ABSTRACT
The US planners developing contingency plans for Southwest Asia learned two important lessons from the "Tanker War" of 1987-1988, and the Gulf War. They learned that the US could fight effectively in coalitions with Southern Gulf forces, and obtain great benefits from the Southern Gulf states in basing, logistics, support and infrastructure. The years since the Bottom Up Review have led to a number of contradictory trends in US capabilities in Southwest Asia. US planners have been forced to make complex trade-offs, as they attempt to deal with the conflict between the "top down" goals set by the Clinton budget and the "bottom up" force goals established by US defense planners. It can be argued that even if two crises do occur at the same time, the US could focus on the more serious threat and adopt an aggressive variant of a "win-hold-win" strategy in dealing with the less serious case.
