Introduction
The reader is entitled to some intimation as to what he will find in the following pages. This is a re-study of the strategic position confronting the Western Powers in Europe with special emphasis on the Near East. It is the opinion of the writer that military and political planners have not given this area the attention which its importance demands.
This treatment is limited solely to strategic problems. The need for such an exclusive study was suggested to the writer when doing research connected with an analysis of the development of Western military plans. There have been published no studies, of an unclassified nature and available to the majority of the readers of the Proceedings, of the strategic problems of the Near East and the aim of the Western powers in this theatre.1 This paper is an attempt to fill that void; at least, it is hoped that the ideas here suggested will stimulate in the reader greater interest in the area.
It is the purpose of this paper to present three theses.
First, that the Near East is an area of key strategic importance: that upon it may depend the whole hope of an allied military success or the preservation of peace.
Secondly, that the area is defensible.
Thirdly, that a definitive policy must be established for the area and it is urgent that its military potential be strengthened.
I
The United States is in desperate need of a realistic policy towards the whole of the Mediterranean and the Near East. For want of definitude of purpose our dealings with the Mediterranean have been for the most part directionless.
The foreign policy of the United States has been in such a constant state of revision that perhaps it is inevitable that a lack of direction should characterize so important an aspect of our international interests. The good will and aspiration that obtained in 1945 seem implausible in retrospect. The changes in our political views have not been more drastic than the fluctuations in our strategic concepts. Let us review briefly the major alterations in political and strategic aims in the past few years.
The end of hostilities was marked by fervent desire for lasting peace. The next war was viewed as a very remote conflict. The entire aspect of War No. Ill had an aura of futurism bordering on the fantastic. Weapons would include not only rockets, super-atomic bombs, and electronic devices approaching the human but a new satellite for the earth. The electronic airborne victory was at hand. All weapons except those flying through the air were as archaic as spears. The army and the navy would of course be required to perform certain auxiliary services. This unbridled futurism was given some pause by the publications of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey and by the dishearteningly rapid deterioration of relations between the United States and the other western nations and the Soviet bloc.
Conditions now suggest that our defense will probably be more immediate and made with weapons very similar to those put under cover. In 1948 popular journals diverted the public with wondrous polar projections showing gleaming bombers winging through the thin frigid air. Here was the epitome of the global concept of the “Absolute Weapon”, disciples: Intercontinental bombing—across the arctic to targets in the heart of the Eurasian land mass. Discussions of strategy were illustrated with polar maps. The globe was tilted. America faced North.
This plan was viewed in Europe with a marked lack of enthusiasm. It was called a Maginot line outlook. Some of the best qualified European strategic writers subjected it to critical (and not always unimpassioned) attack. They did not like to be considered sacrificed.2
America’s defensibility against intercontinental attack for the forseeable future seems patent. Strategic bombing is no long suit in the Soviet airforce. The range of the Tupolev bomber (Russia’s copy of the B-29) would have to be boosted from its present 4000 miles to 5000. This would permit a no return trip. This is not even considering the technical difficulties of trans-arctic flights.
European writers have urged that we use strategic bombing bases nearer the target. “Why should the United States handicap herself by launching her strategic air offensive from bases at home and plotting it across the arctic? What is wrong with Britain as a base? If East Anglia is considered too vulnerable what about Ulster? Why make the polar concept the basis of a strategic policy to which there seems to be an obvious alternative.”
True the B-36 will carry 10,000 lbs. of bombs 10,000 miles. But the B-36 has a capacity of upwards of 84,000 lbs. for shorter hauls. It would seem that the aim should be to get the bomb load as close as possible to the latter figure.
During late 1948 and 1949 this futuristic concept of intercontinental warfare fell more and more into disfavor. The feeling has become almost universal in American military and political circles that the Soviet armies must not be permitted to. enslave the peoples of the western continent. Abandonment of the West seems not only immoral in extremis but fatal strategically as well.
To pound Russia into submission after she has overrun the West seems no longer enough. We must check and defeat her onslaught on the West. The North Atlantic Union adopted the defense of the West as their chief concern. Unanimity of aim has been achieved.
The singleness of purpose however has not been followed by an agreement on means. The statements of European military leaders and statesmen vary from sanguine optimism to near maudlin fatalism. The tone of the writings are at such variance that one wonders if all these experts are talking of the same thing.
There has been much talk of keeping Russia behind her “historic line of containment”—the Baltic to the Black Sea. But, as Mr. Churchill pointed out, the Russian frontier is at the Elbe. One of the most respected British military writers is on record as saying that the aim of the Western Powers is to contain the Soviet Armies at the Rhine; that is, holding the line of the Rhine from Switzerland to the North Sea. It was estimated in 1949 that 50 motorized and 10 armored divisions would be required for this containment. The same writer this year poses the thesis that any advance beyond the Rhine is potentially suicidal for the Red armies. This is at least a comforting view.
German officers of the former General Staff queried this fall are universally unflattering in their opinion of the Russian army. They insist that the Russians can be contained by 30 divisions. French officers speaking at the same time are more impressed with the danger of the situation. It has even been said on the floor of the Assemble Nationale that at present nothing prevents the Russians from moving to the shores of the Atlantic in a few days. The French generals anticipate a new blitzkrieg opened simultaneously on several fronts and advancing irresistibly to the water barriers of the continent. General Charles Mast, former chief of the Ecole de Guerre, is convinced that the North Atlantic powers must mobilize 120 divisions, including 50 French and 30 German divisions. All the French and German officers were in agreement that one of the most important but not the heaviest blow will be through Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. A perusal of the published writings and statements of qualified military leaders during the past two years reveals that there is almost complete agreement on the certainty of holding North Africa and the British Isles, and a reasonable degree of assurance of maintaining lines at the Pyrenees, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
We have reviewed the evolution of military aim from one of insularity to continental commitment. The further discussion of our military operations will be based on a premise that will not be unpalatable to the readers of the Proceedings. This is that from the opening of hostilities Anglo-American Naval forces (including naval air) will obtain and maintain control of the sea approaches to Europe, including the entire Mediterranean.
The maintenance of the Western position in Turkey and Iran is the key to the defense not only of the Near East, but of all the West, and one of the best assurances of maintaining the peace.
The writer submits that Western military, naval, and air strength in Turkey will be such a threat to the Soviet homeland that it will serve as a constant deterrent to any Soviet expansion through France. Such a tenet however does not seem to occupy much attention in American and other Western policy-making circles.
Turkey is separated from Russia by mountain and water barriers, Russia has demonstrated her formidable defenses against land invasion but historically her defeats have always been at the hands of strong naval powers: i.e., Great Britain, Japan.
The thought of engaging in a great land conflict with the overwhelming numbers of Russian troops with their defense in depth across the great Eurasian continent is no less frightening to the professional military officer than it is to the layman. But we are a great naval power and we can move quickly and unhindered on the sea, and the Mediterranean Sea parallels the continent: a broad highway to the very heartland of Russian industry.
Turning to the physical map, we observe the proximity of Asiatic Turkey to the center of Russia. Shown also is the narrowness of the continent between the Baltic and the Black Seas. It is a little over 700 miles. In a war of limited objectives, strong amphibious forces ashore in Latvia and on the Black Sea beaches might well prove fatal to Russia with her armies tied up in the West. Moscow is very conscious of the danger threatening these areas—and the possibility of her being beaten again by her historical nemesis: naval power. Feverish activity is going on in the Baltic and the Black Sea to build up her naval defenses. Swedish and Turkish intelligence reports tell us of Russia’s naval activity. Best sources indicate that this year Russia has 3 to 5 battleships, 13 cruisers, 75 destroyers, 360 submarines. It is not inconceivable that great American naval forces may one day sortie from the Bosphorus to gain control of the sea and land troops in Russia.
The map also shows the proximity of Near Eastern air bases to Soviet industrial targets. Most of the European continent is within short flying distance of central Turkey. Many Soviet centers of production and major railway lines are within very short range of the shores of the Black Sea. Attacks on transportation and oil yield quicker results, if the bomber offense against Germany is a true guide, than attacks on urban targets. Despite the great extent of European Russia, her industrial production is highly concentrated in about twenty centers. Almost all her armored car production is in the Ural group of Sverdlovsk, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk, Chakalov, and Uralsk. Seventy-five per cent of Russian aircraft production is in five towns in the Volga area, (Saratov, Koubychey, Astrakhan, Ulyahovsk, and Ufa). Over fifty per cent of all Soviet oil production is in the Baku area.
The area itself is of the greatest economic importance to the Western Nations. Turkey is in constant fear of Russian incursion in the Near East. Turkey fears that a Soviet Union will take from her what no Czar ever could. The worlds greatest known oil reserves are in this area.3 As one expert has written: “Middle East oil is the greatest single strategic-economic factor in the world. Without it the whole economy of Western Europe would be chaotic: by 1951 four-fifths of Europe’s oil will come from the Persian Gulf Area.” American interest in Middle East oil is principally economic, as contrasted to immediate strategic necessity. However, the loss of oil imports from the Persian Gulf area would compel undesirably rapid depletion of United States reserves. In this respect American strategic and military aims are in coincidence.
Although the fate and the key strategic importance of the Near East are not primary causes of concern at Fontainbleau and Washington, this is not the case in Moscow. An attempt to move in this direction was made by the U.S.S.R. immediately upon the cessation of the hostilities of World War II. In October, 1945, British troops quickly moved into Azerbaijan and prevented establishment there of an “autonomous” state under Soviet hegemony. It is illumining that a determined show of strength should have so quickly deterred Russian ambitions.
Let us indulge for a moment the unpleasant consideration of the consequences of loss of the area. Lost would be almost all of Western Europe’s petroleum supply, with the great American capital investment in Iranian and Arabian oil fields, and its gain to the enemy. The Western Hemisphere would have to supply all the oil for the allied war effort; this from a reserve which would quickly dwindle (it should be recalled that in recent years the United States has become an oil importing nation). Russia would have marine egress to the Mediterranean and western shipping and naval units would be subjected to Soviet submarine attack. With the Levant in Communist hands Russian ground forces have a highway westward. The Suez Canal route would be cut, reducing Far Eastern communications to a 19th century basis. All of North Africa could soon be occupied. Western efforts to regain an offensive position would have to be directed against Russia’s historic defense bulwarks, land areas and troop masses. If we hope to win we must maintain a position that will enable us to use our weapons.
II
The Near East is in a better position strategically than is the western continent. However, at this writing, Turkey, Iran, and the Levant could not long resist a Communist advance. This is the belief of the highest ranking European military planners. “In this area what is to stop Russia which has a common frontier with Turkey and Iran? About 100,000 British troops based on Egypt, six British air bases and a varied collection of governments for the most part ramshackle and corrupt,” one expert states. General Mast’s belief is that the Russians are prepared to use between forty and sixty divisions for the Turkey-Iran push. French Staff officers hold out little hope if an attack is launched in the near future that the Russians can be prevented from reaching the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean.
There are considerations overlooked in these analyses, however, that are to our advantage. As allies the Western powers would have the first-class Israeli army. Its officers for the most part are European trained and of high calibre, Their morale is high. The entire force is organized on a motorized basis and is trained to cover long distances rapidly. Israeli government officials say they are able to muster 200,000 troops in an emergency and add to them later. All this fine force lacks is a sufficiency of modern weapons.
The attack on European Turkey will be exceedingly difficult. Northern Turkey will have for its defense not only the well trained and spirited Turkish army but as allies she will have the Greeks, and probably the Yugoslays. The right flank of the invader would be open to amphibious attack from the Aegean Sea. Moreover the whole narrow front would be under cover of tactical aircraft flown from carriers. In the worst eventuality, defeat of the Turkish forces in European Turkey, it would be exceedingly difficult for the Russians and their Bulgarian allies to negotiate the Hellespont. The Turkish army now consists of 25 divisions and 350,000 men. There is good cause for optimism about the Allied position in this sector.
The probable points of attack will be on this northern front and simultaneously through Transcaucasia toward the oil fields and westward.4 This latter assignment, however, is one that no military commander will anticipate. Here is a territory in which offensive operations are exceedingly difficult. Supply is by tenuous lines stretching back to narrow passes at each end of the chain of the Caucasus. There will be no surprise jump-off here for Transcaucasian Russia is under constant surveillance by Turkey and it is here that the army must be gathered for the invasion. As the offensive force moves westward its supply lines would soon reach the length of so called diminishing returns. The task of maintaining them would be almost prohibitive. Soviet troops have a much vaunted ability to "live off the land." There is no living off this land. The offensive force would be confronted not only with our troops but with some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world. Commanders experienced in this theater are lucid in their memories of its hostility. If sufficient allied forces are available to prevent a quick penetration to Turkey the Russian forces may soon find themselves in the same position as did the British in this area in 1914, as Sir William Robertson wrote: "We had committed ourselves to expeditions on a large scale, and in remote theatres which were strategically unsound, and have never been properly thought out. The false directions thus given to our strategy imperilled the chances of ultimate success, and at least was bound to hang around our neck like a millstone for the rest of the war."
The points cited above are not matters of opinion but are the kinds of conclusions which are the product of any regular intelligence operation. Together they make a very strong argument for the defensibility of the area.
III
United States policy in the Near East demands immediate reevaluation. To date it has been characterized by confusion and lack of purpose. If "policy is the twin brother of strategy" as Admiral Mahan says, then it follows that it is the duty of policymakers to obtain for their military confreres a tenable position. An appalling tendency obtains today among U. S. policymakers to consider political and military aims separately. Diplomatists seem to disdain to associate their aims with military objectives. How often in recent events, when international contention has passed over the boundary from diplomatic and economic pressure to armed conflict, have the military commanders been the, inheritors of situations of great disadvantage.
Although the contention has been advanced that military leaders are sometimes unmindful of political aims, this writer submits that the soldiers seem less guilty of the lack of appreciation of the coincidence of the goals of policy and strategy. Moreover, military leaders are not policymakers nor do they often covet the role.
The writings of our military leaders seem to reflect a consciousness of the dictum of Admiral Mahan. Military analyses have perforce the quality of directness. The so-called immutables, the classical principles of stategy, have the great recommendation of simplicity. They have, further, the approbation of time: they’ve worked. These are the kinds of principles that should be kept in view in policymaking. Occasional recourse to such simple maxims is not out of order in a field that has gotten involved, highly esoteric, and often befogged by idealism and wishful thinking. American attitude vis à vis the Near East is a good case in point. There is no area in which our policy decisions have been more bogged down over factors that are unessential, tangential, or beyond our ability to control. There has been much undue muddying of the waters by professional students of international politics. The policy (if such it can be called) that has evolved has been halfhearted and apologetic. One of the aspects of our Mediterranean policy today is that the first of the classical principles of strategy is being constantly violated: Selection and Maintenance of the Aim. As Mr. Churchill has admonished us: “Advantage is gained in war and also in foreign policy and other things by selecting from many attractive or unpleasant alternatives the dominating point. . . . Evidently this should be the rule, and other great business be set in subordinate relation to it. Failure to adhere to this simple rule produces confusion and futility of action, and nearly always makes things much worse later on.” A “negative and defensive” use of the Mediterranean that was urged as an adequate short-term policy in 1947 is no longer defensible.
The clarity of concept that now happily characterizes our northern front is nowhere in evidence in our Near Eastern policy. Turkey pleaded at Lake Success on July 27th last for the establishment of a Mediterranean “North Atlantic Pact.” So far no positive action has been taken.
At this late date the following action is indicated:
1. Sponsor a “Mediterranean Alliance” of Turkey, Greece, and those other nations that are determined to resist the Soviet. Give these nations military equipment, supplies and advisers to the maximum extent permitted by our commitments in northern Europe.
2. Recommission the R.A.F. aerodromes in Egypt, Israel, Iran, Iraq and Libya. Establish new airfields in the Anatolian Plateau and in Iran capable of handling our biggest bombers. Formulate detailed logistic plans for the maintenance of these bases.
3. Give Turkey all the naval vessels she can use to assist U. S. Naval forces in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Establish detailed plans for advanced operating and amphibious bases in Turkish waters.
Summary
The Anatolian Plateau in central Turkey is an ideal base for close air operations against Soviet industry and oil. Turkey is a defensible bastion flanking any Russian westward movement. There is much anxiety in Moscow over Russia’s high vulnerability to naval power. U. S. Naval power will not only keep the sea lanes of supply open to the Near Eastern ports but will be a principal weapon for the defense of Turkey and for offensive operations against the Soviet Union. The nations of the Near East, however, need strong forces to be able to resist the initial Soviet assault. But time is running out. If the Middle East is to be preserved Britain and America must act promptly. The democracies have great potential advantage in the Middle East. If these advantages are mobilized in peace, Russia will hesitate before attempting a conquest which might not succeed and which will lay open to destruction all her nearby oil fields upon which her armies in the west depend. Western strength in the Middle East can be a major deterrent to World War II.
1. For an authoritative treatment of the whole Mediterranean Basin, including such facets as economic, cultural, demographic, and political problems see William Reitzel, “The Mediterranean, Its Role in America’s Foreign Policy,” New York, 1948.
Considerable attention is devoted to the area by the well-known French strategic writer, Lt. Colonel E. Simon in “Tour d’Horizon Stratégique” in Revue de Défense Nationale, Paris, August, 1950.
There is a fine discussion, with maps, of the military geography of the area by Lt. Col. Fitzhugh H. Chandler, Inf., U.S.A., “Military Geography South West Asia” in American Military Review, U. S. Command & General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, November, 1950.
2. “On land we should not be in a hurry to dismiss the dangers of the past. . . despite its modern equipment the Russian army is essentially an army of infantry. It is the old Asiatic horde with some western trimmings. Russia is not at all likely to be able to wage against the United States the kind of war which some American commentators have warned their country that the next war is going to be. The war which they foresee is one predominantly waged by bombing aircraft and the objects of the Russian attacks would be the great population centers of the United States . . . ” J. M. Spaight, C.B., C.B.E., “TransPolar War,” R.A.F. Quarterly, London, July, 1950, p. 251.
3. Annual oil production in the Near East is as follows: 1938: 16,000,000 tons; 1950: 100,000,000 tons; 1960: 900,000,000 tons (anticipated).
4. This is the opinion of General Mast, Col. Simon, Col. Chandler and most of the published authorities. Such an attack seems dictated by the geography. Colonel Chandler suggests Russian amphibious landings on the north coast of Turkey. However, allied naval supremacy reduces the chances of success of such an assault to a low order of probability.