Arms and Oil: U.S. Military Strategy and the Persian Gulf

Description

In 1979, after a decade of enormous increases in the price of oil, U.S. influence in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region declined sharply. Early in the year the Iranian revolution replaced the shah, the principal pro-American leader in the region, with rulers hostile to the United States and to its remaining friends around the Gulf. In December Soviet troops moved into Afghanistan, bringing the Soviets closer to the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. In the United States these events spurred the announcement of the Carter Doctrine and the creation of a new military command to handle Gulf crises. Yet the United States established no new fighting forces, and U.S. friends around the Gulf proved less willing than the shah of Iran to host a U.S. military presence. Thus debate has continued about whether and how the United States can secure important interests in the Gulf region. In this book Thomas L. McNaugher offers a military strategy that integrates U.S. forces into the security framework that already exists in the region. He suggests that the United States should encourage Jordan, Pakistan, Great Britain, and others to continue their historical involvement in Gulf security, especially in such areas as internal security where U.S. forces are no better equipped than theirs and where U.S. participation may undermine the legitimacy of local rulers. In turn, the United States should focus on protecting the oil-rich states of the Arabian peninsula from external attack and on deterring further Soviet encroachment in the region. These missions demand an increase in the agility, rather than the size, of U.S. forces. But the more important requirement, McNaugher argues, is for skillfully blending U.S. military strategy into a diplomacy that exploits, rather than needlessly upsets, regional security mechanisms.

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Similar books

• 

  Arms for Oil

  By Michael Barratt Brown

  This was that James Baker had been made special envoy of President Bush to collect Iraq's debts , including $ 27 billion owed to Kuwait . According to this story , which Naomi Klein had taken from documents obtained by The Nation ...

• 

  Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates

  By Emma Ashford

  See also regime type Depp, Johnny, 111 Al- Din, Ghazi Nasr, 101 direct control. See anticipatory energy security strategies of great powers Doha, 110, 111, 112 Dune (Herbert), 214, 233 Dutch Disease, 127 Central Command (CENTCOM), ...

• 

  Blood and Nukes for Oil: The Global Dangers of China's Oil Policy

  By Peter Navarro

  This Element is an excerpt from The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won (ISBN: 9780132359825) by Peter Navarro.

• 

  TROUBLED WATERS: THE DIARY OF A U.S. NAVY MASTER AT ARMS ON AN IRAQI OIL PLATFORM

  By Terrence R. Winston

  Protecting the most valuable asset worth billions! My diary while living on and protecting Iraq's Oil Platform in the Persian Gulf, by Terrence R. Winston, a US Navy Veteran.

• 

  Iran: Sanctions, Energy, Arms Control, and Regime Change

  By Anthony H. Cordesman, Bryan Gold, Chloe Coughlin-Schulte

  ... International Studies Rowman & Littlefield 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW 4501 Forbes Boulevard Washington, DC 20036 Lanham, MD 20706 202-887-0200 | www.csis.org 301-459-3366 | www.rowman.com Table of Contents Acknowledgments .

• 

  The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East

  By Andrew Scott Cooper

  . . European nations at risk of defaulting on their loans . . . A possible global financial crisis. It happened before, in the 1970s. Oil Kings is the story of how oil came to dominate U.S. domestic and international affairs.

• 

  TROUBLED WATERS: THE DIARY OF A U.S. NAVY MASTER AT ARMS ON AN IRAQI OIL PLATFORM

  By Terrence Winston

  Protecting the most valuable asset worth billions! My diary while living on and protecting Iraq's Oil Platform in the Persian Gulf, by a U.S. Navy Veteran.

• 

  Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum

  By Michael T. Klare

  With clarity and urgency, Blood and Oil delineates the United States' predicament and cautions that it is time to change our energy policies, before we spend the next decades paying for oil with blood.