The U.S. military maintains a significant presence across the Arabian Peninsula but it must now confront a new and emerging dynamic as most Gulf Cooperation Council countries have begun to diversify their political, economic, and security partnerships with countries other than the United States—with many turning to ascending powers such as China, Russia, and India. For Gulf Arab monarchies, the choice of security partner is made more complicated by increased domestic and regional instability stemming in part from Iraq, Syria, and a menacing Iran: factors that threaten to alter totally the Middle East security dynamic.
Understanding the dynamics of base politicization in a Gulf host nation—or any other—is therefore vitally important for the U.S. today. Gulf National Security and the U.S. Military examines both Gulf Arab national security and U.S. military basing relations with Gulf Arab monarchy hosts from the Second World War to the present day. Three in-depth country cases—Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman—help explain the important questions posed by the author regarding when and why a host nation either terminated a U.S. military basing presence or granted U.S. military basing access.
The analysis of the cases offers a fresh perspective on how the United States has adapted to sometimes rapidly shifting Middle East security dynamics and factors that influence a host nation's preference for eviction or renegotiation, based on its perception of internal versus external threats.
The U.S. military maintains a significant presence across the Arabian Peninsula but it must now confront a new and emerging dynamic as most Gulf Cooperation Council countries have begun to diversify their political, economic, and security partnerships with countries other than the United States—with many turning to ascending powers such as China, Russia, and India. For Gulf Arab monarchies, the choice of security partner is made more complicated by increased domestic and regional instability stemming in part from Iraq, Syria, and a menacing Iran: factors that threaten to alter totally the Middle East security dynamic.
Understanding the dynamics of base politicization in a Gulf host nation—or any other—is therefore vitally important for the U.S. today. Gulf National Security and the U.S. Military examines both Gulf Arab national security and U.S. military basing relations with Gulf Arab monarchy hosts from the Second World War to the present day. Three in-depth country cases—Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman—help explain the important questions posed by the author regarding when and why a host nation either terminated a U.S. military basing presence or granted U.S. military basing access.
The analysis of the cases offers a fresh perspective on how the United States has adapted to sometimes rapidly shifting Middle East security dynamics and factors that influence a host nation's preference for eviction or renegotiation, based on its perception of internal versus external threats.
Gulf Security and the U.S. Military: Regime Survival and the Politics of Basing
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Gulf Security and the U.S. Military: Regime Survival and the Politics of Basing
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Overview
The U.S. military maintains a significant presence across the Arabian Peninsula but it must now confront a new and emerging dynamic as most Gulf Cooperation Council countries have begun to diversify their political, economic, and security partnerships with countries other than the United States—with many turning to ascending powers such as China, Russia, and India. For Gulf Arab monarchies, the choice of security partner is made more complicated by increased domestic and regional instability stemming in part from Iraq, Syria, and a menacing Iran: factors that threaten to alter totally the Middle East security dynamic.
Understanding the dynamics of base politicization in a Gulf host nation—or any other—is therefore vitally important for the U.S. today. Gulf National Security and the U.S. Military examines both Gulf Arab national security and U.S. military basing relations with Gulf Arab monarchy hosts from the Second World War to the present day. Three in-depth country cases—Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman—help explain the important questions posed by the author regarding when and why a host nation either terminated a U.S. military basing presence or granted U.S. military basing access.
The analysis of the cases offers a fresh perspective on how the United States has adapted to sometimes rapidly shifting Middle East security dynamics and factors that influence a host nation's preference for eviction or renegotiation, based on its perception of internal versus external threats.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780804795067 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Stanford Security Studies |
| Publication date: | 06/10/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 280 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Gulf Security and the U.S. Military
Regime Survival and the Politics of Basing
By Geoffrey F. Gresh
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Geoffrey F. GreshAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-9506-7
CHAPTER 1
Oil and War
Shortly before the United States entered World War II in 1941, the chairman of the board of the California-Texas Oil Company, James A. Moffett, began lobbying U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) to provide financial assistance to Saudi Arabia's king, Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman bin Faisal al Saud, better known in the United States as Ibn Saud, whose nation was on the verge of financial ruin. U.S. oil companies, including California-Texas Oil, had invested millions in Saudi Arabia, including personal loans to the king, but could no longer afford to provide loans. The kingdom's anticipated oil production was only a trickle at the start of the war, and its traditional revenue streams had drastically declined during the war, in part because of a decrease in pilgrims who traditionally paid taxes during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. FDR asked the U.S. Navy if it wanted to purchase Saudi oil, but the navy declined, stating that Saudi oil quality was inferior to that of U.S. oil and did not meet U.S. naval requirements. FDR referred Moffett's request to U.S. Federal Loans administrator Jesse Jones, but in a note to Jones wrote: "Will you tell the British I hope they can take care of the King of Saudi Arabia. This is a little far afield for us!" FDR was more concerned at the time with U.S. efforts to prevent Nazi Germany from expanding into the Atlantic and did not want to be lured into the Middle East.
The U.S. war focus shifted, however, on December 7, 1941, when Japanese forces attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, killing 3,566 Americans and injuring more than one thousand. The attack catapulted the United States into World War II and immediately established a U.S. need for a robust global logistics and basing network to support its operations in both Europe and the Pacific. The U.S. War Department urged the construction of a military base in Saudi Arabia to help cut down on distances for its air routes between Khartoum and Karachi. It was believed that a new Arabian Peninsula route would provide an important and secure node in the U.S. military's international transportation network. While FDR had appeared uninterested in Saudi Arabia just months before, his administration's attitude toward the desert kingdom shifted dramatically as the United States became more entangled in both Europe and the Pacific. As a result of a more global focus and growing need for easy access to oil resources, the U.S. government realized that more efforts needed to be made to bolster its ties with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia because of Saudi Arabia's geostrategic location and its presumed potential to provide the U.S. military with easy access to oil from its estimated 5 billion barrels in proven or probable reserves. As the United States ramped up its war efforts in 1942 and 1943, Saudi Arabia fast became an essential stopover and supply node for U.S. travel to and from Pacific Asia. FDR's administration became much more receptive to pressure from U.S. oil companies operating in the Arabian Peninsula to protect U.S. investments there in the face of heightened threats from the Axis powers. U.S. oil company lobby efforts were bolstered in 1944 by the U.S. military, which had shifted its policy on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
Increased U.S. military ties to and a basing presence in Saudi Arabia, however, may have been desired but were never a forgone conclusion. The United States had to negotiate directly for an increased and larger presence in the kingdom with the Saud royal family, who feared domestic and regional perceptions of their new ties with the United States. As the United States began to negotiate for its first military foothold in the Arabian Peninsula in 1945, Saudi Arabia did not appear receptive to a U.S. military presence or to a proposed U.S. military training mission. From the beginning of negotiations with the United States, Saudi Arabia had to strike a balance between addressing internal and external security concerns, and this factored into the process. Internally, the Saud family faced rival tribes who felt their existence and way of life threatened by a foreign presence. Ibn Saud also needed to maintain the support of Al-Wahhab followers who were virulently anti-Western and had the ability to undermine important national decisions. Ibn Saud was similarly concerned about his ability to defend the two holiest cities of Islam and to sustain among rivals the perception that Saudi Arabia maintained its independence from Western powers such as the United States and Great Britain. Externally, Ibn Saud feared both the Axis powers' expansion into the Gulf and the intentions of his main regional rivals, the Hashemites of Iraq and Transjordan, who vowed to take back the Hejaz region that Ibn Saud had conquered in the 1920s.
As the U.S. military grew reliant upon both Saudi oil and its strategic military stopover point in Dhahran, its leaders grew increasingly adamant about securing a long-term foothold in Saudi Arabia. In a postwar era, the U.S. military needed such strategic locations to contain a rising Soviet Union and to assist in balancing regional security. King Ibn Saud remained hesitant about a U.S. basing presence until the end of the negotiations when several key factors reportedly swayed him in favor of concluding a basing agreement by 1945: Britain's tacit support for the increased U.S. presence and its support in balancing both the Axis powers and regional rivals; Saudi Arabia's need to support Allied efforts to end the war; and perhaps most important, significant U.S. military and economic aid incentives. For example, the U.S. offered to extend the Lend-Lease Aid program to assist Saudi Arabia with its dire financial situation and weak currency. In 1943 Saudi Arabia had a deficit of 30 million riyals carried from the prior year, and the government made a budget proposal request of 109 million riyals for 1944 when it expected to collect only 37 million riyals in revenue. This left Saudi Arabia with a mounting deficit of 72 million riyals, in addition to its 1943 deficit. Ibn Saud was thus receptive to increased U.S. economic and military aid.
In the end, Saudi Arabia approved a U.S. military presence mainly because of external security threats and promises of military equipment and other military and economic aid. The outcome of this first U.S. basing negotiation in the Arabian Peninsula is significant for several reasons. It is the first case among several examined in this book that negates assertions in base politics literature that downplay the influence external security concerns can have on a positive basing outcome. It also challenges arguments on any correlation between economic and security aid and basing access. As examined in this book, external security concerns can significantly influence basing outcomes. With Ibn Saud, for example, the combination of Hashemite and Axis power external threats are cited by U.S. and British officials as determining factors behind his permitting a U.S. military presence, albeit on a temporary basis at the beginning. The initial negotiation between Saudi Arabia and the United States is significant because it is the first time the United States establishes a considerable military presence in the Arabian Peninsula, a sign of the evolving U.S. belief that its strategic national interests are tied to that region, including interests involving oil and national security matters.
MOUNTING U.S. OIL NEEDS
Beginning in the 1930s, U.S. commercial interests helped pave the way for a large-scale, long-term U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia at first commercially and then militarily due to Saudi Arabia's enormous natural resource and industrial potential. At the start of the war, few besides U.S. oil companies believed that Saudi Arabia could produce oil of any significance. In 1939, for example, Saudi Arabia reportedly produced 1,356 barrels of oil per day, compared with Iran, which produced an estimated 212,000 barrels per day, or the United States, at 3.3 million barrels per day. When the United States declared war on Germany and Japan at the end of 1941, the U.S. military reviewed its global war strategy and began to focus on building relationships with small but strategic countries such as Saudi Arabia. President Roosevelt and his administration also began to listen more attentively to oil executives' calls for protection of U.S. oil company interests in Saudi Arabia; access to oil was a major concern due to U.S. fears of a waning domestic oil supply. By the end of the war, Saudi oil skeptics were proved wrong, since the kingdom was then producing over 21.3 million barrels of oil a year. The United States was concerned about getting goods, petroleum, and other war materiel to the Soviet Union via Iran to maintain pressure on Germany from the east. Access to Saudi oil was a significant added benefit. By the end of the war, the United States had thirty thousand troops stationed in Iran to keep supplies flowing to the Soviets.
U.S. oil companies had sought to expand their operations globally in the 1920s and 1930s, spurred by the fear of exhausting their domestic supplies following World War I. Oil consumption in the United States had increased 90 percent from 1911 to 1918 as a result of the war and the nation's new obsession with the automobile. The Arabian Peninsula offered ample opportunities for new areas of exploration and new markets to offset heightened oil consumption around the globe. Oil exploration in the peninsula was an open field, since most British oil companies were preoccupied with exploring Mesopotamia and Persia for oil and other natural resources during the interwar years. Many British officials were also skeptical that Saudi Arabia was sitting on such vast amounts of oil and gas reserves as to warrant significant attention. U.S. oil companies were therefore left to explore the entire Arabian Peninsula with little serious competition.
The main obstacle to U.S. entry was King Ibn Saud. Ibn Saud was more concerned about water resources and did not see the pressing need for oil exploration. Ibn Saud's trusted advisor, Harry St. John Bridger Philby, a former British Indian civil service official, knew that Ibn Saud was in dire financial straits after engaging in a national development program during the 1920s that included a network of wireless stations and the reconstruction of the water supply system for Jidda, among other costly programs. The value of the Saudi riyal was also in decline, and by 1931 pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, its main source of revenue, had dropped from 100,000 to 40,000 in one year as a result of the onset of the global economic depression. Ibn Saud lacked adequate alternative funding to run his government, rendering Saudi Arabia's financial situation untenable. In one telling exchange, Philby told the king, "You are like a man fast asleep on top of a gold-mine, complaining of poverty but unwilling to get up and see what he is sleeping on." Philby meant that Saudi Arabia was likely full of oil and gold, and he did not understand the king's objection to exploiting it if he was in real need. Ibn Saud replied, "Well, Philby, I assure you that, if anyone would offer me a million pounds now, he could have the concession for exploiting all that my country possesses."
In the end, Philby convinced Ibn Saud to allow a U.S. geological survey team to begin work in the kingdom. Once it was apparent that the British were not interested in exploring Saudi Arabia for oil, Philby grew supportive of a U.S. entry and helped initiate contact with Charles Crane, a U.S. business mogul and philanthropist who helped organize the entry of a survey crew. Crane hired a team headed by Karl Twitchell, an American mining engineer who had been working on a development project for Crane in Yemen. In 1931 Twitchell submitted a final report to Ibn Saud which concluded that the kingdom's prospects for extracting oil, gold, and other minerals were good. Ibn Saud was at first reluctant to have a foreign oil company operate on Saudi territory, because of internal pressures that might come from rival tribes who viewed any sign of modernization—be it the telephone, the radio, or automobiles—as instruments of the devil. But with news of Bahrain's discovery of oil on May 31, 1932, Ibn Saud grew more intrigued about exploring for oil on Saudi territory. By 1933, and after a hard-fought negotiation, the California-Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc), an affiliate of Standard Oil of California, won the kingdom's first oil concession. The king had understood the great potential that would emerge from lucrative oil revenues.
Saudi Arabia's first oil came on line only in 1938; it meant that Ibn Saud had been unable to exploit oil royalties for revenue during the previous five years despite geological surveys that pointed to large oil deposits. U.S. oil companiesknew that it was only a matter of time before Saudi Arabia would produce more oil, but the companies could no longer afford company loans to keep Saudi Arabia financially afloat. As war spread across Europe in 1940, Saudi Arabia's financial situation continued to deteriorate. U.S. oil companies had already loaned the king an estimated $12 million to help ameliorate Saudi Arabia's mounting deficit. U.S. oil companies were therefore eager for the U.S. government to step in and provide additional loans to keep Ibn Saud from financial ruin and thus prevent the loss of major U.S. oil concessions, equipment, and money.
In the spring of 1941, James A. Moffett, chairman of the board of directors of the Bahrain Petroleum Company and its subsidiary, the California-Texas Oil Company, began pressing FDR to assist the Saudis. Moffett claimed that "if loans were not made to Saudi Arabia the independent Kingdom, and perhaps with it the entire Arab world, will be thrown into chaos." If Saudi Arabia fell apart it would also be vulnerable to outside penetration from the Axis powers. Moffett's requests, as already noted, were initially disregarded because President Roosevelt regarded the Middle East as well beyond the U.S. war purview, and the U.S. Navy did not consider Saudi oil worth buying for its fleet because of its high sulfur content. The "Hepburn Board Report" produced for President Roosevelt and Congress by Admiral Arthur J. Hepburn on the eve of World War II recommended a U.S. defense strategy that focused on national borders, territories, and possessions, and called for additional naval bases in the Atlantic and the Pacific to defend the United States. The report did not discuss the Middle East. As Germany ratcheted up its submarine campaign in the Atlantic, the United States feared that Britain would be forced to surrender its Atlantic Ocean possessions, leaving Nazi Germany dangerously close to U.S. territory. In an attempt to counter further German aggression in the Atlantic, the United States and Great Britain signed the "Destroyers for Bases Agreement" on September 2, 1940, granting the U.S. a ninety-nine-year lease to construct bases on eight British possessions in Newfoundland and across the Caribbean in return for fifty destroyers. With the U.S. focused on the Atlantic Ocean in 1940 and 1941, it is not surprising that Moffett gained little traction in his lobbying efforts.
But Moffett was unrelenting in his attempts to persuade the U.S. government to support Saudi Arabia financially. In one follow-up proposal, he suggested that the United States provide a multimillion-dollar loan through the Lend-Lease Program in return for direct access to Saudi oil for the U.S. Navy and other U.S. government entities. The Lend-Lease Program was designed to support countries aligned with the Allied powers against the Axis powers during the war. But Moffett again was met with pushback from the U.S. Navy. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox responded directly to Moffett's request, stating that the Saudi oil quality was not suitable for U.S. naval use and that Saudi gasoline had a very low octane number, classifying it as a second-grade gasoline. In addition, he argued that Saudi fuel oil contained sulfur amounts of 3.9 percent, when the U.S. Navy required sulfur levels closer to 1 percent or below. It was widely believed by naval officials that high sulfur amounts corroded a naval vessel's exhaust system.
Moffett and his associate Fred Davies of the Standard Oil Company of California countered Knox's memorandum, arguing that the British Royal Navy had been using Saudi oil and gasoline successfully since it made the conversion from coal to oil propulsion. They claimed that the Royal Navy had not witnessed any major drawbacks to using oil with high sulfur content. Moffett and Davies also argued that Saudi oil would benefit U.S. merchant ships steaming through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. After substantial debate between the various U.S. oil company representatives and the Roosevelt administration, President Roosevelt believed that assisting Saudi Arabia was still too much of a stretch for the United States. Further, he felt it should be more the responsibility of the British to assist the Saudis with their financial problems, since the Arabian Peninsula was in their sphere of influence.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Gulf Security and the U.S. Military by Geoffrey F. Gresh. Copyright © 2015 Geoffrey F. Gresh. Excerpted by permission of STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Contents and AbstractsIntroduction: Gulf national security and the politics of Basing chapter abstractThis chapter provides a theoretical and strategic overview of the U.S. military basing presence in the Gulf from the Second World War to the present. It lays a framework for examining the history of the U.S. military in the Gulf by placing the book within the larger base politics literature, in addition to providing a broad overview on the global evolution of U.S. military basing following the Second World War. Base politics and basing access for military forces is one of the oldest enduring features of international relations among nations and empires. The central question posed here is when and why did base politicization occur in Gulf Arab host nations. External and internal security dynamics linked to a host regime's survival are the main drivers influencing Gulf Cooperation Council nations either to accept or expel the U.S. military from local bases.
1Oil and War chapter abstractThis chapter sets the stage for how the United States came to establish its first military base in the region, while placing the Gulf in its larger strategic and global context. As the United States became more entangled in the Second World War, the U.S. military grew adamant about securing base installations to support its war efforts. Additionally, the U.S. military needed easy access to the valuable oil resources of the Gulf to buoy its operations abroad. Political pressure from U.S. oil companies operating in the Gulf also helped convince the U.S. government to pursue a more active regional strategy to safeguard significant U.S. investments and other regional assets. The first establishment of a base at Dhahran would be crucial at the end of the war to assist with postwar construction efforts in Europe and Pacific Asia.
2Negotiating a Foothold chapter abstractThis chapter explores the origins of the U.S. military's complex relationship with the Gulf Arab monarchies, especially with the Saud royal family, following the Second World War. A more permanent U.S. military basing presence was never an inevitable conclusion and depended upon a combination of shifting national security dynamics and U.S. military and economic aid packages. This chapter examines the key domestic opposition groups influenced by pan-Arab nationalism that threatened the monarchy versus external security factors, including threats emanating from the Hashemite Kingdom and a rising Soviet Union. Though pan-Arab nationalism played a certain role in stimulating domestic instability in Saudi Arabia, three separate regional factors played a more influential role in determining the Saud monarchy's decision to permit the continued U.S. military basing presence: Hashemite threats to invade the kingdom, the ongoing Buraimi Oasis crisis between Great Britain and the Trucial Shaykhdoms, and the Suez Canal crisis.
3Regime Survival and the U.S. Military chapter abstractThis chapter examines the events that led to the eventual basing termination and expulsion of the U.S. military from its Saudi bases in 1962. With fewer external security concerns by the early 1960s, the Saud monarchy turned its attention to domestic politics and rising concerns regarding Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's influence over pan-Arab national groups in the kingdom. By the end of the 1950s and early 1960s, domestic security concerns grew to a new high as the U.S. military's presence exacerbated attacks on the legitimacy of a monarchy under mounting domestic pressure. Opposition groups portrayed the United States as an imperial occupying force, helping erode the power and damage the image of the monarchy domestically. The Saud monarchy appeared concerned about its survival and its association with the U.S. military and terminated its long-term basing contract in the spring of 1962.
4A Light Footprint in Bahrain chapter abstractAfter declaring independence in 1971, Bahrain signed a basing agreement with the United States, prompted by external security fears associated with Iran's desire to annex the tiny island nation. But when the Yom Kippur War broke out in 1973 with the U.S. supporting Israel in the war, Bahrainis violently voiced their outrage over the U.S. naval presence. In late 1973, the Bahraini government announced that the U.S. naval basing agreement would be terminated. The U.S. lost its homeport at Jufair, but it was able to negotiate the maintenance of a light footprint including the presence of an administrative support unit for U.S. naval regional logistics. This chapter examines both the domestic security challenges faced by the Khalifas during this period and the politics involved in the homeport expulsion.
5Sultan Qaboos and Operation Eagle Claw chapter abstractThis chapter examines Oman's relations with the U.S. military after the 1979 U.S. expulsion from Iran. Oman acts as a valuable historical case study that illuminates important lessons learned about what can work when negotiating for basing access with a host nation under heightened domestic pressure. Oman's Sultan Qaboos had long faced internal opposition that stemmed from the Dhofar rebellion of the 1960s and early 1970s. His fears were exacerbated when it became known that, unbeknownst to Sultan Qaboos, President Carter had violated Omani sovereignty in executing a secret rescue mission, codenamed Eagle Claw, to free U.S. hostages held captive by Iranian revolutionaries in Tehran at the U.S. Embassy. After lengthy negotiations and the subsequent increase in U.S. military and economic aid incentives, including promises of a less visible and low-profile military, the U.S. was able to maintain its military basing access in Oman.
6A Saudi Sandstorm: Rivalry, Revolution, and terrorism chapter abstractThis chapter studies the process that led to the Saudi decision to reestablish a U.S. military basing presence in 1990. Though Saudi Arabia maintained its partnership with the U.S. military throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. was not given control of local bases after 1962 until the First Gulf War. The external threat posed by Iraq was the main driver behind convincing the Saud monarchy to allow a U.S. military basing presence. From 1990 to 2003, the kingdom confronted major domestic security challenges, including several terrorist attacks motivated by the U.S. military basing presence, but it was not until Saddam Hussein was finally removed in 2003 that the U.S. military was asked to terminate its basing presence. Iran also posed less of a threat to the kingdom since U.S. military bases surrounded Iran on both its eastern and western borders, including in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Afghanistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Conclusion: The GCC Today and Lessons learned for the U.S. Military chapter abstractThe conclusion assesses the current and future U.S. military Gulf presence following its Saudi departure, as well as the present challenges ushered in by regional violence since 2011. The U.S. military maintains a significant presence across the Arabian Peninsula but it must now confront a new and emerging dynamic where most GCC countries have begun to diversify their political, military, economic, technological, and security partnerships with countries other than the United States. Many GCC nations have turned in recent years to the East to emerging powers such as China, Russia, and India to assist with their national security and economic needs. Nonetheless, understanding the dynamics of base politicization in a host nation remains important today and studying base politics more broadly helps explain when and why basing access may go awry for future policymakers and scholars of the region.