The Third World War: August 1985

It was almost a repetition of the Neguib-Nasser relationship. Mohamed was the comparatively respectable front man of the team, even keeping up normal relations with the conservative ruling families of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Tawfik, on the other hand, had the wholehearted backing of the younger elements in the armed forces and of the intelligence services. The latter, chafing at the restraint imposed on them by the previous government, came forward with ambitious plans for creating by subversion a new and grander United Arab Republic, to embrace this time not the maverick Libyans or the ungovernable Syrians, but the sources of Arab wealth in the Arabian peninsula.

There was one problem: these ambitions could only be realized with massive Soviet help, both to provide the means of military takeover and to stave off any American attempt to intervene in favour of the status quo, and to preserve the supply of Middle East oil to the West. This would be a major change in Egyptian foreign policy, but Egypt was not renowned for consistency in these matters. The adoption of Russian support in the fifties and the repudiation of it in the seventies had been equally sudden and surprising. Egypt had breathed a great sigh of relief at the ending of the state of war with Israel in 1980. But the resulting relaxation of military effort had not released enough industrial resources to match the inexorable increase in population. Moreover, with the reductions in the armed forces many officers lost their jobs and formed a discontented group, only too ready to look to new external adventure to restore the power and privilege which they had once enjoyed.

Peace had not given bread to the masses or adequate employment to the intelligentsia. Renewal of hostility with Israel seemed to promise no better results than on previous occasions, especially with the Arab world even more fragmented than before. The overriding need seemed to be to create, if necessary by force, a centre of Arab strength to which the other quarrelling factions would gradually be attracted. Then at least it would be possible for the Arab world to decide where its future lay. This glamorous objective was held to justify the risks of achieving it with Soviet support.

It is still not clear whether the Egyptian services spontaneously advocated the ‘reversal of alliances’, or whether it was inspired by Soviet influence, which had retained a presence in the recesses of Egyptian intelligence even when its more overt manifestation had been brought to an end. In any event, Tawfik was persuaded, by economic necessity no less than by personal ambition, and gave covert approval to a programme of subversion, provided Soviet support could be confirmed. We shall describe later the Soviet deliberations which clinched the deal.

CHAPTER 4: Awakening Response in the West

In Western Europe the late seventies had seen something of a shift in attitudes to East-West relations. Disillusion and disappointment over the resolute Soviet refusal to make any real concession to Western concern over human rights, international agreements notwithstanding, probably did as much as anything to foster the new note of realism. The Russians began to be given more and more credit for meaning what they had now been consistently saying for a long time, that Western capitalist societies were doomed to fall before the inexorable advance of Marxism-Leninism, and that the armed forces of the socialist countries, under the leadership of the USSR, must expect to play a major part in their overthrow.

The warning was as clear as any given by Hitler before the Second World War. The steady build-up of offensive military power in the Soviet Union, at the cost of much else, was not only wholly consistent with a determination to impose Soviet-Russian ends upon other societies, by force of arms if necessary. It was hardly consistent with anything else.

There were those in the West who believed in the existence of a Soviet master plan for the achievement of world dominion, with every move at every level ordered in accordance with it. This was fanciful. Its palpable unreality, however, was not unhelpful to the Soviet interest. The derision it attracted did something to distract attention from what was really happening, which was nothing less than the preparation of a position of military strength from which any international situation could be manipulated to the Soviet advantage.