n f-V 57 5 1 4 Fl'z 1' it - - CONTENTS NOTES Vice Admiral Julien J LeBourgeois U S Navy President Naval War College FOREIGN POLICIES AT RISK SOME PROBLEMS OF MANAGING NAVAL POWER Ken Booth PRIORITIES AND EMPHASES FOR LOGISTICS 1976-78 Vice Admiral Thomas R Weschler U S Navy Ret THE SOVIET-VIEW OF NAVIES IN PEACETIME Professor Uri Ra anan CRISIS DECISIONMAKING IN ISRAEL THE CASE OF THE OCTOBER 1973 MIDDLE EAST WAR Major Robert H McKenzie-Smith U S Army THE U S NAVY AND THE PROBLEM OF OIL IN A FUTURE WAR THE OUT LINE OF A STRATEGIC DILEMMA 1945-1950 David A Rosenberg PORTUGAL PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS IN THE CREATION OF A NEW REGIME Professor Thomas C Bruneau SCHARNHORST TO SCHLIEFFEN THE RISE AND DECLINE OF GERMAN MILITARY THOUGHT Herbert Rosinski THE COMMENTS SET AND DRIFT Leningrad Will Never Be the Same Lieutenant Commander Kenneth R McGrutherI U S Navy PROFESSIONAL READING Review Article Book Reviews Recent Books Volume XXIX Number I Sequence Number 260 Cover Flags 1776 and 1976 are displayed by Sgt T V Powers USMC left in period uniform and Sgt ELK Jordon USMC irighti in contemporary Uniform Both Marines are assigned to the U S Marine Corps Barracks Naval Education and Training Center Newport R 113 Summer 1976 53 At the end of World War II military planners realized that domestic U S oil reserves would be insufficient in the event of another war The result was that planners began to address the problem of how to safeguard Middle East and particularly Persian Gulf petroleum sources as early as the autumn of 1945 Using recently declassified documents David Rosenberg points out that strategic concerns about oil supply are not new More important he describes the outlook of American military planners in view of their perception of the Soviet threat and limited U S capabilities as a result of budget cuts in the early years of the cold war THE U S NAVY AND THE PROBLEM OF OIL IN A FUTURE WAR THE OUTLINE OF A STRATEGIC DILEMMA 1945 1950 by David Alan Rosenberg During late 1974 and early 1975 reports appeared in such publications as Time Newsweek and Harper s de- scribing in detail how the United States might in the event of another oil embargo militarily intervene to seize Arab oilfields in order to ensure access to that essential commodity The re- ports were generally dismissed by senior American policymakers ' While it re- mains to be seen whether the military option will be exercised in the Persian Gulf of the 1970 s recently declassified documents from the late 1940 s indicate that speculation about American mili- tary action in that area is not a recent development Between 1947 and 1950 American strategic planners in particu- lar Navy strategists in Washington and Europe were deeply concerned about the possibility of losing Middle Eastern all resources to a powerful Russian enemy in the event of war The plans that were prepared and debated within the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the opera- tions that the Navy conducted to meet such a threat are described in this paper 2 The first serious recognition by the United States of the strategic im- portance of the Middle East and its oil reserves occurred during World War 11 While American businessmen mis- sionaries and naval officers had been involved with the Arab world of the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean since the birth of the republic it took the emergence of modern military technology with its enormous de- pendence on oil to force American officials to consider the area one of prime importance The complex nego- tiations which took place from 1943 to 1945 among the U S Government the 54 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW oil companies and British officials who had long considered the Middle East to be within their sphere of in uence are beyond the scope of this paper It is important to note only that those American officials most deeply con- cerned with insuring that the United States would have access to Middle Eastern oil in particular Interior Secre- tary and Petroleum Administrator for War Harold Ickes Navy Secretary Frank Knox and Navy Undersecretary and later Secretary James Forrestal believed that the United States w0uld be unable successfully to oil another war on the basis of its domestic re- serves By the end of World War there were four American oil companies with heavy investments in the Middle East with Standard Oil of California and Texaco sharing 100 percent control of all foreign concessions in Saudi Arabia and Bahrein Island Facilities in the area included a new refinery at Ras Tanura in Arabia a greatly expanded refinery at Bahrein and plans in the works for a pipeline from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean American military planning for a future emergency began in the fall of 1945 A logical precaution based on wartime experience such planning con- sisted primarily of developing intelli- gence estimates of the Soviet Union's military capabilities and vulnerabilities and its domestic and foreign policies In addition an extensive study of Logis- tic Estimates of Certain Movements was undertaken in the Joint Logistics Plans Committee JLPC of the Joint Chiefs of Staff JCS in October Eleven destinations were considered including such potential trouble spots as Western EurOpe Turkey North China Korea and Mediterranean North Africa While such contingency estimates can in no way be considered operational plans it is significant that among the areas con- sidered for the movement of men and material was the Persian Gulf 5 Then on 14 December 1945 the Joint War Plans Committee JWPC of the JCS initiated a series of studies and plans that would permit the United States to Reduce the Military and Political Capabilities of the USSR to the extent necessary to deny to the Soviets the ability to impose their will on other Major Powers in order to prevent World Domination by the By June 1946 a very tentative strategic concept which called for a primary offensive in Western Eurasia an active defensive in the Far East and a maximum aerial strategic bombard ment against vital Soviet targets had been developed Further studies under the JCS code name Pincher were then undertaken to assess the feasi- bility of operations in various specific geographical areas 5 In late 1946 as part of the Pincher planning JWPC 485 1 was completed It dealt with the Persian Gulf area and considered the problem of holding Bahrein and other potential oil-bearing areas in the Trucial Oman region In line with the bleak assumptions of contin- gency plans of the time it assumed that Iraq and Persia would be taken by the USSR The study concluded that US petroleum resources might well be in- sufficient for a majOr war but that a more complete analysis of British and American petroleum requirements would be needed before decisions could be made as to what costs would be acceptable in attempting to hold or recapture the Qatif-Bahrein area It was pointed out that a major effort would be needed to hold the area initially but that its recapture would probably be even more difficult and costly This led the Navy planners on the committee to conclude that if petroleum products from the Persian Gulf area will be required in a reasonable time Bahrein lsland should be held to secure as a base for the recapture of adjacent areas As a harbinger of interservice tensions to come however this conclusion was not concurred in by the Army and Army Air Force planners on the JWPC pend- ing further analysis Concurrent with the completion of JWPC 485 1 the Joint Logistics Plans Committee prepared its own report on Oil resources in the Bahrein-Trucial Oman Area as a reference for the JWPC That report indicated that the area's total estimated resources were between 25 5 and 50 5 billion barrels as compared to the U S proven reserves of 21 5 billion barrels and noted in its conclusions that the main limitation on production from the region was that imposed by refining capacity If the crude petroleum could be refined elsewhere and additional drilling materials made available in the area the production rate could be greatly increased 3 The completion of these two studies served to point up the need for a detailed assessment of U S petroleum requirements in the event of war Such a need had been recognized as early as May 1946 when the Joint Logistics Committee the parent organiza- tion began work on a massive study of The Problem of the Procurement of Oil in a Future War On 10 February 1947 their hundred page report was completed and approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff It was extremely pessi- mistic although based on the sanguine and highly improbable assumptions that no losses in petroleum resources would be sustained as a result of enemy action and that the United States would not have to aid its allies in meeting oil requirements The study concluded that In a future major war of five years duration during the period 1947-1951 inclusive the total United States military and civilian consumption requirements cannot be met after years by all the then current production in the United States and United States controlled foreign sources in- cluding that in the Near and OIL IN A FUTURE WAR 55 Middle East even with the pro- posed war drilling new refinery and plant building pro- grams proposed herein as opti- mistic but realizable The conclusions further noted that while the advance buildup of a surplus of petroleum products would eliminate or reduce the above deficit the loss of Middle Eastern oil production in the early part of the war would offset that surplus making shortages inevitable It was also estimated that military require- ments for oil would be nearly double those in World War II as a result of the growing reliance on kerosene fueled jet aircraft The only recommendations the report put forward for JCS approval were that the United States should endeavor to develop as much petroleum as possible from domestic natural gas coal and shale reserves plan for an expansion in refineries and drilling plants and attempt to conserve domestic and more easily defensible U S controlled foreign oil resources such as those in South America through a maximum peacetime importation of Middle Eastern oil Despite the gloomy nature of the JLC's predictions the report apparently provoked little response within the JCS One reason for this may be that the Army and the Army Air Force were already engaged in preparing a joint war plan based on the use of atomic weap- ons which was designed to defeat the USSR within 6 months in such a war long-range planning for oil con- sumption would not be necessary Naval officers and Navy Department officials were not so easily convinced by such nuclear-fueled promises however Secre tary Forrestal whose concern over oil resources would soon become a cause ce le bre as a result of his Opposition to the partition of Palestine wrote a letter to President Truman in March 1947 describing his hopes that newly dis- covered oil reserves in Alaska might be developed as substantial additions to 56 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW continental U S deposits And Capt George Anderson who had served on the JWPC and worked on the Pincher studies wrote in a memorandum to Vice Adm Forrest Sherman that he believed that the problem of acquiring oil was so basic that conventional warfare between the United States and the U S S R would inevitably result in a material stalemate as both sides depleted their reserves 11 Between February and August of 1947 the first joint outline war plans growing out of the Pincher studies were presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a basis for industrial mobiliza- tion planning Three separate strategic estimates were put forward based on alternative hypotheses regarding whether or not atomic weapons would be used in a future conflict and whether or not the Mediterranean Line of Com- munications LOC would be available to American forces In each case the importance of the Middle East in- cluding both the oilfields and the Cairo- Suez area was emphasized The securing of strategic airbases in the latter area was considered to be crucial in any event The retention or retaking of the oilfields was assigned equal priority in those estimates in which control of the Mediterranean was assumed to be lost since this would substantially increase U S petroleum requirements by forcing all shipping to Cairo-Suez to go around the Cape of Good Hope While none of these plans received JCS approval or were even given more than a tentative status as preliminary guidance estimates for mobilization they are significant in that they outlined alternate courses of action that would later be considered in the working out of operational plans under a restricted defense budget 1 2 While the JCS were struggling with basic strategic planning the interna- tional situation seriously deteriorated the developing crises in Greece and Turkey that prompted the March 1947 declaration of the Truman Doctrine also cast their shadow over the rest of the Eastern Mediterranean including the Arab oilfields American naval officers who had reinstituted a regular American presence in the Mediterranean in 1945 and had seen it made a permanent part of American policy in September 1946 were especially concerned about this situation and the problem of Middle Eastern oil and were seeking solutions In May 1947 Adm Richard L Conolly Commander of U S Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean CINCNELM made the first official inspection trip to Saudi Arabia and Bahrein accompanied by senior naval officers from his staff and Washing- ton Two months later Chief of Naval Operations Fleet Admiral Chester W Nimitz issued a Tentative Assign- ment of Forces for Emergency Opera- tions Most of these operations were aimed at securing worldwide sea lines of communications and achieving the evacuation of occupation forces in Europe and Asia Offensive naval and air operations were to begin immediately in the Mediterranean however and even more important CINCNELM and the Commander in Chief Pacific were assigned the shared responsibility of preparing forces to occupy and defend Bahrein including a Pacific based Marine battalion landing team l4 While a relatively small action in the context of global emergency operations this tasking did signify a naval commitment to save as much Middle Eastern oil as possible In September 1947 Capt Thomas Kelly U S Navy a logistics expert who had directed the preparation of the initial draft of the JCS oil procurement study in the JLPC made an extensive tour of the Near and Middle East He came away deeply impressed with the area s great potential and even more impressed and disturbed by its vul- nerability Noting that we are playing right into Russia's hands becoming dependent on a source of supply which she can destroy in a short time and with a minimal effort he urged that the Navy immediately initiate plans for defense of the oil producing loading and refining areas of the Middle East Kelly specifically recommended that Navy carrier task groups be sent for familiarizing opera- tions in the Persian Gulf and that preparations be made to move forces to the area in a matter of hours to protect against airborne assault 15 His report to Admiral Nimitz apparently reached sympathetic ears for in Decem- ber a reinforced Marine battalion was permanently added to the U S Naval Forces in the Mediterranean and early in 1943 Task Force 126 U S Naval Forces Persian Gulf was established to show the flag periodically and to co- ordinate Navy tankers in transit through the area While at first no forces were permanently assigned to such duty a number of American ships including a carrier task group led by Rear Adm Harold Martin in March 1948 visited the Persian Gulf and sent back useful intelligence data 1 5 Martin's report of his visit to the area is especially fascinating Extremely im- pressed by the material and political progress being made by the American oil companiu in Bahrein and Saudi Arabia he recommended that the U S Government try to make the high esteem with which the oil companies were held by the Arabs work to U S military advantage Noting that definite plans for the area in the event of war did exist and that the achievement of these ends will be a difficult and even hazardous undertaking if undertaken after hostilities are begun Martin proposed that the Navy attempt to work out a secret agreement with the oil companies by which the companies would build such needed military facili- ties as airports roads docks camou- flaged command posts and gun em- placements under the financial guise of Navy fuel purchases While unsure of OIL IN A FUTURE WAR 57 the oil companies' willingness to under- take such tasks he did believe that no serious obstacles to such an arrangement would be found He further suggested that the government of King Saud should be informed of any such plans in order to avoid upsetting the good rela- tions that existed Finally he concluded that we must avoid being too obvious in our interests for while visits of courtesy on the part of our Navy are productive of much good too specific activities in that area would bring down on Saudi Arabia the condemnation of other Arab countries Russia and even England who is deeply involved in this areal 7 The Navy's preparations for the de- fense of Arabian oil coincided with further joint and combined planning efforts to find solutions for present crises and potential military problems In November 1947 American and British military and diplomatic officials met at the Pentagon to discuss the ramifications of British troop with- drawals from Greece and the general strategic political and economic situa- tion in the Eastern Mediterranean Middle East area At the same time contingency plans for American inter- vention in Greece were prepared The conferees agreed to and President Truman approved the conclusion that preservation of the security of the region was vital to U S national security and that it was necessary to make clear to the Soviet Union the strength of the U S commitment to maintaining peace in the area 18 Before such American determination could be tested however events in Czechoslo- vakia and Berlin shifted military atten- tion and the focus of strategic planning back to Western Europe beginning the chain of developments that would eventually leave naval officers alone in their advocacy of measures to retain U S control of the Middle Eastern oilfields in the event of war In response to the deepening threat 58 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW of war caused by the Berlin situation the Joint Chiefs of Staff finally over- came interservice differences long enough to consider approving two dif- ferent short-range emergency war plans Both plans were derived from the earlier Pincher concept and called for main offensive operations in Western Eurasia a strategic defense in the Far East a maximum strategic air offensive now with the use of atomic weapons in- cluded as a basic assumption against the Soviet Union and the securing of vital bases and lines of communications Both were based on estimates that any Russian attack would be powerful enough to come close at least to taking all of Western Europe the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East and that the seizure of Middle Eastern oil would be the first Soviet objective in any offensive moves Finally both plans included a provision for moving the Mediterranean based Marine battalion landing team to the Bahrein area by naval airlift and commandeered U S commercial aircraft to assist in evacu- ation of United States nationals and for possible neutralization of oil installa- tions 19 This last task resulted from stubborn Navy planners insistence on preserving some means of denying Middle Eastern oil to the enemy even if it meant the destruction of the oilfields The most pronounced difference be- tween the plans were that one code named Half-moon and approved by the JCS for planning purposes in May 1948 called for the securing of a base in the Cairo-Suez region that could be used initially for the strategic air offensive and then as a base for operations to regain Persian Gulf oil while the second code named Frolic called for the building of a strategic airbase near Karachi Pakistan and a major operating base in Casablanca Morocco Based on the assumption that the Mediterranean LOC would be lost to the United States Frolic placed what many Navy strate- gists believed was undue confidence in the power of the atomic air offensive to destroy Russia's will and capability to make war It also left the attempt to regain Middle East oil resources hanging until some time toward the end of the second year of war Because of Frolic's implied abandonment of the Mediterranean and the political and logistics problems associated with the proposed Karachi base that plan was never approved by the JCS Select por- tions of it were included in later planning however as the Fiscal Year 1950 budget cuts made their impact on U S strategy 20 Despite strong Navy opposition to Frolic in the JCS and even stronger concern over the potential loss of Middle Eastern oil American naval officers' planning became more and more restricted as the mood of crisis deepened in the face of realistic ap praisals of Russian military capabilities Adm Louis E Denfeld the Chief of Naval Operations Adm Richard Conolly the Rear Adm W F Boone the Assistant CNO for strategic plans and Capt Arleigh A Burke a member of the Navy s General Board who had prepared an extensive analysis of the Navy's part in national security in the spring of 1948 all gave due thought to the problems involved and all advocated at least the continu- ation of the plan to dispatch Marines to Bahrein in the event of war Boone went even farther and declared that the denial of Persian Gulf oil to the Russians was an essential strategic requirement along with keeping the Mediterranean sea routes accessible to the United States while Burke and Conolly recom- mended that the United States avoid antagonizing the Arabs by intervening in what they considered to be their national affairs because the cooperation of thOSe states was the key to both wartime and peacetime defense of the area 21 Unfortunately all the planning recommendations in the world could change neither the strategic balance as it then existed nor the political public and outside the Navy military convic tion that a nuclear armed strategic air force was the primary solution to the Nation's military problems Thus it was that in the fall of 1948 when the armed services faced the ques- tion of how best to adapt American war plans to the fiercely contested but unmovable Fiscal 1950 defense budget ceiling of $14 4 billion set by President Truman all the discussions over options for preserving U S wartime control of Middle Eastern oil became moot Only the budget of $21 4 billion proposed by the Joint Chiefs would have allowed for the development of war plans re- sembling the Halfmoon or Frolic concepts while a proposed compromise budget of $16 9 billion only provided for the defense of the Mediterranean as far east as Tunisia The strategic concept for the $14 4 billion budget specified abandonment of the entire Mediter- ranean for all practical purposes despite the pleas of naval strategists that aircraft carrier operations in the area were both feasible and essential It left the defense of the Cairo-Suez area which was still contemplated for use as a strategic airbase to the British whose with- drawal to Khartoum was provided for and tied prospects for eventual offensive operations in Europe and the Mediter- ranean once the Russian advance had been stabilized to the building of a major operating base at Casablanca The largest share of that budget was allo- cated to the Air Force whose plan for a nuclear air offensive against Soviet cities was now seen as the key to victory 22 From December 1948 on when the budget levels were finalized naval officers in Washington increasingly feared as a result of these develop- ments that their service was losing its in uence on the shaping of national military strategy It was these strategic concerns rather than the alleged super- carrier versus B-36 bomber rivalry which fueled the so-called Admiral's 011 A FUTURE WAR 59 Revolt'I in congressional hearings in October 1949 23 The war plan and budget struggles in Washington had a delayed impact on U S naval operations in the Medi- terranean and Persian Gulf Although the possibility of an American mili- tary commitment to retaining control of Middle Eastern oil in a future war was fast fading efforts in support of such a commitment were nevertheless underway From 19 July to 12 August 1948 the small seaplane tender Greenwich Bay cruised the Persian Gulf testing the suitability of that class of vessel for service in the area as a station ship Five days after she departed Vice Adm D B Duncan's Task Force 128 arrived for a 2-week cruise during which specially equipped photo planes from the escort carrier Siboney flew mapping missions over the region In September 1948 a group of naval officers made an inspection tour of the oilfields and port facilities in the Indian Ocean and in their report recom- mended consideration of Trincomalee Ceylon as a base to support future naval operations in the Persian Gulf Finally on 1 October 1948 Task Force 126 U S Naval Forces Persian Gulf was reorganized into three separate units to take care of shore-based admin- istration tanker operations and the four-ship Hydrographic Survey Group 1 that mapped the area from October 1948 to April 1949 Additional visits were made by other Navy ships as well and beginning in May 1949 a small seaplane tender was always on station in the gulf as flagship of Task Force 126 24 Although the operations described above were significant in that they established a permanent American naval presence in the Persian Gulf it was the plan for airlifting a Marine battalion landing team to Bahrein to evacuate civilians and if necessary to blow up the oilfields in the event of hostilities that served to make such operations 60 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW strategically meaningful That plan which was first conceived in JWPC 485 1 in 1946 had grown in sophisti- cation since the first tentative assign- ments of forces were made in 1947 By November 1948 an itemized 6th Task Fleet operation plan was available de- tailing how the scattered units of the Marine Battalion Mediterranean were to disembark from their ships what airfields they were to fly from and the nature and amount of their logistic support Along with this additional sophistication in operational planning the neutralization and evacuation mis- sion was expanded to include protecting the area against sabotage and U S nationals against the native in the event that U S -Arab relations deterio- rate' zs On 24 January 1950 the Joint Chiefs of Staff modified the current emergency war plan code named Off tackle and other emergency plans to eliminate the deployment of the Marine battalion landing team to the Persian Gulf in the event of war Those troops were instead to remain available for use in the Mediterranean No reasons were given for such a move but it seems likely that the combination of a further tightened Fiscal 1951 defense budget the growing in uence of Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on U S strategic plans and the threatening existence of the Soviet atomic bomb made such a move inevitable The emerging U S strategic attitude toward the Middle East and its oilfields is best illustrated by the original JCS recom- mendations for the U S position in the October 1950 Politico-Military Conver- sations with the British The Joint Chiefs pointed out that in their opinion if the West- ern Powers lose Western Europe which had been entirely written off in earlier war plans they lose the war On the other hand the loss of the Middle East in the early stages of a global war would not in itself be fatal although the recapture of the Middle East would be essential for victory The strategic defense contem- plated for the Far and Middle East indicates that those areas are for planning purposes now con- sidered to be in a lower category than Western Europe 2 7 Succeeding years and a larger defense budget served to modify that attitude as the 1951-1952 Middle East defense proposals and the Baghdad Pact indi- cate but the growth of Arab na- tionalism the intense hostilities gen- erated by the Arab-Israeli conflict and the changing nature of the peacetime energy needs of the United States en- sured that the January 1950 JCS de- cision would ring down the curtain on a fascinating and rather desperate period in the history of U S foreign policy These developments have a twofold historical significance The first and most obvious is the apparent parallel between the late 1940 s and the present day in terms of strategic concerns about inadequate oil reserves The operations plan for the occupation of Bahrein the pattern of U S naval activity in the Persian Gulf and the search for military options in the area including considera- tion of a possible base in the indian Ocean all have a familiar ring a re- minder that basic strategic problems will inevitably continue to emerge until some solution is found However it is hard to visualize the solution to this problem the U S military and increas- ineg the entire economy of the nation nds itself dependent on an energy commodity which we do not and can- not expect to fully control in adequate supply given skyrocketing demands and the volatile political situation in the Third World in general and the Middle East in particular This issue is clearly one of vital importance to the military planner as well as to the general public In more strictly histOrical terms however what is most significant about American naval officers unsuccessful attempts in the late 1940 s to institute plans which would ensure the United States access to Middle Eastern oil in the event of war is the light this failure sheds on the mood of American postwar military planning It has long been popularly assumed that the United States after World War II was in a position of unrivaled strength militarily as a result of the development of the atomic bomb and that it was free to exercise its will in the world with relative impunity In fact as recently declassified documents reveal the situa- tion was very different at least in the eyes of those charged with the Nation s defense American military planners saw themselves confronted by a nearly un- stoppable Russian war machine They expected in the event of war that they would be initially forced to abandon virtually all of Western Europe the Mediterranean and the Middle East The debates over planning between 1947 and 1950 seem to have focused primarily on the question where it would be best to establish a toehold which could be used to neutralize and eventually roll back the Russian ad- vance Predictions of U S capabilities became increasingly gloomy until under pressure of the budget cuts it became OIL IN A FUTURE WAR 61 clear that only a single such toehold could be established and that it would be designed because of the growing influence of the Air Force with its strategic bombing capability to meet Air Force rather than Navy require- ments The wider implications of this decision are of enormous impact but lie beyond the scope of this paper The decision to abandon plans to defend Middle Eastern oil however clearly demonstrates the desperate last-ditch nature of postwar planning an image in striking contrast to that of the United States as an omnipotent military giant able to achieve whatever goals it set for itself BIOGRAPHIC SUMMARY A graduate of The American University David A Rosenberg received his MA from the Univarsity of Chicago where he is a doctoral candi- date He has bean en- gaged in active re- search in the fields of U S diplomatic naval military and political history and he has been a consultant on strategic weapons and force levels He is now an Advanced Research Scholar of the Naval War College In addition he is writing a biography of Adm Arleigh Burke NOTES 1 See in particular Thinking the Unthinkable Newsweek 7 October 1974 Robert W Tucker American Force The Missing Link in the Oil Crisis The Washington Post 5 January 1975 p Bl ff Excursion in the Persian Gulf Time 10 February 1975 pp 31-32 and Miles Ignotus pseudonym Seizing Arab Oil Harper s Magazine March 1975 pp 45-62 2 The information in this paper was taken primarily from the following sources all of which have been completely declassified within the past 2 years or from which declassified notes have been taken 1 The completely declassified Central Decimal Files CDF and Geographical Files GP for 1945-1947 and 1948-1950 of Record Group 218 the Records of the U S Joint Chiefs of Staff hereafter cited as JCS in the Modern Military Archives Branch of the National Archives 2 The Records of the Strategic Plans Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations hereafter cited as Files in the Naval History Division's Operational Archives NI-IA for the years 1946-1950 records for 1946-1947 have been completely declassified and 3 The post-1946 Command Files of the Operational Archives With respect to the latter collection I would like to thank Dr Richard K Smith formerly of Lulejian and Associates inc and Lt Comdr Philip A Dur USN for making available to me some of their notes and copied documents 62 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW 3 Despite the great interest in the Middle East and the oil problem there is a general dearth of scholarly work on the historical problems of American interest in this area Besides James A Field's pioneering background study America and the Mediterranean World 1776-1882 Princeton N J Princeton University Press 1969 the works that I found most useful in providing a backdrop for the 1945-1950 period were John C Campbell Defense of the Middle East Problems of American Policy New York Harper 8 Brothers 1958 Herbert Feis Three International Episodes Seen From E A New York Norton 1966 original edition 1946 Raymond F MikeSell and Hollis B Chenery Arabian Oil America s Stake in the Middle East Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press 1949 Benjamin Schwadrin The Middle East Oil and the Great Powers 3d ed New York Wiley 1973 Robert W Stockey America and the Arab States An Uneasy Encounter New York Wiley 1975 and Mira Wilkins The Maturing of Multinational Enterprises American Business Abroad from 1914 to 1970 Cambridge Mass Harvard University Press 1974 4 Mikesell and Chenery pp 58-67 90-109 181 and Wilkins pp 276-282 5 JLPC 23 October 1945 and JLPC 38 19 8 November 1945 in CCS 092 U S S R 3-27-45 Section 2 GF JCS See also the other intelligence estimates in the JIS Joint Intelligence Staff 80 series in this section for the wider context of these studies The JLPC study concluded that it was possible to move 300 000 men to the Persian Gulf within 6 months to over 1 year based on current capabilities 6 Rear Adm Cato D Glover Memorandum for the Chief of Naval Operations Serial 0005P30 of 21 January 1947 Subject Resume of Pincher Planning in War Plans 1947 Files NHA 7 Ibid 8 JLPC 33 38 24 October 1946 in CCS 463 7 9-6-45 Section 2 CDF JCS It is interesting to note how estimates of both United States and Arabian reserves have changed Saudi Arabian reserves are now considered to be as much as 460 billion barrels 9 JCS 1741 29 January 1947 in CCS 463 7 9-6 45 Section 2 CDF JCS p 3 See also Rear Adm C D Glover Memorandum for Fleet Admiral Nimitz Serial 00012P30 of 4 February 1947 Subject JCS 1741 Problem of Procurement of Oil in a Future War in L Logistics Group 1947 Op-30 Files NHA 10 Letter Forrestal to the President 10 March 1947 in Alaska Folder Box 112 President's Secretary's File General File Harry S Truman Library For Forrestal s views on the Palestine situation see Walter Millis and Eugene Duffield eds The Forrestal Diaries New York Viking 1951 pp 263-367 11 Capt George W Anderson Memorandum for Chairman General Board 8 May 1948 Subject Some Notes on Our Strategic Position vis a-vis Russia for Consideration of the General Board in Warfare Reports 1948 Op-30 Files NHA This paper was a duplicate of the one Anderson prepared for Admiral Sherman in 1947 It was described by Admiral Anderson in detail in an interview with the author Washington D C 5 September 1974 12 See JCS 17252'1 of 13 February 1947 Strategic Guidance for Industrial Mobilization Planning JWPC 486 of 29 July 1947 Guidance for Mobilization Planning as Effected sic by the Use of Atomic Weapons and JWPC 48618 of 18 August 1947 Guidance for Mobilization Planning as Affected by Loss of the Mediterranean Line of Communications all in CCS 004 04 11-4-46 Section 3 and Bulky Package CDF JCS 13 John C Woelfel First Visit to the Middle East Shipmate U S Naval Academy Alumni Association November 1973 pp 23-24 14 Fleet Adm C W Nimitz Chief of Naval Operations to Commanders in Chief Atlantic Pacific and Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean 12 July 1947 in War Plans 1947 Op-30 Files NHA This memo was canceled by CNO Serial 00098P30 of 19 August 1947 but was cited in JCS 1844113 below as assigning Bahrein operations to CINCPAC 15 Capt Thomas J Kelly USN to Adm R L Conolly USN Op-40C-rblaw of 16 September 1947 CINCNELM File Command Files NHA 16 CINCNELM Semi-Annual Summary of U S Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean 1 October 1947-31 March 1948 18 April 1948 in CINCNELM File Command File NHA The movement of Marines to the Mediterranean was also reported in Harold B Hinton Marines Going to Mediterranean to Reinforce 4 U S Warships The New York Times 4January 1948 p 1 3 17 Rear Adm H M Martin Commander Carrier Division Five to Chief of Naval Operations no serial no date Subject Observations Saudi Arabia in A8 Intelligence 1948 Op-30 Files NHA 18 Accounts of the so-called Pentagon Talks of 1947 between the United States and Great Britain concerning the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East may be found in CCS 381 Eastern OIL IN A FUTURE WAR 63 Mediterranean and Middle East Area 11-1947 Section 1 GF JCS and U S Department of State Foreign Relations of the United States 1947 Volume V Near East and Africa Washington U S Govt Print Off 1971 pp 485627 A copy 0f the Navy's CNO Op-Plan 1-47 of 17 December 1947 which concerned the landing of a Reinforced Marine Brigade or Reinforced Marine Division in Greece may be found in Folder Miscellaneous Navy Op-Plan 1-47 in the Op-30 Files NHA It should be noted that in JCS 1819 of 19 November 1947 British-United States Conversations in the JCS file just cited it was stated that the JCS preferred to note that the security of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East is of critical importance rather than vital to the future security of the United States 19 JCS 184419 of 18 June 1948 Brief of an Alternative Short-Range Emergency War Plan Short Title Frolichrabber p 90 and JCS 1844 13 of 30 June 1948 Directives for the Implementation of HalfmooanleetwoodlDoublestar p 124 in CCS 381 U S S R 3-2-46 Section 17 and 18 respectively Both of these plans were declassified on 9 December 1975 20 ibid See also the Editorial Note quoting a JCS paper apparently to the National Security Council of 2 August 1948 in Foreign Relations of the United States 1948 Volume V The Near East South Asia and Africa Part 1 Washington U S Govt Print Off 1975 pp 2-3 For Navy opposition to Frolic see the Memoranda from the Chief of Naval Operations to the JCS 11 August and 22 September 1948 in War Plans 1948 and Rear Adm C W Styer Memo to CNO Serial 000126P30 of 10 April 1948 Subject The Navy Position Regarding the Unilateral Request of the Air Force for a Seventy Group Program in A21 Aviation 1948 both in Op-30 Files NHA 21 Rear Adm Walter F Boone Memorandum for Op-30 Subject Statement of Major Problems 22 November 1948 in A9 Reports and Statistics 1948 Op-30 Files NHA See also Rear Adm W F Boone Asstant CNO Strategic Plans to CNO Serial 000203P30 of 17 May 1948 Subject Agenda for General Board Serial 315 Study of Nature of Warfare Within the Next Ten Years and Navy Contributions in Support of National Security in A163 R Warfare-Reports 1948 in ibid On Conolly's views see CINCNELM to General Board U S Navy via CNO Serial 00103 of 6 July 1948 Subject Comments on Agenda for General Board Serial 315 Forwarding of in same folder On Burke s see General Board 425 Serial 315 of 25 June 1948 National Security and Navy Contributions Thereto for the Next Ten Years A Study by the General Board in Personal File Papers of Adm Arleigh A Burke USN NHA especially 48-51 of Enclosure D Denfeld's stands are exemplified in the two CNO memoranda to the JCS cited above 22 The debates over the Fiscal Year 1950 Budget are best illustrated by JCS 1800 16 of 17 November 1948 Allocation of Forces and Funds for the FY 1950 Budget and JCS 1800 318 of 15 November 1948 Allocation of Funds for the FY 1950 Budget both in CCS 370 8-18-45 Section 11 CDF and the rest of the papers in that file for the period October-December 1948 23 The long and complicated fight over the Navy's place in postwar strategy is described in detail in this writer's own study prepared with Floyd D Kennedy Naval Strategy in a Period of Change Strategic Interaction Interservice Rivalry and the Development of a Nuclear Attack Capability 1945-1951 prepared for Lulejian and Associates 1nc Falls Church Va as Part 1 of U S Aircraft Carriers in a Strategic Role of the History of the United States-U S S R Strategic Arms Competition This is an unclassified study prepared for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Plans and Policy in October 1975 24 The information on ship movements was taken from the summary reports of CINCNELM to CNO for April to September 1948 Serial 0195 of 14 October 1948 and for July 1948-July 1949 Serial 0379 of 30 November 1949 in the C1NCNELM Command File NHA The report on Trincomalee is to be found in enclosure of Capt G R Cooper Comdr F B Risser and Comdr H C DeLong Memorandum of Ops-03 and 04 no serial no date Subject Joint Report on Pertinent Observations during Recent Trip to Mediterranean-Middle East Area in A8 Intelligence 1948 in Op-30 Files NHA 25 U S Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Operation Plan Com 6th- TaskFleet No 8-48 Serial 000159 of 15 November 1948 in CINCNELM Command File Post 1946 NBA 26 Rear Adm Stuart Ingersoll Memorandum by direction CNO to CINCNELM Serial 000871330 of 30 January 1950 no subject in Alb-3 Warfare Operations War Games 1950 Op-30 Files NHA Offtackle was the war plan that was begun in April 1949 in response to the Fiscal 1950 budget cutbacks and approved by the JCS in December The basic concept of this plan may be found in JCS 184437 of 27 April 1949 Preparation of a Joint Outline Emergency War Plan in CCS 381 U S S R 3-2-46 Section 12 GF JCS 64 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW 2'7 JCS 18875 of 24 October 1950I Report by the Joint Strategic Survey Committee on Politico-Military Convarsations With- the British Scheduled for 26 OctoberI 117 in CCS 381 Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East Area 11 19 47 Section 2 GF JCS The final version of that quote was modified at the suggestion of Adm Forrest ShermanI the Chief of Naval Operations to read in their opinion the loss of Western Europe would represent a most serious blow to the Western powers 28 See Campbell The Defense of the Middle East chapters 4 and 5 for details 41