Editing Rhodesia (section)

===Military and political escalation (1972–1976)===

By December 1972, ZANLA had cached arms and established a vast underground network of informants and supporters in northeastern Rhodesia.<ref name=MWM/>  As a result of the erosion of Portuguese authority in Mozambique's border provinces due to the [[Mozambican War of Independence]], ZANLA was also able to establish external sanctuaries there.<ref name=MWM/> It was also in the process of cultivating a military alliance with the leading black nationalist movement in Mozambique, the [[Front for the Liberation of Mozambique]] (FRELIMO).<ref name=MWM/> On December 21, a group of ZANLA insurgents under [[Rex Nhongo]] crossed into Rhodesia from Mozambique and [[Attack on Altena Farm|raided an isolated commercial farm]].<ref name="frontiersmen"/> In the successive months, this attack was followed by a succession of raids on white farmers throughout the northeastern districts of the country and resulted in several casualties among the security forces.<ref name="frontiersmen"/> The propaganda value of these raids, coupled with the success of ZANLA's politicisation campaign, denied intelligence to the security forces and furnished more recruits for the insurgents.<ref name="frontiersmen"/> In response, the Rhodesian security forces began coordinating operations in Mozambique with the [[Portuguese Army]] to intercept ZANLA insurgents before they could cross the border.<ref name=Minter>{{cite book|last=Minter|first=William|title=Apartheid's Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique|year=1994|pages=32–40|publisher=Witwatersrand University Press|location=Johannesburg|isbn=978-1439216187}}</ref>

The practical alliances between ZIPRA and MK, and later ZANLA and FRELIMO, prompted Rhodesia to look increasingly towards South Africa and Portugal for active assistance.<ref name=Volk/> Rhodesian politicians frequently reminded officials in the other two nations of common security interests based on the similarity of their restive internal situations.<ref name=Volk/> They saw strong parallels between their nation's position of being threatened by black nationalist insurgencies and the Portuguese predicament with FRELIMO in Mozambique, as well as to a lesser extent the insurgencies in South Africa and [[South West Africa]].<ref name=Volk/> Under the auspices of the [[Alcora Exercise]], the three countries' bureaucracies began routinely sharing information and seeking common diplomatic positions.<ref name=Volk/> Lieutenant General [[Charles 'Pop' Fraser|Alan Fraser]], a senior strategist in the [[South African Defence Force]] wrote in 1970, "there can be no doubt in any of our minds that we have a common enemy: we, i.e. Portugal, the RSA and Rhodesia. Unless we are to lay ourselves open to the possibility of defeat in detail, we must fight this enemy jointly—if not simultaneously."<ref name=Volk/> Nevertheless, aside from intelligence-sharing and some limited coordination on the operational level in Mozambique, the Portuguese could offer Rhodesia little decisive assistance. Portuguese military resources in Mozambique were preoccupied with FRELIMO and somewhat depleted by a decade of war, and little could be spared to assist a foreign ally.<ref name=Volk/> Rhodesia expected far more from South Africa, which possessed far greater military resources and infinitely more diplomatic influence abroad.<ref name=Volk/>

After the [[Carnation Revolution]] and the end of Portuguese rule in Mozambique in 1975, it was no longer viable for the Smith regime to sustain white [[minority rule]] indefinitely. By this time, even South Africa's [[John Vorster]] had come to this view. While Vorster was unwilling to make concessions to his own country's black people, he concluded that white minority rule was not sustainable in a country where black people outnumbered white people 22:1.<ref name="impression">{{cite web |url=http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF001975/Wright/Wright12/Wright12.html |title=APF newsletter, "Appraisal of Rhodesia in 1975" |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090531063909/http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF001975/Wright/Wright12/Wright12.html |archive-date=31 May 2009 }}</ref> In 1976, there were 270,000 Rhodesians of European descent and six million Africans.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Weinraub |first1=Bernard |title=White Moderates Cling To Hopes for Rhodesia |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/13/archives/white-moderates-cling-to-hopes-for-rhodesia.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=27 January 2021 |date=13 July 1976}}</ref>

International business groups involved in the country (e.g. [[Lonrho]]) transferred their support from the Rhodesian government to black nationalist parties. Business leaders and politicians feted Nkomo on his visits to Europe. ZANU also attracted business supporters who saw the course that future events were likely to take.<ref>[[The Guardian]], 21 April 2000 [https://www.theguardian.com/international/story/0,3604,212767,00.html British Multimillionaire bankrolls Mugabe party]</ref> Funding and arms support provided by supporters, particularly from the Soviet Union and its allies in the latter 1970s, allowed both ZIPRA and the ZANLA to acquire more sophisticated weaponry, thereby increasing the military pressure that the guerrillas were able to place on Rhodesia.

Until 1972, containing the guerrillas was little more than a police action. Even as late as August 1975 when Rhodesian government and black nationalist leaders met [[Victoria Falls Conference (1975)|at Victoria Falls]] for negotiations brokered by South Africa and Zambia, the talks never got beyond the procedural phase.<ref>Brookings Institution: [http://brookings.nap.edu/books/0815775938/html/156.html p156, study on conflict resolution] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060921232031/http://brookings.nap.edu/books/0815775938/html/156.html |date=21 September 2006 }}</ref> Rhodesian representatives made it clear they were prepared to fight an all out war to prevent majority rule.<ref>{{cite news|title=Peace talks fail|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/26/newsid_2535000/2535825.stm|work=BBC News|access-date=27 November 2007|date=26 August 1975|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307132412/http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/26/newsid_2535000/2535825.stm|archive-date=7 March 2008|url-status=live }}</ref> However, the situation changed dramatically after the end of Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique in 1975. Rhodesia now found itself almost entirely surrounded by hostile states and even South Africa, its only real ally, pressed for a settlement.

{{blockquote|Having let slip one chance after another of reaching an accommodation with more moderate black leaders, Rhodesia's whites seem to have made the tragic choice of facing black nationalism over the barrel of a gun rather than the conference table. The downhill road toward a race war in Rhodesia is becoming increasingly slippery with blood.|''[[Rand Daily Mail]]'' editorial, May 1976<ref>{{cite web|year=1976|url=http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914118-1,00.html|title=Rhodesia: A Strike At the Lifeline|publisher=Rand Daily Mail via TIME magazine|page=2|access-date=23 November 2007}}{{Dead link|date=April 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>}}

At this point, ZANU's alliance with FRELIMO and the porous border between Mozambique and eastern Rhodesia enabled large-scale training and infiltration of ZANU/ZANLA fighters. The governments of Zambia and Botswana were also emboldened sufficiently to allow resistance movement bases to be set up in their territories. Guerrillas began to launch operations deep inside Rhodesia, attacking roads, railways, economic targets and isolated security force positions, in 1976.<ref>{{cite magazine|year=1976|url=http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914118-1,00.html|title=A Strike at the Lifeline|magazine=TIME magazine|access-date=23 November 2007}}{{Dead link|date=April 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

[[File:Rhodesian Army recruitment Bush War 1976.png|thumb|A Rhodesian servicewoman taking aim with her [[Browning Hi-Power]] [[9×19mm]] [[semi-automatic pistol]]; from a 1976 army recruitment poster]]

The government adopted a [[strategic hamlet]]s policy of the kind used in [[Malayan Emergency#Comparisons with Vietnam|Malaya]] and [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]] to restrict the influence of insurgents over the population of rural areas. Local people were forced to relocate to protected villages (PVs) which were strictly controlled and guarded by the government against rebel atrocities. The protected villages were compared by the guerrillas to [[concentration camps]]. Some contemporary accounts claim that this interference in the lives of local residents induced many of them who had previously been neutral to support the guerrillas.<ref>APF Newsletter, 1976 :[http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF001975/Wright/Wright17/Wright17.html Rhodesia's "Protected" Black people.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071217225248/http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF001975/Wright/Wright17/Wright17.html|date=17 December 2007}}</ref>

The war degenerated into rounds of increasing brutality from all three parties involved (ZANU and ZAPU, and the Rhodesian Army). Mike Subritzky, a former [[New Zealand Army]] ceasefire monitor in Rhodesia, in 1980 described the war as "both bloody and brutal and brought out the very worst in the opposing combatants on all three sides."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://riv.co.nz/rnza/tales/subritzky5.htm#ps|title=Operation Agila, "The British Empire's Last Sunset"|publisher=NZ History|access-date=23 November 2007|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071118152034/http://riv.co.nz/rnza/tales/subritzky5.htm#ps|archive-date=18 November 2007 }}</ref>

A major problem for the Rhodesian state in fighting the Bush War was always a shortage of manpower.<ref name="Brownell"/>{{rp|601}} Of the 3,000 white men liable for conscription in 1973, only about 1,000 reported when called-up.<ref name="Brownell"/>{{rp|601}} In February 1978, the Rhodesian Army stated it needed a minimum of 1,041 men to continue combat operations, and of those called up, only 570 reported for duty while the rest chose to move to South Africa.<ref name="Brownell"/>{{rp|601}} White emigration increased as the state called up more and more men to fight in the war, creating a vicious circle, which gradually limited the capacity of the Rhodesian state to continue the war.<ref name="Brownell"/>{{rp|602}} In order to stop white emigration, the Smith government brought in a law in 1975 forbidding Rhodesian citizens from holding foreign currency, but the law was widely flouted.<ref name="Brownell"/>{{rp|604}} In order to encourage white emigration, the guerrillas of ZANU and ZAPU followed a strategy of attacking anything and everything that was of economic value across the country in order to force the state to call up more men, and of killing white civilians.<ref name="Brownell">{{cite journal |doi=10.1080/03057070802259837 |pages=591–610 |title=The Hole in Rhodesia's Bucket: White Emigration and the End of Settler Rule|year=2008|last1=Brownell|first1=Josiah|journal=Journal of Southern African Studies|volume=34|issue=3|s2cid=145336659}}</ref>{{rp|606}} Killing Rhodesian white citizens tended to have an "echo effect" as the ZANU and ZAPU had each estimated that for one white citizen killed, it caused about 20 to leave Rhodesia.<ref name="Brownell"/>{{rp|606}}