American involement &its strategy in the persian gulf

American Involvement &its Oil Strategy in the Persian Gulf region:
Over the next 20 years, the portion of Western Europe’s total oil consumption imported from the Persian Gulf will increase to 35 percent, compared to 14 percent for the United States. By 2015, Persian Gulf exports will meet roughly half of all global oil consumption needs and will become the predominant source to which the Asia-Pacific region will turn to fill its burgeoning energy demands. Consequently, the perception is likely to arise that a serious interruption of Persian Gulf oil supplies would cause severe economic and financial dislocation as well as political and social instability in the developing world, and this in turn could generate pressure for Western military action.
In matters of oil, the Region. The Persian Gulf will remain the main source of Western energy supplies over the next decade . The Persian Gulf region has grabbed the greatest global attention during the past 50 years.
It will remain critical for future energy supplies. In a way, all the scrambling to develop resources around the world today is intended to delay the day of reckoning. Although the Persian Gulf produces a quarter of world oil supplies, it holds between two-thirds and three-quarters of all known oil reserves. For that reason the United States and the West have continued to define the region as being vitally important.
During this time, the US administration has seemingly vacillated between ratcheting up its aggressive rhetoric and offering a more conciliatory approach toward Iran. For instance, in March 2007, the U.S. Navy initiated a major exercise in the Persian Gulf designed to send a message to the Iranians, while reassuring “regional audiences” about the capabilities and determination of U.S. forces. The timetable for the exercise, which had been previously scheduled, was accelerated in part as a response to the Iran’s refusal to curtail its nuclear programs.

According to Shibley Telhami :This region is vitally important, however, does not automatically lead to the conclusion that a large military presence is required there—or to serious questions about the continued availability of this oil on the world market. This seeming revelation has recently provoked a debate in Washington, one focused especially on Saudi Arabia, which alone holds a quarter of the world's known oil reserves. Two central questions have been whether the United States needs to have a military presence in the region at all and whether our primary aim has been to defend Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states with whom we now discover we have serious policy disagreements. Moreover, many commentators, frustrated with the tension in relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, have stepped up calls for weaning the United States of foreign oil broadly and of Persian Gulf oil in particular. But the debate entirely misses the logic of the American involvement.

First of all, buying oil from Persian Gulf region other than the Middle East will not resolve the problem. As the adage reminds us, "we are all sipping from the same cup." The oil market is seamless and is largely driven by supply and demand. Persian Gulf supplies affect the price of Persian Gulf oil, yes, but also the price of global oil. And while the United States can and should conserve energy and develop alternate energy sources, the gap between what the United States now produces and what it consumes (nearly 10 million barrels a day) is simply too wide to be bridged. Moreover, the clustering of the reserves in the Middle East also means that at some point in the not too distant future, a greater share of the oil supply will inescapably be coming from that region.
Nonetheless, it is not entirely clear why oil economics should be mixed with oil politics or what necessitates a military strategy at all. Indeed, many countries that depend heavily on Persian Gulf oil countries such as Japan and many countries in Europe—have assumed that they can base their policy entirely on the demands of the market without seeing a need for political and military intervention. This attitude may in part be driven by their taking the United States for granted and assuming that US will do the job to the benefit of all consumers. But there is more to it than that. Outside the United States the view is growing that assuring the flow of oil does not require a significant military strategy. This view is bolstered by historical trends. With the exception of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which was politically motivated and which led to extraordinary increases in oil prices, long-term evidence suggests that the market, more than any other issue, determines trends in oil prices. Historically, political alliances have not greatly altered patterns of trade between the oil countries and the rest of the world. Oil producers sell oil to the countries that need it and are willing to pay the price and import the best products they can from the best sources they can find. The same was true even during the Cold War years, when political relationships were obviously not central to the oil producers' trading behavior. The bottom line was that these states did what was in their economic interest, regardless of their political orientation.
IRAN has never manifested itself as a serious threat to the national security of the United States, or by extension as a security threat to global security. At the height of Iran’s “exportation of the Islamic Revolution” phase, in the mid-1980’s, the Islamic Republic demonstrated a less-than-impressive ability to project its power beyond the immediate borders of Iran, and even then this projection was limited to war-torn Lebanon.
The situation the United States confronts in the Persian Gulf is therefore rich with irony: In the most challenging though unlikely scenario—large-scale of Iranian conventional attack—some allies will probably be willing to contribute to military operations to defend important Western interests. In the more likely but less serious contingencies, however, the United States will probably bear most or the entire military burden alone. Participation in the defense of the Persian Gulf
Will be a matter of choice rather than obligation for America’s European allies—and most are likely either to opt out or to commit only token forces.

After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, with momentum on the rise for deploying American forces and establishing what amounted to a new fleet in the Persian Gulf region, some observers believed that the increased American presence would give the United States a decided advantage over Europe and Japan in trade with the Persian Gulf states. In some instances, no doubt, Washington was able to use its political leverage to help American businesses win contracts in the region, especially in the military and aerospace arenas. But at the aggregate level, the trade figures between the region and the rest of the world show that the United States had no visible advantage. The year before Iraq invaded Kuwait(in 1989), The Figures show that European exports to the Middle East stood at $40.2 billion, as against $13.7 billion for the United States. The year after the Persian Gulf War(in 1992), Europe's export total was $57.2 billion, as against $19.9 billion for the United States. And the trend continued. In 2000, Europe shipped $63.7 billion of exports to the Middle East; the United States, $23.0 billion.

A wide gap currently separates U.S. and European perspectives and policies toward the Persian Gulf, notwithstanding their shared interest in secure oil supplies. NATO faces severe institutional limitations on a formal role in Persian Gulf defense, reflecting widespread apprehension on the part of European governments and publics about becoming entangled in security commitments and military operations outside Europe. Likewise, individual allied governments—with the exception of the U.K. and France—generally have little stomach for engaging in such operations outside the Alliance framework.
The reasons for these attitudes are not difficult to understand: many European governments do not share the United States’ view on the nature of Western interests in the region, the nature of the threats to those interests, and the most effective means of responding to such threats. In particular, many allied governments, believing that the United States has exaggerated the Iraqi
And Iranian military threat, prefer strategies of constructive “engagement” rather than “containment” to cope with the broader security challenges posed by these states. In addition, there is still a lingering fear in Europe that the United States will embroil European countries in conflicts that do not involve threats to their vital interests.
Maintaining the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf costs upward of $60 billion a year. Because these forces can also be used elsewhere, that sum is not entirely spent on defending the region. Still, one wonders why the United States devotes so much of its resources, energies, and war planning to the Persian Gulf. Would it not be more sensible to leave the oil issue to market forces and to leave politics out of it?
As conventionally understood, the American strategy is based on a resolve to assure the flow of oil to the West at reasonable prices—a resolve that extends to mitigating short-term interruptions in oil supply and subsequent spikes in pricing by relying on states, notably Saudi Arabia, that have excess capacity. (This alone requires Saudi-U.S. cooperation to assure that the Saudi capacity is used as a moderating force on the oil market.) But for more than half a century a central drive behind the American military strategy in the oil-rich region—one that has been not fully understood by most analysts—has been to deny the control of such vast resources to powerful enemies who would thereby become even more powerful and thus more threatening.
.Today, the prevailing perception in Washington is that Iran is aggressive (according to US department), dangerous country. Deterring its ability to encroach on Saudi oil fields—hence denying these states additional oil revenues—is one aim of the continuing American presence in the Persian Gulf region. The underlying concern is not just about possible disruptions in oil supplies, and ensuing price shocks, that the actions of hostile regimes could occasion. The larger issue, from the standpoint of the United States, is that if Iran were able to enrich them by taking control of additional oil reserves, this regime would soon become more menacing to the United States than already is, even if it were eager to sell to the rest of the world all the oil it seized.
The extent to which Iran is a threat will remain a matter of debate. Does it pose a threat to the United States? Or is the U.S. concern more for its Arab friends (sought of Persian Gulf Such as UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia) in the region, especially Israel, for whom IRAN is potential threats?? It is hard to imagine the circumstances under which the current government in Iran will be seen as anything less than aggressive and threatening (according to US department). This outlook makes it likely that any American administration in the foreseeable future will continue to try to prevent IRAN from coming to control the bulk of the world's known oil reserves—independent of U.S. concern for friendly Arab governments in the Persian Gulf.
But whatever the reasoning behind the American military strategy (US policy on IRAN), it remains in the interest of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council states to have American military backing. That gives the United States some leverage, but only up to a point since PGCC states know that the U.S. strategy also serves American interests. The result is clear mutual incentives to cooperate. Certainly, when threats to oil are clear, as in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Saudi Arabia and other PGCC states will undoubtedly rally behind the United States to defend the oil fields. And even without imminent threat, PGCC states, especially Kuwait, have an interest in the U.S. presence in the region. U.S. forces are spread throughout much of the Persian Gulf, from prepositioned equipment in Qatar, to forces and equipment in Kuwait, to the naval facilities in Bahrain (former Iranian province until 1970,s. The Saudis, who also host American troops, have incentives to maintain an American presence in the Persian Gulf region even as they seek to lower the numbers and the profile of American forces on their own soil for fear of public backlash. But in the months since September 11, the American Saudis have discovered that their public perception of the illegitimacy of the presence on their soil is a threat to them as well as to that presence—just as the United States has discovered the depth of public resentment in the Persian gulf region. This will necessitate mutual cooperation. The Saudis will have to transmit to their public the sort of friendship with America that has existed at the governmental level, and the United States will need to work with them to reduce the level and the profile of American forces without jeopardizing its military strategy. The Saudis will continue to need American backing, and the United States will continue to need their cooperation. The Persian Gulf region and its immense oil reserves will only become more important for the global economy in the future.
The security of the Persian Gulf will remain a vital Western interest for the foreseeable future. Therefore, planning for a major theater war (MTW) in the Persian Gulf particularly the ability to halt a large-scale invasion with short warning—will remain a cornerstone of U.S. defense planning. That said, winning big wars in the Persian Gulf will present more difficult challenges in the future. The United States’ most likely adversaries, for example, could threaten or resort to the early use of nuclear,
Biological or chemical (NBC) weapons. They may also employ other asymmetrical threats (e.g., terrorism or information warfare) to interfere with a Western military response. Under these circumstances, the infrastructure on which the United States relies to conduct military operations could be damaged, hampering the introduction and buildup of U.S. forces. In addition, the United States and its European allies could face political restrictions on their access
To regional bases. In this situation, it would be up to rapidly deployable air power to blunt the invasion before strategic targets in Kuwait and northern Saudi Arabia were seized. Accordingly, U.S. preparations to defeat large-scale aggression will be essential to sustaining deterrence, demonstrating U.S. security commitment to the Persian Gulf states, and maintaining U.S. predominance in a vital region. At the same time, however, the United States and its allies must be prepared to cope with a broader range of threats in the Persian Gulf. Because of the economic and military weaknesses of Iran, the danger of large-scale Iranian military attack against the Arab states in the Persian Gulf remains impossible and remote for at least the next five to ten years. Indeed, during this period country is likely to use other means to pursue regional hegemony and to end U.S. domination of the Persian Gulf. The two most likely options are (1) use of NBC weapons, terrorism, and subversion; and (2) limited air and missile attacks or small-scale ground incursions to achieve limited objectives (e.g., seizure of limited territory or assets) According to new US policy in Persian gulf, If America’s European allies are to make a significant contribution to Persian Gulf defense, they must be able to deploy forces to the region promptly and must operate out of a well-developed infrastructure. The most cost-effective means to improve allied rapid deployment capabilities is to pre-position heavy logistics support (e.g., ordnance and fuel) in theater that would otherwise require a large amount of lift to move. In addition, facilities in the Persian Gulf states are oriented to supporting the operational requirements of U.S. The United States should encourage the U.K. and France to substantially expand their forward prepositioning of munitions stocks and to work with appropriate Persian Gulf states to ensure that their facilities can provide the necessary support for deploying allied . In addition to the operational benefits that would result, an increased allied presence in the region would strengthen deterrence, sustain domestic support for U.S. deployments in the Persian Gulf, and perhaps allow the United States to draw down its own presence, thereby reducing the exposure of U.S. forces to acts of terrorism and political violence.






Sources:

Understanding the American Oil Strategy in the Persian Gulf region:
By Shibley Telhami
Persian Gulf Security: Improving Allied Military Contributions Summary
Richard Sokolsky, Stuart Johnson, and F. Stephen Larrabee
Persian Gulf Security: Improving Allied Military Contributions Richard Sokolsky, Stuart Johnson, and F. Stephen Larrabee
Understanding Iran’s Motivations in Iraq: The Cost Calculus of External Support
By Ryan Carr
The Big Lie: ‘Iran Is a Threat’, by Scott Ritter