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The Soviet Response to the Syrian Invasion of Lebanon in 1976. Bjarte Bjørsvik

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The Soviet Response to the Syrian Invasion of Lebanon in 1976. Bjarte Bjørsvik The Soviet response to the Syrian invasion of Lebanon in 1976. Bjarte Bjørsvik HIS 350 Master thesis Department for Archaeology, History, Cultural studies and Religion University of Bergen 2018 Title page photos: Upper photo: Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party Leonid Brezhnev.1 Lower photo: President Hafez al-Assad and PLO leader Yasser Arafat.2 1 Holtland, Jenne Jan, «Hafiz al-Assad & Brezhnev. Plus ca change, plus c'est la même chose». 2 Cohen, David. «Emergence of Palestinian Identity». ii Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................vi Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 Research question ............................................................................................................................... 2 Limitation of time, actors and themes ................................................................................................ 2 Why is this topic important? ............................................................................................................... 3 Method: Sources and the use of sources ............................................................................................. 5 Theory: What kind of patron-client relations did Moscow and Syria have? ..................................... 15 Outline of this thesis .......................................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 2 Historical background ................................................................................................. 21 Russian, British and French Imperial interests .................................................................................. 21 The Soviet Union in the Middle East .................................................................................................. 24 The Lebanese Civil War ...................................................................................................................... 33 Chapter 3 The USSR from confused to critical to resigned ............................................................ 38 The period viewed in the research literature ..................................................................................... 38 The Soviet view of competition, globally and in the Middle East ...................................................... 46 Did the USSR have prior knowledge about the invasion?.................................................................. 49 From awkwardness to skepticism - Early Soviet reactions to the invasion ....................................... 55 The July talks fails, and the USSR increase the pressure on Syria ...................................................... 60 A desperate message from Assad to the US and its Arab allies ........................................................ 66 More Soviet pressure and a cease-fire agreement ............................................................................ 70 Internal Syrian developments relieves the pressure on the PLO-LNM............................................... 72 Continued fighting in Lebanon and Soviet reactions ......................................................................... 73 Renewed Soviet initiatives ................................................................................................................. 81 The question of partition ................................................................................................................... 84 Another Soviet call for Geneva and pressure on Cairo ...................................................................... 86 Mini-summit and agreement in Riyad ............................................................................................... 88 Increased Soviet political and diplomatic pressure deflected by Syria .............................................. 91 Chapter 4 The USSR’s and its clients' military pressure on Syria and support of the PLO ............... 92 The military aspects in the research literature .................................................................................. 92 Soviet arms supplies remained normal until October ....................................................................... 94 Eastern Bloc and Syrian military technicians ..................................................................................... 99 The Soviet Navy needs bases in the Mediterranean........................................................................ 101 iii Syria and Israel blockade access to the PLO-LNM in Lebanon ........................................................ 105 Soviet direct supply to the PLO-LNM ............................................................................................... 107 Egyptian and Libyan support of the PLO-LNM ................................................................................ 111 Iraqi conflict with Syria and support of the PLO .............................................................................. 112 Chapter 5. Soviet economic and cultural relations with Syria ...................................................... 118 Economic relations as a key to Syrian development 1955-75 ......................................................... 118 The writers’ views on the economic problems of 1976 ................................................................... 120 Syria’s economy worsens in 1976 .................................................................................................... 120 The USSR starts to pressure economically ....................................................................................... 123 Arab oil states pressure and the US supports Syria economically ................................................... 124 Signs of Soviet-Syrian and Saudi-Syrian reconciliation .................................................................... 126 The Saudi economic pressure was stronger than the Soviet .......................................................... 127 Increased tensions in Soviet-Syrian cultural relations ..................................................................... 127 Chapter 6 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 129 The Soviet-Syrian type of patron-client relation .............................................................................. 129 An offensive and unsuccessful Soviet strategy ................................................................................ 133 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 135 Sources ..................................................................................................................................... 140 Interviews ........................................................................................................................................ 140 CIA documents ................................................................................................................................. 140 WikiLeaks ......................................................................................................................................... 142 Other sources ................................................................................................................................... 152 iv Abstract On 1 June 1976, Syrian army units rolled into Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War. They fought against the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the left-wing Lebanese National Movement (LNM). Both Syria and the PLO were important clients of the Soviet Union (USSR), which was locked in a Cold War competition with the USA. The Soviet leadership became critical of the invasion and asked the Syrians to withdraw. However, Syria kept on fighting and only agreed to a ceasefire after Saudi Arabian mediation in October 1976. The Soviet-Syrian relationship was normalized in April 1977 when the Syrian president visited Moscow. This thesis investigates the Soviet response to the Syrian invasion of Lebanon from June 1976 to April 1977, and details why it reacted the way it did. Existing scholarship disagrees about whether the USSR knew about and supported the invasion. There are also different views about how much political, diplomatic, military and economic pressure Moscow exerted towards the Syrian regime. WikiLeaks and CIA documents from the period are used to shed new light on this very tense period in Soviet-Syrian relations. Patron-client theory, focusing on the patron’s goals and the client’s threat level, is applied to analyse the Soviet-Syrian relationship. The USSR had political and strategic goals to keep Syria as a client. The Kremlin did not support the Syrian invasion; nevertheless, it was afraid Syria would shift side in the Cold War. Seeing the superpower struggle as a zero-sum-game, such a loss was unacceptable for the USSR. Syria on the other hand was dependent on the USSR for military support, but its military threat level was low during 1976-77, and this increased Damascus’s influence over Soviet policy. In addition,
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