Tanker War In the Gulf: Operation Earnest Will, Diplomacy and Seapower in Practice

The past four decades have seen a number of United States military interventions in the Middle East, but only one of them is retrospectively seen as a success: OperationEarnest Will, the escort of Kuwaiti tankers through the Persian Gulf in 1987 and 1988. As an officer who participated in this operation who then served in the region as a diplomat, Tom Duffy offers a unique perspective onEarnest Will. He argues that the fact that Earnest Will was a limited war and that it was fought with nav...