SOVIET-SUPPORTED DESTABILIZING ACTIVITIES IN THE THIRD WORLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00914R002800040024-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 22, 2007
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: February 17, 1982
• Content Type: REPORT

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17 February 1982
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT: Soviet-Supported Destabilizing Activities in the
Third World
The Soviets and those associated with the Soviets have,
in the past year, actively pumped arms, money, and other
forms of assistance (such as training) into many Third World
areas which are already seething with domestic discontent.
In part because of these actions, the threat to US interests
in the less developed part of the world rose appreciably.
The increasing availability of money, training, and weapons
coincided with and may have even helped stimulate two trends
which directly endanger US diplomats and businessmen and
indirectly undercut the viability of many moderate governments
which the US supports: opposition groups in LDCs are turning
to violence more frequently and the number of sovereign
governments willing and able to support armed opposition
against others as a foreign policy tool is also rising. The
US must now concern itself with the support to externally-
directed political violence provided by Libya, Iran, Iraq,
Syria, South Yemen, Nicaragua, and Ethiopia in addition to
our traditional concern with the activities of the Soviet
Union and Cuba.
Soviet Military Assistance to the Third World
Moscow has sold and given away some $55 billion worth
of arms and military assistance to the Third World since the
OPEC oil price hikes of the mid-1970s. This is four times
the amount the Soviet Union committed during the previous
decades. Three-quarters of recent arms sales and grants
went to Middle East/ North African states, as the Kremlin
moved swiftly to accommodate ambitious Arab rearmament plans
drawn up following the 1973 Middle East war. Soviet military
presence in the Third World increased in tandum with the
rise in arms transfers--more than 15,000 Soviet military
advisors and technicians were stationed in non-Communist
LDCs last year, nearly a 100 percent augmentation since
1975.
~C~ ~~~ 9z P6 ~~ ~~~
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Although Soviet arms commitments to the Third World
last year slipped to about one-half the record level set in
1980 ($13-$15 billion), large new orders from a few major
Middle Eastern and African customers kept the 1981 estimated
total well above the 1974-79 annual average. Most of Moscow's
key military equipment buyers stayed out of the market last
year either to absorb large delivery backlogs from orders
placed in 1978-80, or because of strained relations with the
Kremlin--as in the case of Iraq. Even so, huge order backlogs
guarantees a record, or near record level of Soviet arms
deliveries through the early 1980s.
In addition to a continued strong volume of equipment
transfers, a growing percentage will comprise more advanced
and sophisticated weapons system, including some still
unavailable to East European armed forces inventories.
Libya
Libya is by far the USSR's largest arms client, having
purchased over $10 billion of military material since the
1973 Middle East war. About half of the total purchases
have been delivered and include a wide variety of advanced
ground forces weapons, fighter. aircraft, air defense systems,
and naval vessels. Deliveries are expected to continue at a
high rate over the next several years and probably will
include even more advanced weapons than provided thus far.
These arms probably will be accompanied by an increase in
the Soviet military presence in Libya--currently estimated
at several thousand advisors and technicians.
In supplying Libya with large quantities of modern
arms, Moscow has. overlooked political differences for economic
and political gains. Aside from large hard currency earnings,
the Soviets have acquired access to Libyan port facilities
for merchant vessels, gradually expanded the number of
technicians, and developed a viable working relationship
with the Libyan leadership. Moscow has supplied material
far in excess of Libya's legitimate defense needs, thus
providing most of the wherewithal for Qadhafi's role as an
arms supplier to other states and to insurgents.
Since the signing of the Camp David accords in September
1978, Libya has sharply increased military assistance to
Third World clients. In the three years ending December 1981,
he has provided more than $500 million worth of weapons and
funds to buy arms. Qadhafi now provides aid to more than 60
insurgent and dissident groups, as well as supporting selected
governments. An increasingly important facet of his program
is training, including more than 10,000 insurgents and
dissidents. Thousands of troops have also been sent to
Libya, and Qadhafi gives certain clients more advanced,
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specialized training. Qadhafi provides assistance free-of-
charge.
Qadhafi has focused his efforts on supporting insurgents
and dissidence in the Middle East and Africa. Important
recipients of Libyan aid have included:
radical and more moderate Palestinians;
North African insurgents, dissidents, and
selected sub-Saharan guerrillas.
Although these and other movements have received much
less materiel than Qadhafi's government clients (in value
terms), Libyan-provided weapons have helped a number of such
groups tie down government forces and promote instability.
Training has made a similar contribution to these groups,
most of which have very limited capabilities.
A handful of governments accounted for the bulk of
Libyan arms transfers and monetary disbursements. Syria,
and more recently Iran, have accounted for the majority of
such support. Qadhafi also has provided aid to several sub-
Saharan countries. While governments have been the main
recipients of weapons and money, they generally have sent
only small numbers of troops to Libya for training. Their
unwillingness to be associated with Qadhafi and his reputation
as an unreliable supplier have hindered aid flows.
Cuba, whose military force is undergoing a major moderni-
zation by the Soviets, now has the largest military establishment
in the western hemisphere, save those of the US and Brazil.
Soviet military deliveries to Cuba in 1981 reached their highest
level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Soviet merchant
arms carriers discharged more than 60,000 tons of military
equipment at Cuban ports, a three-fold increase over the annual
average observed during the past decade. The accelerated pace
of deliveries, coupled with the inclusion of more advanced
hardware systems has substantially upgraded Cuba's air, ground,
and naval capabilities. Its Air Force now has some 200 Soviet-
supplied MiG jet fighters, its Navy has two torpedo attack
submarines and a Koni-class frigate, and its Army has been converted
from a predominantly home defense force into a formidable power
relative to its Latin American neighbors. Cuba's recent combat
experience in Angola and Ethiopia, together with its overwhelming
qualitative and numerical superiority in weapons holdings, provide
it with a particularly ominious intervention capability in the
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Caribbean, especially if Cuban forces could operate from
friendly soil in Central America.
Cuba is clearly not the sole source of violence and
instability in the Caribbean Basin, but its activities
militarize and internationalize what would otherwise be local
conflicts. Examination of Cuban actions in that arena, and
to some extent, more broadly in Latin America, indicate that
it has turned sharply away from its 1970s policy of strengthening
normal diplomatic relations to one of promoting armed insurgencies.
Cuba's most immediate goals are to exploit and control the
revolution in Nicaragua and to induce the overthrow of the
governments of El Salvador and Guatemala. At the same time,
the Cuban government is providing advice, safehaven, communications,
training and some financial support to several violent South
American organizations. Training in Cuban camps has been
provided in the last two years, for example, to groups from
Uruguay, Chile, Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic,
Grenada, Colombia, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, in
addition to more publicized training for combatants from
Nicaragua and E1 Salvador.
Nicaragua
The predominant supporter of Nicaragua has, of course,
been Cuba. Since July 1979 some 5,000 Cuban advisors,
teachers, and medical personnel have been at work at all
levels of the Nicaraguan society. Of this number, more than
1500 military and security advisors are providing combat
training and instruction in intelligence and counter intelligence
activities, security protection for top Nicaraguan leaders
and advice on organizing the police force. In .addition,
Nicaragua has received within the past year approximately
$28 million worth of military equipment from the USSR,
Eastern Europe, and Cuba. Some training for Nicaraguans has
also been made available by the PLO.
Cuban influence in Nicaragua is now so great that it
can be used as launching platform for insurgency in the rest
of Central America. Guerrillas from neighboring countries
are now trained in Nicaragua by Cubans and the Cuban Ambassador
to Nicaragua frequently meets with other Central American
insurgents in Managua to advise them on tactics and strategy.
Individual Sandinista leaders have participated in such
meetings and have met independently with Guatemalan and
Salvadoran guerrillas. The Sandinistas also have cooperated
in a joint effort by Cuba and Palestinian groups to provide
military training in the Mideast to selected Latin American
radical leftists. Finally, between October 1980 and February
1981, Nicaragua was the staging site for a massive Cuban-
directed flow of arms to Salvadoran guerrillas. Arms continue
to flow through Nicaragua to insurgents in E1 Salvador and
Guatemala.
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Ethiopia, Vietnam and Others
Other major recipients of Soviet assistance also have
been especially active in the past year in fomenting trouble
in their regions. Last August, for example, Ethiopia,
Libya, and South Yemen signed a military alliance ostensibly
aimed at "imperialist" forces in the Near East-Horn of
Africa region. The major points of agreement among the
participants are their hostility toward the moderate governments
of Somalia and Sudan, close relations with Moscow, and
concern over US military interest in the Persian Gulf region.
In terms of direct action, the Ethiopians and Libyans, even
before the pact, funded the Somali Salvation Front, a dissident
group fighting against the Somali government. That government
also faces sporadic border harassment from Ethiopian units,
which have staged occasional air strikes and made overflights
of Somali territory.
Vietnam continues to create major regional tensions not
only by occupying Kampuchea, which alarms its ASEAN neighbors,
but also by prompting a vast migration of refugees. Since
the spring of 1975, more than two million persons have fled
Indochina. This exodus has constituted by far the greatest
refugee problem in East Asia, has created a major threat to
regional stability, and has involved the rest of the world
in costly life-saving and resettlement efforts.
Revolutionary Violence
Foreign-backed insurgency and terrorism--feeding off of
and contributing to increasing political instability in many
LDCs--is likely?to grow over the next few years. In part
this will occur because countries such as Libya, although
they have had relatively little success in actually installing
the groups they back in power, have had considerable success
in creating major difficulties for the moderate governments
they oppose. This appearance of accomplishment, together
with a few real victories of the radical left as in Nicaragua,
will probably encourage several states (including the Soviet
Union) to continue to support revolutionary violence as a
foreign policy tool. The direct impact on the US of this
rise in political violence is two-fold. First, the terrorist
danger to US persons and facilities will probably grow
because terrorism tends to be contagious as groups seek to
emulate each other as attacks, even those that fail, receive
publicity. Second, if revolutionary violence spreads, the
chances will increase that a state of vital strategic
importance to the US will become a target. One major
consequence of the development of serious instability in
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these countries of high importance to the US is that, even
if the government is not overthrown, the turmoil created
could be sufficient to drastically cut the flow of oil or
other resources from these countries. That prospect alone
might be enough to tempt the Soviets or other anti-US regimes,
such as Libya or Iran, to take advantage of existing discontent
to provoke disorders in these areas.
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SUBJECT: Soviet-Supported Destabilizing Activities in the
Third World
DCI
DDCI
ExDir
DCI Registry
DDI (for Chrono)
ADDI
DDI Registry
D/OGI
C/II/OGI
IID Chrono
C/II/OGI
17 February
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STAT