The Context in the Middle East

Part two of a three part series: The Middle East in the 1970s.

With the support of Twilight Struggle fans around the world, Twilight Struggle: Red Sea moved to “made the cut” status after just a few days on the P500. TS: Red Sea is a free-standing, two player card-driven game that builds on the Twilight Struggle system. The game covers the period between the mid-1970s to the conclusion of the Cold War. It emphasizes the many proxy wars and revolutions in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa during this portion of the Cold War.

With a more limited scope and much shorter playtime, TS Red Sea is the perfect way to introduce new players to Twilight Struggle. Yet this new game maintains all the tension, decision making, and theme of the original classic.

This is the second of a three article series, introducing players to the history reflected in the game, and providing some example events that illustrate the ties between the history and game play.   

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Looking back from a contemporary perspective, it is hard to imagine a time when the United States was not intimately involved in the politics of the Persian Gulf. And yet, for a good portion of the Cold War, that was the reality. This passive approach was the result of three circumstances. First, the United States was the world’s leading oil producer into the early 1970s. Oil supplies have sometimes been credited as the United States’ greatest contribution to the allies during World War II. So for many years, the resource that would eventually provide enormous leverage over the West simply was not a geopolitical factor. Secondly, many Gulf States were newly independent. Both South Yemen and Oman were part of various configurations of British protectorates until 1968, and therefore were looked upon more as a matter for the United Kingdom prior to their independence. Finally, the American security structure left the Persian Gulf under the jurisdiction of US Pacific Command and the 7^th Fleet. However, US Forces in the Pacific were deeply engaged in South East Asia and did not have the spare capacity to send assets so far afield form an on-going war. By 1973, the circumstance changed dramatically. 

As in Africa, our tale really begins with the end of colonialism and the withdrawal of Britain and France from positions of preeminence. France’s role in the Middle East was largely constrained to the Levant and North Africa. So it is Great Britain’s possessions that are the focal point of this game. The looming figure who defined the era of decolonization both in the Middle East, Africa, and around the globe was Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. He became the prototype of a leader who combined populist-nationalism with pragmatic socialism. His legendary status would spawn a whole generation of imitators in the newly independent nations of the developing world. Given the quasi-colonial relationship that England (and at a much earlier point, France) maintained with Egypt, the British Empire was the first target of Nasser’s national independence movement. Indeed, some British historians mark the end of the British Empire with the national embarrassment of the Suez Crisis. This short, but sharp, military intervention by Britain, France and Israel was sparked by Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. 

That said, Nasser’s criticism of the comfortable relationship that many Arab monarchies had with their former colonial overseers was unsettling to these rulers. For a Saudi King or an Omani Sultan, an independence movement linked with socialism and coupled with demand of “out with the old and in with the new” was rather disturbing. And thus, the battle lines for the Cold War in the Middle East were drawn. The Soviet Union, sensing Western vulnerability, allied itself with anti-imperialist, pro-revolutionary movements around the world. Existing Soviet rhetoric about exploitation and capitalism found fertile roots among people just freed from the yolk of colonialism. On the other hand, the traditionalist states of the Middle East, particularly those with absolutist and hereditary governments, moved closer to the West in a marriage of convenience. So whether it was King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, the Hashemite rulers of Jordan, or the Shah of Iran, the United States was seen as an ally in preventing revolutionary forces from overturning their thrones and stability in the Middle East. 

But no situation in the Middle East is one dimensional, and so it is with the fault lines of the region’s geopolitics. We cannot paint a picture of this era without remarking on the apex of the Arab-Israeli conflict and in the 1970s. In 1973, as the United States suffered an embarrassing defeat in South East Asia, it faced an equally perilous circumstance in the Middle East. On the 6^th of October, Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a surprise attack during the Jewish high holy day of Yom Kippur. Anwar Sadat replaced Nasser after his untimely demise in 1970. Sadat sought to reorient his nation’s foreign policy after Egypt’s humiliation at Israeli hands in the Six Day War of 1967. With the Sinai Peninsula under Israeli occupation, Sadat searched in vain for an approach to reclaim the lost territory. So, an offensive was dreamed up that caught the West and Israel flat footed. 

The curious thing about the Yom Kippur War is that it was an Arab defeat. The war ended with the Third Egyptian Army encircled, and Israeli Artillery within range of Damascus. But after the repeated embarrassments of the 1948 War, the Suez Crisis, and the Six Day War, the image of Arab armies successfully on the offensive against the Israelis caused elation throughout the Arab world. Ultimately, it was the potential for nuclear conflict between the super powers that resulted in a brokered peace. Sadat became the man of the hour throughout the Middle East, and was given the moniker of “Hero of the Crossing” in his own country. 

But the entropy unleased by the Yom Kippur War had unexpected implications for the Soviet Union and their cornerstone ally in the Middle East, Egypt. Sadat surmised that military victory against the Israelis was now impossible for the Arab coalition forces. Only a negotiated settlement would change the dynamic for his country. That would mean renouncing the “Three Noes” of the Khartoum Declaration (no peace, no recognition, no negotiation with Israel). Sadat had earlier expelled 5,000 military advisors in part because of Moscow’s refusal to provide Egypt with offensive airpower. While Egypt in 1973 remained a Soviet ally, the rift was already deep, and the disenchantment between the two countries even deeper. So, just as Ethiopia flipped on the United States, Egypt would turn on the Soviets. Sadat courted a deep relationship with the United States that culminated in the Camp David Accords brokered by President Jimmy Carter.    

While the loss of Egypt may have seemed a mortal blow for Soviet statecraft in the Middle East, there were some consolations – in particular, the 1973 Oil Embargo by the OPEC countries against the West for supporting the Israelis. The sudden price increase in petroleum spurred a decade of stagflation and an obsession by US policy makers with the US vulnerability to resource blackmail. The lesson would be reinforced by the oil shortages in 1979 resulting from the Iranian Revolution. 

Finally the Saudi Peninsula itself hosted a series of lengthy proxy wars.  Like many other Cold War conflicts, these incidents mixed ideology with historical and tribal grievances that stretched into the distant past. Where the Cold War began, and the tribal rivalries ended, was anyone’s guess. The modern state of Yemen was created in two stages. First, the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) became independent in 1918 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Secondarily, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), and its key port of Aden, remained part of the British Empire until the Aden Emergency and British withdrawal in 1967. Sitting at the crossroads of the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Africa and the Middle East, this region had always held geostrategic importance. The early growth of Islam had been threatened by an invasion from Ethiopia during the Middle Ages. As we have seen elsewhere, alliances in the region were fragile. After deposing a monarch in Nasserite style, North Yemen gravitated towards the Soviet Union. Egypt under Nasser became deeply embroiled in Yemeni Affairs. In fact, Yemen is sometimes referred to as Egypt’s Vietnam. But ultimately, North Yemen realized that Saudi Arabia was the true key to its stability. So after receiving significant aid from the Russians to prevail against the monarchist forces, North Yemen reoriented its foreign policy to a pro-western stance. Of course, this change of heart did not result in a particularly stable country, with coups and attempted coups being the norm. 

South Yemen, in contrast, remained a hotbed of Socialist dogma trying to spread instability to North Yemen as well as neighboring Oman. Internal rivalries of the governing politburo had the South Yemeni leadership turning on itself in a brief, bloody civil war. The ramifications of the “Events of ‘86” lead to the reunification of the Yemens shortly after the Cold War. However, the fault lines created remain a key factor in the Yemeni conflict raging on to this day. 

In summary, the Middle East during the period of this game was an area of increasing importance, but decreasing stability. Countries throughout the region felt the necessity to switch their superpower patrons. Twilight Struggle characterizes the world as one in which the nations of the world are pawns in the chess match between the Soviet Union and the United States. However, the experience of the super powers in the Middle East begs the question who were the pawns, and who were the players? This is one of questions that we invite you to examine in Twilight Struggle: Red Sea.  

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