ABSTRACT
In the era following the Second World War western interests in the areas were secured by the armed forces of Great Britain and France. Such an effort appeared to be successful in the early and mid-1970s. But opposition within Iran to the Shah’s oppressive and too “western” regime mounted rapidly in the late 1970s. In the 1970s United States forces were compelled to focus their efforts in Western Europe and Korea. Indeed Saudi Arabia is the most significant component in western strategic interests in the region. It has been the major source, of course, of oil imported by Japan, Western Europe, and the United States. The concept of a mobile force based in the United States and deployed overseas by air and sealift. United States forces will be committed into an indigenous country only when invited. United States rapidly deployable forces are designed to meet a threat when called upon.
