Technological Surprise and the Collapse of Portugal's Colonial

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Chapter 12 The War Is Lost: Technological Surprise and the Collapse of Portugal’s Colonial Airpower Strategy, Guinea 1963–1974

Matthew M. Hurley

The use of air airpower as a counter-insurgency (coin) instrument has long engendered promise and disappointment, applause and condemnation; indeed, public debate on the subject dates back at least as far as 1917 and the aerial angst of T.E. Lawrence’s “Arab Army.”1 Since before World War i, insurgents have both feared and despised the seemingly omnipotent and invincible flying machines at their enemies’ disposal, while those enemies consistently sought to maximize their aerial advantage.2 All the while coin forces increasingly have attracted vitriolic scrutiny for “excessive” and “indiscriminate” air attacks, particularly when employing allegedly “inhumane” tactics and ordnance.3 De- spite this mounting criticism, however, air forces have played an increasingly significant role in nearly every coin campaign waged by governments with the technological savvy and available resources to field them.4

1 Indeed, Lawrence complained bitterly and repeatedly about the “helplessness” of his forces in the face of enemy airpower, even concluding at one point that “everything was being wrecked by air-impotence.” T.E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph (New York: Anchor Books, 1991), 612, 615. 2 See, for example, Michael Paris, “Air Power and Imperial Defence 1880–1919,” Journal of Con- temporary History 24, No. 2 (April 1989): 209–225. Dr. Paris identifies French sorties against Moroccan tribesmen in 1913 as the first recorded instances of fixed-wing airpower used in operations that could, loosely at least, be considered coin. The same label could be applied to analogous air operations in Spanish Morocco, German-occupied Southwest Africa, and the Netherlands East Indies the following year (Paris, 221). 3 The use of napalm by Western air forces is perhaps the most famous example, but more re- cently other munitions have risen to the public fore. By way of example, the Israeli Defense Forces endured a great deal of international criticism for their use of white phosphorus during operations in Gaza – an internet search for “Israel Gaza ‘white phosphorus’” on news. google.com (9 March 2009) drew 145 hits to stories that were uniformly negative. Similarly, nato was regularly derided for its use of depleted uranium ordnance during the 1999 Kosovo air campaign. 4 See, for example, three compendiums of air operations in a counter-insurgency role: James S. Corum and Wray R. Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars: Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003); Philip Anthony Towle, Pilots and Rebels: The

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Portugal’s colonial wars in Africa were no exception. From 1961 to 1974, the Portuguese Air Force (Força Aérea Portuguesa, hereafter fap) participated as a major – and increasingly central – element of Portugal’s coin effort in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau.5 In Guinea-Bissau, especially, the fap became the campaign’s centerpiece, to its tactical and operational credit, but also to its strategic detriment. While the fap consistently rendered crucial service in that theater, its value and effectiveness there led Portugal to a dangerous degree of dependence on airpower.6 When insurgent forces upset the aerial equation with a new and unexpected weapon after nine years of escalating conflict, the fap – and with it Portugal’s imperial strategy – suffered a shock from which neither recovered. By this time, Lisbon’s colonial enterprise in Guinea-Bissau had devolved to a situation described by one Portuguese com- mander as “hold on as best you can.” With the loss of Portugal’s sole remaining military advantage, even this meager objective was no longer achievable.7 Of Portugal’s colonial conflicts in Africa, Guinea-Bissau consistently pre- sented the Lisbon regime with its most vexing military and political chal- lenge. Consequently, the small and economically insignificant province of “Portuguese Guinea” commanded Portugal’s heaviest military commitment in Africa, proportionally speaking.8 Airpower consistently played a key role in

Use of Aircraft in Unconventional Warfare, 1918–1988 (London: Brassey’s UK, 1989); and Joel Hayward, ed., Air Power, Insurgency, and the “War on Terror” (Cranwell, UK: Royal Air Force Center for Air Power Studies, 2009). 5 While under Portuguese sovereignty, Guinea-Bissau was generally known as “Portu- guese Guinea.” As insurgent elements began to attract more international support, and particularly after their unilateral declaration of independence in September 1973, the name “Guinea-Bissau” became more uniformly accepted. “Guinea” can be used to refer to either Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, or Guinea-Conakry; or, it can refer to the general region of West Africa. 6 In this paper, as in US Air Force doctrine, “airpower” includes more than just the application of kinetic force from aircraft in flight. The term also incorporates roles more colloquially described as “support,” such as reconnaissance or transport. 7 According to General Carlos Fabião, the last governor-general of Portuguese Guinea, “By mid-1973, with [Portugal’s airpower] advantage gone, Portugal’s ‘strategy’ amounted to little more than ‘aguentar enquanto fosse possível’ (hold on as best you can).” Following the 25 April coup, Fabião oversaw the withdrawal of Portuguese forces from the territory. “A descoloniza- ção da Guiné-Bissau. Spínola: a figura marcante da guerra na Guiné,” in Seminário: 25 Abril 10 anos dopois (Lisbon: Associação 25 de Abril, 1984), 310. 8 By 1973, over 32,000 Portuguese troops (and between 8,000 and 11,000 locally-recruited sol- diers) were fighting in Guinea, or at least one soldier to every 17 Guinean inhabitants. By way of comparison, Portugal had only one soldier for every 74 inhabitants in Angola, and one for every 128 in Mozambique. Relatively speaking, then, Portugal had committed – at a minimum – over four times as many troops to Guinea as to Angola, and eight times as many as to Mozambique. Paulo Borges Coelho, “African Troops in the Portuguese Colo- nial Army, 1961–1974: Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, Portuguese Studies Review,