Conflict in the Third World in the 1970s and 1980s.

Within this module I focussed at the impact of the Iranian revolution (on both USSR and USA), the conflict in Angola (especially the part played by Cuba) and also on the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Impact of the Iranian Revolution. The impact of the Iranian revolution was not simply a Cold War issue, it had wider impacts in the Middle East (notably in the Lebanon) and also with the Iran-Iraq War. I believe however that the most noteworthy issue was the relationship (or lack of it) between Iran and America. The instability in the region was felt by both Russia and America, as well as troubled more moderate Arab Gulf states.

Angola is a highly interesting conflict to study, it has colonial links, also with players such as South Africa heavily involved, but I believe most noteworthy was the major involvement of Cuba, and with no agreement from Russia! There was a very interesing documentary on TV covering the conflict in Angola which was worth watching.

For me Afghanistan is one of the most interesting conflicts to look at. Clearly the Politburo considered long and hard before going in December 1979 ‘at the request of the Afghan Government’, but they then executed President Amin almost immediately on arriving in Kabul!! The way that the West (USA) backed the Afghan resistance (in the form of the Mujahedin) has had long term consequences; firstly in the way that an insurgent campaign can be mounted, lessons from Afghanistan have been exported to the Balkans, Chechnya, Iraq and back to Afghanistan again. It is worth noting that some of the ‘Taliban’ insurgents being fought by US forces today will have been trained by US Special Forces in insurgent warfare in the 1980s!! It is remarkable to see that USA support for the Mujahedin came in through Pakistan (where there were training camps), and now USA is putting pressure on Pakistan to improve its control over the boarder with Afghanistan.

What I particularly liked about this was the availability of translated documents from the Politburo as well as papers written by, or in conjunction with, USSR commanders with experience of the campaign. It is worthy of study, Afghanistan has been in a state of almost continual armed conflict since 1979, the current insurgency in Afghanistan has some linkage with 1979. If civil war/insurgency was an Olympic sport would Afghanistan be repeat gold medal winners?

Non-Cold War Conflicts

This was a super Unit and each of the six areas of conflict could have been taken as a unit in its own right. As this was a specialist unit for me I led discussions on two of the conflicts, namely the Iran-Iraq War and also the Falklands Conflict. I also looked into the Indo-Pakistan series of wars.

Iran-Iraq. Saddam’s first major conflict which I was particularly interested as the Iran-Iraq War as this took place in an area of the World that I have served in twice. This particular conflict involved a series of tactics and campaigns that had not been seen before or had not been seen for a considerable period. The use of human waves and suicide bombers by the Iranians (although seen in Vietnam) was of considerable interest, especially the popular high esteem that they were seen (and this continues to this day within the realms of radical Islam and is not limited to one country). Also the campaign of firing rockets into population centres, this terrorising the civilian population had had little success in WW2, there is no reason to suppose that it would be successful in this conflict. The attacks each others oil installations was also significant and as was seen caused a significant raise in the price of oil. The ‘tanker war’ is another element that is unique. The shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet, after a US Navy ship mistook it for an Iranian fighter, could have been more significant than it was, there has never been any love lost between the Revolutionary Iran and the USA, and this incident was another chapter. The use of chemical weapons by Saddam would, I believe add credibility to later ‘intelligence’ that he had retained WMD and would lead to his downfall in 2003. I believe that it is right to link Iran-Iraq to invasion of Iraq in 2003 and also with Iran’s interests in the political landscape of the emerging Iraq under occupation.

Falklands Conflict. In contrast, the Falklands conflict was much the most simple conflict and clearly a much shorter one that most of the others in this Unit. The political background to the conflict is clearly a long running saga between Argentina and Britain over sovereignty of a remote (to Britain) and strategically unimportant group of sparsely populated islands, and even after victory in 1982, it is still not resolved. To a certain extent it could be argued that with the UK having to build a new military airport and garrison at Mount Pleasant that the conflict may be over, but the military aftermath continues to this day. I served in 5 Infantry Brigade in the Falklands conflict in 1982 and returned there in 1994 for a 7 month Garrison tour. The achievement of the UK Armed Forces was outstanding but it was truly a close run thing, with the loss of Sheffield, Ardent, Antelope and the Atlantic Conveyor prior to any land engagement it could have gone against Britain. Although it was out-of-style in the Cold War, this conflict should still be studied in relation to the modern era, as it has much to mark it out: the joint nature of operations, the logistic complexities, the use of General Wolfe’s ‘Quebec’ tactic of coming in the back door and the long ‘yomp’ or ‘tab’ across the island of East Falkland. Also the use of missiles against naval ships, the sinking of the Belgrano and in one engagement eliminating the Argentine navy from the conflict and also the use of conscripts against an all volunteer regular force, mark the Falkland conflict as still ripe for study.

Strife in the Communist World


This was an intersting module looking at the relationship between the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites. As far as Russia was concerned it was vital for the defence of the Motherland to retain a series of strongly pro-Soviet buffer states. The Warsaw Pact was essentially a defensive grouping to protect Rusia. America failed to recognise just how badly Russia had suffered in WW2. Stalin genuinely feared German re-unification, especially having luived through WW1 and WW2. Russia retained control over East Europe (less Yugoslavia) through the threat of force or actual use of force. This was shown in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslivakia.

The emergance of the opposition movement 'Solidarity' in Poland over 1980/81 is particularly interesting. The Soviets did not invade (nor could they due to a large scale involvement in Afghanistan) and Regan clearly sought to pressurise the USSR. Although Solidarity was repressed by the Communist Government of Poland, this to me is one of the first major cracks in the East European Bloc. It had massive popular support in Poland (who generally disliked the Russians) and as was seen at the end of the Cold War Solidarity did well as a political body in Poland.