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Donor Dependency and American Arms Transfers to the Horn of Africa: the F-5 Legacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Jeffrey A. Lefebvre
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Extract

Political analysts often tend to focus upon periods of high-level diplomatic tension or ‘crises’ when examining and attempting to draw conclusions about foreign policy. Since these critical and highly visible episodes generally bring to the foreground the underlying combinations of geo-political, strategic, economic, ideological, and bureaucratic elements, as well as individual styles of leadership which affect interstate relations, this attraction to political drama is understandable. But in adopting a ‘crisis’ approach for determining when and what events merit serious exploration, consequential changes may be overlooked, or recognised belatedly, which have subtly crept into a particular government-to-government relationship during relatively uneventful times. The need for scholars to look to the past with more discerning eyes, as well as for foreign policy decision-makers to keep abreast with the day-to-day non-crisis international affairs of state, can be illustrated by the long-term impact of fundamental changes which occurred in the policy of the United States towards the Horn of Africa during the relative calm of the mid-1960s.

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Articles
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The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 1987 , pp. 465 - 488
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

Page 465 note 1 Ethiopian fears and distrust of U.S. policy were expressed to the author by Demeke, Tasfaye, personal interview, Ethiopian Embassy, Washington, D.C., 15 June 1982.Google ScholarCf. Markakis, John and Ayele, Nega, Class and Revolution in Ethiopia (Nottingham, 1978), pp. 163–4. The inability of the U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger,Google Scholar to come to grips with leftward-leaning revolutions is examined in Bender, Gerald, ‘Kissinger in Angola: anatomy of failure’, in Lemarchand, René (ed), American Policy in Southern Africa: the stakes and the stance (Washington, D.C., 1978), p. 81.Google Scholar

Page 466 note 1 According to high-ranking State Department officials, Kagnew was essentially a back-up facility whose loss would result in only minor reductions in U.S. military communication capabilities in the region. See Senate, U.S., Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Hearings Before the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, 94th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, D.C., 1976), p. 56.Google Scholar

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Page 468 note 1 There is no direct mention of the F-5 decision in three of the most important books covering U.S. policy in the Horn ofAfrica: Ottaway, Marina, Soviet and American Influence in the Horn of Africa (New York 1982);Google ScholarFarer, Tom, War Clouds on the Horn of Africa: the widening storm (New York, 1979 edn.);Google Scholar and Selassie, Bereket HabteConflict and Intervention in the Horn of Africa (New York), 1980.Google Scholar Essentially one only finds a listing of the F-5s in S.I.P.R.I., Arms Trade Registers (Cambridge, Mass., 1975), and only a brief mention of the deal in S.I.P.R.I.,Google ScholarThe Arms Trade with the Third World (New York, 1971).Google Scholar

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Page 469 note 2 See ‘June 27, 1956 Memorandum for the Chairman, JCS, from the Deputy Director for Intelligence of theJoint Staff’, in The Declassified Documents Quarterly Catalog, 1980, microfiche 148A. This observation was also made in a personal interview with Edward Korry, U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia from 1963–7, in Stonington, Connecticut, 6 February 1982.

Page 469 note 3 This point was made by Korry, and also by Paradis, Donald, an American attorney who served as a legal advisor in the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the 1950s and 1960s, in a personal interview, Washington, D.C., 26 April 1982.Google Scholar

Page 469 note 4 Korry told of one episode near the end of his second year as Ambassador in which he discovered that he could get the Ethiopians more for their [our] money by sending U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Groups to Europe, where they could pick up used ‘hardware’ for one-fifth the price, including its transportation. Neither the Emperor nor the Ethiopian military establishment were especially pleased at the prospect of accepting equipment which was not new.

Page 469 note 5 See Chester Bowles Papers, Yale University, New Haven, Box 311, Folder 675, including his report on a fact-finding trip to Africa, 15 October-9 November 1962.

Page 470 note 1 See ‘February 24, 1962 Incoming Telegram No. 2633 to the Department of State from New Delhi’, in The Declassified Documents Quarterly Catalog, 1975 (Washington, D.C., 1976).Google Scholar

Page 470 note 2 According to Korry, personal interview, an oral commitment was made by U.S. officials sometime before he became Ambassador in 1963.

Page 470 note 3 Ibid. See also ‘Force Goal Discussions and Future of MAP Ethiopia’, 18 December 1963 priority message from Ambassador Korry to the Department of State, in The Declenssfied Documents Quarterly Catalog, 1978 (Washington, D.C., 1979),Google Scholar microfiche 74A; and ‘Furnishing of Military Assistance to Ethiopia in Excess of the Country's Ability to Effectively Utilize the Equipment’, 5 May 1964 General Accounting Office Report, in ibid.1979 (Washington, D.C., 1980), microfiche 39B.

Page 470 note 4 United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, pp. 1906–7.

Page 471 note 1 ‘Military Aid to Ethiopia’, microfiche 147B.

Page 471 note 2 ‘February 24, 1962 Incoming Telegram No. 2633…from New Delhi’.

Page 471 note 3 See Korry's testimony in Senate, U.S., Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, p. 36.Google Scholar

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Page 471 note 5 Korry, personal interview.

Page 472 note 1 See ‘June 27, 1956 Memorandum for the Chairman, JCS, from the Deputy Director for Intelligence of the Joint Staff’.

Page 472 note 2 See U.S. House of Representatives, The Middle East, Africa, and Inter-American Affairs, Vol. xvi. Selected Executive Session Hearings of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1951–6 (Washington, D.C. 1980), pp. 335–6.Google Scholar

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Page 472 note 4 United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, pp. 1900–1.

Page 473 note 1 Ibid. p. 1927. See also ‘Phase-out of Kagnew Base’, in Middle East Research and Information Project, January 1974, p. 28.

Page 473 note 2 Korry, personal interview.

Page 473 note 3 The equipment began to arrive in May/June 1964. See Rasmusen, John R., A History of Kagnew Station and American Forces in Eritrea (Arlington, Virginia, 1973), pp. 57–9.Google Scholar

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Page 474 note 3 Marcus, op. cit. p. 57.

Page 474 note 4 See Spencer, John, Ethiopia at Bay: a personal account of the Haile Sellassie years (Algonac, Michigan, 1984) p. 266. According to Marcus, op. cit. p. 53, the Emperor himself was expected to block serious penetrations by the Soviets.Google Scholar

Page 475 note 1 Spencer, op. cit. pp. 266–7; and Senate, U.S., Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, p. 27.Google Scholar

Page 475 note 2 According to Marcus, op. cit. pp. 8–9, Washington agreed to train and equip three 6,000- man divisions at a total cost of $9 million.

Page 475 note 3 The top-secret ‘Project 19’ established bases at Massawa and Gura in order to support the British Mediterranean Fleet and R.A.F., respectively. Eritrea was distant enough to be safe from ground attack and short-range bombers, yet far enough that damaged aircraft could be shipped down the Red Sea for repair. See Rasmusen, op. cit. pp. 21 and 27–37.

Page 475 note 4 Quoted in Marcus, op. cit. p. 93.

Page 475 note 5 Ibid. p. 94.

Page 476 note 1 Ibid. pp. 105–6. Also see ‘June 27, 1956 Memorandum for the Chairman, JCS, from the Deputy Director for Intelligence of the Joint Staff’, microfiche 148A.

Page 476 note 2 See ‘The Ethiopian-Soviet Bloc Agreements: a preliminary appraisal’, 4 September 1959, report by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research,Google Scholar State Department, in The Declassified Documents Quarterly Catalog, 1980 (Washington, D.C., 1981), microfiche 195c.Google Scholar

Page 476 note 3 See The Arms Trade with the Third World, pp. 654–5.

Page 476 note 4 Nelson, Harold (ed.), Somalia: a country study (Washington, D.C., 1982), p. 258. Also Farer, op. cit. p. 115.Google Scholar

Page 476 note 5 Korry, personal interview.

Page 477 note 1 See ‘Force Goal Discussions and Future of MAP Ethiopia’, microfiche 74A. Ambassador Korry suggested in December 1963 that the United States should substitute F-86s, modified to include ‘side-winders’, or Navy A-40s or similar low-supersonic attack-fighters in place of the F-5s.

Page 477 note 2 According to Korry, personal interview.

Page 477 note 3 By mid-September 1964 the U.S. Embassy was arguing in favour of increased aid to Ethiopia after having been told in early January that the Soviets had offered to provide Ethiopia with as many arms as desired.Google Scholar See ‘Embassy Cable to the Department of State’, in The Declassified Documents Quarterly Catalog, 1977 (Washington, D.C. 1978), microfiches 226D, 121E, and 122F.Google Scholar

Page 477 note 4 See Arms Trade Registers, pp. 47 and 74–5.

Page 478 note 1 Korry, personal interview.

Page 478 note 2 Ibid.

Page 478 note 3 Arms Trade Registers, pp. 65 and 85–6.

Page 479 note 1 For the Pentagon's classification scheme, see Senate, U.S., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1962. Hearings Before the Committee of Appropriations, 87th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C., 1961), p. 142.Google Scholar

Page 479 note 2 According to U.S. Department of State, ‘Memorandum by the Secretary of State to President Roosevelt’, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1944 (Washington, D.C., 1965), Vol. v, pp. 73–4, Washington's primary concern was ‘to maintain a position of equality of opportunity’.Google Scholar

Page 480 note 1 John Kenneth Galbraith reported in early 1962 that the military assistance advisory group tended ‘to look on the Ethiopian forces much as its private army without regard to its impact on our regional and national policies’. ‘February 24, 1962 Incoming Telegram No. 2633 to the Department of State from New Delhi.’

Page 480 note 2 Ibid. Pentagon officials in Washington also ‘pushed’ the second F-86 squadron on Ethiopia.

Page 480 note 3 See ‘Force Goal Discussions and Future of MAP Ethiopia’, microfiche 74A.

Page 480 note 4 Arms Trade Registers, pp. 131–43.

Page 481 note 1 Spencer, John H., Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa, and U.S. Policy (Cambridge, Mass., Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, 1977), p. 9.Google Scholar

Page 482 note 1 U.S. Department of State, ‘The Ambassador in Ethiopia [Merrell] to the Secretary of State’, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950 (Washington, D.C., 1978), Vol. v, pp. 1698–9.Google Scholar

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Page 482 note 3 Korry, personal interview.

Page 483 note 1 See Drysdale, John, The Somali Dispute (New York, 1964), pp. 63–73.Google Scholar

Page 483 note 2 The primary objective of the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry during the latter half of the 1950s was to prevent the United States from aligning with Great Britain on the Somali issue. Paradis, personal interview.

Page 483 note 3 The U.S. Embassy recommended in 1959 that Washington ought to move quickly to support the Emperor on the Somali problem and to strengthen naval and air programmes in Ethiopia. Marcus, op. cit. pp. 112–13.

Page 483 note 4 United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad: Ethiopia (Part 8), p. 1905.

Page 484 note 1 Insights provided by Loughan, John, personal interview.Google Scholar

Page 484 note 2 See Spiegel, Steven L., The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict (Chicago, 1985), pp. 121–4.Google Scholar

Page 484 note 3 Ibid. pp. 119–27.

Page 484 note 4 The sophisticated arms barrier was broken by Israel in 1955, Egypt in 1962, South Africa in 1963, Algeria in 1965, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia in 1966, Syria in 1967, and Somalia in 1973. See Arms Trade Registers, p. 168.

Page 485 note 1 A model for an appropriate cost-benefit analysis can be found in Geoffrey Kemp with Miller, Steven, ‘The Arms Transfer Phenomenon’, in Pierre, Andrew J. (ed.), Arms Transfers and American Foreign Policy (New York, 1979), pp. 45–65.Google Scholar

Page 485 note 2 This ‘mutual exchange’ approach is based upon the traditional (cold war or security) perspective which has prevailed in American policy-making since the late 1940s. See Packenham, Robert A., Liberal America and the Third World (Princeton, 1973), pp. 4–5;Google ScholarNelson, Joan M., Aid, Influence and Foreign Policy (New York, 1968), pp. 91–128;Google ScholarKegley, Charles W. Jr, and Wittkopf, Eugene R., American Foreign Policy: patterns and process (New York, 1979), p. 82;Google Scholar and Lefever, Ernest W., Spear and Scepter: army, police and politics in Tropical Africa (Washington, D.C., 1970), p. 206.Google Scholar See also the collection of essays in Arlinghaus, Bruce E. (ed.), Arms for Africa (Lexington, 1983).Google Scholar

Page 485 note 3 The ‘client’ dependence approach is influenced by the works of Santos, Theotonio Dos, ‘The Structure of Dependence’, in American Economic Review (Nashville), 1970, pp. 231–6;Google ScholarGaltung, Johan, ‘A Structural Theory of Imperialism’, in Journal of Peace Research (Oslo), 8, 2, 1971, pp. 81–117;Google ScholarVengroff, Richard, ‘Dependency and Underdevelopment in Black Africa: an empirical test’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 15, 4, 12, 1977, pp. 613–30;Google Scholar and the collection of essays in Weissman, Steve (ed.) The Trojan Horse: a radical look at foreign aid (San Francisco, 1974).Google Scholar

Page 486 note 1 Pierre, Andrew, The Global Politics of Arms Sales (Princeton, 1982), p. 3.Google Scholar

Page 486 note 2 See, for example, Shoemaker, Christopher C. and Spanier, John, Patron-Client State Relationships (New York, 1984), especially pp. 10–25;Google ScholarPeleg, Ilan, ‘Arms Supply to the Third World – Models and Explanations’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 15, 1, 03 1977, pp. 91–103;Google ScholarWheelock, Thomas R., ‘Arms for Israel: the limit of leverage’, in International Security (Cambridge, Mass.), 2, 2, Fall 1978, pp. 123–37;Google ScholarLewis, William H., ‘Political Influence: the diminished capacity’, in Neuman, Stephanie G. and Harkavy, Robert (eds.), Arms Transfer in the Modern World (New York, 1980), pp. 186–8;Google ScholarKeohane, Robert, ‘The Big Influence of Small Allies’, in Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.), 2, Spring 1971, pp. 161–82;Google Scholar and Baldwin, David, ‘Foreign Aid, Intervention and Influence’, in World Politics (Princeton), 21, 3, 04 1969, pp. 425–47. In the case of the Horn of Africa, see Ottaway, op. cit.Google Scholar

Page 486 note 3 The ‘donor dependence’ approach is influenced by a number of diverse pieces of scholarship. See Gelb, Leslie and Betts, Richard, The Irony of Vietnam: the system worked (Washington, D.C., 1979);Google ScholarFulbright, J. William, The Arrogance of Power (New York, 1966);Google ScholarHalberstam, David, The Best and the Brightest (New York, 1972);Google ScholarHealey, J. M. and Coverdale, A. G., ‘Foreign Policy and British Bilateral Aid: a comment on McKinlay and Little’, in British Journal of Political Science (Cambridge), 11, 1, 01 1981, pp. 123–37;Google ScholarKeohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., Power and Interdependence (Boston, 1977);Google ScholarHalperin, Morton H., Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C., 1974);Google ScholarSeidman, Harold, Politics, Position and Power (London, 1976 edn.);Google Scholar and Allison, Graham, Essence of Decision (Boston, 1971).Google Scholar

Page 487 note 1 For a discussion of the impact of ‘clustering’ rationales, see Klare, Michael T., American Arms Supermarket (Austin, Texas, 1984), pp. 34–7.Google Scholar

Page 487 note 2 It could be argued that Somalia is of only marginal geo-political and strategic value to the Americans because of their bases or access rights at Diego Garcia, Mombassa, and Ras Banas, as well as their alternative locations in Kenya and the Sudan from which to contain Soviet expansion in the Horn of Africa.

Page 488 note 1 This includes F.M.S. credits and sales, military grant assistance, economic support funds, and international military education and training. See U.S. Department of Defence, Congressional Presentation Document: Security Assistance Program, FY 1982 (Washington, D.C., 1981), pp. 348–9,Google Scholar and FY 1983, pp. 374–5. Also information gathered from telephone conversations with State Department and Pentagon officials, 31 March and 4 April 1986, respectively.Google Scholar