Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
From a military standpoint what the Rhodesian Army's successes did was force ZANLA and ZIPRA to recognise they could only win via massive conventional military action. Lancaster House was convened to prevent the war escalating to a state that would have forced external intervention - certainly from the UK and external raids by the Rhodesians had crippled the economies of all the states harbouring and supporting ZANLA/ZIPRA.

Now the viability and even the reality of a ZANLA/ZIPRA conventional invasion is very debatable, but the Rhodesian Army ensured the the cost of a guerilla campaign was unacceptably high, and progress unacceptably slow - thus talks were the only option. What military action ensured was a negotiated peace and not a forced one - which is what the armed insurgency sought.
There were plans to take out all the strategic bridges in Zambia and Mozambique that would have been used in a conventional invasion.

Op Manacle was the name of the Op for the Mozambican bridges and was first in line. But on the 15th November 1979 during the Lancaster House Talks there was a switch and the go ahead was given to take out the Zambian bridges which effectively put ZIPRA out of the war.

As the rush was on to prepare for the Mozambique part of the op the word came through from London that the cease fire had been signed and all external ops were terminated.

The thinking has been since then that the switch was orchestrated by Carrington who had 'influence' over Bishop Muzorewa to take ZAPU out of the equation and open the road for Mugabe. "Ours not to reason why..."