EASTERN EUROPE IS JUGOSLAVIA NEXT IN RUSSIAN INVASION PLANS ?

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31830, 7 November 1968, Page 10

EASTERN EUROPE IS JUGOSLAVIA NEXT IN RUSSIAN INVASION PLANS ?

(By the East Europe correspondent of the “Economist”) (Reprinted bu arrangement) The beginning of a withdrawal of some of the Warsaw pact forces from Czechoslovakia is cold comfort for anybody in eastern Europe. It has certainly not reassured the Jugoslavs. There are many people in Jugoslavia who believe that the Russians may be planning an invasion of their country next, perhaps as soon as next spring.

It is true that, so long as the Russians are trying to cover up their invasion of Czechoslovakia with a veneer of respectability, they are unlikely to plunge into any further military adventures in South-East Europe. But the threat would become much more dangerously imminent if they were forced to impose on the Czechs either an undisguised military government or a puppet government entirely dependent on the occupation forces. Worrying Discontent

There can be little doubt that the Russians are seriously worried by the simmering restlessness and discontent throughout eastern Europe; and it is possible that they are thinking of putting what they regard as their house in order by making an example of the oldest rebels, the Jugoslavs. Until the original source of the infection is dealt with, they may be arguing, the threat to the survival of the Soviet system will remain. Those in the Kremlin who are in favour of this course can point to the possibility of serious conflict on the Siberian-Chinese borders as an additional argument for cleaning up Russia’s western flank now.

The Jugoslavs are inevitably alarmed by the new Russian doctrine of a “socialist commonwealth," which has been concocted in an attempt to explain and justify the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The doctrine could also be used to justify ah invasion of other socialist countries which Moscow chooses to think have strayed from the strict and narrow socialist path. The Jugoslavs would like to know whether this doctrine applies to all socialist countries, or only to members of the Warsaw pact

Tito Has No Illusions > President Tito, at any rate, has no illusions about what the Russians think of his road to socialism. In a fighting speech at Leskovac he declared roundly that the Russians “do not like our social order, they do not like our system, they do not like our road to socialism and communism, they do not like our democracy." But he went on to make short shrift of what he called the theory “that sovereignty was not vital for small nations”—by which he meant the “socialist

commonwealth” theory—and to reaffirm yet again his belief in the virtues of nonalignment. If the Russians did invade Jugoslavia, they might go through Rumania first; but if they could bully the Rumanians into compliance (partly by means of subversion) they might be glad to avoid an armed invasion of difficult terrain which they would then have to garrison. The obvious route for an invasion of Jugoslavia is the north-south stretch of the Danube over the Hungarian plain and into the Voivodina. Perhaps a slice of Transylvanian territory, taken from a cowed Rumania, would console Mr Kadar for an operation he would certainly dislike but be powerless to prevent. Would Resist Invasion There is no doubt at all that the Jugoslavs, unlike the Czechs, would resist an invasion. Jugoslav spokesmen have repeatedly made this clear. President Tito did so again recently when he said that “whoever tries to jeopardise our independence and sovereignty will encounter an iron wall of our peoples.” It was not an idle boast. Preparations have been made to mount a defensive guerrilla operation against the invaders. Reservists have been called up and arms have been distributed to almost every able-bodied man. The fact that reservists are

allowed to keep their arms and uniforms at home suggests that the authorities, like those in Switzerland, have complete confidence in the unity of the country in face of a foreign invasion: there is no reason to think that this confidence would turn out to be misplaced. The Jugoslavs do not have —any more than the Czechs had in August—any hope of mutfh western help in the event of an invasion. But that has not prevented them from making discreet soundings, at the United Nations and elsewhere, about what the west’s attitude would be if the Russians sent their tanks into Jugoslavia. The Jugoslavs are in fact no more anxious for an overt guarantee than the N.A.T.O. powers would be anxious to give one; it would upset President Tito's cherished policy of non-alignment and would give Russia an excuse to accuse the west of aggressive intentions. U.S. Assurances But this does not mean that they are not very happy to have ass ances that America is interested in the maintenance of Jugoslav independence. President Johnson gave clear public assurances to this effect last month and then sent his Under Secretary of State, Mr Nicholas Katzenbach, to Belgrade to make his attitude even clearer.

To the N.A.T.O. planners, after all, Jugoslavia is in a different category from Czechoslovakia: it is not a mem >er of the Warsaw pact and it would provide the would-be conqueror with an outlet to the Mediterranean. If Moscow is convinced that the N.A.T.O. powers could not, and would not, “remain indifferent” to a Russian invasion of Jugoslavia, even that vague phrase is a kind of deterrent. Mr Katzenbach is also believed to have told the Jugoslavs that any requests for economic aid or arms deliveries would be sympathetically considered by his government. The Jugoslavs, who are said to have already received some equipment from West Germany, may cautiously take this up. They are worried about the economic consequences of having to keep the country in a state of military preparedness for a long time. They are also worried by the fact that a large part of their military equipment is Russian. Artificial Crisis?

Some Jugoslavs believe that a direct invasion of Jugoslavia is less likely than the engineering of an artificial crisis between Belgrade and Sofia over the disputed territory of Jugoslav Macedonia, which would lead to a Bulgarian request to Russia for military assistance against Jugoslavia; the continuous polemics in the Bulgarian press over Macedonia lend some weight to this theory. According to yet another theory, the Russians are not contemplating any kind of invasion for the time being. They are content to wait, burrowing subversively among the ethnic antagonisms of Jugoslavia (and Rumania) until Jugoslavia falls apart and leaves Rumania an easy prey.

Another reason for waiting may be the hope that, after the death or retirement of President Tito, it may be possible to secure a more orthodox pro-Russian regime in Belgrade. But if the Russians do prefer to follow a waiting game this will not make the situation in the Balkans any less uncertain and hazardous for the west. It will merely make it easier for the N.A.T.O. powers to fall into a state of dangerous complacency.