2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORY
2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORY
The Cold War saw the emergence of large-scale covert actions by the super-powers - though often posing as genuine guerrillas - especially by the US. These were typically aimed at supporting (small) groups opposing 'hostile' governments, or undermining those opposed to 'friendly' ones - and especially in destabilizing countries which might give succor to the latter groups. Paradoxically, at the time, Iraq was seen as a friend - as its enemy was Iran (then the worst enemy of the US) - and was covertly supplied with weapons and materials which were later turned against the US; much as the Taliban was set up by the CI, to undermine the USSR presence in Aghanistan.
Thus, in particular, guerrillas were extensively supported; often with the aim of destroying a country's economy, rather than gaining the outright victory which they were not in a position to achieve. Angola and Mozambique had their economies destroyed by South Africa - with covert US help, though these countries themselves in turn became pawns of the USSR. The Lebanon was destroyed by Israel, and Syria - each sustained by a different super-power - as was Afghanistan by Pakistan (as well as the CIA!). Perhaps most cynically of all, Somalia accepted arms from the USSR for its invasion of Ethiopia, only to find that the USSR then armed Ethiopia itself - so Somalia turned to the US for its next tranche of weapons. Thus, the one thing Somalia had to excess was arms; and the disastrous outcome of this is still with us. At an official, if confidential, briefing in 1990, long before it became headline news, I was warned that the West, correctly as it turned out, already viewed Somalia as a hopeless 'basket-case'. But it was not just the US and USSR. France had interests in Central Africa - not least in Ruanda - and Britain's colonial history is still written all over Africa. Even in the last decades of the 20th century it was still dabbling in the Middle East - most notably in the Yemen and Oman. One has only to compare the behaviour of the people of Ethiopia (which has never been colonised for any length of time) with those from the rest of Africa to see what this has done to the local populations. The Ethiopians, for instance, simply have no concept of colour - in terms of that applying to people's skins; white or black - or any shade in between - makes no difference to them.
With the end of the Cold War, the majority of these destabilisation campaigns have now ended, but their effects linger on. When, over several decades, you have persuaded factions within a country to hate each other - and have then given them the arms to turn that hate into action - it is naive to expect the situation to stabilise as soon as you change your mind. Thus, even though Ethiopia and Eritrea had been allies and Ethiopia immediately allowed Eritrea to secede (for the first time in African history), within a decade a war had broken out between them over dispouted borders! These, externally generated, instabilities will, therefore, remain - albeit with declining impacts - for a number of years. The legacy of bitterness towards the super-powers may last much longer. In general, the scale of destabilisation has decreased - and will continue to do so - but it will still be deployed by countries which feel threatened or unfairly treated - such as Israel in Lebanon and Pakistan in Kashmir - with a similarly long-term effects. Military strategists, who have long recommended such tactics, are slowly coming to realise just how destructive they are. Far more destructive than scorched earth policies, whose effects may disappear in a matter of months, these remain for generations - and they do long term harm to all those involved, including the covert initiators.
Only when effective forms of world government emerge, however, will the practice be totally outlawed.
Many of the instabilities amongst the smaller nations in the Third World are the legacy of covert destabilisation operations by the super-powers. The scale of such operations has now significantly reduced - though the US seems willing to reintroduce them and they are still being used by some smaller powers - but their legacy of inherent instability may run for a generation or more.
More seriously, in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US - having established a policy of 'pre-emption' for the first time by any industrialised country (except Israel, whose principles the US now seems to be following) since the Second World War - seems set on a course of hegemonic imperialism which puts it on a collision course with the rest of the world, in the form of the UN which - having temporarily grown in stature - has been sidelined and especially the EU which - despite its internal disputes - continues to grow in stature.
19 April 2003
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