30-31 January: Middle East and North Africa Energy, London
6-7 February: E & P Information and Data Management, London
6-8 February: PowerGen Middle East, Doha
13-15 February: Kuwait Oil and Gas Summit and Exhibition, Kuwait
14-15 February: 9th Annual Trade and Export Finance Conference, Dubai
27-29 February: Offshore Arabia, Dubai
March (date to be confirmed): Middle East Alternative Investment Summit (location to be confirmed)
3-5 March: Saudi Safety and Security, Saudi Arabia
5-8 March: Middle East Investment Summit, Dubai
5-8 March: Hedge Funds World Middle East, Dubai
6-7 March: Saudi Downstream, Saudi Arabia
5-8 March: Middle East Investment Summit, Dubai
20-21 March : 3rd Annual Middle East Securities Forum, Abu Dhabi
25-27 March: Gulf Environment Forum, Saudi Arabia
25-27 March: Saudi Innovation, Diversification & Investment, Saudi Arabia
24-25 April: Middle East Real Estate Summit, Abu Dhabi
9-10 May: SMI's LNG 2012, London
13-15 May: WEPower, Saudi Arabia
18-20 June: Iraq Petroleum, London
Untitled Page
Issue 678, 23 January 2002
US covers all bases in search for airfield deployment options
The cooling of Saudi/U.S. relations has many implications for U.S. regional strategy, none more so than the possible loss of access to the region’s most advanced and best positioned airfields. This could prompt Washington to further reconsider its regional relationships, even with such pariahs as Iran and Yemen—although there are clear limits to this policy.
The sour mood in Saudi/U.S. relations could see the American military pulling back significant forces from the Kingdom in a public relations exercise intended to reassure Arab opinion that Washington is in no way master of the Arabian Peninsula. The pressure on the U.S. authorities by servicewomen based in Saudi Arabia who are refusing to wear the abeya (veil) off-base can only add to Washington’s problems in the Kingdom.
Even with a US pull-back, the Gulf’s ruling families would still depend on the Pax Americana for protection. US forces and their allies would be primed for rapid reaction—and such a realignment of forces would not shock US military planners.A front-page Washington Post article saying that senior Saudis believed the USA should pull out because its forces had become a political liability drew the attention of the foreign policy elite and the World media to the issue. But military planners have been focused on finding alternatives for some time, with U.S. officials cultivating other GCC allies like Oman and Bahrain, whose air bases are already taking heavy US traffic while American forces use under-booked luxury hotels for their rest and recreation.
Under the aegis of the Project Air Force Persian Gulf Security series, the Rand Corporation has produced a swathe of basing studies, including the 2001 publication Evaluating Possible Airfield Deployment Options for Middle East Contingencies. Though this report confirms the US predilection for Saudi airfields, it also indicates that the USA is keen to diversify its deployment options by leaving no stones unturned, including such unlikely candidates as Iran and Yemen.
Officially, President George W. Bush wants to keep the US. military presence in Saudi Arabia. “The President believes the current arrangements are working and working well,” White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said on 18 January in response to the Post’s article. “The relationship is just as strong as it always has been,” said Fleischer, who noted that Bush had spoken to Crown Prince Abdallah Bin Abdelaziz the previous week. But the spat and incomprehension between the two countries is so public that a senior congressman, Michigan Democrat Senator Carl Levin, has talked about the USA pulling out of Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB).
Airfields essential to Western power projection
Western power projection in the Gulf relies primarily on access to airfields. Over-the-horizon reinforcement of US. Central Command (Centcom) land forces, including a build-up of 24,000 personnel within 96 hours, relies on an air bridge that terminates at major transport hubs such as PSAB and Oman’s Thumrait airfield.
Combat aircraft are essential to US. ‘Halt Phase’ deterrence, which requires a constant, high rate of attrition against Iraqi armoured columns during the first 48 hours of conflict.Any offensive operations, including ‘regime rollback’ in Iraq by light or Special Forces, would require constant close air support. Conventional wisdom has dictated that reinforcement or high-intensity air attacks would be impossible or greatly hampered without land-based airpower based at Saudi airfields.
The basic unit in which land-based US airpower is deployed is the Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF), a flexible self-supporting force of 60-175 combat and support aircraft. The equivalent of one full AEF is always deployed in the Gulf, along with one aircraft carrier with 60 aircraft. Typical crises have seen one or two AEF-sized units deployed, plus additional carriers. The AEF is split into two segments; the combat and support elements. Combat elements preferably require airfields with 8,000-feet runways and 560,000 square feet of ramp space, whereas support elements require airfields with 10,000-feet runways and 1.1 million square feet of ramp space.
Though each type of element can operate from lower specification airfields, the loss of performance strongly prejudices the US against such options. Airfields with good condition runway surfaces, hardened aircraft shelters, ordnance storage bunkers, extensive fuel storage, personnel housing facilities and security perimeters reduce strain on the USA, which otherwise needs to fly in airfield support packages to fabricate these facilities.
Location is as important as facilities, representing a trade-off between proximity to the target (which increases the daily sortie rate) and exposure to enemy action. According to Rand’s modelling, the preferred location for US. airfields is 400-800 miles from their target—typically calculated as Baghdad—which allows two sorties per day from strike aircraft and places the airfields at the extreme range of most Iraqi and Iranian surface-to-surface missiles.
Too close for comfort
Saudi Arabia has 16 AEF-capable airfields in this zone, related to both the Iraqi and Iranian target set. This figure represents one-third of all available airfields of the type, and compares with six such airfields in the UAE, one or two in Qatar, and seven in Turkey. Kuwait’s airfields, while allowing a high sortie rate, are highly vulnerable to missile or land attacks, while Oman’s airfields are safer but involve reduced sortie rates and require Saudi over-flight permission in Iraqi scenarios. Among the GCC states and Turkey, Saudi Arabia boasts the best facilities at its large number of military and dual-use airfields.
With evident discomfort, US planners have concluded that Saudi airfields present the best options for future airfield development.This conclusion has coincided with disturbing developments in the political sphere.
Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told GSN that decision-makers in Washington and Riyadh had mutually recognised an urgent need for distance in their bilateral relations, understanding that “the relationship works best as a loose partnership”. Clawson believes “U.S./Saudi relations became too close for both sides—it was a disaster waiting to happen”. The early 1990s attempt to forge Saudi Arabia into a NATO-style partner is increasingly regarded in Washington as a failure. As a result, alternative basing options are being developed.
Washington turns to smaller GCC states
According to GSN’s soundings within the Beltway, a combination of closer military co-operation with the smaller GCC states and increasing faith in carrier aviation could take up the slack left by Saudi airfields. Although some analysts like Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies have expressed doubt that high-tempo operations can be launched without Saudi airfields or the purpose-built PSAB command centre, a majority of Washington observers feel the time is ripe for closer relations with the UAE, Qatar and Oman.
Saudi military morale and capabilities are seen to be declining due to struggles between Crown Prince Abdallah—who favours reduced defence spending and his Saudi National Guard—and his Sudairi half-brother Deputy Prime Minister, Defence and Aviation Minister Prince Sultan Bin Abdelaziz, who favours higher spending and his Ministry of Defence fief.
In contrast, the smaller GCC states are seen to be increasingly professional in their training, interoperability with US forces and procurement practices. Meanwhile, Operation Enduring Freedom has proved that the US ‘sea services’—the Navy and Marines—can operate up to 400 miles inland. Demonstrating this capability has improved their standing with the Bush Administration.
Iranian scenarios
The weakness of relying on littoral airfields in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE would be exposed in Iranian scenarios, when bases in each of these countries would be well within the threat envelopes of Iranian tactical ballistic missiles. But there are suggestions the USA is no longer willing to complicate defence planning with equally weighted concern for Iraqi and Iranian scenarios. The US Department of Defense (DoD) has begun to consider the post-rapprochement basing options offered by Iran in the Rand report section Iran as a Long-Term Possibility.
Of 66 AEF-capable airfields in Iran, 29 were considered ‘first-tier’ options and a further 18 ‘second-tier’ options—compared to five of each in Saudi Arabia. Although lacking many advanced features, a large proportion of Iranian airfields boast excellent military facilities, most of which were developed by the US DoD.
New consideration of Iran’s airfields points to the cyclicity of U.S. regional policy, for once Iranian bases were the regional equivalent of Saudi Arabia’s US airfields but were lost for decades to a hostile power. By considering diversifying beyond Saudi, the USA has indicated its concern that history should not repeat itself and its need for an enduring and stable regional partner in the Gulf.
