Cutting a Chain of Links

The atoll in the Indian Ocean known as Diego Garcia, as the London Observer has noted, is "one of those ink specks of the British Empire which were acquired in a fit of absence of mind during the Napoleonic Wars and have rarely been heard of since." More will be heard of it in the future. In 1971 the U.S. will begin to build a joint British-American air and radio communications center on the tiny island. The facility will provide support for British and U.S. planes and ships and will be available as a potential alternative to the U.S. communications and satellite-tracking base in northern Ethiopia. Its most important function, however, will be to serve as a counterbalance to the growing Soviet naval presence in the Indian Ocean (see map).

The Administration was initially reluctant to take a step that in effect runs counter to the Nixon Doctrine's strategy of lowering the U.S. military presence in Asia. But its decision to build the facility was guided by the fact that for the past two years, the Russians have been moving into the power vacuum created by Britain's decision to abandon its military position East of Suez. Since 1968, the Soviets have had as many as 30 ships in the ocean at a time and rarely fewer than ten.

By contrast, the U.S. has only two destroyers and a seaplane tender based at Bahrein. The British also have about seven ships in the Persian Gulf, and at least 20 more based at Singapore. Some naval experts argued that the U.S. already has Polaris submarines in the Indian Ocean and could bring in surface vessels from the Seventh Fleet in the Pacific at any time. In the end, however, the Administration concluded that the Soviet naval buildup should not be allowed to go unchallenged. "The President decided," said a White House source, "that we simply could not leave the door wide open to the Russians."

String of Buoys. The dimensions of the Soviet buildup in the Indian Ocean also worry Australia and Great Britain. In light of the Tory government's decision to retain a token military force to help defend Singapore and Malaysia, there is uneasiness in London about supplying that force via a body of water dominated by the Russians. Heath has argued for resuming South African arms sales on the ground that the Soviets' Indian Ocean presence makes the Simons-town naval base more important than ever; but the plan has run into such opposition from black African Commonwealth members, and Canada too, that the decision has been postponed.

The Russians are unmistakably on the verge of naval domination. They have helped develop the Indian port of Visakhapatnam and are adapting it for the possible use of Soviet submarines. On South Yemen's island of Socotra, which dominates the approach to the Red Sea, they are constructing a naval radio station and ammunition depot. On Mauritius they have been given harbor facilities. In addition, the Russians have signed fishing agreements with at least ten nations, stretching from Egypt to Indonesia, and along the East African coast they have set up a string of buoys which could be used as rendezvous anchorages for supply and refueling vessels as well as navigational aides for nuclear submarines.

Capability for Intervention. Most military experts regard the Soviet buildup as part of a long-range policy that stresses offensive naval capability and thus is forcing the Soviet Union to seek foreign military bases for the first time. Writes T.B. Millar, director of the Australian Institute of International Affairs: "To dominate the Suez passage; to have a major influence in the oil-producing states; to be able to exert political pressure, with modest military backing, at key points during times of decision; and to trade profitably--these are the Soviet Union's apparent intentions. The Soviet Union has today a capability for intervention she has never before possessed."

The size of the Russians' Indian Ocean fleet is hardly alarming in worldwide terms, and the ocean itself remains an area of peripheral U.S. concern. Nonetheless, if the Soviet navy should become the only naval force within the Indian Ocean, it could have an important effect on the nations in that region and inevitably could limit the political options available to the West.

The current edition of Jane's Fighting Ships, recalling that in the heyday of empire Britain had a chain of warships stretching from the English Channel to China, concludes ruefully: "Britain has unshackled the chain and the Soviet Union has picked up the links." The LI.S.-British base at Diego Garcia will be a modest effort at preventing the Russians from rebuilding the links into a chain of their own.

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