Throughout human history, not a single military plan has been fully implemented, something always interfered. Either the weather turned out to be unsuitable, then the enemy suddenly acted unpredictably or showed excessive stamina, which it was not possible to foresee, then something else was happening. Sometimes operations, and even entire wars, were simply postponed or canceled for reasons beyond the control of the headquarters. But, despite all this, plans are still drawn up, because it is absolutely impossible without them. This is being done now, and there is nothing special about it, such is the service of the defense departments all over the world.
Recently, the term for the secrecy of US directives developed in the second half of the fifties of the last century, that is, 60 years ago, was released. These documents have lost their strategic importance, but, of course, are of great interest today. In particular, because they mention Ukraine.
Huge plans
There is nothing supernatural in the fact that the Pentagon was developing plans for operations in the territory of the former USSR. Of course, ideological front workers could object and argue that the published documents serve as further evidence of the aggressive nature of American imperialism, which seeks … Well, and so on. This is all true, however, it should be borne in mind that in the Soviet Union, staff workers, generals and marshals also did not sit idly by, but drew arrows on the maps pointing in different directions. For example, in the event of a conflict, the troops of the KODVO were supposed to rapidly occupy the territories of several countries at once, including fraternal socialist and quite even capitalist ones, right up to the oil-bearing regions of the Middle East. That is why the Odessa military district was so large and serious. Fortunately, all these plans, and American ones,and the Soviet ones were never put into action. But they were, and now there is no one to be offended, and no one at all. It's not about them, but about some of the features of the analytics for which the US Central Intelligence Agency was responsible. This is really very interesting.
Promotional video:
Study content
Even then, in the fifties, American strategists were aware of the fact that the success of any military operation essentially depends on how hostile the local population will be in relation to the invasion forces. The declassified document is entitled Resistance Factors And Special Forces Areas. Ukraine (U) (Factors of resistance and area of action of special forces. Ukraine). It is dated August 1957, contains 200 pages of text and is mainly an analysis of the levels of loyalty of the inhabitants of the Ukrainian SSR to the occupation authorities in the event of the probable occupation of the territory by the US army. The X-Files were prepared by order of the Pentagon by Georgetown University, its authors were several specialists in various fields: economics, communications, geography, history and ethnography. The memorandum is illustrated with maps. This work was carried out so thoroughly and efficiently that many of its provisions are not outdated even now.
German experience
A decade and a half before the CIA memorandum was drawn up, the German Wehrmacht faced the problems faced by the forces of the invasion of Ukraine during the occupation of Soviet territory in 1941-1944. The main ones were the stretching of communications and the need to involve military units to maintain a sufficient level of their security. With the increase in the occupied area, the number of units that were forced to be left in the rear as commandant's offices and garrisons automatically increased. In part, this issue was resolved by involving the local population to protect the "new German order", that is, policemen who were ready to cooperate with the Nazis, based on various considerations. The level of loyalty in different regions of Ukraine varied significantly. It is likely that experts from Georgetown studied the German experience.
Sentiment analysis
The archival document contains information on the level of anti-Soviet sentiments in certain regions of the Ukrainian SSR and the readiness of a certain part of the population to support military operations of the special forces of the US Army in the event of a military conflict or even to raise an armed uprising against the communist regime, following the example of the recent Hungarian one. Various factors were cited as criteria: the presence of interethnic tensions, linguistic and religious-confessional preferences, the level of socio-economic development, material wealth and others, up to the climate and terrain. Attention is paid to anti-communist or anti-Soviet sentiments along with anti-Russian convictions.
Twelve zones
The authors of the report conditionally divided Ukraine into twelve parts (sub-regions), depending on the expected assistance of the local population to the American troops in case of war. Even then, sixty years ago, this republic was considered very complex in the ethnic and political sense, heterogeneous and requiring a special approach. In some areas, US special forces, according to CIA analysts, would have met virtually no resistance, with the exception of regular units of the Soviet army, while in others the picture was less rosy. Nevertheless, Ukraine, due to its size, due to its high industrial potential and agricultural resource, was considered at that time as a valuable object that needed to be seized. Resistance (underground) could be two-sided, both anti-Soviet and anti-American, and the direction strongly depended on geography.
Loyalty contours
The principle by which the map of the likely areas of preferential collaboration was compiled was based on four main criteria:
- Ethnic composition of the population.
- The behavior of most of it during the Civil War.
- The level of resistance to the German fascist invaders in 1941-1944 (partisan movement).
- The number of anti-Soviet protests at the present stage (40s post-war and 50s).
It turned out to be a very interesting map.
Separatists against the occupiers?
One gets the impression that the American researchers who wrote the report on "factors of resistance" looked into the future, decades ahead. The contours of the twelve "subregions" almost completely repeat similar maps showing the political preferences of the Ukrainian population during the "Orange Revolution". Those regions voted for Yushchenko, which, according to CIA experts, in 1957 would have met the US Army with flowers and bread and salt on embroidered towels, if there had been an occupation. The map of the regions that predominantly sympathized with the Maidan in 2014 looks exactly the same. Even the journalists of the British portal "BBC" drew attention to this fact, calling, however, the zones least friendly to the likely occupiers "separatist".
Zones
The CIA analysts attributed Donbass (zones II and III) and Crimea (zone I) to the most hostile regions - there is almost nowhere to wait for help, except perhaps the Crimean Tatars, of which there were not so many. 60% of Russians, 35% of Ukrainians, and they will not go to war against their country. There is also no hope for the industrial east of the republic. It is interesting that the outlines of the regions least friendly to the “liberators from communism” are practically identical to the territories of the LPR and DPR formed in 2014. And Ukrainians, again, were few there in 1957. There were a lot of them in a wide strip along the administrative border with the RSFSR, but there they were somehow “not like that”, that is, not enough anti-Soviet and anti-Russian, although minimal assistance is still possible. Zones of Odessa and Kharkov will be almost as hostile to the Americans in case of war as Donbass and Crimea. In the Kherson and Nikolaev regions, there is hope for the residents of Western Ukraine resettled there. And so on.
The conclusion that the reader of this report may come to is that the main hope of the then American strategists was not pinned on the discontent of the Ukrainians with the communist order, but on primitive Russophobia.
Over the past 60 years and a quarter century of independence, the situation has not undergone significant changes. Communism is long gone, but everything is the same. Or maybe it was not the case?
Painter Gene
