ABSTRACT
“Intra-regional conflict,” “revolutionary activities in a regional country,” and “situations combining these two” were suggested as the other possible threats to vital American interests. The joint State-Defense Department policy statement derived three regional objectives from the list of interests and threats: Stable access to oil and maintenance of sea lanes of communication, countering the spread of Soviet power; and improving US political, economic and commercial relationships in the region. Improving US military capabilities in the region may conflict with efforts to strengthen cooperation with local states, as their cultural and political complexion may render demonstrations of military intimacy with the US destabilizing. These and other potential contradictions were neither new nor necessarily avoidable when the vast spectrum of superpower interests was to be addressed by a decision making mechanism as complex as the American one.
