Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XII, Afghanistan

164. Memorandum From Marshall Brement of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)¹

Washington, January 12, 1980

SUBJECT

• Bilateral Responses to Future Unacceptable Soviet Behavior (U)

Leaving ancillary events aside, there are basically only two results possible in Afghanistan:

—Either the Soviets mop up the insurgents in short order, control the passes, and exert sufficient force to seal the Pak-Afghan border; or

—Moscow runs into more difficulties than I presently anticipate and becomes enmeshed in a long-range counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan. (S)

In either case, unless the Pakistanis can be prevailed upon by Moscow to close the Afghan border to the insurgents, it is almost a certainty that at some point the Soviets will feel compelled to conduct cross-border operations into Pakistan aimed at wiping out the military value of the refugee camps. In such an event, the pressures on us to react forcefully will be enormous. (S)

In fact, the Soviets now seem to be laying the propaganda groundwork for future attacks against Afghan rebel bases. As I pointed out in my Evening Report of January 9, [less than 1 line not declassified] analysts are convinced that the Soviets will be attacking such bases in the near future.² Certainly Soviet military commanders in Afghanistan will be pointing out to Moscow that allowing the refugee camps to remain untouched would mean that the insurgency could go on, fueled by outside forces, perhaps for decades. There is no country within the Soviet orbit where Moscow has allowed an insurgency to continue. It is extremely doubtful that Afghanistan will be an exception to this rule. (S)

Furthermore, a cross-border operation into Pakistan is only one, and not the most serious, of the contingencies which we will be facing in the next several months. Neither a Soviet move into Northern Iran nor a Vietnamese thrust into Thailand can be ruled out with any degree of certainty. (S)

Even without further provocations by the Soviets, the President has called the invasion of Afghanistan the worst crisis we have faced since the Second World War. But—to deal with just one of the post-WW II crises—after construction of the Berlin Wall to provide needed manpower draft calls were doubled and tripled, enlistments were extended, and the Congress promptly and unanimously authorized the mobilization of up to 250,000 men in the ready Reserves and National Guard, including the activation of two full divisions and fifty-four Air Force and Naval air squadrons. Some 158,000 men, Reservists and Guardsmen, mostly for the Army, were actually called up; and altogether the strength of our armed forces was increased by 300,000 men. Some 40,000 were sent to Europe, and others were prepared for swift deployment. Six “priority divisions” in the Reserves were made ready for quick mobilization, and three Regular Army divisions engaged in training were converted to full combat readiness. (U)

Along with the manpower, the Berlin build-up provided enough equipment and ammunition to supply the new troops, enough sealift and airlift to transport them, and enough airpower to cover ground combat. Some three hundred tactical fighter aircraft, more than 100,000 tons of equipment, and several thousand tanks, jeeps, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles were placed in position on the European continent, and still more on “floating depot” ships. (U)

If the Soviets carried on with further objectionable actions in Afghanistan and adjacent regions, unless we reacted with the same kind of vigor that President Kennedy did, i.e., actions stronger than anything so far being contemplated, the press would almost certainly begin to make unfavorable comparisons between our reactions to Berlin and Afghanistan and try to paint the President as weak and ineffectual. (S)

I believe we should be staffing-out the pros and cons of the following specific options which the President could use at some later date, in the face of almost inevitable further Soviet objectionable action:

—Calling up the Reserves.

—Establishing a manpower commission to study the reinstitution of the draft.³

—Increasing our military presence in the area.

—Providing security guarantees for the nations of Southwest Asia, thereby drawing a clear line as to where we see our vital interests in the region.

—Enhancing our base structure; pushing ahead for bases in one or more of the following countries: Kenya, Oman, Somalia, Egypt, Israel.

—Providing a meaningful military and economic assistance package to Pakistan (the current package is entirely inadequate).

—Boycotting, partially boycotting, or moving the venue of the Olympics (no single action by the US would have greater impact on the Soviet people).

—Renouncing the 1972 US-USSR Joint Declaration of Principles, since Soviet actions in Afghanistan are in direct violation of its letter and spirit. (The Declaration never received much attention in the United States—it was a crumb Kissinger and Nixon threw the Soviets—but it has language supporting our position in this instance, and is very important to the Soviets. They cite it frequently and have used it internally to convince the Soviet public that relations with the US are under control.)⁴

—In line with the above, suspending the various exchange agreements initiated in the full flush of the inauguration of detente from 1972–74.

—Suspending the Maritime Agreement (as indicated elsewhere, I think we should do this in response to a Soviet veto of sanctions against Iran).

—Suspending Aeroflot landing rights entirely.

—Reducing Embassy staffing.

—Expelling fifty or more of the top KGB operatives in the United States, just as the British expelled the top 105 in the UK in 1971.⁵ (S)

In any case, I think it is the right tactic to let the Soviets know, and our bureaucracy as well, that we have other actions up our sleeves which we will use should the Soviets engage in further unacceptable behavior. By doing so there is at least a hope that we would inhibit the Soviets from acting recklessly. (S)

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Office File, Meetings File, Box 78, Sensitive X: 1/80. Secret. Sent for information. Copies were sent to Odom, Ermarth, Griffith, Henze, and Welch.
2. Not found.
3. Carter reinstated draft registration, but not conscription.
4. No renunciation of the Declaration of Principles occurred.
5. The British expulsion, part of Operation Foot, occurred following the defection of the KGB official Oleg Adolfovich Lyalin, who notified British intelligence officers of the scope of Soviet espionage activities in the United Kingdom. According to Lyalin, Soviet agents were plotting to mount terrorist attacks in London, the United States, France, the FRG, and Italy. See “Operation Foot (1972),” in R.S.C. Trahair, ed., Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, p. 220.