Confronting the Colonies (31 page)

In accordance with the role of strategic intelligence in previous insurgencies, JIC assessments continued to augment local intelligence reporting by assessing the threat in the broader regional context. This was particularly important as the conflict signified a broader battle over the future of the Arabian Gulf, and was won in part through regional diplomacy and the cultivation of alliances.
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In such a context, intelligence assessments internationalising the conflict would have been important in helping policy practitioners to appreciate all relevant
factors when making decisions that crossed departmental boundaries. How did Dhofari developments impact upon broader British interests? The two major external contexts, against which the JIC assessed the local conflict, were the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf and external South Yemeni support.

The JIC did not view the Middle East through a disproportionately strong Cold War filter in the early 1970s. The committee concluded in 1968 that Soviet influence in the Persian Gulf was ‘negligible' and predicted that the Soviet Union ‘will probably not seek to establish influence on a large scale in the Gulf'. In 1971, the JIC again predicted that ‘we do not think the Gulf will be a major theatre of Soviet activity', despite the potential for cautious Soviet opportunism.
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Illustrating an evolution from the early ubiquity of the Cold War framework, the British tended to view the Dhofari conflict more in relation to the Persian Gulf as a whole. That is to say that Oman was internationalised but within a broader policy framework as opposed to a threat framework. Policymakers and intelligence officials were far more concerned about withdrawal and its impact on British interests and regional stability. On discussing the urgency of the situation in February 1970, the JIC warned that ‘there could be considerable repercussions throughout the Gulf if the situation in Dhofar seriously deteriorated'. Two years later the committee again assessed that ‘the prospects for Oman are bound up with the prospects for the area as a whole'.
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Such thinking can be traced back to June 1968 when the JIC reported on the likely developments in the Persian Gulf and their probable effects on British interests. Although the committee suggested that current levels of subversion in the region were unlikely to affect the oil flow, intelligence warned that instability could ‘snowball to large proportions [as…] instability breeds instability and one threat to our interests can easily lead to another'.
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Similarly, the political resident in the Persian Gulf warned the JIC about the potential of a ‘domino process' stemming from unrest in Oman.
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Domino theory provides a regular theme across JIC thinking—much as it had done within a communist context regarding Malaya. Echoing the political resident, the JIC further warned that ‘if the Sultan were to lose control of the situation in Dhofar, where
subversion is likely to continue, the trouble might spread for example to Inner Oman'.
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This conceivably could then have spread beyond Omani borders and destabilised other states, thereby forming a more severe threat to British interests. The JIC did not conceptualise Dhofar as an isolated problem.

More specifically, British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf formed the most prominent regional context through which JIC thinking about Dhofar was filtered. Demonstrating interesting parallels with British withdrawal from Aden, both the orderly British retreat and British designs for the post-Pax Britannica legacy were threatened by local insurgency. As Clive Jones and John Stone note, London was attempting to ‘cohere the Trucial States […] into a single state structure—eventually to become the United Arab Emirates'. These designs ‘would be threatened by the success of an insurgency in neighbouring Oman inspired by an ideology antithetical to the concept of a nation state grouped around tribal hierarchies'.
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The JIC took such concerns seriously. The committee ‘had been charged by the Chiefs of Staff with the task of keeping the situation in the Persian Gulf under review in the context of planning for the withdrawal of British forces'.
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It is within this broader context that JIC assessments of Dhofar must be understood. In a widely distributed assessment on military withdrawal for example, the committee warned that growing instability in the Trucial States caused by a potential long-term postponement of withdrawal would impact, albeit indirectly, upon the security of Oman. It ‘would make it more difficult in the medium-term for the new Sultan to pursue his hitherto promising attempts to cope with subversion at home'.
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Ten months later in September 1971, the JIC again considered the threat to the orderly British withdrawal from the Gulf. Within this broader analytical framework, the committee not only offered an assessment of the internal threat facing Oman but also considered the impact beyond the Sultanate's borders. Applied to the broader British withdrawal, the report warned that ‘probably the main subversive danger lies in the emergence of PFLOAG as an effective force in the northern Trucial States'.
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Although Harold Maguire, director-general of intelligence in the MoD, later stated that the report ‘possibly overstated' the strength and unity of local subversive organisations,
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this assessment again indicates JIC use of domino theory and the threat of the insurgency to Britain's ultimate geopolitical designs.

Even after British withdrawal, the regional context and fear of the spread of instability remained prominent in intelligence assessments. For example, in April 1974, the committee warned, ‘if the Sultan fell, the fall of other traditional Gulf regimes might follow'. This was emphasised yet again at the end of the year when the JIC stressed that ‘the survival of Sultan Qaboos is a critical factor in the future of Oman which is, in turn, fundamental to the stability of the Gulf as a whole'. Intelligence singled out the United Arab Emirates as particularly vulnerable should instability from Dhofar spread.
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History has shown that levels of external assistance can be crucial in determining the success of an insurgency. Intelligence must therefore understand the type and nature of external support in order to fully appreciate the severity of the threat and to decipher how best to counter it. Such questions, however, pose challenges for intelligence assessments regarding the type of support, the relationship between internal and external actors, levels of local autonomy and whether an overarching threat framework is creating a distorting prism.

Regarding Dhofar, strategic intelligence assessed the conflict within the regional framework of external assistance: both to the Sultan and the rebels. Enjoying more success with the latter, the committee erroneously concluded in 1972 that Iran would not assist the Sultan due to Arabian suspicion about Iranian regional ambitions. The committee predicted that ‘it seems highly unlikely … that he [Qaboos] would ever accept Iranian military support in dealing with the Dhofar rebellion'.
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Iranian Special Forces became involved later that year.

Regarding external assistance to the rebels, the JIC's considerations of the usual suspects proved more accurate. Despite the bitter experiences in Aden, Egypt barely figured in JIC discussions after 1970. By October of that year, Anwar Sadat had replaced Britain's old nemesis Gamal Abdel Nasser as president of Egypt and sought better relations with the British and Saudi Arabia.
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After Nasser's death, the Dhofari rebels lacked Egyptian support and the JIC wisely moved on to other suspects accordingly.

After some initial concern, the JIC also grew increasingly relaxed about Soviet influence in Dhofar. It argued that the objectives of the
Soviet Union and nationalist revolutionary Arab regimes did not always coincide due to ‘Muslim antipathy to communism'.
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In general, the JIC initially pointed to indirect Soviet assistance channelled via South Yemen. For example in 1970, intelligence indicated that the Soviet Union had ‘given training to small groups of rebels in Aden and [had] provided arms and ammunition'. A year later the committee added that Soviet support in the form of ‘small financial assistance' to the rebels was channelled through South Yemen. Soviet assistance was, however, deemed ‘limited'.
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Evidence is mixed as to whether the JIC was right not to focus too heavily on indirect Soviet assistance. As Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin note, ‘Despite its early hopes of turning the PDRY into an Arab beacon of “scientific socialism”, Moscow found South Yemen an almost constant headache',
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and there is no mention of any aid being sent directly or indirectly towards Dhofar. Similarly, according to Geraint Hughes, the Soviets gradually curtailed assistance to ‘national liberation' movements in the Gulf in the early 1970s.
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Contrasting starkly with the Cold War fears permeating assessments of earlier insurgencies, this view is certainly reflected in the intelligence assessments. By contrast, however, Marc DeVore has more recently argued that from 1971 the Soviet Union (along with Cuba) became the rebellion's ‘principal purveyor' of weaponry and training.
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A similar pattern exists regarding the Chinese—although Chinese assistance was deemed to be more direct than the Soviets'. The JIC argued that the Chinese had provided material and instructional support and that some Dhofari rebels had visited China for training. In 1970, intelligence feared that Chinese help was in fact increasing. Like Soviet support, however, it appears that Chinese assistance subsequently declined as a result of increased Sino-Soviet hostilities and China's rapprochement with the West and Iran after 1972.
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This left South Yemen as the primary source of external assistance to the insurgents. Many intelligence assessments of the situation in Dhofar accordingly placed the violence squarely in the context of activity from across the border. What is interesting, however, is the relationship between South Yemen and the Dhofari rebels. Did intelligence assessments continue to deny local actors any agency and see an external actor as a puppeteer of the insurgency? There is little doubt that South Yemen supported the insurgency in Dhofar. Diplomatically they attempted to
block Omani entry into the United Nations in 1971 and engaged in other lobbying activities, but also provided funding, logistics, sanctuary and even volunteers.
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The JIC grew aware of the enhanced threat from South Yemen shortly after the creation of the new state in 1967. Following the new government's speedy assertion that ‘we will be backing the revolution in Dhofar',
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British sources kept the levels of South Yemeni assistance closely under review. In early 1968 a report by the political resident in the Persian Gulf, informed the JIC that the establishment of South Yemen ‘has enhanced the risk' of support from across the border and vowed that ‘every possible watch has been kept for evidence of active support'. As such, the regional Joint Intelligence Staff based in Bahrain began to report that the South Yemenis were ‘at least supplying' the rebels with arms, but admitted a lack of exoteric evidence.
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FCO officials in London added to this perception. They warned that ‘the more embittered and isolated the Southern Yemeni regime may feel, the more tempted it may be to lash out and demonstrate revolutionary zeal by trying to do something about the Gulf […] Its own capacity for this is extremely limited. But when it comes to material assistance to the dissidents in Dhofar in particular, it may have a fair capacity to deploy'.
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Collating and building on these departmental and local assessments, JIC investigations into external support for the Dhofari rebels increasingly focused on South Yemen. Strategic intelligence strongly emphasised the importance of the external context and the influential role of the South Yemeni government. Despite admitting that intelligence on South Yemeni affairs and intentions was very limited, the JIC warned that the new government ‘openly support[ed]' the rebels in Dhofar. South Yemen provided valuable logistic aid and the use of Yemeni bases. FCO officials grew increasingly concerned and in December 1971 emphasised the urgency of the Yemeni threat to the JIC.
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Shortly afterwards the JIC strengthened its original assessment and argued that South Yemeni influence had become a ‘vital factor' in maintaining the rebellion. The JIC now thought that the leftist government provided money, arms, ammunition, training facilities, political and propaganda support, and base facilities for the rebels. Furthermore, assistance was becoming increasingly open and the government was, according to the JIC, providing £250,000 annually.
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This paper reached Alec Douglas-Home, then foreign secretary, and was directly used in a conference hosted by the chief of the defence staff in March 1972.
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One month later the JIC reiterated the warning. Growing increasingly alarmed, intelligence now counselled that South Yemen was ‘dedicated to the removal of traditionalist regimes in the area' and would continue to support the Dhofari rebels.
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Subsequently, the committee regularly monitored assistance from South Yemen for the duration of the violence and later concluded that men from the South Yemen security forces were fighting with the rebels as so-called volunteers, both within insurgent units and self-contained units. Interestingly, and demonstrating parallels with earlier assessments of Egypt, the JIC dismissed any conventional threat (such as air strikes) from across the border to aid the insurgents.
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