American military advisers were in many countries, and ASEAN officers trained in hundreds in the United States. American military aid to ASEAN members went up by 250 per cent to some $7.5 million in the five years up to 1980 and was to more than double in the four years after that.
There were military links with other countries too. Indonesia, as an island chain, concentrated largely on sea and air forces, buying in 1980 three missile corvettes from the Netherlands, four missile ships from South Korea and two submarines from West Germany, together with fighter aircraft from Britain as well as from the United States. Malaysia bought frigates from Germany and mine counter-measures vessels from Italy. Military facilities were expanded too, notably in Malaysia. A new air base was built in Kelantan state, facing the Gulf of Siam, which became operative in 1983. A new naval port was also built in Perak state on the Strait of Malacca, which opened in 1984.
So ASEAN military strength grew with the heightened awareness of the need for it, and with this the transformation towards a military grouping slowly developed. Staff talks, with shared exercises and intelligence, paved the way militarily. Thailand, most threatened, and Singapore, most conservative and realistic, led the way politically, with Malaysia coming along more slowly. Indonesia had a special reluctance to draw nearer to China, remembering past Chinese involvement in the activities of the Indonesian Communist Party — which were, it must be said, brutally put down. But no country was quite sure about Chinese aims; after all, Peking would not renounce support for communist elements in South-East Asia despite its wish to be on good terms with governments. As an overtly communist state aspiring to the leadership of the Third World, perhaps such a renunciation was simply not thinkable to the ideologically pure in Peking, even if their more pragmatic colleagues saw that other things were much more important for the time being.
By early 1985, ASEAN, after feeling its way for some time, had become a reluctant but none the less real military alliance. The struggle in Indochina had in the meantime been continuing, with various insurgent factions managing to survive, even to prosper, on the strength of arms and other help reaching them from China via Thailand. Vietnam had something like 250,000 men tied down by Kampuchean guerrillas and more men were occupied trying to maintain control of Laos, where again China was giving active help. There were constant clashes with Chinese troops along the common border, which suited Peking very well since it locked up large numbers of the best Vietnamese troops and prevented them from being used against the Kampucheans and Laotians.
In short, Vietnam was bogged down. The economic strain was huge and Moscow, angry at Hanoi's total unwillingness not only to listen to advice but even to accept that it might be needed, began to keep it on short supplies as a means of applying leverage. Military material was carefully rationed on one excuse or another; spare parts for the almost entirely Soviet-made equipment were limited and slow in arriving. The Soviet Union had become disenchanted with the lack of success of the South-East Asian venture and was alarmed at the way ASEAN had now banded itself together in open opposition. It is possible, just possible, that Soviet pressure might eventually have forced some compromise or change of course on Hanoi, on the hard-faced leadership there which had known no other life but that of armed struggle to attain its own ends. But war now broke out in Europe. Soviet supplies almost instantly dried up; Soviet forces left; the ships in Cam Ranh Bay scurried off. The whole political scene changed dramatically.
When war came to Europe, the nations in Asia were immediately fearful that it would come there too, for surely the conflict would spread around the world. American and Soviet warships both put to sea at once. Merchant vessels made for the nearest safe port. Defences everywhere went on the alert. Diplomats worked feverishly. Nobody knew quite what to expect. They simply feared the worst, as people will.
The Soviet Union faced the most difficult problems. Though Europe was the primary theatre, the vital one in which the war against the Western Alliance would be won or lost, the Soviet Union had to remain fully on guard in Asia too. There it was confronted by China, an implacable enemy whose military strength had steadily been improving. Chinese weapon systems and formations were no match for those of the Soviet forces but their numbers were huge. The Soviet Union, accustomed to using men in mass, found it profoundly disturbing to face vastly superior masses. The thinly populated Soviet Far Eastern territories were vulnerable to long-term Chinese expansionism and Moscow was not a little aware of the political and cultural appeal that China might exert, if things went badly for the Soviet Union, on the peoples of the Soviet Asian republics.
Soviet foreign policy in Asia had long been dominated by the need to contain China. Since 1969 strong forces had been built up along the 4,000-mile border, amounting to almost a quarter of the Red Army, around fifty divisions in all. They were there simply to defend the border, to prevent China from altering it by force (it was disputed in many places) and to see that if fighting did break out the Soviet Union would get the better of it. There was no intention of using them to mount an invasion of China: that would be to fight the way Peking wanted it. The Chinese would welcome the chance to draw an attacker deep into their often brutally inhospitable country and then wear him down with an inexhaustible supply of hardy defenders. That was not Moscow's idea at all.
There was the United States to worry about as well. The US Seventh Fleet had recovered considerably from a low point after the Vietnam war and had now built up its strength once more. It had the advantage of being able to operate from forward bases in the western Pacific, giving it a flexibility that the Soviet Pacific Fleet with its own limited bases and virtually no allies did not have. The new US
It was very much the fault of the Soviet Union that Japan had in the late 1970s and early 1980s begun to change its security policy. As Soviet military strength in the Far East increased it was impossible in Japan to ignore its presence. Soviet garrisons were built up in the Northern Islands which Japan claimed as her own; Soviet aircraft infringed Japanese airspace; Soviet naval activity was prominent. Overt Soviet support for Vietnam and markedly insensitive Soviet diplomacy towards Tokyo in the wake of the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty of August 1978, an obvious sign of displeasure, created in Japan a distinct awareness that the world around it was no longer benign. Public consent for an increase in defence spending, so grudgingly given in the past, slowly emerged. A programme of modernization was started, notably in the maritime and air self-defence forces, which quickly picked up speed, aided by the ability of Japanese industry to deliver the goods. A sense of nationalism, of being under threat, began to take over. As always in Japan, when a consensus had been formed, change was swift. The maritime self-defence force acquired an anti-ship capacity and took over sea control of the Sea of Japan and out into the open sea lanes, freeing the US Navy for offensive tasks. The air self-defence force, re-equipped with F-15
By late 1984, when acute East-West tensions were inexorably leading to world war, the strategic setting in Asia was not at all in the Soviet favour, despite her own force expansion. While the Soviet leaders could feel with some reason that events in the Middle East and Africa were moving their way and could feel confident about the outcome of a war in Europe, about Asia they had real doubts. Soviet strategy was therefore plain: try to keep the region quiet. China and Japan must be persuaded that it was in their interest to keep out of any war between the Soviet Union and the United States. If that did not prove to be possible, China would have to be contained until the war in Europe was won. It could then be dealt with, and harshly. But at all costs there must be no war on two fronts.
Moscow was, on the other hand, more than happy to have the United States involved in such a difficulty. At some quite early point in 1985 — just when is not quite clear — a Soviet emissary went to North Korea to press the leadership there to be ready to take, at the least, some military action against the South, at best to launch a full- scale war at the right moment. The idea was an ingenious one. It would draw US forces to Korea, men who might otherwise go to the Gulf or Europe. The US Navy would have to get their equipment there, which would hamper its operations in the Indian Ocean. A large number of US aircraft would be tied down in Korea and Japan. As a bonus it would present China with a dilemma: should it give help to North Korea, a communist state and an old ally, but at the cost of opposing the United States and thus indirectly aiding the Soviet Union; or refuse help, in which case North Korea would become a Soviet client? Japan, too, would have to decide whether to allow the United States unfettered use of bases in Japan. If it did and China helped North Korea, that would set Japan and China at odds with each other, which would be good for the Soviet Union. If Japan refused to allow use of the bases this would cripple US support of South Korea and split the United States and Japan. All in all, the Soviet Union had much to gain if trouble could be started in the Korean peninsula.
