America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History Read Online Free Page A

Pentagon initiatives undertaken to avert Soviet armed intervention subsequently facilitated U.S. armed intervention not only in the Persian Gulf but also throughout the entire CENTCOM AOR. In that regard, the putative Soviet threat of the 1980s served as a placeholder, providing a handy rationale for developing capabilities subsequently put to other purposes. The upshot: A posture justified by the need to defend the Persian Gulf from outside intrusion positioned the United States itself to intrude. As the Soviet Union faded from the scene, Washington began entertaining visions of policing the entirety of the Greater Middle East.
    Those Pentagon initiatives sought chiefly to reduce the impact of distance, thereby removing impediments to the projection of U.S. military power. The number repeatedly cited by American officials and echoed by obliging American journalists was 7,000. That number represented the approximate distance in miles that U.S. forces stationed in the United States needed to traverse in order to reach the Persian Gulf.

    In late 1979, the Carter administration had begun tackling this distance problem when it dispatched envoys to persuade “friendly” nations in and around the Gulf to allow U.S. access to ports and airfields in the event of an emergency. During the Reagan administration, such efforts continued and intensified. 13
    Even at the time, this did not qualify as some deep secret. It occurred in the American equivalent of broad daylight, courtesy of mainstream media outlets, which kept readers and viewers abreast of the expanding U.S. military footprint in the region.
    Consider, for example, the puff piece that Richard Halloran contributed to The New York Times Magazine in April 1984. 14 If Halloran’s essay had a theme, it was this: Americans could rest easy in the knowledge that CENTCOM was hard at work and becoming more capable day by day.
    Halloran brought Times readers up to date on Pentagon efforts to upgrade ports and airfields to which the U.S. had been promised access in Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Oman, and Somalia. Meanwhile, he noted, Saudi Arabia was “building a complex of bases far beyond its needs or its ability to operate.” President Ronald Reagan had already vowed publicly that the United States would defend the existing Saudi political order against any threat. 15 In such an eventuality, it was tacitly understood that the Saudis would make their ports and airfields available to U.S. forces.
    Halloran also reported on the flotilla of fifteen cargo ships, already loaded with military equipment, that the United States had positioned at Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean that had become “vital to the Central Command’s logistic, naval and air support.” He detailed efforts to improve various facilities there and to lengthen Diego Garcia’s runway, permitting it to accommodate long-range bombers. In 1983, Congress had earmarked nearly $60 million for these improvements, with another $90 million for the following fiscal year. 16

    Back in Tampa, CENTCOM headquarters was by no means sitting on its hands. “General Kingston has begun to build a relationship with each nation in his command’s operating region,” Halloran reported. Along with building relationships, Kingston had programmed a series of training exercises to cycle U.S. forces through his AOR. The aim was both to acclimate U.S. troops to conditions in the region and to promote within the region “an increasing tolerance” for the presence of American military forces. 17
    Just the year before, for something called Operation Bright Star, over twenty-five thousand U.S. troops had deployed to Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, and Oman. “B-52 bombers flew from bases in the United States to make bombing runs, [American] paratroopers jumped with Egyptian paratroopers, and Marine tanks churned ashore through heavy surf in Somalia.” Fostering this atmosphere of cooperation was the $7.7 billion in security assistance—mostly