BIGGEST SHOCK YET

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000101020069-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2010
• Sequence Number: 69
• Publication Date: January 14, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000101020069-4
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U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT
14 January 1980
It has been a painful learning experience for
Jimmy Carter-discovering that the Russian
threat is as serious as ever. The lesson is
forcing the President into a far-reaching
reassessment of his foreign policy.
_ Russia's invasion of Afghanistan confronts Jimmy Carter
with the most clear-cut challenge of his Presidency.
The Soviet drive to conquer its small and primitive
neighbor is widely viewed as an act of Communist aggres-
sion unparalleled since North Korea's invasion of South Ko-
rea in 1950-and a potential threat to vital American inter-
ests in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region.
Whether detente can survive the shock is considered
doubtful. In fact, many in the U.S. and Europe see as inev-
itable a return to a form of cold war with Russia and a
sharply escalating arms race. That conviction was summed
up by Senator Richard Schweiker (R-Pa.): "Detente is dead
and the Soviets killed it."
In a televised address to the nation on January 4, the
President announced a radical shift in the administration's
foreign policy, which for the past three years has given high
priority to cooperation with Moscow and ratification of a
strategic-arms-limitation treaty.
His words: "Neither the United States nor any other na-
tion which is committed to world peace and stability can
continue to do business as usual with the Soviet Union."
Carter spelled out key features of a strategy aimed at
making Russia pay a price for its aggression in Afghanistan.
These were:
1. Food. A limited embargo was imposed on grain ship-
ments to the Russians. Only 8 million tons of grain that the
U.S. is committed to sell this crop year under a five-year
agreement will be delivered. The delivery of an additional
17 million tons that Russia was authorized to buy this year
to cope with a crop disaster will be barred. To cushion the
impact on American farmers, the embargoed wheat and
corn will be bought by the U.S. government-or its price
supported-at an estimated cost of 2 to 3 Billion dollars.
The food weapon, which Carter in the past ruled out, will
be used in other forms. Soviet fishing privileges in Ameri-
can waters will be severely curtailed. And licenses for the
sale of farm machinery and equipment to manufacture
phosphate fertilizer will be reviewed.
2. Technology. All sales of high technology and other
strategic items to Russia will be barred until further notice.
The entire licensing procedure for these exports is to be re-
vised with the aim of tightening the screws.
3. Cultural and economic exchanges. Most of the plans
for exchanges in these fields will be deferred, and for the
time being no new Ameri can or Soviet consular facilities
will be opened. Carter raised the possibility that American
athletes might not compete in the Moscow Olympics.
Besides these measures, the President moved on other
fronts in retaliation against the Soviet invasion of Afghani-
stan, which he called "an extremely serious threat to
STAT
peace." He asked the Senate to delay consideration of the
SALT II treaty, generally regarded as the cornerstone of
Soviet-American detente. However, the State Department
announced that the U.S. will observe the terms of the pact
as long as Russia does the same.
Also, Carter threw American support behind a drive for
United Nations condemnation of -Russian aggression and a
call for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
To meet the danger that Soviet aggression would go be-
yond Afghanistan, Carter announced a multinational plan
to provide military equipment, food and other aid for Paid-
stan. This will require congressional action to rescind a ban
on all American aid to that country because of its efforts to
produce nuclear weapons.
White House aides- suggested that the administration is
ready to send arms and other assistance even to Iran to
counter the Soviet threat if and when that nation is ruled
by a government friendly to the U.S.
Diplomatic observers in Washington said that the repri-
sals so far ordered by Carter against Moscow are unlikely to
induce the Russians to abandon their invasion of Afghani-
stan-although the squeeze on grain deliveries will prove
hurtful and doubtless came as something of a surprise to
Kremlin leaders.
Carter had under consideration other options that, if im-
plemented, would have a harsher effect on the Russians
than anything yet announced. These would-
-n Revive Central Intelligence Agency covert operations
to help the Moslem rebels resisting the Soviet conquest of
Afghanistan. Pentagon officials stressed that the effective-
ness of the insurgents' stand would depend on availability
of weapons, particularly hand-held antiaircraft missiles that
can destroy Soviet gunships. These officials advocated
American clandestine sup port also for anti-Communist
guerrillas in Angola and Ethiopia w to gbg~ng Mos-
cow's Cuban rox forces. Said a high-level American strat-
egist: "Wit a- ittre backing for the guerrillas, we could in-
crease Communist casualties by a factor of three."
^ Cooperate actively on defense with China, Russia's
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archenemy. The early-January visit to Peking by Defense
Secretary Harold Brown gave special urgency to this pro-
posal. Some ranking officials pressed for a change in the ad-
ministration policy that barred the sale of American arms to
China but that did not oppose weapons sales by European
allies. With most European countries reluctant to risk Mos-
cow's displeasure, these officials argued that the U.S. at
least should provide China with technology to modernize
its own defense industry.
.o Expand the American military presence in the Middle
East and Indian Ocean region quickly to counter Soviet am-
bitions in this strategically vital region. Somalia, Kenya and
Oman already have offered the U.S. access to naval and air
facilities. Some U.S. officials urged the administration to ac-
cept a new offer by Egypt's President Anwar Sadat to use
base; in the Sinai.
Whatever the long-term impact of Carter's strategy, one
thing was clear: Moscow's massive invasion of Afghanistan
struck at the very heart of Carter's foreign policy and
shocked the President. -
Early in his administration, Carter emphasized that his
foreign policy would give reduced priority to the Soviet
threat, which he tended to discount. In a speech at Notre
Dame University on May 22, 1977, he set the theme of his
approach toward Russia: "We are now free of... inordinate
fear of Communism."
A change of heart. Now the President apparently has a
far different perception of the Soviet threat, as evidenced
by this confession in a December 31 ABC-TV interview:
"The action of the Soviets has made a more dramatic
change in my opinion of what the Soviets' ultimate goals
are than anything they've done in the previous time that
I've been in office."
Soviet-affairs experts say that Carter's shock reflected a
lack of understanding of the fundamental difference be-
tween the American and Russian definition of detente.
From the outset, Washington has viewed detente not only
as a way of reducing the risk of nuclear war but also as a de-
vice for restraining Russian behavior around the world. For
example, as recently as October 16, the State Department's
special adviser on Soviet affairs, Marshall Shulman, said the
U.S. has failed to establish "a. broad understanding on
ground rules for our continuing political competition, espe-
cially in the Third World."
The Russians, by contrast, have insisted all along that de-
tente permitted them to continue and even intensify the
international class struggle and to support "national-libera-
tion struggles" so long as they avoided a nuclear confronta-
tion with the United States. Repeatedly since 1972, they
have used that principle-and on an escalating scale.
In the 1973 Mideast war, they were aware of an immi-
nent Arab attack and failed to honor a pledge to consult the
U.S. to avert a potentially dangerous crisis. In Angola and
Ethiopia, Russian military intervention, with the help of an
army of Cuban proxies, had a decisive impact on the course
of a local conflict. In South Yemen, they supported an abor-
tive invasion of North Yemen, again with the backing of
Cuban proxies. And in Indo-China they gave active encour-
agement plus large-scale material support to Communist
Vietnam for its invasion of Cambodia.
Administration officials assert that the invasion of Af-
ghanistan by the Red Army rather than by p.-oxy forces
represents "a quantum jump in the nature of Soviet behav-
ior." In fact, strategic analysts-including former Sec. earry
of State Henry Kissinger as well as experts in the Penta-
gon-for the past year have warned that Moscow was set-
ting the stage for just such direct military intervention in
local conflicts in the 1930s. They pointed to two ominous developments. First, under
the umbrella of nuclear parity with the U.S., Soviet policy-
makers were revising their estimate of how far they could
go without risking a superpower conflict. Second, the im-
pressive buildup of the Soviet Navy and airlift was provid-
ing the Kremlin with the capability to intervene militarily
in distant regions. Considering these circumstances, strate-
gic analysts say, the Russians' decision to cross a historic
threshold by sending their own military forces into Afghan-
istan was not surprising. The invasion, they maintain, has
profound strategic implications far beyond the borders of
Afghanistan-even though the primary Soviet objective ap-
parently was to prevent a Communist government from
being overthrown by anti-Communist Moslem insurgents.
Two-sided squeeze: The military occupation of that
country by the Red Army, the analysts maintain, is part of a
double squeeze aimed at confronting China on one side
and the oil wealth of the Persian Gulf region on the other.
In this the Russians are posing the most serious threat to
American interests in a quarter of a century-namely, oil
supplies vital to the U.S., and even more so to its European
and Japanese allies. To quote Egypt's President Anwar Sa-
dat: "The battle around the oil stores has already begun."
Growing turbulence in Iran-where 50 American hos-
into their Communist empire. ^
tages were still in captivity in Tehe-
ran-was seen as an invitation for a fur-
ther move by Russia in the developing
"battle" for Persian Gulf oil. Besides its
traditional interest in expanding its
southern borders and pushing toward
warm-Water ports, Moscow now has a
powerful new incentive to expand its
influence in this area. The CIA nre-
diets that the Soviet Union will re uire
substantial oil imports in the 1980s.
It was against this somber back-
ground that President Carter was
forced to reassess his foreign policy in
the wake of the Soviet power play- in
Afghanistan.
In the view of some analysts, the
Kremlin's willingness to use the Af-
ghanistan operation as a model for fu-
ture takeovers would depend in large
part on the price they are forced to pay
for their effort to absorb that nation
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