James C. Harbridge INTRODUCTION
U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) has its origins in the turbulent social and political events of the 1970s in the Middle East. These events fundamen-tally altered the base upon which American foreign and military policy rested. In response, the Rapid De-ployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF) was created. The creation of the RDJTF caused much interservice and intraservice conflict, which hampered its effective-ness. In the early-1980s, RDJTF was reconstituted as U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), a permanent unified command with regional responsibility. The basic culture and organizational structure, however, did not change, and this stability presented significant challenges to an organization that consistently felt the need to prove itself. Thus, the culture of insecurity and justification that existed within RDJTF persisted in USCENTCOM. Indeed, the culture persists to this day and affects operations and command culture.
At midnight on January 1, 1983, U.S. Army Lieu-tenant General Robert C. Kingston assumed command of USCENTCOM, located at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL. The unusual timing resulted from the fact that this was not a change of command; it was, rath-er, the assumption of command of an “entirely new”
unified command. In reality, USCENTCOM was or-ganizationally the same on that New Year’s morning
as it had been when it was the RDJTF on New Year’s Eve. This fact was not lost on any of the Commanders in Chief (CINCs) of the other unified commands—of U.S. European Command (USEUCOM), U.S. Atlantic Command (USLANTCOM), and U.S. Pacific Com-mand (USPACOM)—nor was it lost on the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and its staff, or indeed, the commander and staff of USCENTCOM itself.
The creation of USCENTCOM as one of five geo-graphically oriented major commands marked the culmination of an organized 3-year plan within the Department of Defense (DoD). This plan aimed at ad-dressing the unpreparedness of the United States to deal with the geopolitical realities of Southwest Asia that became apparent in the 1970s. Ultimately, rival-ries both among the four services and within individ-ual services played a major role in the final plans for USCENTCOM. Additionally, the structure of both the RDJTF and USCENTCOM played an important part in shaping the culture of the new unified command.
This fact is readily apparent in the “culture of justi-fication” that shaped commanders’ interactions with their higher and peer organizations.1 It also affected the focus of the new command.
BACKGROUND
The strategic importance of Southwest Asia has been recognized by the United States for decades. Un-hindered access to the region’s petroleum reserves has been a long-term U.S. strategic goal through a succes-sion of Presidential administrations. These adminis-trations relied on the “Twin Pillars” of the Shah of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to keep the region relatively stable.2 The turbulent events of the 1970s
fundamentally changed the foundation on which American policy was based, and propelled the region into the spotlight of continual presidential concern.
As the United States ascended to superpower sta-tus following World War II, in competition with the Soviet Union, the Middle East—along with policy for other regions of the world—came to be viewed through the lens of the Cold War. As such, the U.S.
strategic focus in the region was on “denying turf and access to oil” to the Soviet Union.3 In addition to DoD assets, the area was a major focus for the State Depart-ment, intelligence agencies, and many other executive agencies. Despite this history, no single command was assigned ultimate responsibility for synchroniz-ing and directsynchroniz-ing operations or settsynchroniz-ing strategic objec-tives for the region. Indeed, the Middle East, broadly understood, was the responsibility of several differ-ent commands, including USEUCOM, USPACCOM, and USLANTCOM; all had responsibility for various portions of the region.4
This arrangement, while not perfect, was satisfac-tory until the 1970s when events in the region funda-mentally changed the situation. Before, when the re-gion was relatively stable, Southwest Asia was seen as an economy of force mission for the DoD, resulting in a collective American effort in the region that was uneven and uncoordinated. This arrangement was ac-ceptable at the time because under the Richard Nixon Doctrine, the United States called for her allies to take an active part in countering threats in the region.5 Throughout the 1970s, however, events in the “cres-cent of crisis” began to worry observers throughout the government. In the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the JCS looked to new solutions for the region, proposing a “mobile task force” to respond to such
crises, but the idea never gained any traction among decisionmakers.6
The overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979 funda-mentally changed how the United States viewed the Middle East and led to recognition at the highest lev-els of the need for a unified way to deal with threats to American interests in the region. Additionally, the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union on De-cember 26, 1979, made the prospect of Soviet troops in oil-rich Iran plausible. As a result of this rapid change in the strategic balance in the region, President Jim-my Carter announced what came to be known as the
“Carter Doctrine” during his final State of the Union address in 1980. The Carter Doctrine stated that the oil fields of the Persian Gulf Region were “of vital inter-est to the United States, and that any outside attempt to gain control in the area would be ‘repelled by use of any means necessary, including military force.’”7 Subsequent to this announcement, the RDJTF was es-tablished at MacDill Air Force Base (AFB), Tampa, FL, on March 1, 1980.8