Moscow's Murky Role in the Middle East

As tension rose in the Middle East last week, the Soviet Union must have nervously wondered whether it would once again end up in the position of the bystander who bet heavily on the losing party in a street brawl. Since the Six-Day War of 1967, Moscow has dramatically stepped up its bid for influence in the Arab world. The Soviets are drawn to the region by two traditional aims of Russian geopolitics: access to warm-water ports and security along the country's southern borders. To secure those aims, they have invested $5 billion in economic and military aid in the area. Having lost $1 billion worth of military equipment in the humiliatingly swift Arab defeat of two years ago, however, the Russians, while not eager for formal peace, are anxious to avoid another full-scale war.

Reminders of the ever-growing Soviet presence in the area are as numerous as militant Arab orators. Off the coast of Syria last week, scores of Soviet warships, including the 18,000-ton helicopter carrier Moskva, maneuvered in one of the largest exercises yet staged by Russia's Mediterranean fleet. Farther west, the U.S. Sixth Fleet, which sent patrol planes to photograph the maneuvers, was itself under surveillance by Tupolev bombers bearing Egyptian markings but flown by Russian pilots. At jet bases in Egypt, Syria and Iraq, Soviet instructors are training Arab pilots in MIG-21s. Along the Suez Canal, Soviet officers are advising Egyptian gunners in their artillery clashes with Israel. In Alexandria, Soviet navy experts drill Egyptian crews on Komar-and Osa-class patrol boats, which carry ship-killing Styx missiles that have a fifteen-mile range.

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Russia first sent arms to Cairo (though under Czech labels) in 1955. Soviet arms supplies--and Western sympathies with Israel--have since opened many Arab doors to the Russians, despite deep-rooted Moslem suspicion of Communism (the Communist Party is outlawed throughout the Arab Middle East). There are now at least 10,000 Russians in Egypt, including about 4,000 military advisers. Moscow has lent President Nasser's government a staggering $2.6 billion for military supplies and economic development in the past 14 years--more than it has lent India, whose population is 16 times greater. In Syria, where the Russians are building a harbor for their warships, there are about 1,000 Soviet military advisers and several hundred engineers. A $150 million loan from Moscow is helping to finance a dam across the Euphrates. Iraq has only 200 Soviet military advisers, but $300 million in development loans has brought in another 1,000 Soviet experts to oversee textile, tractor and drug factories, mineral surveys, railroad and dam building, and the construction of a nuclear research reactor. In nearby Turkey and Iran, which are Moslem but not Arab, Moscow's emphasis is economic; Soviet loans amount to $400 million.

The Kremlin's expensive efforts to buy influence have succeeded in opening eastern Mediterranean ports to Soviet warships. Ironically, the Moscow-financed buildup of Arab armies also played a major role in starting the 1967 war--and thus in closing the Suez Canal, the only practical Soviet naval route to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. The 1967 disaster did, however, produce one advantage for Moscow: the intensive retraining needed by the shattered Egyptian forces enabled the Soviets to penetrate them with instructors, down to battalion and squadron level. sb

These Soviet instructors have no operational control, but their key positions provide Moscow with daily intelligence on Egyptian military movements and preparedness--which Russia disastrously miscalculated in 1967. Egyptian officers complain that their Russian advisers are aloof and overbearing, work them too hard, and do not teach enough mobile warfare. According to the official slogan, Egyptian-Soviet friendship is "loftier than the Aswan Dam and more solid than the Pyramids." In fact, the relationship is pragmatic rather than cordial. Even during construction at Aswan where 3,000 Soviet engineers lived and worked shoulder to shoulder with Egyptians, few friendships developed. In Cairo today, thousands of Russians live clannishly in their own apartment blocks, drink at their own clubs and shop at their own commissaries--from which some of the Soviets purchase extra vodka and sell it to Egyptian merchants to pad their sparse salaries. The Egyptians cannot complain, though, that the Russians shy away from hardships or dangers. Last July as many as six Russian advisers were reportedly killed in an Israeli bombardment.

In strategic terms, the Soviet involvement in the Middle East could prove an even more hazardous venture. Having assumed the role of armorers and advisers to the Arabs,, they can preserve and extend their influence only if they succeed in substantially improving Arab military capability. As the Arabs improve under Russian tutelage, however, they will grow increasingly impatient to tackle the Israelis once more--and invite another humiliation. As one Russian military adviser recently told an East European ambassador in Cairo, it will take "a generation" for Egyptian military skills to exceed Israel's. Whether the Egyptians or their brethren in other Arab lands will want to wait that long is, to say the least, questionable.

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