U.S. Role in Gulf Security

By Marshall W. Wiley

Since the decline of Britain's traditional military role in South Asia and the Gulf, military planners in the West, and in particular those in the U.S., have struggled unsuccessfully to achieve a consensus on how to provide security for the important oil resources of the Gulf. In the case of the U.S., the lack of consensus is due primarily to some deeply imbedded misperceptions that have impeded Washington's efforts to deal effectively with this important area of the world.

When the Reagan Administration first came into office, a fundamental tenet of its Middle East policy was that the Gulf countries perceived the Soviet threat as their principal security problem and would therefore cooperate with the U.S. in building a "strategic consensus" to counter this threat. Convinced that the Carter Administration was weak and irresolute, the Reagan team—determined to "stand tall" and restore credibility to the U. S. role in the world—was unwilling to accept the political reality that the Arab countries were much less concerned about the Soviet Union—which had never invaded or occupied Arab land—than they were about Israel, which all Arabs perceived as an invader and oppressor of their Arab brethren in Palestine.

Friends with Dissimilar Security Concerns

In fact, most regimes in the Gulf area believed strongly that their interests could best be served by avoiding entanglement in the U.S.-U.S.S.R. conflict, and they had no desire to become a theater for East-West rivalries. Following the more limited Carter Administration initiatives, the Reagan team pushed hard for a more active U. S. military involvement with the moderate Arab countries, including the stationing of U. S. ground forces in the Gulf area. These initiatives had only limited success because most moderate Arabs viewed the U.S. as strongly biased with regard to their number one security concern, Israel. They were, therefore, unwilling to cooperate wholeheartedly in dealing with Washington's number one security concern, the U.S.S.R.

Moderate Arab regimes also had concerns over the effect that overt military cooperation with Israel's prime supporter would have on their own domestic political standing. They were concerned that more overt cooperation with the U.S. could bring into the area an enhanced Soviet military presence with the increased risk of big power conflict in their region of the world.

After struggling for over three years with these obstinate political facts, the Reagan Administration policymakers, while not conceding the weakness of their basic assumption, have played down "strategic consensus"and have emphasized a new policy of "strategic alliance" with Israel. The decision to espouse publicly a more open "strategic alliance" with Israel was bitterly opposed within the foreign affairs community by most of the professional area specialists as well as by officials in the upper levels of the Pentagon, who were concerned that such a move would be harmful to our broader strategic interests in the area. By increasing overt military cooperation with Israel, which represents perhaps two percent of the land and people in this strategically important area, most area experts believed that the U.S. incurred a serious setback in its political and military relations with the other 98 percent.

In addition, many observers believed that U.S. and Israeli security interests differ in important respects. Israel's prime security concern is the Arab countries, while Washington's prime security concern is the Soviet Union. History since World War II has demonstrated that Israel frequently acts in accordance with its own perceptions of its security requirements, even when such actions come into direct conflict with U.S. views.

Deterring the Soviets

Another misperception of the Reagan Administration is that Soviet military "adventurism" in the Middle East can best be deterred by a U.S. military presence in that specific area of the world. In reality there is no possibility that the U.S. could station or project enough conventional military power in the area of the Gulf to stop a determined Russian ground assault on the oil fields of the Middle East.

What does deter the Soviet Union from such an assault is their perception of the worldwide balance of power between the Soviet Union and the West. In fact, the Middle East is probably the worst possible place for the U.S. to attempt to exercise deterrence against the Soviet Union. That area is at the end of extremely long lines of supply and the region is inhospitable (both politically and climatically) to U.S. military forces. The U. S. should make it very clear to the Soviets that aggression in the Middle East would be met by an appropriate response somewhere in the world—but not necessarily in the Gulf.

It is also important that the U. S. develop a sustainable long-term policy and avoid the wide policy fluctuations that have marked our past dealings with the Middle East. Hasty actions based on inadequate understanding of the realities will inevitably lead to abrupt policy reversals and also will lead to serious concern about Washington's reliability among its friends in the area. Greater regard for the opinions of career professionals and other area experts inside and outside of the government could have prevented some of the more egregious mistakes committed in the past by the U. S. in the Middle East. A more informed and sustainable policy needs to be developed in full consultation with the professionals, even when policymakers suspect that the judgments of the experts may conflict with their own ideological preconceptions.

The U.S. should devise a more realistic and effective strategy of alliance-building with friendly nations in the Gulf area. In particular, a more effective strategy would require a) greater recognition of the legitimacy of their security concerns with respect to Israel, b) greater emphasis on the threat of internal subversion, and c) greater recognition of the political liabilities created for friendly regimes by an overt and visible U.S. military presence on their soil. The Reagan policymakers have pressed hard for a more visible U.S. military presence in the Gulf—even to periodic landing exercises of Marine units in Oman. Such exercises run a serious risk of weakening the very regimes that are most friendly and cooperative with the West. The presence of foreign military forces on the "sacred" soil of the Middle East has always created severe political liabilities for the host regimes. Instead of exerting continuous pressure on friendly regimes to permit a greater and more visible U.S. military presence on their territory, Washington would be better advised to strengthen its ties with these regimes by employing a variety of the standard tools of foreign policy in the economic, commercial and cultural—as well as military —areas.

Preparing for Threats from Within

The U.S. should focus more on defense against internal subversion as opposed to defense against overt aggression. To achieve this goal, we should assist these countries in developing indigenous internal security forces as well as conventional military and paramilitary forces. The U.S. military presence should be limited to the minimum required for this task.

The emphasis should be placed on highly mobile intervention forces that could deal with intraregional conflicts or internal disorders rather than on massive and heavily-armed units of the type that would be needed to stop or delay a Soviet ground thrust into the area. Maximum cost effectiveness could be achieved by the development of a strategic alliance with our friends in the Gulf that concentrates on U.S. air and sea power used in cooperation with U.S. supplied and trained indigenous ground forces.

As for the conflict between Iran and Iraq, U.S. interests could best be served by a reduction in the level of hostilities between these two powers but without either country achieving political dominance over the other. As long as there is a reasonable balance of power between Iran and Iraq, the regimes of the lower Gulf will not be forced to make unpleasant choices between the two, which might preclude the maintenance of relatively friendly relations with the U.S. and the West.

Marshall W. Wiley, a former U.S. ambassador to Oman, has also served in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.