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The Soviet Presence in Africa: an Analysis of Goals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Robert D. Grey
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Extract

In the middle 1970s, scholars and politicians agree, the Soviet Union began a major effort to penetrate Africa. After a decade of relative indifference to African developments, Soviet arms and advisers, in support of Cuban troops, poured into Angola and Ethiopia. Involvement in these two countries was supplemented by further transfers of arms to a number of other African régimes, and this seemed to signal a dramatically heightened interest in the continent.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , September 1984 , pp. 511 - 527
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

page 511 note 1 Among the relevant works are: Albright, David (ed.), Communism in Africa (Bloomington, 1980);Google ScholarCharles, Milene, The Soviet Union and Africa (Washington, D.C., 1980);Google ScholarKatz, Mark, The Third World in Soviet Military Thought (Baltimore, 1982);Google Scholar and Hosmer, Stephen T. and Wolfe, Thomas W., Soviet Policy and Practice Toward Third World Conflicts (Lexington, Mass., 1983).Google Scholar

page 511 note 2 See, especially, Arlinghaus, Bruce E., Arms for Africa (Lexington, Mass., 1983).Google Scholar

page 512 note 1 Data for this and subsequent Tables are derived from U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1967–1976 (Washington, D.C., 1978), pp. 157–9Google Scholar, and World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1976–1980 (Washington, D.C., 1983), p. 117.Google Scholar

page 513 note 1 An emphasis, for instance, of W. Scott Thompson, ‘African-American Nexus in Soviet Strategy’, in Albright (ed.), op. cit. pp. 215–18, or Legvold, Robert, ‘The Soviet Union's Strategic Stake in Africa’, in Whitaker, Jennifer Seymour (ed.), Africa and the United States (New York, 1978), pp. 153–86.Google Scholar

page 513 note 2 A major proponent of this view is Stevens, Christopher, The Soviet Union and Black Africa (London, 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 513 note 3 Among others, see Young, Crawford, Ideology and Development in Africa (New Haven and London, 1982), pp. 253–96;Google ScholarAlbright, David F., ‘Moscow's African Policy of the 1970's’, in Albright, (ed.), op. cit. pp. 42–6;Google Scholar and Singleton, Seth, ‘Soviet Policy and Socialist Expansion in Asia and Africa’, in Armed Forces and Society (Cabin John, Md.), 6, Spring, 1980, pp. 342–8.Google Scholar

page 513 note 4 The C.I.A. is somewhat sensitive to this dimension of Soviet motivation. Cf. National Foreign Assessment Center, Central Intelligence Agency, Communist Aid Activities in Non-Communist Less Developed Countries, 1979 and 1954–1979 (Washington, D.C., 1980), pp. 1–5.Google Scholar Also see Pierre, Andrew J., The Global Politics of Arms Sales (Princeton, 1982), pp. 72–83.Google Scholar

page 513 note 1 See Ulam, Adam B., Dangerous Relations: the Soviet Union in world politics, 1970–1982 (New York and Oxford, 1983), pp. 145–208.Google Scholar

page 514 note 1 Kemp, Geoffrey, ‘U.S. Strategic Interests and Military Options in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in Whitaker, (ed.), op. cit. pp. 120–52, stresses America's stakes.Google Scholar

page 514 note 2 Christopher Croker argues that for the Soviet Union, and even more so for its eastern bloc allies, Africa is a potential source of vital resources that are getting scarce in their own territories. ‘Adventurism and Pragmatism: the Soviet Union, Comecon, and relations with African states’, in Intenational Affairs (London), 57, 4, Autumn, 1981, pp. 618–33.Google Scholar

page 514 note 3 Albright, David E., ‘Soviet Policy’, in Problems of Communism (Washington, D.C.), XXVII, 1, 01–02 1978, pp. 20–39Google Scholar, and Colin Legum, ‘The African Environment’, in ibid. pp. 1–19, agree on the multiplicity and high political salience of Soviet goals, as well as the need to analyse the interaction of these goals and capabilities with African realities.

page 514 note 4 For an extended eastern bloc analysis of these trends, see Oriental Institute in Academia, The Most Recent Tendencies in the Socialist Orientations of Various African and Arab Countries (Prague, 1979).Google Scholar

page 515 note 1 For an analysis and evaluation of this phenomenon, see Young, op. cit.; Rosberg, Carl G. and Callaghy, Thomas M., Socialism in Sub-Saharan Africa: a new assessment (Berkeley, 1979);Google Scholar and David, and Ottaway, Marina, Afrocommunism (New York and London, 1981).Google Scholar

page 515 note 2 Unfortunately, the U.S.S.R. has never published a definitive list of which countries are ‘of socialist orientation’. A perusal of The Most Recent Tendencies in the Socialist Orientation of Various African and Arab Countries makes it clear that it is a very amorphous concept. Nevertheless, in Africa, Angola, Benin, Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and until its split with the U.S.S.R. in 1978, Somalia, most clearly fell into this category.

page 516 note 1 The relative character of that indifference should, of course, be emphasised. In its relations with any other country, the U.S.S.R. presumably attempts to maximise a number of goals.

page 516 note 2 Ulam, op. cit. is particularly guilty of this, as are most of those who have been labelled ‘globalists’ by Henry Bienen; ‘Perspectives on Soviet Intervention in Africa’, in Political Science Quarterly (New York), 95, 1, Spring 1980.Google Scholar For the intellectual difficulties inherent in the rational actor model, see Allison, Graham T., Essence of Decision (Boston, 1971).Google Scholar

page 516 note 3 For a discussion of disagreements within the Soviet leadership, see Vanneman, Peter and James, Martin, ‘Shaping Soviet African Policy’, in Africa Insight (Pretoria), 10, 1, 1980, pp. 4–10Google Scholar, and Valenta, Jiri, ‘Soviet Decision-Making on the Intervention in Angola’, in Albright, (ed.), op. cit. pp. 93–117.Google Scholar

page 516 note 4 It must be remembered that of all Soviet arms transfers from 1976 to 1980, only 10 per cent went to sub-Saharan Africa, of which 90 per cent was received by five countries.

page 517 note 1 C.I.A., op. cit. pp. 27–33.

page 518 note 1 Given the small number of recipients of Soviet arms, the use of more sophisticated statistical techniques to analyse these data seemed inappropriate.

page 518 note 2 While evidence for this proposition is weak, it is nevertheless important to note that there is some support for it. In the only earlier study I can find that also tries to determine Soviet motivations empirically, Brayton, Abbot A., ‘Soviet Involvement in Africa’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 17, 2, 06 1979, pp. 253–69Google Scholar, wrongly concludes that the U.S.S.R. had a policy of delinerately attempting to penetrate poor, weak states. The author can have come to this conclusion only by ignoring certain Soviet clients, whom he labels, on grounds that are never clear, as ‘colonial penetrations’, and ‘leverage states’. He focuses entirely on what he calls ‘targeted states’ – Benin, Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda – and thus deals with seven rather than my 19 states. If all Soviet clients in sub-Saharan Africa are compared to those régimes not in this category, and if aggregate, rather than per capita, data are used, it becomes apparent that the U.S.S.R. somewhat disproportionately supplies arms to relatively ‘large’ and ‘high G.D.P.’ states, rather than those that are ‘poor’.

page 519 note 1 Source: U.N. Demographic Yearbook, 1981 (New York, 1981), p.

page 519 note 2 Source: V.N. Statistical Yearbook, 1979/80 (New York, 1981), pp. 693—4

page 520 note 1 See The Most Recent Tendencies in the Socialist Orientation of Various African and Arab Countries, and Edgington, Sylvia W., ‘“The State of Socialist Orientation” as Soviet Development Politics’, Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 1980.Google Scholar

page 520 note 2 Young, op. cit. pp. 97–182. labels these as ‘populist socialist’ states. Zimbabwe declared itself a Marxist-Leninist state in September 1984, much too late, of course, to be considered in this study.

page 521 note 1 As trade with the West has increased, Soviet needs for hard currency to finance that trade have risen commensurately. See Pierre, op. cit. pp. 72–83.

page 521 note 2 Brayton, loc. cit. is guilty of the same false assumptions.

page 521 note 3 C.I.A., op. cit. pp. 4–6.

page 523 note 1 Sources: U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1367–76, pp. 157 9, and 1976–1980, p. 117.

page 524 note 1 Emphasising this ‘hyena-like’ behaviour of the U.S.S.R. are Legum, Colin, ‘Communal Conflict and International Intervention in Africa’, in Legum, , Zartman, I. William, Langdon, Steven, and Mytelka, Lynn K., Africa in the 1980's: a continent in crisis (New York, 1979), pp. 23–58;Google ScholarShaw, Timothy M., ‘Africa in the World System: towards more uneven development?’, in Shaw, and Ojo, 'Sola (eds.), Africa and the International Political System (Washington, D.C., 1982), pp. 104–38;Google Scholar and Hosmer and Wolfe, op. cit.

page 525 note 1 See Legum, ‘The African Environment’, for a parallel analysis.

page 526 note 1 See Laurence, Edward J., ‘Soviet Arms Transfer in the 1980's: declining influence in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in Arlinghaus, (ed.), op. cit. pp. 39–77;Google Scholar Singleton, loc. cit.; Lilley, Robert J., ‘Constraints on Superpower Intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in Parameters (Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania), XII, 3, 09 1982, pp. 63–75;Google Scholar and Leidi, Zaki, ‘Les Limites de la penetration sovietique en Afrique’, in Defense nationale (Paris), 34, 12 1978, pp. 19–23.Google Scholar

page 527 note 1 The literature on Soviet intervention in this part of the continent is substantial. For a sampling, See Ottaway, Marina, Soviet and American Influence in the Horn of Africa (New York, 1982);Google ScholarGorman, Robert, Political conflict on the Horn of Africa (New York, 1981);Google ScholarLegum, Colin and Lee, Bill, The Horn of Africa in Continuing Crisis (New York, 1979);Google ScholarSelassie, Bereket Habit, Conflict and Intervention in the Horn of Africa (New York, 1980).Google ScholarGrey, Robert D., ‘Dependency — A Political Economy Model: post-imperial foreign policy’, in Hess, Robert (ed.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Session B. (Chicago, 1980), stresses the unwillingness of the United States to meet the growing needs of Ethiopia, and hence that régime's some what reluctant turn to the U.S.S.R.Google Scholar