by John Hackett
The home front in the USSR — or at least in the Soviet areas contiguous to China — seemed to offer a possible target. It would have been dangerous for China to invoke nationalism as a subversive slogan before Sinkiang and Tibet had been fully brought under control. Now the risk of regional insurgency was far less there than in the Soviet republics in central Asia. Moreover, there were elements from many of these Moslem people, ethnically and linguistically Turkish, living in China’s far west. With a modest growth of cultural freedom and with economic development springing from Japanese investment in the new co-prosperity sphere, it should not be too difficult to create centres of attraction in China for the Uzbeks and the Kazakhs. A movement for real autonomy in the Soviet republics on the Sino-Soviet border could have enormous advantages for China, at least in providing another preoccupation for Soviet policy makers, in drawing off Soviet troops who might otherwise be threatening China, and in creating suspicion as to the loyalty of units recruited in those areas.
Meanwhile, back in the West the phoney peace was beginning to wear thin. It goes without saying that neither the US nor the USSR trusted the other enough to make any real attempt at disarmament. On the contrary, Warsaw Pact preparedness increased at the same rate as before while NATO continued to make some modest improvements. Political skirmishing was resumed. Three elements in particular contributed to the build-up of instability: oil, the Middle East and the Balkans, none of them new but each spreading its effects like secondary growths after an unsuccessful operation.
The disruption of oil supplies and the resulting shortages all over the world were like a running sore, making calm thought more difficult, leading to internal and international tensions, distorting economies and increasing unemployment. The new patterns of distribution were fragile and susceptible to political uncertainty. The control of the North Arabian supplies by the Egyptian-dominated UAR was in these circumstances hardly a guarantee of stability.
This was the sixth attempt at Arab union in which Egypt had been involved. All the previous ones had failed after longer or shorter periods. The few centres of population in Saudi Arabia could be controlled by military force. The association with Iraq was more uneasy. The age-old cry of Arab unity was tarnished by the only too visible presence of Soviet technicians at the oil fields and the ports. Even in this day and age the old hatreds between Sunnis and Shias were likely to erupt when Saudis and Iraqis were too closely intermingled. Arab unity is a dream which has inspired some of the noblest thinkers of that race, but in actual history Arab division has been more constant and more influential. The personal rivalries of Arab politicians have always fed on the discrepancies of tribe and dogma and social stratification.
The new union had stalled before accomplishing its full purpose. With all the Arabian oil (especially if Iran had dissolved into chaos, as Arab propagandists had persuaded themselves would happen) the Arab union might have stood a chance of real independence. It might even have held the superpowers to ransom, from the moment when Middle Eastern oil was seen to be essential for their survival. But now, with Arabia only half won, and with Iran resurgent and better armed, the divisions of the Arab world were compounded by the contest between Soviet Russia and America. Imperialism was back under other names, and it was no wonder that disillusion had set in.
Assassination was not far behind. The association between the Shias in Iraq and the godless Russians provoked a resurgence of that orthodox fanaticism which had claimed so many political victims in the past. The murder of the Egyptian Prime Minister not only left a power vacuum in the Council of the Union, but caused ripples and echoes among the Moslem subject races of the Soviet Union, already wooed by China.
A new government was patched together with military participation, but the seeds of doubt had been sown in the Politburo about the viability of control by proxy in so vital an area. Plans were made and forces earmarked for a more direct Soviet intervention. Equipment, clothing and warlike stores appropriate for hot climate operations were issued, and an urgent programme of modification to vehicles and weapons put in hand. Crash courses in Arabic were undertaken and encyclopaedia articles rewritten to prove the fundamental compatibility between the social principles of Islam and those of Marxism-Leninism.
Meanwhile, a new crisis began to develop nearer home. After Tito’s disappearance from the political scene Yugoslavia had survived the succession problem in the first instance with less difficulty than had been forecast. Inevitably the regions had obtained a little more power and the economic arrangements in each region had diverged a little more from the general norm, mostly leaning even further than before towards the market economy, but the basic federal organization remained more or less intact. Now, however, the general difficulties caused by oil shortages and price increases added to the latent tensions between the richer north and the poorer south of the country. The non-aligned group of countries, of which Yugoslavia and Egypt had been founder members, had been brusquely reduced by Egypt’s acceptance of Soviet tutelage. As the path of non-commitment became narrower, Slovenia began slipping off to the West and Serbia to the East.
West Germany had for some time seen Ljubljana as one of the gateways to the development of the more intensive trade with Eastern Europe which its industry seemed increasingly to require. The Slovenian provincial administration responded to West German advances with an alacrity that went beyond merely commercial advantage and suggested a vision of a new Balkan Switzerland where East and West could meet on equal terms. The central government took fright at this separatist trend and sought to redress the balance by turning a blind eye to pro-Soviet groups which had always been in existence and had lately been sharpening up their capability for agitation against just this eventuality. Their danger signals to the CPSU lost nothing in transmission. The restoration of orthodox communist control in Yugoslavia was now moved up to quite near the top in the Kremlin’s list of objectives.
CHAPTER 8: Heidelberg, 27 July 1985
It was a warm summer afternoon in Heidelberg. The visitors from the Committee on Armed Services of the United States Senate were listening with close attention to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army in Europe (USAREUR). The press and TV crews were absent.
‘As I am sure was made abundantly clear this morning in the Commanding General’s opening address and the informal group briefings which followed,’ the Chief of Staff was recorded as saying, ‘this visit is warmly welcome in USAREUR, from top to bottom in the whole command. It is evidence of the interest and support we have increasingly been able to count on in the United States as international tension has mounted further south and as we in this command have steadily improved our state of readiness.
‘What I have to say is classified but, as you have wished, it is on the record, and I know you will bear with me if it is occasionally on the technical side.’
He turned to the map.
Dispositions in CENTAG are known to you, and I have at this stage no further comment on them. It is a matter for regret that the recommendations of the Nunn-Bartlett Report in 1977 and of the Annual Defense Department Report of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld for the Fiscal Year 1978, could not, for reasons of finance, be fully acted on. Nevertheless, there has been steady progress since the period of dangerously low levels of readiness during which these reports were rendered — progress which is at least to some extent, if in varying degree, reflected among our allies — and the US Army in Europe is today in better shape than at any time in the last ten years. Progress at this rate, other things being equal, could within two years put the Alliance in a position of unquestioned security against any conventional attack from the Warsaw Pact.
Nuclear armaments will be covered at another time. I shall deal now with conventional equipment.
The XM-1 tank, three times as effective as the M-60 it is replacing, is widely in service throughout the command. The Mechanized Infantry 86 Combat Vehicle, whose earlier introduction would have doubled the effectiveness of our infantry,
regrettably is not. Its stabilized auto-cannon for fire suppression and its two under-armor ATGW (TOW or Hellfire) with a 3,000-meter range and a 90 per cent first-hit probability would be invaluable. It has, of course, been accepted for service and we have some, but not enough.
On the other hand we have through the improved Tacfire a 50 per cent improvement in automated artillery fire direction, plus battery computers, and the extended range ammunition for 200 mm and 155 mm tube artillery, with which it can now reach out thirty to forty kilometers. This much improved counter-fire capability has helped to correct a grave weakness on the CENTAG front. The weakness I refer to is our difficulty in switching fire support laterally, given an enemy possessing the initiative in choice of attack axes and a terrain not always friendly to lateral movement on the ground.
We should have welcomed the phased array artillery-locating radars for counter-battery use, and above all a general issue of the cannon-launched guided projectiles with initial laser guidance, which are effective against tanks. As you know, however, although these items have been accepted into service, full funding for production has so far been withheld. We are rather more fortunate in the provision of artillery-delivered scatterable mines, for delivery once the pattern of an attack has been revealed. These are now coming into the theatre.
For air defense it is satisfactory that our inventory of third generation air defense missiles is virtually complete to scale, with Patriot for medium and high altitude, Roland for medium and low, and Stinger for low as well, replacing Redeye.
We need more anti-tank helicopters with a day-and-night and a 3,000-meter stand-off capability. There are some, but we need more. We also need, as has often been pointed out, many more ATGW, to be mounted on special purpose vehicles and preferably under armor on MICV [Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicles], in order to withstand the enemy’s suppressive fires, which we understand are certain to be very intense. What we really need in US divisions in the Central Region is an aggregate of at least 1,000 major anti-tank weapons in each, made up of 300-plus mounted in tanks and 700 ATGW to be otherwise deployed. We have the tanks. We do not, in these numbers, have the ATGW.
At corps and division level we have been greatly in need of much improved intelligence, reconnaissance and target acquisition systems. Improvement in these last two years there has been. Signal intelligence has benefited from better methods and much better equipment. We have a good range of remotely-piloted vehicles for surveillance and target acquisition, together with some provision of airborne moving target radars, both helicopter and fixed wing, and radar locators. The degree of visibility we now have over the battlefield will greatly help the interposition of our smaller forces on the main axes of enemy effort and the development of effective battlefield interdiction operations.
The effectiveness of our intelligence on the battlefield has sharply increased with the introduction of the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System [JTIDS]. We are still running this system in. It has never yet taken a full operational load and we shall not know how best to exploit it until it has. But in this, as in other fields where electronics are of vital importance, we are conscious of an enormous potential which is a powerful source of confidence at every level.
I am glad to be able to report improved operational procedures and capabilities for joint air-land warfare. Joint action is now effective in reconnaissance and surveillance operations, to a lesser extent in suppression of enemy air defenses, battlefield interdiction and electronic warfare, but above all in joint control of close air support using artillery forward observers with laser designators.
The drawdown of theater stocks in support of operations elsewhere by other nationalities (of which those by the Israelis were at one time typical) have long since been made good, as you know. Prepositioned stocks of equipment for reinforcing units are complete, and there will be little difficulty in bringing up to combat level, for example, the heavy divisions expected at an early stage. One of these is even now in process of being lifted in. Ammunition stocks are now up to scale and, even more important perhaps than that, negotiations with the FRG, actively pursued in 1980 for the re-siting of certain major installations east of the Rhine, were successfully concluded nearly two years ago, and vital stocks are now no longer so likely to be denied to forward troops by interruption of lines of communication. Similar advantages will be generated by the substitution of a theater line of communication through the Low Countries for that through Bremerhaven in north Germany, though this is not yet complete and the new air defense problem it has thrown up has not yet been completely resolved. Movement towards fuller integration of Allied logistic systems has made progress. We are fortunate in having fewer problems here in CENTAG in this respect than they have in NORTHAG.
I have further to report continual improvement in command and control systems, in air defense and control, and in measures to avoid surprise.
Finally I have to report, in answer to two questions raised by Senators, that although, of course, French national policy is still to remain outside NATO, the participation in our own planning of command and staff of II French Corps with its two divisions and supporting troops stationed in the FRG is close, if highly confidential. The two US brigades that were deployed in north Germany to make good weaknesses in depth in NORTHAG have now been redeployed because NORTHAG has recently taken encouraging steps towards the remedying of the weaknesses there. Each of these US brigades is the basis of one of the reinforcement divisions which will form a very important element in the regional reserves now being developed by AFCENT [Allied Forces Central Europe].
The Chief of Staff came to an end and stepped aside. The Commander-in-Chief, the Commanding General of the United States Army in Europe, then rose. He was a tall, good-looking man in his middle fifties, trim of figure, clean-shaven, well-groomed, with dark hair just beginning to turn grey. His manner was quiet, his speech deliberate. ‘All generals are always on the stage,’ said Frederick the Great, who knew a good deal about generals. The C-in-C USAREUR was no exception. He was playing a part and knew it, and because he was his own producer and was an efficient, intelligent and quite ambitious man it was a very well produced part, as well as being well played. He was also, like very many generals, a brave, sincere and selfless person. He knew what was required and he knew a good deal about how to get it done.
Your army in Europe [he began] is in better shape than anyone, I think, has realized, especially the Russians.
The Vietnam experience is out of our system. We are rejuvenated and modernized. Our indoctrination to battle has been pressed hard.
The main focus of the US Army’s doctrine and training has been for these several years past the Central Region of NATO — right where we are now. Almost every combatant member of the officer corps of the United States Army has served at least once in Germany. We know the terrain. We know the weather. We know our enemy.
US divisions have been optimized for combat in Europe against the tank-heavy forces of the Warsaw Pact. They have been trained to believe that even when outnumbered they can win.
Our tank crews have been taught to shoot first and to hit with the first shot, 60 or even 70 per cent of the time, out to ranges of a mile or more.
Combat teams of infantry and tanks, working closely together, have been trained to use the rolling terrain and hill country in our sector, with its plentiful forests and towns, for cover and concealment.
Our troops have been exercised against forces set up to represent most closely Soviet strength, equipment and tactics.
Colonels and generals are expected to fight moving, active battles, always seeking an advantage from the use of terrain, surprise and mobility.
Generals are expected to concentrate defending forces in front of the main thrusts of the enemy so that the fighting troops do not have to meet a greater ratio of strength against them than three or four to one.
Colonels have been taught to fight in forward defense alongside their German allies.
The captains and their troops have learned that modern weapons in the defense can and should inflict losses on an attacker, in comparison to their own, of well over three to one. They have learned, in short, that a successful defense against considerable odds is possible.
It is with convictions and tactical concepts such as these that the US forces in the Central Army Group are prepared to meet a Soviet attack.
Let me only add a word about our German allies. The two German corps in CENTAG are of similar strength and composition to our own. Some of their equipment is of the same pattern as ours. Most of it is of their own design. They have lately in service, for example, a new tank, the Leopard II.
It represents a different tank philosophy from that upon which our own XM-1 is designed, or the British Chieftain for that matter, but I can tell you that it is very good. All their equipment is good. The German Army has also made great headway in the organizing and training of Home Defense units of the reserve. These can be expected to play a very important part in the defense of their country, particularly against internal dangers.
We are very close to our German allies. Joint German-American tactical exercises, war games, demonstrations and discussions have led to a remarkable unanimity between two national armies whose last battle experience in Europe was against each other.
There are, of course, differences between us, some small, some not so small. There is, for example, the greater reliance placed by US forces on air support. The greatest difference, whose significance only battle will reveal, is that a war here will be fought among Germans in Germany.
