A Retrospection on World War III

A Retrospection on World War 111 A Review: The Third World War:August 1985 by General Sir John Hackett et a1 New York: Macmillan. 368 pp. $12.95. Daniel Yergin T h i s book is not only a clear and well-written military history, but also a major contribution to our understanding of the origins of the Third World War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, it illuminates the relationships among deterrence, preparedness, and arms control, thus helping to clarify some of the major puzzles of the last several years, such as that critical, curious, and still much misunderstood debate on SALT that so shook the United States in the spring and summer of 1979. ”The real causes of this war between the Eastern and Western blocs will long be a matter for debate,” write the authors. And certainly one can find important issues for debate in their own work. Some major inconsistencies confuse their argument. Still, one can hardly disagree with the manner in which they follow the string to the detonator. The interval between the First and Second World War was but two decades; that between the Second and Third, four decades. But the issue, though in different guise, was essentially the same for all three wars-the balance in Europe and the place of Germany. The armed truce that had superseded the Grand Alliance of World War I1 finally collapsed in the early dawn of August 4, 1985, when Soviet tanks, accompanied by massive air and missile attack, crossed into Germany, the central region of NATO. The war had begun in the way that had always seemed the most-and the least-likely. Perhaps the string does begin with the remark of Governor Thompson, overheard on an open microphone after his debate with Walter Mondale during the 1984 campaign. Thompson said that the United States would not stand aside if the Polish people rose up in revolt. This was a most dangerous threat for a Kremlin leadership desperately aware that Eastern Europe was slipping out of its grasp. Convinced of the need to push Thompson, after his victory, back into a defensive posture in which he would eschew such assistance, the Kremlin adopted the Ryabukhin Report. At least, these authors take that document more seriously as a major Daniel Yergin is a Research Fellow, Harvard University, Center for International Affairs and a Lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the author of Shattered Peace, the Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State and coauthor of Energy Future: Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School. 127 lnternafional Security I 128 policy document than do other analysts. According to their text of the Ryabukhin Report (and they do not give a source), the Russians decided (if a verb will be allowed).to ”Bay of Pigs” Thompson: that is, humiliate the West and in particular the United States on several fronts and then invite America to participate in a detente tilted decidedly to the advantage of the East. When blessed with a written document filled with intentions and plans, the historian is always tempted to regard it as a definitive statement. But this document’s importance has already been convincingly challenged by other historians, principally Walter Laquer, Hugh Thomas, and Alexander Nekrich . What is known about the testimony of surviving Politburo members suggests much the same. Certainly, the Ryabukhin Report reflected the mood of anxiety and uncertainty in the Kremlin, but the treatment of it by these mthors suggests a fine-tuning that was surely unlikely in the Soviet system. There is little doubt that the Soviet Union wanted to make life uncomfortable for the West. The fevered Third World provided more than enough Dpportunities. At the end of 1984, Soviet clients seized Saudi Arabia; other Soviet clients stepped up war in southern Africa; Sovietships sank an Iranian transport and attacked an American intelligence ship. The world pulled back from the edge of conflict in what was essentially a phoney detente. Then in the summer of 1985, the Russians intervened in a disintegrating Yugoslavia. The ancient question of ”After Tito, what?” had Finally been answered-after Tito...