Operation Danube and NATO. Dissenting opinion of France
Tenacious clichés: tanks marched through Prague, but did they march in truth?
In previous materials, we talked about the events that took place in the vastness of Asia during the period of the agony of South Vietnam, which buried US hopes of creating an anti-communist outpost in the soft underbelly of the Asia-Pacific region. Now I propose to move to Europe and remember the Prague Spring and Operation Danube, especially since this summer 55 years have passed since those events.
This article will not talk about their details, which are covered in detail in scientific, journalistic and memoir literature (although there are enough stereotypes in the public perception of the “Danube”, take the contrast: “good” A. Dubcek and “bad” G. Gusak, no matter what does not in any way reflect historical realities, as their exalted cliché does not reflect: “Tanks they are walking through Prague, tanks are walking through the truth, which is not a newspaper”).
The focus of our attention will be the reaction of the leading Western European powers and the United States to the events of August 1968, in the context of their difficult relationships within the North Atlantic Alliance, which intensified during the period under review. This material is about France.
Let me note: I understand that the Prague Spring was determined by internal reasons (although, I would like to emphasize once again, they are not identical to the stereotypes mentioned above imposed under Gorbachevism). However, it would be absurd to deny the desire of the United States to take advantage of the almost opened opportunity to level the balance of power between NATO and the Warsaw Warfare, by knocking out such a strategically important country from the socialist bloc as Czechoslovakia.
American analysts could not help but consider the possible (and hardly distant) integration of this republic into NATO (in fact, it seemed possible to do this through the conclusion of a bilateral American-Czechoslovak treaty) with the subsequent deployment of American MRBMs, as well as conventional weapons, on our borders.
Non-lyrical digression about Havel
But before turning to the topic stated in the title, I will allow myself to make a small digression and briefly touch on the personality of V. Havel - as a kind of potential alternative to G. Husak. It is a great honor to dedicate an entire article to an absurdist playwright; but a few paragraphs is just right.
So, the implementation of the above scenario would require the CIA to initiate the Velvet Revolution twenty years earlier. But nothing: Havel was already dissident then and fought for everything good against everything bad, to put it simply: I believe that even in 1968 he could well have become a passionate and, perhaps, even sincere spokesman for American interests in Prague, which, in fact, is what he did, being president.
I suppose I would call bombs falling on the heads of Vietnamese women, old people and children and napalm burning people alive as humanitarian actions. Why not? Or would Ho Chi Minh not look like a dictator in Havel’s eyes?
No, Havel later denied the words he said regarding the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, but here is a link to the Russian translation of his interview, given in a scientific article by E. G. Zadorozhnyuk, a specialist in Central and South-Eastern Europe:
I think that there is an element in the NATO invasion of Kosovo that no one can doubt: the air attacks, the bombs, are not caused by material interests. Their character is exclusively humanitarian, the main role is played by the principles of human rights (the last havel passage, you see, is “beautiful” - Author’s note).
The author provided the quote with an exhaustive comment:
These words did not belong to the US President, not to the “hawks” from NATO, not to the leaders of Muslim groups. They were spoken by the head of a small Slavic country in the very center of Europe, a humanist politician who came from a theatrical background.
Or here are some more lines from the same work:
Subsequently, he sounded his blessings on the aggressive policies of the West - in Iraq and Libya, passionate calls to move the military-political NATO bloc to the borders of Russia with Ukraine and even Belarus (after having overthrown the “dictatorship” there and “returning this country to Europe” after Ukraine, regardless of any costs). He supported Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia and the ideological activation of anti-Russian forces in Ukraine on the eve of 2014. There are almost no exceptions in this regard: Havel did not lose his “taste” for sharp pro-NATO escapades until his death.
In a word, there should be no illusions about the pro-American course of Czechoslovakia, should an absurdist playwright or someone like him sit in the presidential chair. And he could have sat down completely.
All. This is where the non-lyrical digression ends.
Czechoslovakia: the unrealizability of the Austrian path
One could not expect coordinated actions by NATO, if the troops of the Warsaw Warsaw countries had not entered the country, and Prague, on the contrary, turned to Brussels for military support. For there was a more significant obstacle to the integration of Czechoslovakia into the military structure of Western Europe (I emphasize again - not necessarily formal entry into the alliance; although the Austrian path was not feasible for Czechoslovakia - its location was too advantageous). This obstacle lay within the block itself.
“Defense in all azimuths” as a special way of France
In the second half of the sixties, he was going through hard times, and if not a split, then a crack definitely appeared in him. We are talking, first of all, about de Gaulle, who was not going to tolerate the Anglo-Saxon dictatorship in NATO, and therefore by 1968, the headquarters of the alliance had been settling into a new place in Brussels for two years, where it was forced to move from Paris at the request of the founder of the Fifth Republic, at the same time who expelled NATO military bases from his home.
But okay, moving and bases. De Gaulle adopted the concept of defense along all azimuths as the French military doctrine. Her heart :
The nuclear strategy of France (the Fifth Republic became a nuclear power in 1963 - Author's note), the strategy of "defense in all azimuths" (developed by Chief of the General Staff Ayer, de Gaulle approved) was purely national. The essence of “defense in all azimuths” is the ability of the French armed forces everywhere on earth to launch a nuclear strike on any point on the planet, and thereby the role of France to reduce the influence of the United States and separate its foreign policy from NATO policy. The "all-azimuth defense" strategy was France's radical bid for independence from NATO. Moreover, she did not consider the USSR as the main enemy, which undermined the foundations of Atlanticism.
De Gaulle did not see the USSR as an enemy
And how could a general see the main enemy in Moscow when he was delighted with the reception he received from us - in 1966 (in the same year A.N. Kosygin visited France on a return visit), and at the same time became convinced of the military power of the USSR, becoming a witness to the launch of an ICBM (hence the joke with the question asked to L.I. Brezhnev and the subsequent answer; however, it is unlikely that such a dialogue took place in reality:
General: Is the same missile aimed at Paris?
Leonid Ilyich with a smile: Don’t worry. Not this one.
Even earlier, in 1959, de Gaulle came up with the concept of Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok, in a sense resuscitating the ideas of the German geopolitician K. Haushofer, which I wrote about at one time in article "Samurai from the Third Reich":
Of course, such a concept was at odds with the doctrinal guidelines of the alliance. Their essence was expressed in an extremely concise form by the First Secretary General, Lord D. Ismay:
NATO exists to keep the Americans in Europe, the Soviets out of Europe, and the Germans under Europe.
This Anglo-Saxon vision of not only the bloc itself, but also the balance of power within the West was at odds with ideas about Europe and de Gaulle’s place in it, and, in fact, created that very crack within the alliance, which cast doubt on the possibility of its consolidated armed action (speech not about the war with us, but about the occupation of Czechoslovakia) in the context of the reaction to the Prague Spring.
We will talk about the position of the Germans, who did not want to be under Europe, in the next article. The founder of the Fifth Republic no longer wanted to see Americans in Europe, and in the role of masters.
Paris: return to the old strategy in Eastern Europe
At the same time, it would be wrong to see in de Gaulle a champion of Moscow’s excessive dominance in the Warsaw Pact. Against the backdrop of student unrest that was shaking France - and at the same time shaking the general’s power - and pushing the international agenda into the background at the Elysee Palace, the general found time to visit the Romanian embassy on August 23, 1968, on the 24th anniversary of the country’s break with Nazi Germany. This day was celebrated in Romania as a national holiday.
De Gaulle wanted, according to A. S. Stykalin, a specialist in the modern history of Central and South-Eastern Europe,
to cheer up at a difficult moment (N. Ceausescu seriously feared Soviet intervention in Romania following Czechoslovakia - Author's note) representatives of the country known as the traditional stronghold of French cultural, and to some extent, political influence in eastern Europe.
The French leader, who withdrew his country from the military structure of NATO while maintaining its membership in the political bodies of this treaty, considered a similar model of relations applicable for Romania as a member of the Warsaw Warfare, corresponding to its (and indirectly French) state interests.
The French leader, who withdrew his country from the military structure of NATO while maintaining its membership in the political bodies of this treaty, considered a similar model of relations applicable for Romania as a member of the Warsaw Warfare, corresponding to its (and indirectly French) state interests.
The general’s position is quite logical: since he has taken up the task of reviving France as a great power, he must revive its traditional policy in Eastern Europe. Its marker from the XNUMXth century: the creation of a bloc of states allied to the Bourbons (in this century: the Ottoman Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden), designed to put pressure from three sides on France’s main geopolitical rival in Europe – the Austrian Habsburg monarchy.
And in the pre-war period, under the auspices of the Third Republic, the Little Entente was formed from the countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, precisely to prevent the revival of Austria-Hungary and level out Germany’s possible claims to military restoration and dominance in Europe.
Please note that the general does not call on Bucharest to break, like Albania, with the ATS, but recommends that it follow the path of Paris, which, in general, does not contradict the concept of Europe from Lisbon and Vladivostok. Actually, Bucharest partly occupied a status similar to Paris in NATO in the Warsaw Pact.
Accordingly, France’s position on August 21, 1968, looked logical when it joined the United States, England, Canada, Denmark and Paraguay in speaking at the UN Security Council demanding the immediate withdrawal of troops from the Warsaw Warsaw countries. But this does not at all mean that Paris will subsequently support the prospects of NATO intervention in Czechoslovakia, even if Washington initiates its discussion in Brussels.
Yes, de Gaulle condemned the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia, but primarily because it was at odds with his vision of the ever-increasing political role of France in Eastern Europe. Let’s just say that Operation Danube, in the general’s view, upset not so much the balance of power (an American intervention could have upset it), but rather the balance of Soviet-French (as the general understood them) interests in the region.
However, the change of course of the possible Czechoslovak government, after the Soviet Union delayed sending in troops, from socialist to capitalist (that is, pro-American), suited the then owner of the Elysee Palace even less.
De Gaulle was hardly afraid of the strengthening of the communist movement oriented towards the USSR, since consideredthat its pace
lost, economic growth in Western Europe by that time contributed to political stability, the position of communism there was weak. By that time, decentralization had emerged in the world communist movement.
The CIA also testified to the difficult relations within the alliance itself. But more on this in the next article.
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