism in Africa foundered in the Congo in the early 1960s, in Guinea in 1961, and in Kenya in 1965 partly because the Soviet Union was unable to project military power effectively into Africa.

The de-colonization of Sub-Saharan Africa from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s resulted in several proxy Cold War confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union over the dozens of newly independent, non-aligned nations. The first such confrontation occurred in the former Belgian Congo, which gained its independence on June 30, 1960. The wave of Lumumbist "second independence" rebellions that swept the country in 1963-65 seemed to offer an opportunity for an expanded Soviet role. In January 1964, as Chinese-trained Lumumbist Pierre Mulele began his insurgency in Kwilu, all personnel of the Soviet embassy were expelled from Zaire, on the grounds of complicity (probably fictitious) with the rebellion. In fact, Soviet support for the insurgents was largely rhetorical.

Soviet policy toward Africa represented more than the mere exploitation of opportunities. It was driven by objectives that remained reasonably stable over the years:

• To offset and undermine Western political, economic, and military influence.
• To expand the Soviet presence on the continent.
• To facilitate the expansion of Soviet influence in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Indian Ocean littoral.
• To promote specific Soviet military interests.
• To enhance Soviet claims to a global superpower role.
• To gain political support from African countries for Soviet undertakings in international forums.
• To stimulate changes advantageous to the USSR in African regimes.

Soviet success in achieving these aims was mixed. For a variety of reasons, the Soviets suffered a number of setbacks before 1974: the over-throw of Nkrumah in Ghana (1966); the coup against a pro-Soviet regime in Mali (1968); a decline in Soviet influence in Guinea; the failure of a Communist coup in Sudan (1971); and the expulsion of the USSR from Egypt (1972).

By the early 1980s, the Soviets were confronted by:

• The loss of use of the naval and air facilities at Berbera, resulting from the Soviets' decision to pursue what they viewed as greater opportunities and stakes in Ethiopia, although they knew this would put their gains in Somalia at serious risk.
• The transfer of power in Zimbabwe in 1980 to a black majority government controlled by Robert Mugabe's ZANU rather than the Soviet-backed Joshua Nkomo's ZAPÚ.
• Termination by Guinea in 1977 of the right to stage TU-95 maritime reconnaissance flights from Conakry.
• The refusal by Cape Verde in 1980 to grant the USSR naval access rights.

Since 1974, Moscow was able to take advantage of a confluence of circumstances that offered new opportunities and tools with which to pursuits aims, particularly in countries experiencing new nationhood — the type of African country in which the Soviets scored gains in the 1960s. Soviet activity from 1974 marked a new phase in Soviet relations with Sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting:

• Major openings presented by the collapse of the Portuguese empire, conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia, the fall of the Haile Selassie regime, and growing black opposition to white rule in southern Africa.
• A Soviet perception that the United States has, until recently, been unwilling or unable effectively to contest the spread of Soviet influence in Africa, and that such expansion would accordingly entail little military risk.
• A Soviet assessment of the enhanced strategic significance of the Horn of Africa — with respect to the promotion of Soviet interests on the Arabian Peninsula and in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean regions generally.
• The need to compensate for the reduction of Soviet influence in the Middle East occasioned by the deterioration of relations with Egypt beginning in1972 and by the Camp David accords of 1978.
• A greater willingness on the part of some African states as well as insurgent groups to accept Communist military assistance and support,and of Africans to tolerate large-scale and overt combat involvement by Communist states in African affairs.
• The availability of a proxy - Cuba - especially well suited to the military and political requirements of the situations at hand.
• Possible heightened Soviet concerns about future deployment to the Indian Ocean of US strategic systems — both ballistic missile submarines and carrier-based aircraft.

Under these changed circumstances the Soviets managed to achieve major gains and significantly strengthened their position in Africa, although they were not immune to reverses. Since 1974 the Soviets:

• Used their airlift and sealift capabilities to provide large-scale military assistance, military advisers, and technicians to clients at great distances from the USSR.
• Helped keep in power pro-Soviet regimes in Angola and Ethiopia.
• Signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation with Mozambique, although so far they have neither gained access to military facilities nor entrenched themselves in the government structure.
• Exercised command and control functions for Ethiopia in its war with Somalia.
• Gained the use of an austere naval facility on Ethiopia's Dahlak Island in the Red Sea as a support facility for the USSR's Indian Ocean naval contingent, partly compensating for the loss of better facilities at Berbera in Somalia.
• Used their presence in Ethiopia to conduct reconnaissance flights over the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean from Asmara, continuing activities they formerly staged from Berbera.
• Used Luanda in Angola as a naval facility and staging point for reconnaissance flights over the South Atlantic, compensating for the loss of Conakry.
• Greatly increased military assistance and arms sales to Sub-Saharan Africa: from $715 million in the period 1959-74 to $4.74 billion in 1975-80 (half of which went to Ethiopia).
• Profited from the employment in combat operations of large numbers of Cuban proxy military personnel in Angola and Ethiopia. (In 1980 there were 15,000 to 19,000 Cuban soldiers in Angola and 11,000 to 13,000 in Ethiopia.)
• Encouraged and coordinated the placement of hundreds of East Germans in security, organizational, and propaganda training jobs in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and other countries. - -- - -.--.- --
• Channeled arms to insurgents operating in Namibia, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and South Africa. ----
• Quietly begun to provide technical military assistance and even military advisers to the Libyan forces in Chad

The Soviet activity in Africa did not signify that the region as a whole had any higher priority in Soviet eyes relative to other regions than it had previously. Sub-Saharan Africa still ranked lower than the United States, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, China, Southwest Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East as an area of Soviet foreign policy concern. The USSR had no truly vital security interests at stake in the region that it must defend. Soviet military objectives in the area were - aside from Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf concerns — of a regional rather than global strategic character; peacetime designs were probably more important than those keyed to a general East-West war; and desired political gains were just as salient as purely military ones.

There were continuing opportunities for the USSR and its proxies to fish in troubled waters. The potential openings were many:

• The political, economic, and social weaknesses that will continue to afflict Africa. The tendency of African military organizations to acquire as much weaponry as possible regardless of the real level of threat.
• Abiding African suspicions of Europe and the United States.
• The presence of apartheid in South Africa and its impact on the domestic and foreign policies of other countries in Africa. Clearly, the Soviets view support for the African struggle for majority rule in Namibia and South African all of its political, economic, military, and diplomatic dimensions— as a key element in their approach to Sub-Saharan Africa.

During the first few years of the Brezhnev period, the amount of economic assistance to Africa declined from the levels of the Khrushchev period, although it increased greatly in the mid-1970s. During the Brezhnev period, the Soviet ability to project power grew, enabling it to take advantage of several opportunities in Africa during the 1970s.

Because of the deteriorating economic situation in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, economic assistance to Africa declined. Military assistance was maintained or increased in some instances in the face of insurgencies against so-called revolutionary democracies. Angola, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, all of which were fighting insurgencies, were major recipients of arms throughout the 1980s.

At the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress, Gorbachev called for a reorientation of relations with the Third World. He stressed the need to improve relations with the more developed, Western-oriented, Third World states while maintaining existing relations with other African states. In Africa the Soviet Union pursued closer relations with relatively more developed African states such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

Gorbachev also reiterated Soviet support for the overthrow of the government of South Africa and support for the "frontline" states (states near or bordering South Africa) opposing South Africa: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. As part of a Soviet attempt to coordinate Soviet policy toward southern Africa, a new office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was created to deal with the frontline states. In 1988-89 Soviet hostility toward the South African regime softened, and the two countries worked together diplomatically in resolving regional conflicts and issues such as negotiations over the independence of Namibia.

The Soviet Union engaged in a massive airlift of Cuban forces into Angola in 1975 to help the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola—MPLA) defeat rival groups attempting to achieve power after the Portuguese colonial administration ended. The rival group, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Uniao Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola—UNITA), continued to oppose the MPLA and by the early 1980s controlled almost one-half of Angola's territory and increasingly threatened the central government.

In both 1985 and 1987, massive Soviet-directed and Cuban-assisted MPLA offensives were launched against UNITA in attempts to achieve a military solution to the insurgency. Both these offensives failed. In December 1988, regional accords were signed setting a timetable for Namibian independence and the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. The signatories were South Africa, Angola, and Cuba, with the United States acting as mediator and the Soviet Union as observer of the accords.

In 1977 and 1978, the Soviet Union airlifted large numbers of Cuban troops into Ethiopia to help defeat an incursion by Somalia into the disputed Ogaden region. Somalia had signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union in 1974 and had received large amounts of Soviet arms. The Soviet leadership, however, ended this relationship in 1977 and switched support to Ethiopia because of Ethiopia's much greater population and economic resources and because of its location on the strait of Bab al Mandab, which links the Horn of Africa to inland Africa and the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. During the 1980s, the Soviet Union moved toward normalizing relations with Somalia but appeared to be waiting for a change in regime before attempting to greatly improve contacts.

In Mozambique the Soviet Union supplied arms to the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frente da Libertacao de Mozambique—Frelimo) during its 1975 effort to win power, and in 1977 the Soviet Union and Mozambique signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation. In 1977 a disaffected wing of Frelimo and other Mozambicans formed the Mozambique National Resistance Movement (Movimento Nacional da Resistencia de Mocambique — Renamo), which began increasingly successful military operations against the Frelimo government. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union stepped up military assistance to the Frelimo government in the face of the eroding security situation. The Frelimo government, because of inadequate Soviet military assistance, acted to diversify suppliers by obtaining weaponry and military advisory assistance from Britain and Portugal, among others.

As of 1981, CIA did not believe that Soviet behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa was likely to present a frontal challenge to the West in the areas of access to strategic metals or oil. Even under circumstances favorable to the Soviets they would not be able either to seize Sub-Saharan strategic metals for themselves, or-barring a collapse of political order in South Africa — to impose a prolonged denial of them to the West; nor did Soviet behavior suggest that the Soviets themselves were pursuing either a seizure or a denial strategy in the near or middle term.

Likewise, Soviet naval activities around the Horn and off the coast of East Africa did not signal an active intention of interfering with the flow of oil supplies for the West, given the supremely high risk this would entail and Soviet naval inferiority in the region. Rather, these activities were intended to promote essentially political objectives — as well as enhance the USSR's future strategic capabilities in the area.