The Sharp Edge of Containment

7/30/2019 The Sharp Edge of Containment

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The Sharp Edge of Containment

By Edward J. Marolda

Naval History, April 2006

The U.S. willingness and ability to conduct expeditionary warfare far fromAmerican shores were major factors in the success of the containmentstrategy and the victory in the Cold War.

The U.S. armed forces have been practicing expeditionary warfare from thedawn of the republic.1 With few exceptions, these operations requiredconcentration of sizeable naval and military forces in the United States andthen their deployment overseas. Secretary of Defense Harold Brownobserved in 1980, "The United States has been in the rapid deployment andpower projection business for a long time. If you doubt that, ask the Marines

who five years ago celebrated their 200th anniversary."2

Expeditionary warfare during the Cold War, however, was different. TheJapanese attack on Pearl Harbor convinced the U.S. security establishmentthat the country could no longer spend many months cobbling togetherforces in the United States before deploying them thousands of miles acrossthe oceans in response to attacks on American interests or on America itself.After atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, strategists

NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER

Herbert Hahn portrayed the scene as Marine and Army forces from a230-ship allied armada swept ashore at Inchon on 15 September1950, to route the invading North Korean army.
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recognized that an enemy's first shot might be the last for many U.S. citiesand millions of citizens. American strategists concluded that to discourage,or if need be defeat, a Soviet nuclear attack on the country, U.S. forces hadto operate on the very borders of the Soviet Union and its allies. Ironically,those powerful forces concentrated around the borders never had to engage

their main foe, but they did conduct expeditionary warfare against Sovietallies.

With the dawning of the ideological struggle between the United States andthe Soviet Union, U.S. leaders also recognized that military powerconcentrated in America would have little impact on the global competitionfor influence. During the Cold War, U.S. expeditionary forces were routinelypositioned far from the continental United States and mounted operationsfrom forward-deployed military concentrations or shore bases in proximity tothreatened populations.

Flexible Response

Despite the advent of nuclear weaponsand long-range bombers, the KoreanWar made clear that the nation neededexpeditionary forces to fight its Cold Warbattles. In a parlous state because ofpost-World War II cutbacks, U.S.conventional forces barely prevented theenemy from conquering the entire

Korean peninsula in 1950. As areflection of what conventionally armed expeditionary forces could do,however, aircraft from the carrier Valley Forge (CV-45) bombed Pyongyang,the capital of North Korea, just one week after the onset of hostilities. In aneven more impressive demonstration, on 15 September 1950, a 230-shipallied armada deployed Marine and Army forces behind enemy lines, atInchon, and routed the invading North Korean army. That winter, Marinesand soldiers fought their way out of the mountains of North Korea and theNavy safely transported them to the south, where the battle-hardenedveterans resumed their fight with the communists.

With the establishment of the U.S. Sixth Task Fleet in 1948, the NATOalliance in 1949, and security arrangements with the Republic of Korea,Republic of China, and Japan in succeeding years, the parameters of U.S.global containment strategy were set. The United States would opposeattempts by the Soviet Union and its communist allies to overthrow non-communist governments through military force or intimidation.

U.S. NAVY

Aircraft from the Valley Forge (CV-45), in a quickresponse to North Korean aggression, attackedits capital, Pyongyang, on 3 July 1950, barely aweek after the start of hostilities. Grumman F9F-3 Panthers of VF-52, such as this one shown onboard Valley Forge in July 1950, participated inthose first strikes.


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Despite the experience of the Korean War, the administration of PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower worked to reduce the size of the conventional militaryestablishment. The president believed it would cost too much to retain thebulk of the recently enlarged military arm. He feared a drain of U.S.economic vitality as much as the threat of communist aggression. In its

"New Look" policy, the administration stressed massive retaliation withnuclear weapons for dealing with Soviet aggression. When the impracticalityof this approach became obvious, national leaders considered tacticalnuclear weapons for fighting less-than-total wars involving Soviet allies suchas the People"s Republic of China.

But problems with this approach surfaced fairly soon. Many observersunderstood that crossing the nuclear threshold risked alienating worldopinion against the United States and perhaps stimulating a global nuclearexchange and another world war.

The development by the Soviet Union and then China of their own nucleararsenals, moreover, ended the U.S. monopoly in the nuclear arena. Theweapons simply had no utility for resolving less-than-global conflicts,including wars limited in terms of geography, the number of belligerentsinvolved, and other factors. How would tactical nuclear weapons resolve aguerrilla war, for example?

During the late 1950s, the concept of flexible response gained tractionamong U.S. strategists. The United States should be prepared for armedconflict that ran the gamut from global nuclear war to counterguerrilla war.

Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell Taylor, Chief of Naval OperationsAdmiral Arleigh Burke, and others called for the reinvigoration of America'sconventional military establishment so the United States could deal withanother North Korean invasion, the overthrow of a friendly government inthe Middle East, or a communist insurgency in Southeast Asia.


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It became a well-established principleamong civilian warfaretheorists and militarystrategists that

powerful, mobile, andforward-deployed forcesprovided the optimummeans for preventingthe outbreak of conflicts,or failing that,preventing theirescalation. Reflecting onU.S. naval operations inLebanon and off China in1958, Admiral Burkeobserved: "Crises such as Lebanon and Taiwan, occurring simultaneouslyand on opposite sides of the world, severely tax our limited war capabilities.We must have adequate and ready forces, in the right place at the right timeand in sufficient strength to cope with what ever actions are required." 3

Force Evolution

With a wealth of experience, the Navy and Marine Corps developedconcepts, organizations, ships, and aircraft for a global expeditionarywarfare capability. Despite constrained shipbuilding budgets and a 30,000-

man decrease in Fleet Marine Force strength in the late 1950s, the navalservices tested the concept of combining in one amphibious force a Marinebattalion landing team and a Marine helicopter squadron. They adapted theWorld War II aircraft carriers Princeton (CV-37), Boxer(CV-21), and ThetisBay(CVE-90) to the new amphibious mission.

When the concept was fully developed, an amphibious ready group/speciallanding force (ARG/SLF) could deploy with a battalion of infantry, supportingarms, and a squadron of helicopters. The Marines would be transportedashore in landing craft that emerged from the enclosed well decks ofamphibious transport docks (LPDs) and dock landing ships (LSDs) or viatransport helicopters that lifted off the flight deck of an amphibious assaultship (LPH).

This force embodied key attributes for expeditionary warfare in the nuclearage-fighting power, speed, mobility, and flexibility. An amphibious readygroup could quickly deploy a powerful reinforced Marine force to trouble

U.S. NAVY

In the late 1950s three World War II-vintage aircraft carriers- amongthem USS Princeton (CV-37), shown in March 1960 converted toLPH-5-were adapted for a new amphibious mission.
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spots in an operational theater, transport all or part of the special landingforce ashore, and then just as quickly withdraw from the area.

A need for U.S. expeditionary forces surfaced during internationalconfrontations over Laos from 1959 to 1962. CinCPac Operation Plan 32(L)-

59, which concerned a communist military attack on Laos, provided for theearly deployment there of three Marine battalion landing teams, 64 rotaryand fixed-wing aircraft of a Marine aircraft group, and a Navy constructionbattalion.

In May 1962, President John F. Kennedy, concerned that a NorthVietnamese-supported offensive by Laotian communists might topple thegovernment of Laos, ordered U.S. Task Force 116 into neighboring Thailand.Airlift and sealift units moved U.S. ground and air forces, including a Marinespecial landing force, to Thailand from bases all over the Pacific. Supportingthe deployment were the Hancock(CVA-19) and Bennington (CVS-20)carrier groups. This forceful military step, which energized internationalnegotiations in Geneva, helped bring about a July 1962 cease-fire in Laos.

Carrier Evolution and Sustainability

The carrier task force, a formation that revolutionized naval warfare in WorldWar II, was another essential ingredient of expeditionary warfare in thenuclear age. This became especially true when the Navy's ballistic-missilesubmarine fleet put to sea in the early 1960s, relieving the carrier forcesfrom much of the nuclear-deterrence mission. Like the ARG/SLF, carrier task

forces could range far and wide in an operational theater and bringsubstantial naval power to bear on an opponent ashore. A carrier's air wingcould execute everything from a one-plane reconnaissance mission to major70-unit combat operations involving attack planes, fighters,command/control, aerial refueling, and other aircraft.

The cruisers and destroyers of the task force not only protected the carrierfrom surface and submarine threats but also could conduct navalbombardments. Arming warships with surface-to-air and other missilesystems was all the rage during the late 1950s, but battleship, cruiser, anddestroyer guns continued to provide a vital capability. These ships could

deluge enemy targets ashore with 16-, 8-, 6-, and 5-inch fire, interdictenemy coastal traffic, and protect thin-skinned amphibious vessels.

Logistics was another key to the Navy's ability to mount and sustainexpeditionary warfare around the world during the Cold War. In the KoreanWar, the Navy refined and improved the process for replenishing warshipson station. The 1960s saw the development of logistic ships designed


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specifically to enhance the fleet's staying power far from the United Statesand to facilitate operations ashore. As one example, the Sacramento (AOE-1), a fast combat support ship almost as large as a battleship, in one six-month period in the late 1960s delivered 2,000 tons of provisions and 35million gallons of fuel to 294 ships.

Sealift and airlift wereequally critical U.S.resources for sustainingexpeditionary warfareduring the Cold War. TheMilitary SeaTransportation Servicehelped the United Nationscommand narrowly avertdefeat in the summer of1950 by rushing troops,planes, and ammunitionfrom the United Statesand Japan to groundtroops desperatelyfighting to hold the PusanPerimeter on the Koreanpeninsula. The Military AirTransport Service alsorushed critical personnel

and equipment to thefighting forces.

As valuable as the fleet's ability was to supply Navy and Marine units duringthe Cold War, expeditionary warfare could not have been sustained withoutthe creation of substantial shore bases around the world. To support theoccupation of Japan after World War II, the U.S. armed forces establishedlogistic facilities at Yokosuka, Sasebo, Atsugi, and Okinawa. The onset of theCold War and the three-year Korean War made it clear to U.S. leaders thatthese bases were critical to America's expeditionary warfare capability in theFar East.

The Vietnam Experience

The Defense Department experimented with a concept that morphed into theMaritime Prepositioning Force that we know today. In the early 1960sSecretary of Defense Robert MacNamara directed the positioning at Subic

U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE PHOTO ARCHIVE

Crises such as that in Lebanon in 1958, when President CamilleChamoun requested U.S. aid against internal opposition and threatsfrom Syria and the United Arab Republic, indicated to Navy leadersthe need to have adequate and ready forces in the right place at the

right time. The assault wave of the 3d Battalion, 6th Marines, wadeashore from USS Rockbridge (APA-228) LCVPs at Beirut on 16 July1958.


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Bay in the Philippines of a floating forward depot that consisted of shipscombat-loaded with ammunition, fuel, and supplies and ready for use inSouth Vietnam, across the South China Sea. The war's mammothrequirements consumed the cargo in these ships in short order, however, sothe concept was not institutionalized.

The long conflict in Vietnam required the employment of expeditionarywarfare forces that mounted fast, hard-hitting, and limited-durationoperations. Throughout 1964, as political turmoil and Vietcong attacksrocked South Vietnam, carrier task forces and the ARG/SLF deployed intothe South China Sea and prepared to project power ashore or evacuate U.S.nationals. The fleet also mounted shows of force after the North Vietnamesereportedly attacked the destroyer Maddox(DD-731) in the Gulf of Tonkinand enemy guerrillas bombed U.S. facilities in South Vietnam, killingAmerican servicemen.

Expeditionary warfare loomed large in March 1965. American leadersbecame concerned that an increasingly aggressive North Vietnam mightoverrun U.S. air and naval forces operating from Da Nang in northern SouthVietnam. President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the fast deployment not onlyof the Seventh Fleet's ARG/SLF but two additional Marine battalion landingteams and a Marine aircraft group that formed the 9th Marine ExpeditionaryBrigade. Washington expected the Marines' movement ashore to be short-term and related to the defensive mission, but that was not to be.

The ARG/SLF, with other amphibious and gunfire-support ships, carried out

major operations and raids on the coast, often with South Vietnamese andU.S. Army units. In Operation Starlite in September 1965, U.S. and SouthVietnamese units virtually destroyed the 1st Vietcong Regiment. But"Charlie" learned fast and thereafter avoided serious contact. A number ofthe more than 60 amphibious operations executed in the war produced moreMarine than enemy casualties. Booby traps, mines, and snipers took a heavytoll.


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By the time of the 1968Tet Offensive, theARG/SLF had beenreinforced to includeARG/SLFs Alpha and

Bravo that served moreoften than not asfloating reserves and asbases off thedemilitarized zonewhere Marines could geta hot shower, a changeof uniform, and a breakfrom the heavy combatashore.

Naval forces also developed innovative approaches to expeditionary warfareon the coasts, rivers, and canals of South Vietnam. Operation Market Time'ssurface ships, Swift boats, junks, and patrol aircraft severely limited theenemy's seaborne infiltration of arms and supplies. Mine countermeasurevessels and harbor-defense forces neutralized the enemy's attempts to closeSouth Vietnam's ports to merchant traffic. The Army and the Navy teamedto form the Mobile Riverine Force, which employed heavy firepower andwaterborne mobility to decimate one enemy unit after another, especiallyduring the Tet Offensive.

Littorals and Logistics

In Operation Sealords, Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., commander NavalForces, Vietnam, spearheaded a comprehensive campaign that reducedcommunist infiltration into South Vietnam from Cambodia and denied enemyforces easy sanctuary in the farthest reaches of the Mekong Delta. Throughan innovative use of riverine craft, rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, andconnected-barge mobile bases, by the end of 1970, U.S. and Vietnamesenaval forces dominated the inland waterways of South Vietnam. Navy sea-air-land (SEAL) units, established for the Vietnam War, convincinglydemonstrated the value of highly trained, well-equipped, and motivatedcommandos for gathering intelligence and destabilizing the enemy'scommand-and-control function.

Logisticians enabled the United States to fight and sustain a multi-yearexpeditionary war far from the United States through the introduction of


The USSAmerica (CV-66) and her escorts steam toward theMediterranean Sea in March 1986. The next month, her aircraft wereamong those attacking Libyan installations in the wake of a terroristbombing in Germany


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container cargo vessels, roll-on/roll-off ships, wheeled amphibious supplyvehicles, and sophisticated cargo handling and port operations.

To fight and sustain the expeditionary war in Southeast Asia, however, theUnited States also needed sophisticated air and naval bases in the Western

Pacific. Critical to support of the war in Vietnam were the massive bases atSubic Bay, Saigon, and Da Nang.

The Seventh Fleet in general and Task Force 77 in particular projecteddevastating firepower ashore against North Vietnam from 1965 to 1973.American carrier and naval bombardment forces, however, failed to deterHanoi from its sponsorship of the war in South Vietnam or to cut theenemy's supply lines. On the other hand, naval power provided Washingtonwith significant means for influencing the war. In 1972, carrier squadronsjoined with shore-based Air Force and South Vietnamese units to defeat theenemy's Easter Offensive. In combination with offensive mine-layingoperations that closed North Vietnam's ports to military supply ships, theSeventh Fleet helped compel Hanoi to negotiate a cease-fire.

The drain on resources caused by the Vietnam War had a severe impact onU.S. naval forces' capability to conduct expeditionary warfare in theMediterranean during the 1970s. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, theU.S. Sixth Fleet would have been hard pressed to support littoral operations,especially in the face of Soviet opposition. Successive chiefs of NavalOperations, Admiral Zumwalt and Admiral James L. Holloway III, raisedconcerns about the staying power of the Mediterranean forces. The U.S.

military capability for expeditionary warfare was just as constrained in thePersian Gulf and Indian Ocean.

America's Cold War rival was not so constrained, however. Admiral SergeiGorshkov's Soviet Navy established a growing presence in the Indian Oceanand contiguous waters. By the mid-1970s, four times as many Sovietwarships were operating in the Indian Ocean as American. During Okean 75,a Soviet global naval exercise in April of that year, 23 naval vessels steamedin the Indian Ocean. Soviet reconnaissance planes operated from shorebases throughout the region.


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In the wake of the YomKippur War and thesubsequent oil embargo,Washington finally alteredits strategic approach to

the Persian Gulf andother Middle Easternareas. In 1977, theCarter administrationadvocated creation of arapid deployment force.Critics of the force,however, observed that itwas "neither rapid,deployable, nor a force."4

The revolutionary overthrow of the shah of Iran, a U.S. ally, and the Sovietinvasion of Afghanistan in 1979 changed the equation overnight. Theseevents spurred the government to action. By 1983, Washington hadestablished the U.S. Central Command to direct military operations in theArabian Sea and in the Persian Gulf area. The Pacific Command directedoperations in the Indian Ocean, where each year between 1980 and 1987,one-fourth to one-half of the aircraft carriers in the U.S. Navy deployed. Tobetter support Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf operations, the Navy leasedDiego Garcia from the British and developed naval and air facilities on theisland.

Expeditionary Ops in the 1980s

The military's ability to carry out expeditionary warfare in other regions ofthe world during these years was a mixed bag. U.S. Navy, Marine, and Army

forces forcibly removed Cuban airfield constructors and military elementsfrom the Caribbean island of Grenada in 1983, but not without command-and-control, communications, intelligence, and other operational failures.Shortly afterward, the U.S. intervention in Lebanon as part of a multinationalpeacekeeping effort ended badly. The battleship New Jersey's (BB-62) 16-inch gunfire went astray, killing innocent villagers; a poorly planned andexecuted air strike against Syrian antagonists resulted in the loss of twonaval aircraft and two aviators; and Lebanese extremists detonated a huge


In 1983, despite a number of operational failures, U.S. expeditionaryforces forcibly removed Cuban contractors and military elementsfrom Grenada in the Caribbean Sea. Marine helicopters launchedfrom the USS Guam (LPH-9) are depicted on their predawn raid totake Pearls Airport.
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explosive device at the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans inOctober 1983.

But by the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration and many U.S. citizenswere increasingly supportive of overseas military interventions, especially

against states sponsoring terrorist groups. At the same time, thegovernment better prepared the U.S. armed forces to execute expeditionarywarfare. Throughout the period, U.S. Sixth Fleet forces acted to deter Libyandictator Muammar Qaddafi's support for Middle Eastern terrorist groups.When that failed, U.S. naval forces mounted short-term but powerfuloperations against him. In March 1986, after repeated Libyan-sponsoredattacks on U.S. citizens and interests in Europe and the Middle East, theSixth Fleet assembled a powerful force of aircraft carriers, Aegis cruisers,destroyers, submarines, and frigates off the coast of North Africa. WhenQaddafi dispatched missile-armed gunboats against this armada, carrieraircraft sent two of them to the bottom of the Mediterranean. The followingmonth, in retaliation for a Libyan-engineered terrorist bombing that killedAmericans in Germany, aircraft from the carriersAmerica (CV-66) and CoralSea (CV-43), in coordination with Air Force units flying from England,attacked five Libyan military installations in Tripoli and Benghazi. After thesestrikes, Qaddafi continued to support terrorist activities, but he did so much

less openly.

Enhanced Concepts and More Ships

During this period, the Reagan administration considerably strengthened theU.S. ability to sustain expeditionary warfare anywhere in the world. TheNavy spent $7 billion to develop a maritime prepositioning force that


The fantastic capabilities of ships such as the USS Sacramento(AOE-1), shown here refueling the USS Mars (AFS-1), top, anddestroyerWalke (DD-723), provided logistical support necessary tosustain expeditionary warfare around the world.


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eventually consisted of 13 specially developed ships concentrated in threesquadrons that were forward-based in the Azores, Guam, and Diego Garcia.Each squadron carried the equipment and 30 days of supplies for a Marinebrigade of 16,500 men. The concept envisioned the movement forward ofthese supplies to global hot spots where the ships would be met by troops

flown in by the Military Airlift Command.

In addition to increasing the number and quality of its sealift force, theReagan administration dramatically enhanced the U.S ability to executeexpeditionary warfare by increasing the size of its entire fleet. In support ofa new global maritime strategy, Secretary of the Navy John Lehman pressedfor a 600-ship Navy. The fleet did not reach that magic number, but gotclose. Adding significantly to the projection power of the fleet were fourIowa-class battleships, each armed with 16-inch guns and Tomahawk land-attack missiles. Equally significant, new and improved amphibious vesselsjoined the fleet, including Whidbey Island-class LSDs, Wasp-class LHDs, andlanding craft, air cushion (LCAC) vehicles.

By the end of the Cold War, the Navy had put to sea 15 carrier battlegroups, 4 battleship surface action groups, 100 attack submarines, and ahost of cruisers, destroyers, frigates, amphibious ships, and auxiliaries. By1987, when the United States intervened in the long-running conflictbetween Iran and Iraq, the U.S. military was well prepared to executeexpeditionary warfare far from home.

Protecting the Tankers

In response to a request from the government of Kuwait, and to preemptSoviet military involvement in the region, Washington agreed to protectKuwaiti oil tankers from attack by hostile forces. That year and the next, theNavy and Marine Corps deployed powerful expeditionary forces to thePersian Gulf region-the battleship Iowa (BB-61), aircraft carriers, cruisers,destroyers, frigates, mine countermeasure vessels, and a 400-man Marineair-ground task force. Operating from two mobile sea bases positioned in thenorthern Persian Gulf and from shore bases were Navy patrol boats, MarineCorps helicopters, and Army special operations forces' MH/AH-6 helicopters.Air Force airborne warning and control system aircraft, Navy P-3 Orion patrol

aircraft, and Navy E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft kept watchover Iranian activities.

Undeterred by the U.S. forces in the area, the Iranians laid mines in thePersian Gulf to halt oil tanker traffic. Army helicopters operating from thefrigateJarrett(FFG-33) detected the Iranian ship Iran Ajrdropping minesinto the water in September 1987. Two Army helicopters shot up the vessel,


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and Navy SEALs boarded her, discovering more mines on deck ready fordeployment. The Navy sank the ship. U.S. forces operating from a mobilebase sank or shot up a number of Iranian fast-attack craft at Middle ShoalsBuoy close to Farsi Island. A later attack by shore-based Iranian Silkwormmissiles on a Kuwaiti oil tanker prompted the destruction by U.S. Navy

destroyers of two Iranian command-and-control platforms in the gulf.

When a mine almost sankthe frigate Samuel B.Roberts (FFG-58) in April1988, Washingtonlaunched OperationPraying Mantis inretaliation. Gunfire fromtwo Navy warshipssilenced enemy forces onone platform. Then,Marines of an air-groundtask force and sailors inan explosive ordnancedisposal unit fast-ropedfrom helicopters onto theplatform and destroyed itwith explosives. A trio ofNavy warships destroyeda second platform with

naval gunfire. When three Iranian fast-attack vessels-half of the Iraniannavy-stormed out of their ports and headed for the U.S. fleet, Americanwarships and aircraft sank two of the attackers and heavily damagedanother with missiles and bombs. The U.S. expeditionary forces in the gulfduring 1987 and 1988 not only maintained the flow of oil to a thirsty worldeconomy and neutralized Iran's aggressive actions, but also demonstratedsteadfast support of America's regional allies.

Impact

The Cold War provided a new strategic framework for expeditionary warfare.To enforce the containment strategy, the nation required powerful, mobile,flexible, and ready forces forward based on the periphery of the Soviet bloc.In the early years of the global confrontation with Moscow and its allies,consensus in Washington called for fencing off the communist world, butneither the funding support nor operating forces were available toaccomplish that task. Throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, national leadersput their support and money behind strategic bombers and submarines,

U.S. MARINE CORPS (ANDY HURT)

From the late 1970s, new and improved amphibious vessels as wellas new aircraft types joined the fleet. Among them are landing craft,air cushion (LCAC), background, the USS Tarawa (LHA-1), and AV-8B Harrier vertical take-off and landing attack aircraft.


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hydrogen bombs, and tactical nuclear weapons. This occurred despite thesuccess of expeditionary warfare forces in keeping South Korea free.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, when U.S. strategists and the American peoplerecognized the relevance of expeditionary warfare to international security

requirements, they supported the buildup of specialized conventional forces.Congress funded the strengthening of the fleet with new aircraft carriers,amphibious ready groups, Marine special landing forces, and underwayreplenishment ships. Subic Bay; Da Nang; Yokosuka, Japan; and Rota,Spain, served as logistic anchors for America's forward-based expeditionarywarfare arm.

When Americans withdrew their support for overseas interventions in thewake of the Vietnam War, the fleet's expeditionary warfare capabilitysuffered. The naval services were hard-pressed to support U.S. securityinterests in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and eventhe Caribbean. The Reagan revolution of the 1980s that resulted in moreNavy ships, the maritime prepositioning squadrons, and highly capable airliftand sealift resources bore fruit in the positive outcome of naval operations inthe Persian Gulf. In a larger sense, the U.S. willingness and global capabilityto conduct expeditionary warfare was a major factor in the success of thecontainment strategy and America's victory in the Cold War.

1. I owe a debt of gratitude to the following colleagues who reviewed a draft of thispaper, provided insightful comments, and saved this author from several howlers:Dr. John B. Hattendorf, Dr. Jeffrey G. Barlow, Cpt Peter N. Swartz, USN

(Retired), Cpt Patrick Roth, USN (Retired), and Norman Polmar. Full citations tothe sources used to support this paper are available from the author. back to article2. Quoted in Michael A. Palmer, On Course to Desert Storm: The United States

Navy and the Persian Gulf(Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1992), 105. backto article

3. Memo, [Adm Arleigh A.] Burke to All Flag Officers, 4 Mar 1959, OperationalArchives, Naval Historical Center. back to article

4. Michael A. Palmer, Guardians of the Gulf: A History of America's Expanding Rolein the Persian Gulf, 1833-1992(New York: The Free Press, 1992), 114. back toarticle

Dr. Marolda is the senior historian of the Naval Historical Center. He has

written or cowritten a number of books on the history of the U.S. Navy in the20th century, including By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of theU.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia (U.S. Government Printing Office,1994) and Shield and Sword: The U.S. Navy and the Persian Gulf War(U.S.Government Printing Office, 1998).

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The Sharp Edge of Containment

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