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Since the 19th century the Gulf region has been an area of intense interest, having been influenced first by the British and more recently by the Americans. This book charts the changing security and political priorities of these two powers and how they have shaped the region. Adopting a narrative approach, the author provides background history on British involvement from the 19th century and a detailed analysis of the years after the Second World War, when oil supply became more critical. He covers the growth of US influence and the British withdrawal, and follows more recent changes as the US built up its military presence following Desert Storm and the invasion of Iraq. Looking at the three enduring missions fulfilled by the British - maintaining interstate order, protecting the free flow of commerce, which later included petroleum; and keeping out other Great Powers – the book demonstrates how these had by 1991 been assumed almost entirely by the American leaders. A comprehensive and thorough look at the history of the Gulf and the contemporary issues affecting the region, this will be essential reading for students of Middle East history, military history and diplomatic history. Visit the author's website at www.thepoliticsandsecurityofthegulf.com 1. Great Britain’s Legacy in the Persian Gulf 2. World War II and the Arrival of the Americans 3. The Early Cold War, the Loss of India, and Nasser's Revolt Against the British, 1946-1958 4. The British Position in the Gulf under Assault 5. America Watches as the British Birth a New Gulf Order, 1968-1971 6. The Chaotic Interregnum: America Cries Enough, 1972-1991 7. Pax Americana - Bellum Americanum, 1991-present. Conclusion Jeffrey R. Macris is a Permanent Military Professor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, where he teaches Middle Eastern history and military history. A resident of the Persian Gulf for nearly three years, he has worked with military officers from most of the Arab states of the Gulf. Reviews and further information on the title and the author can be found on the books website at: www.thepoliticsandsecurityofthegulf.com \"This comprehensive work presents and in-depth analysis of how British since the 19 th century, and more recently the United States, have influenced and shaped the politics and security of the Persian Gulf region… This is a truly remarkable book of major importance that crosses several disciplines. It is a must-read for those interested in Middle East history, strategic studies, military history, and American British diplomatic history.\" – Dr. Shaheen Ayubi, professor of Political Science, Rutgers University \"A superb political-military study of the Persian Gulf region that provides a sophisticated analysis of British interests, past and present, and how the United States inherited its current security role driven largely by Britain's withdrawal \"East of Suez\" and U.S. Cold War fears. It is a legacy, as Dr. Macris cogently points out in his conclusion, that the United States will continue to find difficult to discharge in the 21st century as guardian of global public goods.\" -- Frank L. Jones, Professor of Security Studies, U.S. Army War College “Jeffrey Macris, has written a first-rate, timely and much-needed account of the handover of responsibility for the security of the Gulf from Britain to the United States during the past four decades. Let us hope that American and British policymakers will read it in order to avoid the mistakes of the past.” -- Dr. Saul Kelly, Defence Studies Department, King's College, London, UK Joint Services Command and Staff College “Prof. Macris's work is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the critically important Gulf region. His extensive research provides the reader with a well-written, balanced view of the roles of both of London and Washington in this area of the world.” -- Miriam Joyce, Ph.D., Professor of History, Purdue University Calumet More reviews and further information on the title and the author can be found on the books website at: www.thepoliticsandsecurityofthegulf.com

The period from 1968 to 1971 proved monumental in the Gulf, for not only did it bring to a close over a century of British supremacy in the region, but during this time a new political order in the Persian Gulf emerged. In early 1968 the British announced their intention to shed Britain’s paternalistic ties to the Gulf, along with most military commitments “East of Suez.” During the subsequent three years Britain’s diplomats exhibited determination and perseverance in their efforts to prepare the way for a new Persian Gulf order, attempting to solve unsettled issues that for decades had remained unresolved as long as British power stood nearby. What type of political order would emerge? Would the Arabs in the former protectorates unify into one state, or venture forth as independent entities? In January 1968, no one knew.

Despite pre-Desert Storm pledges to depart after evicting Saddam from Kuwait, American military forces after 1991 remained in the Gulf region, fulfilling duties that the British undertook during the previous century and a half: patrolling the waters, protecting the free flow of commerce – beginning in the twentieth century, oil – through the Strait of Hormuz, quelling interstate tensions, and when politicians at home deemed it essential to their national interests, engaging in hostilities ashore. This final chapter examines how America’s military presence became a permanent one in the Gulf, and how in the aftermath of 9/11, America looked away from Saudi Arabia and more toward the littoral states of the Gulf for presence and access as Britain had done earlier.

World War II ended with the allies victorious. During the conflict Iranian and Saudi leaders had invited American military trainers and advisors to assist them in bolstering their defenses; from Saudi Arabia they departed, but in Iran, government leaders asked them to stay. It would be a great mistake, however, to say that World War II marked the beginning of an American march to dominate the Persian Gulf. Great Britain’s influence greatly exceeded that of any other power, and those in London wished to keep it that way. They retained paternalistic defense relationships with the emirates on the Gulf, after all, and they possessed military bases throughout the region, including Iraq, Oman, and Aden. They maintained a flotilla of operational warships in Gulf waters. They garrisoned large numbers of troops within striking distance of the region. And perhaps most importantly, London officials felt themselves committed to maintaining order in the region, as they had done for over a century. The British in the first decade-and-a-half after World War II, however, faced one setback after another in the region, forcing London officials – against their wishes – to take the first steps in an unplanned and very drawn out retrenchment from the region, starting with the nation’s departure from India. These setbacks played out during the early years of the Cold War, in which America took the lead around the world in facing down an increasingly aggressive Soviet Union. This chapter, then, looks at British challenges and America’s growing presence in the Persian Gulf region from 1946-58.

Though the Persian Gulf remained but a side show in the worldwide fighting that took place in World War II from 1939-45, the theater proved important for several reasons. It provided to Great Britain and the allies a chief source of petroleum. By seizing the region, Axis leaders aimed to take those supplies, and use the greater Gulf area as an embarkation point for a possible attack into the Soviet Union’s southern underbelly. Throughout the war the region remained important, as it had been for millennia, because of its strategic travel and communications route between Europe and Asia; the Allies would have found it much more difficult to move men and materiel between the Atlantic and Pacific theaters had they lost the Persian Gulf. And finally, the Gulf became a principal lifeline in Washington and London’s strategic initiative to provide material aid to their beleaguered Russian ally. The Gulf region, in other words, held a strategic significance in World War II much greater than the dearth of fighting might otherwise suggest.

The late 1950s and 1960s proved a period of trial for the British in the Persian Gulf, as London’s leaders attempted to reconcile their enduring political and military commitments with their shrinking financial and military resources.1

As promised, the British withdrew their military forces from the Persian Gulf at the end of 1971. The United States – mired in Cold War commitments in Vietnam, Europe, and elsewhere – elected not to replace them. Washington officials kept in the Gulf region their very modest naval flotilla based in Bahrain, as well as their cadre of military trainers in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Those sea and land units, however, were political tools, and did not represent war-fighting, operational forces. By early 1972, then, for the first time in almost 150 years, the Persian Gulf lacked a major Western military presence. Though the British prior to their departure managed to solve a hefty share of the political quarrels in the region, as detailed in the last chapter, even before the last British troops departed it became apparent that substantial turmoil and tension remained. The Persian Gulf in the 1970s and 1980s increasingly became an armed camp. Over the next two decades, without Britain to maintain order, the three large states in the region – Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq – squared off against each other and the small states around them. A very turbulent era followed. Although this story up to this point has concentrated on the British in the Persian Gulf, after 1971 it becomes largely an American saga. As Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Roy Jenkins explained when his Labour Government announced their withdrawal from the Gulf, the British were “no longer a superpower.”1 This chapter, then, primarily surrounds America’s response to the chaotic “interregnum” between Britain’s pull-out in 1971 and America’s arrival in force two decades later in Desert Storm, a conflict after which the Americans never left the Persian Gulf.

The Persian Gulf is a remote body of water whose importance to Western powers over the centuries has vastly exceeded its size. An appendage of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, it stretches 600 miles in a northwesterly direction, from its mouth at the Strait of Hormuz to its headwaters at the Shatt al Arab, the river that separates Iran and Iraq. This Gulf separates two noble societies. To the south, on the Arabian Peninsula, live the Arabs. This is the holy land of Islam, the place in which the Prophet Muhammed in the 7th century  received the revealed word of God, and from which – in an amazing display of faith and fury – his followers set out to conquer and convert what remained of the Roman and Persian empires. To the north live the Iranians, also Muslims, but of a different stock. Speaking an Indo-European rather than a Semitic tongue, the Iranians claim a proud Persian heritage that stretches back over two millennia to Kings Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes. Although thought by some to be the Biblical Garden of Eden, today the Arab and Persian lands surrounding the Gulf are dusty, hot, and humid. Arable land is scarce. Salt flats and barren plains stretch for miles along the southern shore; forbidding mountains arise from the northern coast. The Arabs have been cheated of deep, navigable water on their side of the Gulf; the flatlands ashore stretch underwater for miles, providing a dearth of natural ports. Iranian sailors have fared somewhat better; the natural deepwater channel through the Gulf hugs their northern shore, for example, but they too lack abundant havens from the sea, and hundreds of miles pass between good ports. Despite this paucity of harbors, however, the Gulf region sits athwart the trade and communication routes that bind Europe, Africa, and Asia. For centuries this strategic location, coupled the past 100 years with the discovery of oil, has made the Gulf a possession over which Western nations tangled. The Europeans arrived over five centuries ago, however, not to capture oil, nor to conquer, but rather to guard and to police. And though others preceded them, it would be the British who would stay for years, profoundly shaping the Persian Gulf region, and using surprisingly little force to impose their will.