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“we have expressed our concern to the soviets.” 63 3 “We Have Expressed Our Concern to the Soviets.” The still-inexperienced administration had committed a serious error in not anticipating that Siad Barre might take the initiative to invade the Ogaden after the United States had agreed to send arms to Somalia. The dictator’s ambitions in the Ogaden were well known, and the connection with his requests for arms should have been obvious. The trap of operating within the narrow confines of competition with the Soviet Union discouraged creative thinking in dealing with individual countries on a case-by-case basis. This was the first major predicament for the Carter administration, and it, therefore, set the stage for a major debate on the conduct of American foreign policy toward the Third World in the post-Vietnam era. During this next phase of the Horn of Africa crisis, a clear evolution of American policy became apparent. At the outset, the United States attempted to deal with Ethiopia and Somalia directly to encourage an end to the fighting. Not wanting to get too involved, the administration reached out to its allies completely through diplomatic channels to use their influence on the two parties. By the end of Carter’s first year in office, however, the United States had shifted its policy toward one in which it alternately appealed to and threatened the Soviet Union in a public setting to end the conflict and get out of the region. The story of this evolution traces not only the events in the Horn and the Soviet Union’s decision to get involved but also the jockeying for influence taking place within the Carter administration. Soviet-American bilateral relations were in limbo during the summer of 1977, and the effectiveness of the Carter administration’s Third World policies could not yet be measured. In a move that caused obvious concern to the Soviet Union, Secretary Vance visited Beijing in August to meet with Deng Xiaoping, but the meeting did not bear much fruit.1 In a reversal of the policies of the previous administrations , Carter also invited the Soviets back into negotiating a peace settlement for the Middle East. The United States had made some steps forward in establishing a rapprochement with the Soviet ally Cuba by lifting travel restrictions and opening “special interest sections” at foreign embassies in their respective capitals.2 Such 63 64 “buried in the sands of the ogaden” progress was stalled, though, as Washington was still concerned about Havana’s Africa policy and the presence of Cuban troops in Angola. Carter was, however, making some advances on another campaign promise for the Third World—as he and Panamanian leader, General Omar Torrijos, completed a neutrality treaty, which would eventually lead to the United States handing the Panama Canal back to Panama. The agreement was meant as a positive gesture to Latin America that U.S. policy toward the region was altering its course for the better. Unfortunately for Carter, he had to spend a lot of political capital in order to get the treaty past the Senate, capital that he would need for SALT. Finally, during the spring and summer of 1977, the administration had kept its word on promoting majority rule in southern Africa—first by supporting British efforts to settle the Rhodesia question and, secondly, by pressuring South African prime minister John Vorster during diplomatic meetings. The feared Soviet intervention in Rhodesia never materialized, and Moscow did not even exercise its Security Council veto when the proposal for a settlement came to the UN. Just prior to the Somali invasion of the Ogaden in what would become the second large-scale Soviet and Cuban involvement on the African continent, Cyrus Vance argued that the United States should not view African conflict through the lens of Soviet-American relations: A negative, reactive American policy that seeks only to oppose Soviet or Cuban involvement in Africa would be both dangerous and futile. Our best course is to help resolve the problems which create opportunities for external intervention.3 Unfortunately, the appearance of American encouragement of the Somali invasion did not assist in “resolv[ing] the problems which create opportunities for external intervention.”4 From the outset, all sides of the administration viewed the conflict as one of the Cold War even before the Soviet Union and Cuba put their people on the ground. Thus, the State Department’s more nuanced approach during this period found itself challenged by the...

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