On September 2, 1980, a U.S. authorities particular coordinating committee met to contemplate methods to thwart a serious Soviet invasion of Iran. The committee’s dreary identify spoke to its sombre subject material, the seniority of its contributors — the nationwide safety advisor, the secretary of state, the secretary of protection, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — and the sense of desperation that permeated their conversations.
There was widespread concern throughout the U.S. authorities that the Soviet navy buildup within the Southwest was a precursor to an invasion of Iran. The Joint Chiefs of Staff “made it clear that Iran couldn’t be defended on any entrance in opposition to a decided Soviet assault. We merely didn’t have the navy energy to take action.” Participants debated the professionals and cons of increasing the battle geographically, quite than utilizing nuclear weapons. They additionally mentioned unspecified “deterrent actions” proposed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie considered these as “a step towards World War III.”
Contrary to earlier experiences of this exceptional however little-known horror of battle, the United States can not declare to have succeeded in deterring an assault on Iran, as a result of no assault was deliberate. Our analysis, based mostly on declassified Soviet and U.S. sources, memoirs, and oral histories, means that the disaster was fueled by mutual, exaggerated fears. Both the Soviet Union and the United States mistakenly apprehensive that the opposite had plans in opposition to Iran and took measures to discourage or mitigate the results that may come up if their rival acted on these plans. Each measure amplified the opposite’s fears and exacerbated tensions. The disaster culminated in Soviet navy workout routines that the United States misinterpreted as preparations for an invasion, main Muskie to convey a flimsy nuclear menace to his Soviet counterpart in late September 1980.
The extent to which extreme concern of an adversary’s intentions fuels worldwide conflicts has at all times been an vital query. As Harvard Professor Stephen M. Walt writes in these pages, for some, the “safety dilemma” underlies conflicts within the Western Pacific, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Actions one nation takes to strengthen its personal safety have a tendency to scale back the safety of its adversary, leading to “a worsening spiral of hostility through which neither aspect is healthier off than earlier than.”
Governments usually have little sympathy for this concept. Both Beijing and Washington, for instance, have made clear that they don’t consider it’s an exaggeration of the opposite’s hostility. Washington sees Beijing as aggressive and expansionist. Beijing sees Washington as searching for world hegemony. The horror of the 1980 battle is not going to illuminate whether or not Chinese and American decision-makers are at the moment in a safety dilemma, but it surely ought to give them pause to assume earlier than routinely assuming the worst about their adversary’s intentions.
The backdrop to the horrors of battle was the Islamic Revolution in Iran in early 1979 and the following Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that yr. A nervous Washington, together with a beleaguered White House beneath President Jimmy Carter, suffering from accusations of weak spot, noticed these developments as a severe menace to its Middle Eastern pursuits. The Soviet Union supported nationwide liberation actions in what was then known as the Third World and had lengthy been fixated on buying a blue-water navy. Washington feared that the Soviets would embark on additional adventurism to additional these targets.
In this classic black-and-white {photograph}, a crowd of protesters holds up a big portrait of Khomeini.
During the 1979 Iranian Revolution, members of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s navy show in solidarity with the folks within the streets, holding posters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Keystone/Getty Images
Early in 1980, US considerations about Soviet intervention in Iran, which had begun within the wake of the unrest in late 1978, intensified. In January 1980, US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski obtained a memo from his workers outlining “a technique for a Soviet navy invasion of Iran within the close to future.” A number of days later, Cyrus Vance, who served as Secretary of State till April 1980, requested US Ambassador to the Soviet Union Anatoly Dobrnin whether or not the Soviets supposed to assault Iran, and in February formally protested in opposition to “increasing Soviet navy exercise alongside Iran’s northwestern border.”
To deter Moscow, President Carter declared in his January 1980 State of the Union deal with that “any try to achieve management of the Persian Gulf area can be thought to be an assault on the very important pursuits of the United States,” and his administration launched a serious regional safety initiative that grew to become generally known as the Persian Gulf Security Framework. Its navy elements included sending U.S. troops to the area and creating the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, which ultimately grew to become U.S. Central Command.
From Moscow’s perspective, nevertheless, these actions appeared offensive quite than defensive, aimed toward coercion quite than deterrence, even outright assault. In distinction to American pondering, the Soviet Union was involved about the potential for American intervention within the Middle East.
The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran induced the United States to lose a key foothold within the area. Moscow’s greatest concern was that the United States would possibly attempt to regain it by direct or oblique intervention in Afghanistan, as evidenced by the Politburo’s shorthand notes and Soviet memoirs. And it was additionally a key motive for Russia’s personal invasion of Afghanistan. Moscow was additionally involved about US intervention in Iran, and warned Washington in opposition to navy motion in Iran as early as 1979 after hostages had been taken on the US embassy in Tehran.
The buildup of U.S. forces within the Persian Gulf in 1980 elevated Soviet fears. According to the minutes of a March 13, 1980 Politburo assembly, Moscow was “planning to construct so-called ‘fast response forces.'” [are intended] According to minutes of the April 5 assembly, the KGB was involved that this functionality would allow the United States to “set up direct navy management over oil sources if it deemed vital.” The KGB even believed that the failed hostage rescue mission in April 1980 was truly an try to assassinate Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and begin “an rebellion or revolt, or one thing comparable.”
These fears, although exaggerated, had real-world penalties: In July and August 1980, the Soviet Union performed a large-scale train, Yug-80 (South-80), “in preparation for the chance that the United States would possibly ship troops to Iran.” Specifically, in response to the memoirs of General Valentin Varennikov, then First Deputy Chief of the Soviet General Staff and Chief of Operations, Soviet troops educated for deployment to Iran after a hypothetical “reactionary coup” to “stop the enemy from utilizing our territory in opposition to the us.”
common [David] Jones [then chairman of the Joint Chiefs] He opposed the thought of contingency planning. The Joint Chiefs of Staff consider there’s a 50% probability that the Soviets usually are not simply making ready to reply to an exterior occasion, however try to regulate the timing themselves. One chief of workers is so upset that he recommends sending troops to the area instantly to discourage the Soviets.
On September 2, the Special Coordination Committee thought-about the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “deterrent motion” proposal. The assembly ended with out reaching a call. When discussions resumed three days later, ” [the Joint Chiefs’ recommendations] It’s already underway.” According to Brzezinski, Muskie once more expressed concern about escalation, saying, “Congress is just not going to assume that nuclear battle is value 11 p.c of oil.”
Two males in fits stare at one another throughout a big desk, work grasp on the partitions of the Oval Office, and a statue stands behind them.
U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski (left) converses with U.S. President Jimmy Carter within the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, January 21, 1977. The White House, through CNP/Getty Images
Still, Carter licensed efforts to “develop navy choices for each the protection of Iran and retaliatory navy responses elsewhere.” Some of those choices would virtually actually contain using nuclear weapons. At a National Security Council assembly in December, Carter privately acknowledged, “It is pessimistic to assume that we will tackle the Soviet Union with typical forces in Iran. It is just not doable. You can not defend Iran with out utilizing nuclear weapons.”
Washington had signaled its willingness to resort to nuclear use earlier. On September 25, Muskie met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in New York. By then, considerations on either side had been fading, however Muskie learn out an “casual observe” on Iran and the Persian Gulf. (Brzezinski didn’t belief Muskie to get the message throughout precisely, so he was instructed to take the weird step of giving Gromyko a replica.)
According to a draft of the doc (personally seen and permitted by Carter and stored in his presidential library), Muskie instructed Gromyko that “any navy try by the Soviet Union to achieve management of the Persian Gulf area, together with navy motion in Iran, may result in a direct navy battle with the United States.” He added that such a battle would have “incalculable penalties,” a phrase the U.S. authorities had used earlier than to convey nuclear threats. That is nearly actually what Muskie meant, and the way Gromyko would have understood it.
This battle scare was simply that, a scare, but it surely may have developed into one thing a lot larger. What if US-Soviet relations had been as tense in 1980 as that they had been within the early Nineteen Sixties, and even tense sufficient to develop into so inside a yr or two? What if the Soviets, as a part of their very own “deterrent actions,” had performed navy workout routines within the Persian Gulf that, in opposition to the backdrop of the Yuga 80s, seemed to the United States like the start of an invasion? What if, whereas all this was occurring, the United States had misplaced contact with its plane carriers for unknown causes? The possibilities of the 1980 battle scare escalating into World War III had been actually not very excessive, however as Muskie warned, it was not unimaginable.
The potential for escalating battle ought to remind decision-makers that assuming the worst about rival intentions is just not essentially in their very own curiosity, even when rival pursuits do actually conflict critically. On the opposite, it may exacerbate tensions and develop into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Certainly, it’s equally, if no more, silly for a frontrunner to make one of the best assumptions about an enemy’s intentions. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine clearly reveals, interstate aggression is way from unknown. Rather, the actual lesson right here is that leaders ought to try to plan a plan of action designed to keep away from the worst outcomes, no matter their interpretation of an enemy’s intentions. The first step in coping with a possible safety dilemma is to acknowledge that you could be be in a single.