Desert Storm II: is a new Persian Gulf War on the horizon?

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Sept, 1994 by David Isenberg

CENTCOM came into existence as the latest U.S. geographic unified command on Jan. 1, 1983, Its immediate predecessor was the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force. Today, CENTCOM's area of responsibility encompasses northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia, including the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, and Red Sea. This includes the three distinct, but interrelated, sub-regions: South Asia, the Persian Gulf/Arabian Peninsula, and Red Sea/Horn of Africa. With regard to the latter, CENTCOM coordinated the deployment of U.S. forces to Somalia as a part of the relief effort called Operation Restore Hope. It has not been neglecting its warfighting strategy, however.

Support of its theater strategy is a continuing effort, taking place in peacetime as well as wartime. The elements that directly support the strategy in peacetime are combined exercises, security assistance, military construction, pre-positioning, and personnel.

Combined exercises demonstrate U.S. commitment to the region. According to Congressional testimony by Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, the successor to Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf as head of CENTCOM, "The planned exercise program has increased fivefold compared to pre-operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm levels. In FY90, 14 JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] and non-JCS exercises were conducted. In FY91, all JCS exercises were canceled, but 20 small maritime exercises were conducted, more than twice the number planned in previous years. In FY92, [there were] 56 JCS and non-JCS exercises scheduled with nine of the 18 countries in our area of responsibility; and in FY93, we [had] 71 exercises planned with 12 of the countries. We are expanding the Kuwaiti program to provide exercises on a virtually continuous basis."

Arms sales. "Security assistance" is the term used for government-to-government and direct commercial sales of weaponry and military equipment and funds for training foreign military personnel. According to Hoar, "These programs enhance stability by enabling countries in the region to improve their defensive capabilities in a balanced, controlled manner. At the same time, security assistance provides inter--operability with U.S. and other coalition partners."

The fact that continued arms transfers by the U.S. to the Middle East flies in the face of the Clinton Administration's public declarations has not served to reduce the flow. During Operation Desert Storm, Secretary of State James Baker testified that "The time has come to try to change the destructive pattern of military competition and proliferation in [the Middle East] and to reduce the arms flow into an area that is already over-militarized." On May 29, 1991, Bush announced a Middle East Arms Control Initiative aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear arms, chemical munitions, ballistic missiles, and "destabilizing" conventional weapons.

None of this has had much practical effect. U.S. policymakers still operate under the assumption that American arms transfers are good; it is only those by other nations that are bad. Moreover, transferring U.S. arms makes the next war easier to fight in the view of military officials. As Hoar testified in his first appearance before Congress, "From my point of view, the necessity of selling American equipment out there so that we have the interoperability in training, doctrine, spares, and weapons whether it be to Saudi Arabia or UAE [United Arab Emirates] or Kuwait is extraordinarily important to out warfighting capability in years to come." The U.S. formally established a Military Training Mission to Saudi Arabia as early as 1953. In 1990 alone, the mission helped Saudi Arabia buy $16,000,000,000 worth of American material and training.