Daniel Orr's Blog, page 118

October 27, 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: Nuclear war is averted when a Soviet submarine does not fire its nuclear torpedoes at U.S. warships

On October 27, 1962, all-out war between the United States and the Soviet Union was averted when Soviet flotilla commander Vasily Arkhipov refused to allow the Russian submarine B-59 to fire its nuclear torpedoes at a U.S. Navy flotilla. The American flotilla, consisting of nine destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph had detected the B-59 and dropped depth charges to force the Soviet submarine to surface to be identified. The refusal by Arkhipov to retaliate by firing the B-59‘s nuclear torpedoes, as suggested by the other two senior officers aboard (agreement of all three was required), prevented the incident from escalating into an all-out nuclear war, as the United States would have reacted militarily to the B-59’s action. Instead, the Soviet submarine surfaced.

In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane detected a Soviet nuclear missile site under construction in San Cristobal, Pinar del Rio. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the continued presence of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a U.S. military facility located at the eastern end of Cuba, greatly infuriated Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

(Taken from Cuban Missile Crisis – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background

In the nuclear arms race between the two superpowers, the United States held a decisive edge over the Soviet Union, both in terms of the number of nuclear missiles (27,000 to 3,600) and in the reliability of the systems required to deliver these
weapons.    The American advantage was even more pronounced in long-range missiles, called ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles), where the Soviets possessed perhaps no more than a dozen missiles with a poor delivery system in contrast to the United States that had about 170, which when launched from the U.S. mainland could accurately hit specific targets in the Soviet Union.

The Soviet nuclear weapons technology had been focused on the more likely war in Europe and therefore consisted of shorter range missiles, the MRBMs (medium-range ballistic missiles) and IRBMs
(intermediate-range ballistic missiles), both of which if installed in Cuba, which was located only 100 miles from southeastern United States, could target
portions of the contiguous 48 U.S. States.  In one stroke, such a deployment would serve Castro as a powerful deterrent against an American invasion; for the Soviets, they would have invoked their prerogative to install nuclear weapons in a friendly country, just as the Americans had done in Europe.  More important, the presence of Soviet nuclear
weapons in the Western Hemisphere would radically alter the global nuclear weapons paradigm by posing as a direct threat to the United States.

In April 1962, Premier Khrushchev conceived of such a plan, and felt that the United States would respond to it with no more than a diplomatic protest, and certainly would not take military action.  Furthermore, Premier Khrushchev believed that
President Kennedy was weak and indecisive, primarily because of the American president’s half-hearted decisions during the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961, and President Kennedy’s weak response to the East German-Soviet building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961.

A Soviet delegation sent to Cuba met with Fidel Castro, who gave his consent to Khrushchev’s proposal.  Subsequently in July 1962, Cuba and the Soviet Union signed an agreement pertinent to the nuclear arms deployment.  The planning and implementation of the project was done in utmost
secrecy, with only a few of the top Soviet and Cuban officials being informed.  In Cuba, Soviet technical and military teams secretly identified the locations for the nuclear missile sites.

In August 1962, U.S. reconnaissance flights over Cuba detected the presence of powerful Soviet aircraft: 39 MiG-21 fighter aircraft and 22 nuclear weapons-capable Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers.  More disturbing was the discovery of the S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile batteries, which were known to be contingent to the deployment of nuclear missiles.  By late August, the U.S. government and Congress had raised the possibility that the Soviets were
introducing nuclear missiles in Cuba.

By mid-September, the nuclear missiles had reached Cuba by Soviet vessels that also carried regular cargoes of conventional weapons.  About 40,000 Soviet soldiers posing as tourists also arrived to form part of Cuba’s defense for the missiles and against a U.S. invasion.  By October 1962, the Soviet Armed Forces in Cuba possessed 1,300 artillery pieces, 700 regular anti-aircraft guns, 350 tanks, and 150 planes.

The process of transporting the missiles overland from Cuban ports to their designated launching sites required using very large trucks, which consequently were spotted by the local residents because the oversized transports, with their loads of canvas-draped long cylindrical objects, had great difficulty maneuvering through Cuban roads.  Reports of these sightings soon reached the Cuban exiles in Miami, and through them, the U.S. government.

October 26, 1991 – Slovenian War of Independence: The last Yugoslav Army units withdraw from Slovenia

On October 26, 1991, the last Yugoslav Army units departed from Slovenia following the end of the three-month Brioni Peace Agreement. Slovenia (and neighboring Croatia) had declared independence from Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991, which led to the outbreak of their independence wars. A ceasefire was declared on July 3. Then in the Brioni Peace Agreement brokered by the European Community and signed on July 7, 1991, Slovenia (and Croatia) agreed to defer their independences for three months.  In return, Yugoslavia would cease all military operations in Slovenia and Croatia.

The peace agreement assured Slovenia’s
independence, as the Yugoslav Army, in the following months, shifted its attention to the independence wars in Croatia, and later, Bosnia-Herzegovina, both of which contained large Serbian populations.  The last Yugoslav Army units departed from Slovenia
on October 26, 1991.

Slovenia soon consolidated its sovereignty by implementing major economic programs, which gained international approval.  In January 1992, Slovenia’s independence was recognized by the European Community; in May of that year, Slovenia
joined the United Nations.

Compared to the other Yugoslav Wars that followed shortly, the Slovenian War of Independence was much less severe in terms of casualties,
atrocities, financial cost, and material damage.  When viewed on a regional scale where other East European countries and the Soviet Union’s constituent republics were moving away from communism and becoming independent states, Yugoslavia was faced with an awkward position with regards to its seceding republics.

Yugoslavia’s decision to disengage in Slovenia
was less difficult, however, in part because of Slovenia’s near ethnic homogeneity compared to, say, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which had greater populations of ethnic Serbs.  Another aspect of the Slovenia’s independence war was the Slovenian government’s meticulously planned media
strategy aimed at generating broad international sympathy and support.  As a result, the European Community exerted diplomatic pressure on Yugoslavia to end the war quickly.

Yugoslavia comprised six republics, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, and Macedonia, and two autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina.

(Taken from Slovenian War of Independence – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background

The Slovenian War of Independence was the first in a series of wars during the period of the breakup of Yugoslavia (previous article), when Yugoslav constituent republics seceded and became independent countries. Geographically, Slovenia was the most westerly located republic of Yugoslavia, and had through the centuries, assimilated many Western European influences from neighboring Italy and Austria into its Slavic culture.  And unlike the other Yugoslav republics, Slovenia was nearly ethnically
homogeneous, with Slovenes comprising 90% of the population.

As communist ideology tottered in the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe during the second half of the 1980s, Yugoslavia’s apparent Slavic unity began to fragment as nationalistic and democratic ideas seeped into its many ethnic groups. 
Economic factors also played into the independence aspirations in Slovenia and Croatia, the two most prosperous Yugoslav republics that contributed a fairly large share to the national economy and also subsidized the less affluent regions of the country.  In the late 1980s, the constituent assemblies of the Yugoslav republics called on the national government to decentralize and allow greater regional autonomy.

In September 1989, Slovenia’s regional government took the radical step of abolishing communism and adopting democracy as its official
ideology.  Then in January 1990, delegates of Slovenia and Croatia walked out of an assembly of Yugoslav communists over a disagreement with
Serbian representatives regarding the future direction of the national government.  From this moment on,
Yugoslav unity was shattered and the end of Yugoslavia became imminent.  A pro-independence coalition government was established in Slovenia
following democratic, multi-party elections in March 1990.  Then in a general referendum held nine months later, 88% of Slovenes voted for independence.  On June 25, 1991, Slovenia
(together with Croatia) declared independence.

Because of the high probability that the Yugoslav Army would oppose the secession, the Slovenian government prepared contingency plans many
months before declaring independence.  For instance, Slovenia formed a small regular army from its police and local defense units.  Weapons and ammunitions stockpiles in Slovenia were seized; these were augmented with arms purchases from foreign sources.

Nevertheless, at the start of the war, Slovenia’s war arsenal consisted mainly of infantry weapons, bolstered somewhat with a small number of portable
anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns. Slovenia had no artillery pieces, battle tanks, or warplanes.  And because the Yugoslav Army, the fourth largest in Europe, would be overwhelming in battle, the Slovenians worked out in great detail a strategy for guerilla action.

When Slovenia declared independence on June 25, this was one day earlier than its previous
announced date of June 26.  This was done to mislead the Yugoslav Army, which was prepared to attack on June 26.

Immediately after declaring independence, Slovenian forces took control of the airport near Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, and the border crossings
with Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Croatia.  No opposition was encountered in these operations because the personnel manning these stations were Slovenes, who in fact, promptly joined the ranks of the Slovenian Army.

Meanwhile, in Belgrade (in Serbia), the Yugoslav Armed Forces high command ordered limited military action in Slovenia in the belief that small-scale intervention would encounter little or no resistance.  And since the Yugoslav Army did not commit
significant forces in Slovenia, the resulting Slovenian War of Independence was brief (lasting only ten days, therefore its more common name, “The Ten-Day
War”), and consisted of skirmishes and small-scale battles.

October 25, 1997 –Republic of the Congo Civil War: Denis Sassou Nguesso takes over power in Congo-Brazzaville

On October 25, 1997, Denis Sassou Nguesso took over power and formed a new government, declaring himself the new president of the
Republic of the Congo (also known as “Congo-Brazzaville”).  In January 1998, he convened an assembly called the “Forum for National Unity and
Reconciliation”, which was attended by the country’s political elite (except those who were in exile).  The Forum reached an agreement with the following provisions: establish a three-year transitional period before holding elections in 2001, form a transitional
legislative assembly, and draft a new constitution.

Congo-Brazzaville (officially: Republic of the Congo) are nearby countries.

(Taken from Republic of the Congo Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 3)

Background

Congo-Brazzaville, officially known as the “Republic of the Congo”, is a West African country that gained its independence in 1960.  The country began as a democracy, but within four years after achieving
statehood, it was leaning towards socialism and had adopted socialist policies.    Multi-party politics were
ended, an official state political party was introduced, and the country’s free-market capitalism was placed under state controls.  Then in 1970, Congo-Brazzaville officially adopted Marxism as its state ideology, changed its name to the “People’s
Republic of the Congo”, and established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and other communism countries.

In the early 1990s, the global political and security climates changed dramatically, as the Soviet Union and other East European countries shed off communism and adopted democracy.  In 1990, Congo-Brazzaville yielded to international pressure and moved to transition back to democracy and
multi-party politics.  Although socialist Congo-Brazzaville emulated the Soviet Union’s centralized governmental infrastructures, its economy continued to be largely capitalist driven, and the
government regularly took out loans from international private commercial bands and encouraged foreign investments (particularly from France, Congo-Brazzaville’s former colonizer) to the country in order to develop Congo-Brazzaville’s oil and mineral resources.

Also in the early 1990s, Congo-Brazzaville was experiencing an economic recession and the government of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso was
being accused of corruption by political critics.  In February 1991, President Sassou-Nguesso
convened the “Sovereign National Conference”, an assembly of 200 members of the country’s political elite.  The Conference unanimously agreed to restore democracy and establish a transitional government to run the country until free elections could be held.

In March 1992, Congo-Brazzaville ratified a new constitution that instituted multi-party democracy. 
Then in elections held in August 1992, former Prime Minister Pascal Lissouba became the country’s new president, defeating the incumbent, President
Sassou-Nguesso, and the other main candidate, former President Bernard Kolelas.  These three political figures would play the major roles in the bloody conflicts that followed.

In the legislative elections held in May 1993, President Lissouba’s political party won a majority of the parliamentary seats, but the two main opposition leaders, Sassou-Nguesso and Kolelas, disputed the results, claiming that fraud had been committed to allow the ruling party to win.  As tensions rose, the three political leaders formed armed groups along ethnic lines: President Lissouba organized the Cocoye
militia from members of his Nibolek tribe, Sassou-Nguesso formed the Cobra militia from his Mbochi tribe, and Kolelas organized the Ninja militia from his
Lari tribe.

The country’s armed forces were also divided by ethnicity; in particular, Sassou-Nguesso, who was a former army colonel, retained the loyalty of some Mbochi servicemen.  Mbochi officers also helped Sassou-Nguesso organize the Cobra militia.  While Congo-Brazzaville had experienced a long history of political unrest since independence, including three violent overthrows of government and a presidential assassination, the militarized climate generated by the 1993 elections portended the country’s descent into greater violence.

In June 1993, fighting broke out between President Lissouba’s Cocoye fighters and the combined forces of Cobra and Ninja militias.  In January 1994, a truce was signed which ended hostilities.  The fighting caused some 5,000 mostly civilian deaths and tens of thousands of people left without homes.  In 1994, the Organization of African Unity and the governments of France and Gabon
brought together the three rival political parties of Congo-Brazzaville to sign a peace agreement, which took effect in December 1995.  The agreement contained two major stipulations: formation in Congo-Brazzaville of a power-sharing government
consisting of the three political parties, and disarming and demobilization of all militias.  The agreement failed to be implemented, however.  As a result, the
militarized, confrontational climate remained, setting the stage for a full-blown civil war.

October 24, 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: The Soviet Union condemns the United States for imposing a naval “quarantine” of Cuba

On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy announced in a nationwide television broadcast to the American people the presence of nuclear
missiles in Cuba.  He also warned Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev that using the missiles against any country in the Western Hemisphere would be
equivalent to an attack against the United States,
and which would force the U.S. Armed Forces to retaliate against the Soviet Union.  President Kennedy then called on the Soviet Union to remove the missiles.  He also announced a naval “quarantine” of offensive weapons into Cuba, i.e. the U.S. Navy would
seize offensive weapons before they reached the island.  The quarantine was to prevent Soviet ships
from bringing more nuclear missiles to Cuba.  President Kennedy chose to use the word
“quarantine” instead of “naval blockade” since the latter was an act of war under international law.    Some 300 U.S. Navy ships were tasked to enforce the quarantine.  The United States Armed Forces worldwide (except in Europe) were placed on a higher state of readiness.

On October 23, 1962 the United States gained the approval of the Organization of American States (OAS), which voted 20–0 (with Cuba not participating) to endorse the naval quarantine; a number of OAS member countries pledged to provide soldiers, ships, logistical support, and naval
bases for the quarantine.

The Soviets reacted strongly against the naval quarantine, with Premier Khrushchev, on October 24, calling it a violation of international law and declaring that the blockade was an “act of aggression” that would lead to war and that Russian warships would ignore the American “piracy”.  The Soviet leader declared that the “armaments…in Cuba, regardless of classification…are solely for defensive purposes…to secure Cuba against the attack of an aggressor.” 
Escorted by submarines, Soviet freighters bound for Cuba appeared determined to ignore the quarantine.  However, Premier Khrushchev soon ordered the cargo ships to change course or turn back.  The next day, Adlai Stevenson, U.S Ambassador to the United Nations, presented the U-2 aerial photographic evidence of the nuclear missiles to the UN Security Council.  Stevenson asked Valerian Zorin, the Soviet Ambassador to the UN, about the missiles, but the latter refused to confirm or deny their deployment.

In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane detected a Soviet nuclear missile site under construction in San Cristobal, Pinar del Rio. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the continued presence of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a U.S. military facility located at the eastern end of Cuba, greatly infuriated Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

(Taken from Cuban Missile Crisis – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

In August 1962, U.S. reconnaissance flights over Cuba detected the presence of powerful Soviet aircraft: 39 MiG-21 fighter aircraft and 22 nuclear weapons-capable Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers.  More disturbing was the discovery of the S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile batteries, which were known to be contingent to the deployment of nuclear missiles.  By late August, the U.S. government and Congress had raised the possibility that the Soviets were
introducing nuclear missiles in Cuba.

By mid-September, the nuclear missiles had reached Cuba by Soviet vessels that also carried regular cargoes of conventional weapons.  About 40,000 Soviet soldiers posing as tourists also arrived to form part of Cuba’s defense for the missiles and against a U.S. invasion.  By October 1962, the Soviet Armed Forces in Cuba possessed 1,300 artillery pieces, 700 regular anti-aircraft guns, 350 tanks,
and 150 planes.

The process of transporting the missiles overland from Cuban ports to their designated launching sites required using very large trucks, which consequently were spotted by the local residents because the oversized transports, with their loads of canvas-draped long cylindrical objects, had great difficulty maneuvering through Cuban roads.  Reports of these sightings soon reached the Cuban exiles in Miami, and through them, the U.S. government.

The weight of circumstantial evidence reaching the United States prompted the Kennedy
administration to increase air reconnaissance missions over Cuba.  On October 14, 1962, a U-2 spy plane took hundreds of photographs which, after being filtered and analyzed by the CIA, revealed
the construction in San Cristobal, Pinar del Rio Province (Map 23) of a Soviet nuclear missile site for MRBMs that were capable of striking within a range of 2,000 kilometers, including Washington, D.C. and the whole southeastern United States.

On October 16, 1962, President Kennedy was informed of the findings; he formed a panel consisting of members of the National Security
Council, or NSC (the President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the U.S. Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, among
others) and advisers.  This panel would later (October 22, 1962) be officially established as the ExComm (Executive Committee) of the NSC and tasked to formulate the United States’ appropriate response to the Soviet missile deployment in Cuba.

The military members of ExComm believed that the missiles changed the strategic balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union, but President Kennedy and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara disagreed, saying that the Russians already possessed ICBMS and nuclear submarines that could target the United States, with or without the missiles in Cuba.  However, all ExComm members agreed that the missiles changed the political balance and would damage the credibility of President Kennedy with the American people, his western allies, and the international community, as it would appear that the United States was incapable of standing up to the Soviet Union.

The military members of ExComm advocated a military solution, including air strikes to destroy the missiles before they became ready, and a full-scale invasion of Cuba.  President Kennedy demurred, believing that American military action might provoke the Soviets to invade West Berlin or destroy the American Jupiter missiles in Turkey; in turn, NATO would be forced to respond, thereby escalating the conflict into a full-blown war.  West Berlin, administered jointly by the United States, Britain,
and France, was located within the territory of East Germany and long desired by the Soviet and East
German governments to be merged with East Berlin, East Germany’s capital.

ExComm unanimously agreed that the missiles must be removed. President Kennedy authorized the military to prepare for war, although he wanted to explore non-combat options first.  The armed forces were placed on alert status, with 250,000 troops
transferred to Florida and Georgia; three battalions were sent to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba
to reinforce the existing forces there.  In the following days, more U-2 flights, including low-level aerial
reconnaissance, showed that three other missile sites were being established and nearly completed, two of which were for IRBMs which, with a flight radius
of 4,800 kilometers, could target all of the continental United States, except Alaska, Oregon and Washington states.

On October 18, 1962, ExComm decided to pursue one of two options: an air strike or a naval blockade.  The U.S. Air Force could not guarantee that American air strikes would destroy all the missiles, however, thereby pushing most of the ExComm members to go for a naval blockade, which also was President Kennedy’s first option.

Without revealing that he was aware of the missile deployments, President Kennedy met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who assured the American president that only Soviet defensive weapons were being delivered to Cuba.  Many Soviet pronouncements leading up to the delivery of the missiles had been aimed to assure the United States that no Soviet offensive weapons would reach Cuba.
 Fidel Castro, without mentioning the missiles, declared that Cuba had the right to defend itself from foreign, i.e. American, aggression.

October 23, 1991 – Cambodian-Vietnamese War: The Paris Peace Accords are signed

On October 23, 1991, representatives from Cambodia and Vietnam signed the Paris Peace
Accords, officially titled, “Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict”), which ended their twelve-year war.

As stipulated in the Accords, all four parties (State of Cambodia government and the three resistance groups), formed a provisional coalition government called the Supreme National Council of Cambodia, with Prince Sihanouk as its president, and thus the country’s head of state.  In November 1991, Sihanouk returned to Phnom Penh, with large crowds greeting his arrival.  However, Khieu Samphan, a high-ranking Khmer Rouge leader, was nearly killed when he
returned to Phnom Penh by an angry mob that wanted to exact revenge for the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.  Then in December 1991, violent
anti-government riots and demonstrations rocked the capital, threatening the peace process.

In November 1991, the United Nations Advance Mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC) arrived to assist in enforcing the ceasefire.  In March 1992, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), a peacekeeping force which also absorbed UNAMIC,
became operational in Cambodia, and was tasked with implementing the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, including enforcing the ceasefire, disarming the various armed militias, and repatriating Cambodian refugees.  UNTAC also was given the unique mandate of administering several Cambodian government agencies.

In May 1993, Cambodia held elections for its Constituent Assembly (legislature), which were marred by violence as the Khmer Rouge refused to disarm and demobilize (all other armed groups had voluntarily disarmed to UNTAC) and set up road blocks in their controlled areas, and also attacked ethnic Vietnamese civilians in the period before the elections.  In July 1993, the newly elected Constituent Assembly began to work on a new constitution, which was completed and ratified in September 1993.

Under the new constitution, the country became a constitutional monarchy and was renamed as the “Kingdom of Cambodia”, with Sihanouk restored as king (he first became king in 1941 but abdicated in
1955) and head of state, with a Prime Minister as the head of government.

Soon thereafter, the Khmer Rouge, isolated and abandoned by its military backers, particularly China, started to decline in power, with its officers and soldiers accepting the government’s offers of amnesty and returning to the fold of the law.  Then
in April 1998, with the death of its long-time leader Pol Pot, who had been deposed, tried and found guilty for murdering a subordinate Khmer Rouge
official, and placed under house arrest by his own commanders, the Khmer Rouge ceased to exist.  After three decades of war, Cambodia was at peace.

(Taken from Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia)

Background of the
Cambodian-Vietnamese War

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge overthrew the
West-aligned government in Cambodia (Cambodian Civil War, separate article), and then turned the country into a communist state.  Nearly two weeks later, on April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon and ended the West-aligned South Vietnamese government (Vietnam War, separate article) and later merged the two Vietnams into a single state, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

In the aftermath of these communist victories, the international community believed that the two Marxist states would establish close relations
due to their shared ideological ties.  Instead, shortly after achieving their revolutionary victories, fighting
began to break out between their forces.  These countries’ respective main ethnic groups, the Khmers (Cambodians) and Vietnamese, have a long history of animosity and conflict since the 12th century, when their ancient feudal monarchies fought over land and resources.

In the 1800s, the Vietnamese Nguyen Dynasty took control of the Cambodian region of the Mekong Delta (present-day southernmost region of Vietnam) after a period of settlement by ethnic Vietnamese. 
As well, the Vietnamese conquerors in Cambodia tried to replace the Indian-influenced Khmer culture of the Cambodians with their own Chinese-influenced Vietnamese culture.

During the period 1887-1893, France gained control of the Indochina region, imposing direct rule or entering into protectorate treaties that virtually turned into colonies the territories of Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos (which were collectively called French Indochina).  Thereafter, the Cambodians and Vietnamese turned their nationalist struggles against the French, sometimes forming alliances to defeat and expel their common enemy.  Even so, Cambodians continued to harbor a mistrust of the Vietnamese – which would become a major cause of the Cambodian-Vietnamese War.

The revolutionary movements that eventually prevailed in Vietnam and Cambodia (as well as in Laos) trace their origin to 1930 when the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) was formed.  VCP soon reorganized itself into the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) to include membership to Cambodian and
Laotian communists into the Vietnamese-dominated movement.  The great majority of ICP Khmers were not indigenous to Cambodia; rather they consisted mostly of ethnic Khmers who were native to southern Vietnam, and ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia.

In 1951, the ICP split itself into three nationalist
organizations for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos respectively, i.e. Workers Party of Vietnam, Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP), and Neo Lao Issara.  In December 1946, the Viet Minh (or League
for the Independence of Vietnam), a Vietnamese nationalist group that was formed in World War II to fight the Japanese, began an independence war against French rule (First Indochina War, separate article).  The Viet Minh prevailed in July 1954.  The 1954 Geneva Accords, which ended the war,
divided Vietnam into two military zones, which became socialist North Vietnam and West-aligned South Vietnam.  War soon broke out between the two Vietnams, with North Vietnam supported by China and the Soviet Union; and South Vietnam
supported by the United States.  This Cold War conflict, called the Vietnam War (separate article) and
which included direct American military involvement in 1965-1970, ended in April 1975 with a North Vietnamese victory.  As a result, the two Vietnams
were reunified, in July 1976.

Meanwhile in Cambodia, the local revolutionary struggle ended with the 1954 Geneva Accords, which gave the country, led by King Sihanouk, full independence from France.  The Accords also ended both French rule and French Indochina, and independence also was granted to Laos and Vietnam.  Following the First Indochina War, most of the Khmer communists moved into exile in North Vietnam, while those who remained in Cambodia formed the Pracheachon Party, which participated in the 1955 and 1958 elections.  However, government repression forced Pracheachon Party members to go into hiding in the early 1960s.

By the late 1950s, the Cambodian communist movement experienced a resurgence that was spurred by a new generation of young, Paris-education communists who had returned to the country.  In September 1960, ICP veteran communists and the new batch of communists met and elected a Central Committee, and renamed
the KPRP (Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Party) as the Worker’s Party of Kampuchea (WPK).

In February 1963, following another government suppression that led to the arrest of communist leaders, the WPK soon came under the control of the younger communists, led by Saloth Sar (later known as Pol Pot), who sidelined the veteran communists whom they viewed as pro-Vietnamese.  In September 1966, the WPK was renamed the Kampuchean
Communist Party (KCP).

The KCP and its members, as well its military wing, were called “Khmer Rouge” by the Sihanouk government.  In January 1968, the Khmer Rouge launched a revolutionary war against the Sihanouk regime, and after Sihanouk was overthrown in March 1970, against the new Cambodian government.  In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge triumphed and took over political power in Cambodia, which it renamed Democratic Kampuchea.

During its revolutionary struggle, the Khmer Rouge obtained support from North Vietnam,
particularly through the North Vietnamese Army’s capturing large sections of eastern Cambodia,
which it later turned over to its Khmer Rouge allies.  But the Khmer Rouge held strong anti-Vietnamese sentiment, and deemed its alliance with North Vietnam only as a temporary expedient to combat a common enemy – the United States in particular, Western capitalism in general.  The Cambodian communists’ hostility toward the Vietnamese resulted from the historical domination by Vietnam of Cambodia during the pre-colonial period, and the perception that modern-day Vietnam wanted to
dominate the whole Indochina region.

Soon after coming to power, the Khmer Rouge launched one of history’s most astounding social revolutions, forcibly emptying cities, towns, and all urban areas, and sending the entire Cambodian population to the countryside to become peasant workers in agrarian communes under a feudal-type
forced labor system.  All lands and properties were nationalized, banks, schools, hospitals, and most industries, were shut down.  Money was abolished.  Government officials and military officers of the previous regime, teachers, doctors, academics,
businessmen, professionals, and all persons who had associated with the Western “imperialists”, or were deemed “capitalist” or “counter-revolutionary” were
jailed, tortured, and executed.  Some 1½ – 2½ million people, or 25% of the population, died under the Khmer Rouge regime (Cambodian Genocide, previous article).

In foreign relations, the Khmer Rouge government isolated itself from the international community, expelling all Western nationals,
banning the entry of nearly all foreign media, and closing down all foreign embassies.  It did, however, later allow a number of foreign diplomatic missions (from communist countries) to reopen in Phnom Penh.  As well, it held a seat in the United Nations
(UN).

The Khmer Rouge was fiercely nationalistic and xenophobic, and repressed ethnic minorities, including Chams, Chinese, Laotians, Thais, and
especially the Vietnamese.  Within a few months, it had expelled the remaining 200,000 ethnic Vietnamese from the country, adding to the 300,000 Vietnamese who had been deported by the previous
Cambodian regime.

October 22, 1947 – Indian-Pakistani War of 1947: Kashmiri Muslims break out in rebellion

On October 22, 1947, when rumors surfaced that Kashmir would merge with India, Kashmiri Muslims in the state’s western regions broke out in rebellion.  The rebels soon were joined by Pakistani fighters who entered the Kashmiri border from Pakistan.  The rebels and Pakistanis seized the towns of Muzzafarabad and Dommel where they disarmed the Kashmiri troops, who thereafter also joined the rebels.

Within a few days, the rebellion had spread to Baramula and threatened Srinagar, Kashmir’s
capital.  The Kashmiri ruler fled to India, where he
pleaded with the Indian government for military assistance.  The Indians agreed on the condition that
Kashmir be merged with India, to which the Kashmiri ruler gave his consent.  Soon thereafter, Kashmir’s status as a sovereign state ended.  On October 27,
1947, Indian forces arrived in Srinagar and expelled the rebels, who by this time, had entered the capital.

India and Pakistan. Diagram shows India and the two “wings” of Pakistan (West Pakistan and East Pakistan) on either side. Kashmir, the battleground during the Indian-Pakistani War of 1947, is located in the northern central section of the Indian subcontinent.

(Taken from Indian-Pakistani War of 1947 – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background

On August 15, 1947, the new state of Kashmir (Map 1) found itself geographically located next to India and Pakistan, two rival countries that recently had gained their independences after the cataclysmic partition of the Indian subcontinent.  Fearing the widespread violence that had accompanied the birth of India and Pakistan, the Kashmiri monarch, who was a Hindu, chose to remain neutral and allow Kashmir
to be nominally independent in order to avoid the same tragedy from befalling his mixed constituency of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs.

Pakistan exerted diplomatic pressure on Kashmir, however, as the Pakistani government had significant strategic and economic interests in the former Princely State.  Most Pakistanis also shared a common religion with the overwhelmingly Muslim Kashmiri population.  India also nurtured ambitions on Kashmir and wanted to bring the former Princely
State into its sphere of influence.  After Kashmir gained back its sovereignty, the British colonial troops departed; consequently, Kashmir was left only with a small native army to enforce peace and order.

October 21, 1983 – U.S. Invasion of Grenada: The United States is asked to intervene in Grenada

On October 21, 1983, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States asked the United States
to intervene militarily in Grenada, fearing that the political instability in that island could spread across the Caribbean region.  The United States Armed Forces then revised its plan from an evacuation to include an invasion of Grenada.

Diagram showing location of Grenada in the Caribbean Sea and just north of the South American mainland. Grenada consists of the main island (Grenada) and six very small islands located in its northern and southern ends.

The U.S. military identified three targets for the invasion: Point Salines, Pearls Airport in Grenville, and St. George’s.  Just before dawn on October 25, 1983, a battalion of U.S. Rangers was airdropped at the Point Salines Airport construction site.  The soldiers succeeded in taking control of the facility.  The Rangers originally were planned to be landed by plane; the plan was aborted when U.S.
reconnaissance detected that the airport runway was littered with obstacles.  The anti-aircraft gunfire
from the Grenadian defenses was silenced by strikes from U.S. helicopter gunships.  The U.S. Rangers soon secured and cleared the Point Salines Airport site, allowing American planes to land more troops, weapons, and supplies.

(Taken from U.S. Invasion of Grenada – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background

Grenada is a small island country located in the southeastern section of the Caribbean Sea (Map 36).  In 1974, the country gained its independence from the United Kingdom and thereafter experienced a period of political unrest starting with the contentious general elections of 1976.  After the 1976 elections, a government was formed, which imposed repressive policies to curb political opposition and dissent.  Then on March 13, 1979, communist politicians staged a coup that overthrew the government.

A socialist government was formed led by Maurice Bishop, who took the position of prime minister.  The new government opened diplomatic relations with communist countries.  In particular, Grenada became allied with Cuba and the Soviet Union, and supported their foreign policy initiatives.  Prime Minister Bishop dissolved the Grenadian constitution, banned elections and multi-party
politics, and suppressed free expression and all forms of dissent.

The government began many social and economic projects, which ultimately proved successful.  For
instance, sound financial policies allowed Grenada’s economy to grow and reduce the country’s dependence on imported goods.  The government made major advances in upgrading the educational system, health care, and socialized housing programs.  Public infrastructure projects were implemented.

Despite being officially socialist, the Grenadian government maintained its traditional ties to the West.  Grenada retained its British Commonwealth membership, with Queen Elizabeth II as its symbolic head of state, and the British-inherited position of Governor General being maintained.  Western
foreign investments were encouraged, and investors from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada – among other countries – operated freely in the islands.  Foreign tourists, who brought in substantial revenues to the local economy, were welcomed by the Grenadian government.

However, hardliners in Grenada’s communist party (called the New Jewel Movement) disagreed with Prime Minister Bishop’s double-sided policies.  They demanded that he step down from office or agree to rule jointly with staunch communist party
members.  Prime Minister Bishop rejected both suggestions.  On October 12, 1983, the communist hardliners overthrew the government in a coup, and Prime Minister Bishop and other high-ranking government officials were arrested and jailed.  A military council was formed to rule the country.

Widespread street protests and demonstrations broke out as a result of the coup, as Prime Minister Bishop was extremely popular with the people.  The protesters demanded that Bishop be set free.  Bishop’s military captors acquiesced, and released the ex-prime minister.  But in the ensuing chaos, government troops opened fire on the protesters, killing perhaps up to a hundred persons.  Bishop and other top government officials were rounded up and executed by firing squad.

The U.S. administration of President Ronald Reagan, following the events in Grenada with grave concern, believed that Cuba had planned the overthrow of Prime Minister Bishop’s moderately socialist government in order to install a staunchly communist regime.  The United States believed that Cuba would then take full control of Grenada.  Four years earlier in 1979, when the Grenadian communists took over power, U.S. president Jimmy Carter’s government had moved diplomatically to isolate Grenada by stopping U.S. military support and
discouraging Americans from travelling there.

But President Reagan took an aggressive approach against Grenada: he ordered joint military exercises and mock amphibious operations in U.S.-allied countries in the Caribbean region.  He also warned of Soviet-Cuban expansionism in the Western Hemisphere.  Of particular concern to President Reagan was the construction of an airport at Point Salines at the southern tip of Grenada, which the U.S. military believed would be a Soviet airbase because its extended runway could land big, long-range Russian bombers.  The U.S. government surmised that the Soviets planned to use Grenada
as a forward base to supply communists in Central America, i.e. the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the communist rebels in El Salvador and Guatemala.  Increasing the Americans’ suspicion was the presence of Cuban construction workers at the Point Salines site – after the war, the U.S. military learned that these were Cuban Army soldiers.

However, the Grenadian government insisted that the Point Salines facility would be used as an international airport for commercial airliners.  As diplomatic relations deteriorated between the United States and Grenada, President Reagan ordered the evacuation of American citizens living in Grenada, the majority of whom were the 800 medical students enrolled at the American-owned St. George’s University.  The U.S. government feared for the
safety of the students, as the Grenadian Army had posted soldiers at the school grounds and a nighttime curfew had been imposed on the island, with a
shoot-to-kill order imposed against violators. 
As commercial flights to Grenada were cancelled already, President Reagan decided that the U.S. Armed Forces should implement the evacuation.

October 20, 1962 –Sino-Indian War: Chinese forces launch simultaneous offensives in Aksai Chin and North-East Frontier Agency

Fighting broke out on October 20, 1962, with Chinese forces launching offensives in two main sectors: in the eastern sector (North-East Frontier Agency; NEFA) north of the McMahon Line, and in the western sector in Aksai Chin.  Some fighting also occurred in the Nathu La Pass, Sikkim near the China-India border.  The Chinese government called the operation a “self-defensive counterattack”, implying that India had started the war by crossing north of the McMahon Line.

(Taken from Sino-Indian War – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia)

Background

In the 19th century, the British and Russian Empires were locked in a political and territorial rivalry known as the Great Game, where the two powers sought to control and dominate Central Asia.  The Russians advanced southward into territories that ultimately would form the present-day countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, while the British advanced northward across the Indian subcontinent.  By the mid-1800s, Britain had established full control over territories of British India and the Princely States (present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh).  Just as it did with the Russians regarding British territories in northwest India, the British government sought to establish its territorial limits in the east with the other great regional power, China.  British authorities particularly wanted to delineate British India’s boundaries in Kashmir in the north with China’s Xinjiang Province, as well as British India’s borders in the east with Tibet (a semi-autonomous state under Chinese suzerainty), thereby establishing a common British India-China border across the towering Himalaya Mountains. 

In 1865, the Survey of India published a boundary for Kashmir that included the 37,000 square-kilometer Aksai Chin region (Figure 43), a barren, uninhabited high-altitude (22,000 feet) desert containing salt and soda flats.  However, this delineation, called the Johnson Line (named after William Johnson, a British surveyor), was rejected by the British government.

In 1893, a Chinese official in Kashgar proposed to the British that the Laktsang Range serve as the British India-China border, with the Lingzi Tang Plains to its south to become part of Kashmir and Aksai Chin to its north to become part of China.  The proposal found favor with the British, who in 1899, drew the Macartney-MacDonald Line (named after George Macartney, the British consul-general in Kashgar and Claude MacDonald, a British diplomat), which was presented to the Chinese government.  The latter did not respond, which the British took to mean that the Chinese agreed with the Line.  Thereafter, up until about 1908, British maps of India
featured the Macartney-MacDonald Line (Figure 44) as the China-India border.  However, by the 1920s, the British published new maps using the Johnson Line as the Kashmir-Xinjiang border.

Similarly, British authorities took steps to establish British India’s boundaries with Tibet
and China.  For this purpose, in 1913-1914, in a series of negotiations held in Simla (present-day Shimla in northern India), representatives from China, Tibet, and British India agreed on the territorial limits between “Outer Tibet” and British India.  Outer Tibet
was to be formed as an autonomous Tibetan polity under Chinese suzerainty.  However, the Chinese delegate objected to the proposed border between “Outer Tibet” and “Inner Tibet”, and walked out of the
conference.  Tibetan and British representatives continued with the conference, leading to the Simla Accord (1914) which established the McMahon Line (named after Henry McMahon, the Foreign Secretary of British India). In particular, some 80,000 square kilometers became part of British India, which later was administered as the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA).  The Tawang area, located near the Bhutan-Tibet-India junction, also was ceded to British India and would become a major battleground in the Sino-Indian War.

The Chinese government rejected the Simla Accord, stating that Tibet, as a political
subordinate of China, could not enter into treaties with foreign governments.  The British also initially were averse to implementing the Simla Accord, as it ran contrary to the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention which recognized China’s suzerainty over Tibet.  But with Russia and Britain agreeing to void the 1907 Convention, the British established the McMahon Line (Figure 44) as the Tibet-India border.  By the 1930s, the British government had begun to use the McMahon Line in its British Indian maps.

In August 1947, British rule in India ended with the partition of British India into the independent countries of India and Pakistan.  Meanwhile, for much of the first half of the 20th century, China convulsed in a multitude of conflicts: the Revolution of 1911 which ended 2,000 years of imperial rule; the fracturing of China during the warlord era (1916-1928); the Japanese invasion and occupation of Manchuria in 1931, and then of other parts of China in 1937-1945; and the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) between Communist and Nationalist forces.  By 1949, communist forces had prevailed in the civil war and in October of that year, Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Communist Party of China, proclaimed the formation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The government of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was among the first in the international community to recognize the PRC, and in the years that followed, sought to cultivate strong Indian-Chinese relations.

In the early 1950s, a series of diplomatic and cultural exchanges between India and China led in April 1954 to an eight-year agreement called the Panchsheel Treaty (Sanskrit, panch, meaning five, and sheel, meaning virtues), otherwise known as the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, which was meant to form the basis for good relations between India and China.  The Panscheel five principles are: mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; mutual non-aggression; mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; equality and cooperation for mutual benefit; and peaceful co-existence.  The slogan “Indians and Chinese are brothers” (Hindi: Hindi China bhai bhai) was popular and Prime Minister Nehru advocated a Sino-Indian “Asian Axis” to serve as a counter-balance to the American-Soviet Cold War rivalry.

However, the poorly defined India-China border would overcome these attempts to establish warm bilateral relations.  From the outset, India and China
claimed ownership over Aksai Chin and NEFA.  India released maps that essentially duplicated the British-era maps which showed both areas as part of India.  China likewise claimed sovereignty over these areas, but also stated that as it had not signed any border treaties with the former British Indian government, the India-China border must be resolved through new negotiations.

Two events caused Sino-Indian relations to deteriorate further.  First, in the 1950s, China built a road through Aksai Chin that linked Xinjiang and Tibet.  Second, in 1959, in the aftermath of a failed
Tibetan uprising against the Chinese occupation forces in Tibet, the Indian government provided refuge in India for the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s political and spiritual leader.  Earlier in 1950, China had invaded
and annexed Tibet.  The Indian government had hoped that Tibet would remain an independent state (and a buffer zone between India and China, as it had been in the colonial era), but in the early 1950s period of friendly Sino-Indian relations, India did not
oppose Chinese military action in Tibet.

October 19, 1935 – Interwar period: The League of Nations imposes economic sanctions on Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia

In October 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia, overrunning the country by May 1936 and incorporating it into newly formed Italian East Africa.  On October 19, 1935, the League of Nations, acting on a motion by Britain that was reluctantly supported by France, imposed economic sanctions on Italy, which angered Mussolini, worsening Italy’s relations with its Stresa Front partners, especially Britain.  At the same time, since Hitler gave his support to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, Mussolini was drawn to the side of Germany.  In December 1937, Mussolini ended Italy’s membership in the League of Nations, citing the sanctions, despite the League’s already lifting them in July 1936.

(Taken from Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe)

Italy
in the Interwar Period

In World War I, Italy had joined the Allies under a secret agreement (the 1915 Treaty of London) in that it would be rewarded with the coastal regions of Austria-Hungary after victory was achieved.  But after
the war, in the peace treaties with Austria-Hungary
and Germany, the victorious Allies reneged on this treaty, and Italy was awarded much less territory than promised. Indignation swept across Italy, and the feeling of the so-called “mutilated victory” relating to Italy’s heavy losses in the war (1.2 million casualties and steep financial cost) led to the rise in popularity of ultra-nationalist, right-wing, and irredentist ideas.  Italian anger over the war paved the way for the coming to power of the Fascist Party, whose leader Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister in October 1922.  The Fascist government implemented major
infrastructure and social programs that made Mussolini extremely popular.  In a few years, Mussolini ruled with near absolute powers in a virtual dictatorship, with the legislature abolished, political dissent suppressed, and his party the sole legal political party.  Mussolini also made gains in foreign affairs: in the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923) that ended World War II between the Allies and Ottoman Empire, Italy gained Libya and the Dodecanese Islands.  In August 1923, Italian forces occupied Greece’s Corfu Island, but later withdrew after League of Nations mediation and the Greek government’s
promise to pay reparations.

In the late 1920s onward, Mussolini advocated grandiose expansionism to establish a modern-day Italian Empire, which would include plans to annex Balkan territories that had formed part of the ancient Roman Empire, gaining a sphere of influence in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, achieving mastery over the Mediterranean Sea, and gaining control of North Africa and the Middle East which would include territories stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Indian Ocean in the east.

With the Nazis coming to power in Germany
in 1933, Hitler and Mussolini, with similar political ideologies, initially did not get along well, and in July 1934, they came into conflict over Austria.  There, Austrian Nazis attempted a coup d’état, assassinating Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss and demanding unification with Germany.  Mussolini, who saw Austria as falling inside his sphere of influence, sent troops, tanks, and planes to the Austrian-Italian border, poised to enter Austria if Germany invaded.  Hitler, at this time still unprepared for war, backed down from his plan to annex Austria.  Then in April 1935, Italy banded together with Britain and France to form the Stresa Front (signed in Stresa, Italy), aimed as a united stand against Germany’s violations of the Versailles and Locarno treaties; one month earlier (March 1935), Hitler had announced his plan to build an air force, raise German infantry strength to 550,000 troops, and introduce military conscription, all violations of the Versailles treaty.

However, the Stresa Front quickly ended in fiasco, as the three parties were far apart in their plans to deal with Hitler.  Mussolini pressed for aggressive action; the British, swayed by anti-war public sentiments at home, preferred to negotiate
with Hitler; and France, fearful of a resurgent Germany, simply wanted an alliance with the others. 
Then in June 1935, just two months after the Stresa Front was formed, Britain and Germany signed a naval treaty (the Anglo-German Naval Agreement),
which allowed Germany to build a navy 35% (by tonnage) the size of the British navy.  Italy (as well as France) was outraged, as Britain was openly allowing Hitler to ignore the Versailles provision that restricted German naval size.  Mussolini, whose quest for colonial expansion was only restrained by the reactions from both the British and French, saw the naval agreement as British betrayal to the Stresa Front.  To Mussolini, it was a green light for him to launch his long desired conquest of Ethiopia  (then also known as Abyssinia).  In October 1935, Italy
invaded Ethiopia, overrunning the country by May 1936 and incorporating it into newly formed Italian East Africa.  In November 1935, the League of Nations, acting on a motion by Britain that was reluctantly supported by France, imposed economic sanctions on Italy, which angered Mussolini, worsening Italy’s relations with its Stresa Front
partners, especially Britain.  At the same time, since Hitler gave his support to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, Mussolini was drawn to the side of Germany.  In December 1937, Mussolini ended Italy’s membership in the League of Nations, citing the sanctions, despite the League’s already lifting the sanctions in July 1936.

In January 1936, Mussolini informed the German government that he would not oppose Germany
extending its sphere of influence in Austria (Germany annexed Austria in March 1938).  And in February 1936, Mussolini assured Hitler that Italy would not invoke the Versailles and Locarno treaties if Germany
remilitarized the Rhineland.  In March 1936, Hitler did just that, eliciting no hostile response from Britain
or France.  Then in the Spanish Civil War, which started in July 1936, Italy and Germany provided weapons and troops to the right-wing Nationalist forces that rebelled against the Soviet Union-backed leftist Republican government.  In April 1939, the Nationalists emerged victorious, and their leader General Francisco Franco formed a fascist
dictatorship in Spain.

In October 1936, Italy and Germany signed a
political agreement, and Mussolini announced that “all other European countries would from then on rotate on the Rome-Berlin Axis”, with the term “Axis” later denoting this alliance, which included Japan as well as other minor powers.  In May 1939, German-Italian relations solidified into a formal military alliance, the “Pact of Steel”.  In November 1937, Italy
joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Germany
and Japan signed one year earlier (November 1936), ostensibly only directed against the Communist
International (Comintern), but really targeting communist ideology and by extension, the Soviet Union.  In September 1940, the Axis Powers were
formed, with Germany, Italy, and Japan signing the Tripartite Pact.

In April 1939, Italy invaded Albania (separate
article), gaining full control within a few days, and the country was joined politically with Italy as a separate kingdom in personal union with the Italian crown.  Six months later (September 1939), World War II broke out in Europe, which took Italy completely by surprise.

Despite its status as a major military power, Italy was unprepared for war.  It had a predominantly agricultural economy, and industrial production for
war-convertible commodities amounted to just 15% that of Britain and France.  As well, Italian capacity for war-important items such as coal, crude oil, iron ore, and steel lagged far behind those of other western powers.  In military capability, Italian tanks, artillery, and aircraft were inferior and mostly obsolete, although the Italian Navy was large, ably powerful, and possessed several modern battleships.  Cognizant of Italian military deficiencies, Mussolini placed great efforts to build up armed strength, and by 1939, some 40% of the national budget was allocated to
national defense.  Even so, Italian military planners had projected that full re-armament and building up of their forces would be completed only in 1943; thus, the unexpected start of World War II in September 1939 came as a shock to Mussolini and the Italian High Command.

October 18, 1973 – Yom Kippur War: Israeli forces cross the Suez Canal

An Israeli armored division in the Sinai advanced to the Suez Canal in order to establish a crossing and to protect the Israeli forces in Egypt from being cut off.  Egyptian tank units met the Israeli advance.  In an intense two-day encounter that saw nighttime tank battles at very close range and cost hundreds of soldier deaths and 180 tanks destroyed, Israeli forces succeeded in gaining a toehold on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal.  On October 18, 1973, the Israelis laid down a roller bridge to the other side; soon, infantry and armored units were crossing into Egypt.

The objectives of the Israeli offensives into Egypt were for one armored division to move north and capture the city of Ismailia to cut off Egypt’s Second Army across the Suez Canal, and for another armored division, flanked by an auxiliary third armored unit, to head south and take the city of Suez to isolate the Egypt’s Third Army across the channel.

The Israeli crossings caught the Egyptians off-guard.  Consequently, the Israelis made rapid advance, beating back the Egyptian forces in several battles and penetrating 20 miles into Egypt along a 25-mile axis.  In their drive toward Ismailia, the Israelis overran the Egyptian lines of defense in a series of armored battles.  By October 21, they were within sight of the city.  Egyptian resistance soon intensified, and an Israeli attempt to encircle the city was foiled.  The Israeli offensive finally was stopped ten kilometers off Ismailia.  The Israelis had failed to cut off the Egyptian Second Army whose supply and communication lines to Ismailia remained secure.

Meanwhile, the Israeli advance to the city of Suez saw many tactical, disorganized battles where the Egyptian forces were thrown back.  On October 22, the UN imposed a ceasefire, which was not respected as fighting continued, with the Egyptians and Israelis
accusing each other of continuing hostilities.  The Israelis advanced further south, widening their areas of control and cutting off the Egyptian Third Army in the Sinai.  The Israelis gained control of sections of Suez City; on October 25, an armored unit captured Adabiya, the Israelis’ farthest southward advance.

(Taken from Yom Kippur War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 2)

Background of the Yom Kippur War

With its decisive victory in the Six-Day War (previous article) in June 1967, Israel gained control of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank from Jordan.  The Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights were
integral territories of Egypt and Syria, respectively, and both countries were determined to take them back.  In September 1967, Egypt and Syria, together
with other Arab countries, issued the Khartoum Declaration of the “Three No’s”, that is, no peace, recognition, and negotiations with Israel, which meant that only armed force would be used to win back the lost lands.

Shortly after the Six-Day War ended, Israel offered to return the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights in exchange for a peace agreement, but the plan apparently was not received by Egypt and Syria.  In October 1967, Israel withdrew the offer.

In the ensuing years after the Six-Day War, Egypt carried out numerous small attacks against Israeli military and government targets in the Sinai.  In what is now known as the “War of Attrition”, Egypt was
determined to exact a heavy economic and human toll and force Israel to withdraw from the Sinai.  By way of retaliation, Israeli forces also launched attacks into Egypt.  Armed incidents also took place across Israel’s borders with Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon.  Then, as the United States, which backed Israel,
and the Soviet Union, which supported the Arab countries, increasingly became involved, the two superpowers prevailed upon Israel and Egypt to agree to a ceasefire in August 1970.

In September 1970, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s
hard-line president, passed away.  Succeeding as Egypt’s head of state was Vice-President Anwar Sadat, who began a dramatic shift in foreign policy toward Israel.  Whereas the former regime was staunchly hostile to Israel, President Sadat wanted a diplomatic solution to the Egyptian-Israeli conflict.  In secret meetings with U.S. government officials and a United Nations (UN) representative, President Sadat offered a proposal that in exchange for Israel’s return of the Sinai to Egypt, the Egyptian government would sign a peace treaty with Israel and recognize the Jewish state.

However, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Golda Meir refused to negotiate.  President Sadat, therefore, decided to use military force.  He knew, however, that his armed forces were incapable of dislodging the Israelis from the Sinai.  He decided that an Egyptian military victory on the battlefield, however limited, would compel Israel to see the need for negotiations.  Egypt began preparations for war.  Large amounts of modern weapons were purchased from the Soviet Union.  Egypt restructured its large, but ineffective, armed forces into a competent fighting force.

In order to conceal its war plans, Egypt carried
out a number of ruses.  The Egyptian Army constantly conducted military exercises along the western bank of the Suez Canal, which soon were taken lightly by the Israelis.  Egypt’s persistent war rhetoric eventually was regarded by the Israelis as mere bluff.  Through press releases, Egypt underreported the true strength of its armed forces.  The government also announced maintenance and spare parts problems with its war equipment and the lack of trained personnel to operate sophisticated military hardware.  Furthermore, when President Sadat expelled 20,000 Soviet advisers from Egypt in July 1972, Israel believed that the Egyptian Army’s military capability was weakened seriously.  In fact, thousands of Soviet personnel remained in Egypt and Soviet arms shipments continued to arrive.  Egyptian military planners worked closely and secretly with their Syrian
counterparts to devise a simultaneous two-front attack on Israel.  Consequently, Syria also secretly mobilized for war.

Israel’s intelligence agencies learned many details of the invasion plan, even the date of the attack itself, October 6.  Israel detected the movements of large numbers of Egyptian and Syrian troops, armor, and – in the Suez Canal– bridging equipment.  On October 6, a few hours before Egypt and Syria attacked, the Israeli government called for a mobilization of 120,000 soldiers and the entire Israeli Air Force. 
However, many top Israeli officials continued to believe that Egypt and Syria were incapable of starting a war and that the military movements were just another army exercise.  Israeli officials decided against carrying out a pre-emptive air strike (as Israel had done in the Six-Day War) to avoid being seen as the aggressor.  Egypt and Syria chose to attack on Yom Kippur (which fell on October 6 in 1973), the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, when most Israeli soldiers were on leave.