Making the hard choices between power and principle: The Ogaden War, 1977--1978

In July 1977 Somalia invaded the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, a land to which Somalia laid traditional and historical claim. This struggle might have remained a minor border conflict among small nations on the Horn of Africa were it not for the Cold War. The Soviet Union was heavily involved supplying Ethiopia huge quantities of equipment and personnel. The United States, however, was notable only in its absence. The goal of the paper is to reveal the causes and effects of United States policy in response to the Ogaden War. Drawing primarily on both Soviet government documents released through the Cold War International History Project and U.S. government documents from the Carter Presidential Library, this paper will remedy the lack of coverage of U.S. policy towards the Horn during the Ogaden War and detail the inner workings of the Carter administration. It will highlight the vacillating policy of the United States government during this crisis, and put forth the split between Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski as the major cause of this indecision. The U.S. State Department, as represented by Vance, placed great emphasis on regional issues such as irredentism and nationalism, while Brzezinski and the National Security Council stressed global issues such as the increase of Soviet influence in such a volatile area of the world. Carter's hesitancy to choose between these two competing viewpoints had devastating consequences for his administration, including the loss of public confidence and creating a belief in the Kremlin that the United States would not react in a strong manner to any Soviet actions in the Third world.