The Absence of Grand Strategy: The United States in the Persian Gulf, 1972–2005

10. The Balance Sheet, So to Speak

c h a p t e r t e n The Balance Sheet, So to Speak This chapter cycles back on the book and summarizes and elaborates upon its findings and arguments. It begins by evaluating balance-of-power and balanceof -threat policies and then draws on this analysis for an examination of the grand strategy of balance of power (active and offshore balancing) versus the grand strategy of hegemony. A broad examination is fitting in this chapter because, now that the various policies of the United States have been examined, it is possible to take the long view and to see to what extent we can discern grand strategies at play over time. All the separate episodes examined add up to one long case for this purpose. A Look Back This book has explored ten episodes: 1. The Nixon administration’s twin pillar policy (1972–79) 2. The Reagan administration’s tilt toward Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War (1982–85) 3. The Iran-Contra affair (1985–86) The Balance Sheet, So to Speak 167 4. The U.S.-led reflagging of Kuwaiti oil tankers (1986–87) 5. The Bush administration’s constructive engagement toward Iraq (1988– 90) 6. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait (1990–91) 7. Washington’s war-termination strategy (1991) 8. The Clinton administration’s policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq (1992–98) 9. The Clinton administration’s policy of containment-plus (1998–2001) 10. The Iraq war of 2003 (2003–5) In examining these episodes, I laid out three initial propositions to test, which I discuss in the following three sections of this chapter: P1: The United States would balance against the strongest state in the region. P2: The United States would balance against the most threatening state in the region. P3: The United States would balance against the power or threat (or both) of Iraq (Moscow’s client state) even if Iran was more powerful or threatening at the regional level. In assessing these propositions, I offer gradations of confirmation in the discussion and in table 5: strongly confirmed; confirmed; weakly confirmed, meaning that only minor evidence confirms the proposition; disconfirmed; strongly discon firmed; and unclear or not applicable when the extant conditions do not provide a clear and fair test. Balancing against Power To what extent did the United States balance against power? Except for the Nixon administration’s twin pillar policy, which receives a weak confirmation, proposition 1 received no strong confirmations or even confirmations. Indeed, when we look back on the episodes, the United States did strengthen Iran in the 1970s by selling it arms and providing other forms of military and economic support. However, this action did not really reflect balancing against the strongest actor in the region, since Iran was for the most part stronger than Iraq in 1972 and throughout the rest of the 1970s. However, the case for balancing is partly salvaged in that America’s connection to Iran reflected primarily an effort 168 The Absence of Grand Strategy Table 5. Findings of the Book (1972–2005) Propositions Episode 1 2 3 ∞ Weakly confirmed Strongly confirmed Confirmed ≤ Disconfirmed Strongly confirmed Strongly disconfirmed ≥ Unclear Disconfirmed Disconfirmed ∂ Disconfirmed Strongly confirmed Strongly disconfirmed ∑ Strongly disconfirmed Strongly disconfirmed Strongly disconfirmed ∏ Weakly confirmed Strongly confirmed Strongly disconfirmed π Weakly confirmed Unclear Not applicable ∫ Strongly disconfirmed Disconfirmed Not applicable Ω Strongly disconfirmed Disconfirmed Not applicable ∞≠ Strongly disconfirmed Weakly confirmed Not applicable Note: The findings do not rate balancing at the global and regional levels as separate episodes but reflect the overall outcome that those pressures generated. to balance against Moscow at the global level by checking Iraq at the regional level. Moreover, it represented an effort to balance against Iraq’s threat at the regional level, if not Iraq’s prevailing power. The United States strongly balanced against threat in Operation Staunch (1982–85) but not against power. In the Iran-Contra case (1985–86), Washington did not balance against the strongest state but rather engaged Iran. Even more problematic, from 1980 to 1988 the balance of power shifted unmistakably in Iraq’s favor, but in 1988 the United States was accommodating and not balancing against Iraq—a fact that strongly disconfirms the...