The Third World War: The Untold Story

Sitrep situation report

SLBM submarine-launched ballistic missile(s)

SLCM submarine-launched cruise missile(s)

SLEP service life extension programme

SNAF Soviet Naval Air Force

SOTAS stand-off target acquisition system

SOUTHAG Southern Army Group

SP self-propelled

SRF Strategic Rocket Forces (Soviet)

SSBN submarine(s), strategic ballistic nuclear

SSGN submarine(s), guided missile nuclear

SSM surface-to-surface missile(s)

SSN submarine(s), nuclear

START Strategic Arms Reduction Talks

SURTASS surface-towed array sensor system

SWAPO South-west Africa People’s Organization

TACEVAL tactical evaluation

TACFIRE tactical fire direction

TACTASS tactical towed array sonar system

TAWDS target acquisition and weapon delivery system

TERCOM terrain contour matching (guidance system)

TNF theatre nuclear force(s)

TOW tube launched optically tracked wire guided (ATGW)

UKAD United Kingdom Air Defence

UNIFIL United Nations Force in Lebanon

UNFISMATRECO United Nations Fissile Materials Recovery Organization

UNITA National Union for the Total Independence of Angola

USAF United States Air Force

USAFE United States Air Force Europe

USAREUR United States Army in Europe

VELA velocity and angle of attack

V/STOL vertical/short take-off and landing

WESTLANT Western Atlantic

ZANLA Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army

ZIPRA Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army

Foreword

Earlier this year, at Eastertide in 1987, we, a group of Britons deeply aware of how narrowly such freedoms as the Western world enjoys had been able to survive the onslaught upon them of the enemies of freedom in August 1985, completed a book about the causes, course and outcome of the Third World War. In the prologue to that book (a short piece of writing of which every word stands as firmly today, six months later, as it did then, and perhaps deserves re-reading) we wrote: ‘Much will be said and written about these events in years to come, as further sources come to light and further thought is given to this momentous passage in the history of our world.’[1] A good deal more information has indeed become available since then.

The belligerent involvement of Sweden and Ireland, for example, was passed over in our first book, not through unawareness of its importance but through uncertainty about the political implications of some aspects of it which suggested an approach like that of Agag, who trod delicately. The same was true of the neutrality of Israel, under joint guarantees from the USSR and the USA. We could do little more than state this at that time as an end-product, since here too there were uncertainties in issues where precipitate judgment could have been prejudicial. We are now able to go more fully into the process which led to the establishment of an autonomous Palestinian state and the stabilization of Israeli frontiers under guarantee, though the reader will note that the great powers came very near to such conflict over this issue as could have caused the Third World War to break out at least a year before it did.

In Central America and the Caribbean there was also danger of a premature explosion. There has now been developing a Latin-American community (in which a non-communist Cuba plays a critically important role), with the interest and support of the United States but with no intent on its part of total dominance. These matters were at a delicate stage when we last wrote. We can now report more freely on the development of this regional entity as it grows in robustness. It emerged in circumstances so dangerous that the USSR was almost able to secure the defeat of NATO before a shot was fired on the Central Front. We can now examine why.

In the Middle East, in North Africa (where the extinction of over-ambition in Libya was received with almost worldwide acclamation), in southern Africa, and in the Far East we are also now able to take the story further.