RUSSIANS SETTLE FOR BOMBAST IN MIDEAST CRISIS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150075-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2012
• Sequence Number: 75
• Publication Date: July 9, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100150075-6
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.T~assians Settle
for ~orrYbast in
~'~i~east Crisis
The Russians did their usual huff-
ing and puffing over the Israeli in-
vasion of Lebanon, but never went
beyond rhetorical flourishes.
i~iy intelligence sources tell me
this may have been because Soviret
leaders were afraid the Israeli war
machine was too strong for the kind
of limited intervention that was the
Kremlin's only real option. Or, as
Marx might have put it (Groucho,
that is), the big bully was confronted
by a little bully and didn't want to
risk a bloody nose.
As soon as Israeli tanks crossed
the Lebanese border, the Soviets put
their forces in the Middle East on
full alert. This included the Soviets'
Mediterranean fleet and an airborne
division in the Caspian area, a few
hundred miles north of Lebanon.
Except for a few alarmists, State
Department and CIA analysts dis-
counted the Soviet alert as a~prelude
to direct intervention in support of
the Soviet-supplied Syrians and Pal-
estinians.
They pointed out that this would
be unprecedented. Previous Soviet
intervention-in Hungary, Czecho-
slovakia, Afghanistan and Poland-
THE WASHINGTON POST
9 July 1982
has been confined to countries that
aze not only contiguous to the So~zet
Union, but already within the Krem-
lin's orbit. Soviet military meddling
elsewhere, as in Angola and Ethio-
pia, has been done by the Russians'
Cuban and East German surrogates.
The experts' complacency was
jazred by an ominous Kremlin com-
munique.. on June 14: "The Soviet
Union takes the Arabs' side not in
words but in deeds, and presses to
get- the aggressor out of Lebanon.
The present-day Israeli policy-mak-
ers should not forget that the I1liddle
East is in an area lying in close prox-
imity to the southern borders of the
Soviet Union, and that develop-
ments there cannot help affecting
the interests of the U.S.S.R. We
warn Israel about this."
The intelligence community began
to take a second look at its informa-
tion on the Soviet military alert.
They noted that the Soviet Navy's
squadron in the eastern Mediterra-
nean had been beefed up by the ad-
dition of some surface warships, and
that a Soviet airborne division in the
Caspian area had been put on "spe-
cial alert."
In fact, they knew the Soviets had
already expanded their military
forces in areas looking out Russia's
"southern window" toward the Per-
sian Gulf. A recent highly sensitive
Pentagon report seen by my associ-
ate Dale Van Atta supplied the fig-
ures:
"A large increase has taken place
in the So~riet forces located in the
nearby Caucasus and Turkestan Mil-
itary Districts. Twenty-six ground .
di~~sions, with 250,000 men on ac-
tive duty, are now located in those.
districts and in Afghanistan."
The report also noted the press
once in this Soviet force of "first-cat-
egory airborne divisions" and, most
significantly, a "command and con-
trol capability necessary to conduct
large-scale military operations:'
It seemed, as a State Department
analysis put it, that So~~et interven-
tion "becomes a distinct likelihood
... in the event of a serious threat
to the Syrian government."
So why didn't the Soviets make
their move? Intelligence experts of-
fered several reasons. One was that
the Palestinians themselves would
have been unhappy about direct So-
viet intervention. Another was that
the Kremlin lacked a solid pretext
for azmed intervention.
But the most interesting explana-
tion is that the Russians were leery
of risking an embarrassing military
defeat at the hands of Israel For
example, an airborne invasion would ,
require Soviet control of the air. But
destruction of the Syrians' entire
surface-to-air missile strength had
given Israel total air superiority.
In short, a modest "police action"
could be disastrous for the Soviets,
and the Kremlin was not prepared
to escalate into afull-scale war with
Israel. So it settled for bombast in-
stead of bombs.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100150075-6