There was some convergence of views, but far more divergence, between those variously involved on either side as to what the whole thing would be about. Over-simplified, it was this. The United States wanted to hang on to what she regarded as two of her strategic interests: Middle Eastern oil and the ability to bring tankers and other shipping round the Cape. For the USSR the requirement was to keep a grip on Southern Africa, which would give her dominance of the sea routes, and to control the Middle East and its oil. Those involved there had other ideas. The black African nations wanted to destroy the white hold on South Africa and have it for themselves, its riches, its land, its influence, its strategic potential. The white South Africans were equally intent on keeping what they had. Neither cared greatly for the broader issues beyond their own horizons. In the Middle East, Iran was concerned to preserve her own integrity and influence, an influence extending to southern Arabia; the smaller states simply wanted to continue with their well-endowed development; the new UAR wished to become the centre and controller of the whole Arab world. For the time being the convergences of policy were sufficient to allow these sets of allies to work together. Their divergences would become more apparent as operations developed.
Policy is one thing, method another. The United States’ concept of how to maintain her foothold in Africa and support her allies in the Middle East was clear, simple and within her capacity. It had four main features: first, to break Soviet air and sea power in those areas whose strategic control was necessary to the United States; second, to provide those elements of defensive power which her allies in the Middle East did not possess themselves and without which they would be unable to employ effectually the military power they did possess; third, to keep these allies supplied logistically and to give further training to their armed forces when practicable; fourth, to keep US forces out of the land fighting in Southern Africa except in so far as the security of Simonstown demanded.
Everything the United States hoped to do depended on winning the war at sea, which itself demanded ascendancy in the air. The course of the battle for the Atlantic has been traced in Chapter 17. What matters here is its outcome. The Soviet Navy’s defeat had two important effects on the battle in Africa. First, the severance of maritime connection with the Caribbean meant that no Jamaican or Cuban reinforcements or supplies could come by sea to West Africa. Second, the blockade of West Africa from Conakry to Walvis Bay ensured that no support could come by sea to the belligerent countries from anywhere else. The battle for the Indian Ocean had been less intense and less costly than the battle for the Atlantic, but it had been important. The United States Navy now had a strong presence along the east coast of Africa from Mombasa to Port Elizabeth and in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and superiority in the Indian Ocean as a whole. The Red Sea remained under Soviet domination; so did the Eastern Mediterranean.
Mastery of the sea and air, as the United States had discovered in both Korea and Vietnam, did not necessarily mean mastery on land, but it helped a good deal, particularly in the Middle East. Here there were four main areas of operations for ground forces. One was supremely important; the rest were sideshows. The first was a joint operation by the United States and Iran, supported by the Union of Arab Emirates and Oman, to seize complete control of the Persian Gulf. It involved the elimination of Kuwait and the destruction of all Soviet and UAR forces in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia. To start with, Kuwait was edged out of the game. The tacit neutrality of Iraq, whose relations with Syria had deteriorated almost to the point of military hostilities, enabled Iran to remove any threat from Kuwait without a fight. In the summer of 1985, powerful Iranian amphibious and air forces, poised for invasion, together with an unequivocal ultimatum, obliged the Kuwaiti ruling council to announce the severance of their new relationship with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It was a
