ABSTRACT
Introduction Throughout the Cold War, the US aimed to establish and hold a preponderance of power in both Western Europe and Northeast Asia.1 American policy-makers understood and never doubted the importance of the Persian Gulf and its oilfields to the security of those two vital centres of industry and the global economy. But during most of the Cold War, they contented themselves with variant strategies of ‘buck-passing’ and ‘offshore balancing’ to secure the Gulf.2 Washington relied on British power as the main bulwark in the area until London finally withdrew Britain’s last protectorates and garrisons in the region in 1971. Afterward, the Americans tried to ‘subcontract’ the defence of the Gulf to the ‘twin pillars’ of regional power – Saudi Arabia and the Shah’s Iran.3 This approach collapsed in 1979 as the Islamic Revolution shattered the latter pillar, while the crisis in Yemen and the Horn of Africa, combined with the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by armed militants, raised serious doubts about the former. Coming fast on the heels of these events, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December critically heightened Washington’s anxiety about Gulf security and focused public attention on the issue. In the months and years that followed, the Gulf clearly emerged as a third frontline theatre in which the US sought to gain a preponderance of power.4 Within weeks of the Soviet move into Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter made plain the American intention to extend the umbrella of containment over the Gulf. Addressing the Congress on 23 January 1980, the President forthrightly enunciated what would soon become known as the ‘Carter Doctrine’, a direct commitment of US military forces to the defence of the Gulf. ‘Let our position be absolutely clear’, Carter warned:
an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.5
