The Third World War: August 1985

3 A group of unstable left-wing countries: e.g. Egypt (and indeed most other African countries, including Zimbabwe), Bangladesh and the poorer states of the disintegrating federation of India, and also to some extent Pakistan. In these countries the governments are generally replaced by coups d’état, and the ‘new class’ of government technocrats live in constant fear of these.

4 The only Moscow-communist countries left in the poor South of the world are now in the Caribbean — led by Jamaica and Cuba. But some of the ‘unstable left’ countries — of which the most important is Egypt — seem to be moving towards Moscow. The former communist small countries in East Asia (Vietnam, North Korea, etc.) still call themselves communist — as does Chairman Hua’s China — but with the Japanese-Chinese rapprochement they are merging into the East Asian co-prosperity sphere.

Significantly, the Asian republics of the Soviet Union itself are showing some signs of restlessness. Their peoples would gain if they could forge more independent ties with the China-Japan co-prosperity sphere and loosen their ties with Moscow, just as the states of the disintegrating Indian Union and former Union of South Africa have loosened their ties with Delhi and Pretoria.

The real GNP of countries in these four groups and their growth since 1977 clearly indicate that the ‘breakthrough’ and ‘unstable right-wing’ governments have made their peoples much more prosperous in the period 1977-84. In economic terms, the ‘unstable left’ countries (wholly) and the Moscow-communist countries (partly) have failed. It would be better for all the peoples of the world if more countries could be lifted out of the ‘unstable left’ class into either of the first two categories.

Yet the four most likely flashpoints of trouble in the poor two-thirds of the world, at this beginning of your presidency, are connected with possible attempts by either ‘unstable left’ or Moscow-communist countries to seize or subvert power in ‘unstable right’ countries. We would judge that these four most probable flashpoints are:

1 In the Middle East. The conclusion of peace with Israel, under the Geneva settlement during Mr Carter’s presidency, has allowed the Arabs even more freedom for their internal quarrels. Since the new unstable left government in Egypt remembers the food riots with which its own supporters overthrew the former President Samdi, there is a strong temptation for Egypt to go for the oil of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. This could be by means of internal subversion followed by proclamation of a new and immensely rich United Arab Republic (including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) which would sponsor a new hard line in OPEC. Egypt has been angling for some time for Soviet support for such coups d’état in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but so far this has been refused. It is quite possible that a ‘United Arab’ coup d’état would win popular support among young men in the Gulf, since many of them regard their free-spending sheikhs as effete pooves, like the rulers of the old Ottoman Empire. If a new UAR of this kind were ever proclaimed, some people would say that the consequent threat to world oil supplies would, of itself, justify US military intervention in the area. We would not advocate this, but the choice between peace and war, even nuclear war, might conceivably lie outside American hands. The only stable right-wing (indeed, ‘breakthrough’) country in the area — the Shah’s Iran — might not sit idly by. And Iran now probably has a nuclear capability based on French technology, even though it has never tested a weapon.

2 The communist Caribbean (in which Jamaica is now the leader, rather than Cuba) and unstable governments of Central America might try to initiate a coup d’état in Mexico, whose dynamic new president deserves US support.

3 Black African forces from the ‘unstable left’ countries of Zimbabwe and Namibia, supported by Cuban and Jamaican and maybe even Soviet ‘volunteers’ landed in Angola and Mozambique, might attack those states of the former Union of South Africa which have developed right-wing governments, sometimes ‘unstable right-wing’ ones. By far the richest of these states are, of course, the three ‘white tribes’ homelands’ of Southern Cape Province, Eastern Natal and Krugerland (Pretoria-Johannesburg). But a real prosperity is also being attained by those black-ruled states and cantons of the former Union of South Africa who have struck up successful (although so-called ‘Uncle Tom’) economic relations with the three White homelands. If there is an actual invasion of this area from the north, the dilemmas set for your Administration will be: (a) economic, because benign growth spreading from the dynamic area of former South Africa appears to be Africa’s only hope for a non-oil economic growth area this century; and (b) military-moral, because the white tribes in South Africa agreed under the Treaty of Pretoria of 1982 that neither they nor the black tribes in former South Africa should have substantial military forces, but that there would be reliance on UN troops on the northern border (most awkwardly, now Mexican, Polish and Indian troops) and perhaps some hopes, however ill based, of intervention by US troops.

4 Rival factions and states in the former Indian Union may start appealing separately to the Soviet Union and China. There might be civil war again in this whole area of India-Pakistan-Bangladesh.

But the biggest threat to peace may lie in the troubles of the Soviet Union and its satellites. This is discussed in the Ex-Secretary’s report on the rich North of the world.