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needed and that the Supreme Commanders should be directed to submit their detailed requirements under such a program.54

Upon receipt of programs from the Supreme Commanders, the logistics and materiel planners of the Standing Group staff prepared a draft paper stating to the North Atlantic Council the infrastructure requirements foreseen by the NATO commanders for the three-year period 1957-1959. The logistic requirements were described as having been generated by the concept of war set out in MC 48, the dispersal of air force units, the accession of Germany to NATO, and the air defense study conducted by SACEUR. In presenting these logistic requirements, the planners had deliberately stated them in broad terms so as to avoid the difficulties encountered in the previous program, where member countries had exerted great pressure to obtain expenditure of specific sums within their borders as stated in the original forecasts, without regard for changes that might have occurred in the military situation.55

On 10 April 1956 the Joint Chiefs of Staff informed the US representative that they approved the draft report, provided any new three-year program was sufficiently flexible to accommodate new weapons installations such as guided missile sites and provided the tropospheric and ionospheric scatter system of communications proposed by SACEUR accorded with the stipulations previously made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. These were that the system be designed and built by a single prime contractor to ensure compatibility and uniformity throughout and that it be financed under a special provision of NATO funds so that title to the system remained with SACEUR.56

On 27 April, the Military Committee approved and forwarded to the North Atlantic Council MC 32/6, a three-year infrastructure program at a broadly estimated cost of $910 million. It had the objective of satisfying requirements for the following: the buildup of German forces; improvement of the posture of NATO air and naval forces; an integrated early warning system; forward detection of enemy submarines; support of the forward strategy; and improvement and extension of previously authorized infrastructure complexes. The North Atlantic Council, however, decided against an infrastructure program of this magnitude. On 14 August, it approved expenditure of only $710 million and provided that the program be stretched out over a four-year period.57

Accomplishments of NATO, 1955-1956

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s 1956 drew to a close, the NATO military authorities could foresee no early Lattainment of the force requirements of MC 48. A severe blow to the hopes of achieving the necessary force levels had been the redeployment of French forces from the NATO central sector to North Africa. By the end of 1956, only two of the six French M-day divisions remained in position in Europe, and they were at two-thirds strength. In view of the worsening situation in Algeria, the prospect of a speedy return of these divisions was not bright. The deployment of German forces, of which five divisions were scheduled for 1957, would offset the loss of

the French units. This deployment would not, however, make possible the attainment of the MC force goals since those goals were predicated on the full French contribution as well as a German contribution of 12 divisions. There was no prospect that the other members of the alliance would increase the forces assigned. To the contrary, there had been minor slippages in meeting the commitments already made by some of the member countries.

Various other problems arising from a nuclear strategy, such as the dispersal of forces, the provision of coordinated air defenses, and the introduction of tactical nuclear weapons, had been addressed during 1955-1956, but little progress had been made toward solving any of them. They would pose a major concern to the military authorities of NATO in the years ahead.

Search for a Collective Defense of the
Middle East

8

The Middle East, consisting of the lands extending from the western border of Egypt to the eastern border of West Pakistan and from the southern shore of the Black Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the southern border of the Sudan, continued during the mid-1950s to be an area of great strategic, political, and economic importance to the free world.' It contained the largest petroleum resources in the world, the Suez Canal, and locations for military bases of high importance in the event of a general war with the Soviet Union.

Since the end of World War II, Western influence in the Middle East had dwindled, concurrently with the rise of a conscious Arab nationalism. The coming to power of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt in 1954 gave new impetus to the development of Arab nationalism. Nasser soon made it apparent that he aspired to be the leader not merely of Egypt but of the entire Arab world, and by 1955 his political machinations and propaganda broadcasts were contributing significantly to the political and social ferment in the area.

Another element in the decline of Western influence was growing communist penetration of the Middle East. Since the death of Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union had turned increasingly toward peaceful penetration of the Arab states through economic aid and professions of political support. Serving further to alienate the Moslem countries from the West was the establishment in 1948 of the state of Israel as a Jewish national homeland, a development in which the United States and the United Kingdom had taken a prominent part.2

As a result, the Western interests in the oil resources, communication lines, and military base rights of the region were endangered. In seeking to preserve these interests, at a time when the power and prestige of Great Britain in the area were declining, the United States had been obliged to become actively concerned with the Middle East.

Origins of Collective Defense

t the beginning of 1955 US policy toward the Middle East was contained in

ANSC 5429, which President Eisenhower had approved on 23 July 1954. The

NSC paper acknowledged the strategic, political, and economic significance of the area and concluded that the security interests of the United States would be critically endangered should the Middle East fall under Soviet influence or control. Hence the policy objective must be to keep available to the United States and its allies the resources, strategic positions, and passage rights of the area while denying them to the Soviet bloc. In NSC 5428 the current danger to these security interests was seen to arise less from the possibility of direct Soviet attack than from increasing Soviet peaceful penetration, combined with rising Arab nationalism and declining Western influence in the Arab countries.

To attain the policy objective, NSC 5428 called chiefly for political and economic measures, designed to persuade the Arab states that the United States was in sympathy with their legitimate aspirations, to support Arab governments friendly to the West, and to employ increased economic and technical aid in the area. As military measures, NSC 5428 listed the creation of a collective defense system involving Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Pakistan and the preparation of plans for military operations to deter or terminate any large-scale hostilities between Israel and her Arab neighbors.

The interest of the United States in collective defense of the Middle East dated from the outbreak of the Korean conflict, an event that had served notice the Soviet Union was prepared to support open aggression to achieve its goals. Recognizing the vulnerability of the Middle East to Soviet attack, the United States had joined with Great Britain in an attempt to enlist the states of the area in a Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO). Major Arab states such as Egypt and Syria had shown no interest in MEDO, and by 1953 it was clear that the proposal had scant prospect of success.

The United States then turned to the northern tier countries-Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan—which because of their proximity to the Soviet Union were more sensitive to Soviet expansionist ambitions than their neighbors to the south and west. Following a trip to the area in the spring of 1953, Secretary of State Dulles had concluded that the defense of the Middle East could best be organized around these northern states. His consultations with leaders of these countries had convinced the Secretary, however, that completion of such a defensive arrangement was not imminent; the United States should retain it as an objective but await a stronger expression of interest on the part of the states concerned. This view found acceptance in the Eisenhower administration and became official policy by its inclusion in NSC 5428.

As early as mid-November 1953, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had advised Secretary Wilson that the time might be propitious for encouraging a defensive association among the four northern nations. In June 1954 they began informal consultations with the representatives of the British Chiefs of Staff in Washington about possible coordination of Middle East defense planning. With the approval of NSC 5428 a month later, the matter was pursued more energetically, culminating

in agreement that military representatives of the United States, United Kingdom, and Turkey would meet in London in January 1955 for staff talks on operational planning for Middle East defense.5

Tripartite Staff Talks

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The military representatives who convened in London were Admiral John H. Cassady, CINCNELM, for the United States; Air Chief Marshal P. IvelawChapman, Vice Chief of the United Kingdom Air Staff, for Great Britain; and Lieutenant General R. Erdelun, Deputy Chief of the General Staff, for Turkey. In guidance for Admiral Cassady, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had cited their decision of 6 April 1954 that US interests in the Middle East would be secured by holding Turkey and the Zagros Mountains stretching along the western border of Iran and the territory west and south thereof, which contained the major oil reserves, communication lines, and military base sites. The Joint Chiefs of Staff advised CINCNELM that they did not contemplate stationing or committing any significant US forces in defense of the Middle East at that time."

The planners in London agreed to the following agenda: develop a concept for the defense of the area along the line of the Zagros Mountains; determine the forces required for such a defense and the rate of buildup; and recommend means of making up deficits in forces and materiel.

In a report, issued on 22 February 1955, the tripartite military representatives concluded that the Middle East countries were capable of providing the ground forces needed to defend the Zagros line but would require outside assistance to bring them up to the necessary state of readiness. Air and naval forces would have to be provided from sources outside the area, presumably the United States and Great Britain. Rapid movement into position would be necessary to a successful defense, making advance logistical arrangements for the movements essential.

In reaching these conclusions, the planners assumed that the Soviets would attack as part of a general war in which NATO was engaged and would use only the forces immediately available south of the Caucasus and in Turkestan— some 24 divisions and 1,285 aircraft. They assumed further that the Soviet Union would be hit by a general nuclear strategic air offensive and that additional nuclear weapons and means of delivery would be made available within the Middle East theater. Nuclear attacks, they estimated, would reduce the combat effectiveness of Soviet forces reaching the passes by 15-25 percent, would cut the rate of advance of follow-up forces by 50 percent, and would seriously reduce resupply. Nuclear air strikes against Soviet air forces at H-hour on D-day would be essential to attaining a favorable air situation. In view of the fact that US policy required storage of nuclear weapons in US custody, studies of employment of nuclear weapons were made under two separate assumptions— availability at H-hour, and availability at H+18 days.

Based on these assumptions and estimates, the planners concluded that a force of 71⁄2 divisions (or 91⁄2 in the Turkish view) could hold the Zagros passes.

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