ABSTRACT
The United States plays a vital strategic role in the Gulf. US military forces and power projection capabilities deter Iran and Iraq—two aggressive and radical regimes with military forces that might otherwise dominate the Gulf, The US prevents these states from achieving regional hegemony and intimidating their Southern Gulf neighbors. At the same time, US capabilities are not static, they change over time and will be shaped by the defense effort the US has made in the years before a crisis. They will also interact with the future capabilities of allied forces. Past experience has shown that it is valuable to consider capabilities for a major regional conflict with the most likely enemy or enemies, but history has also shown that no war is ever an exact repetition of the past or follows the predictions of military planners and strategic analysts. Finally, any analysis of US capabilities must consider the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
