The Middle East: Western Effort To Organize A Regional Military Pact 1952-1953

Great Britain, despite the many blows to its old position of predominance in the Middle East, still held the key points and facilities on which defence of the region would locally rest. Above all, it still held at Suez, the great base considered indispensable for such defence by both British and American military men. Although the USSR by this time was an “atomic power”, defence of the Middle East was thought of in the West largely in the “conventional” terms of the recent war. The problem was one of planning a strategy by which an invading Soviet land army might be checked and thrown back, while simultaneously building up the military capabilities necessary to carry out that strategy. Traditionally, “allied” defence of the ME had been entrusted largely To British and Commonwealth forces. It was natural that they should again form the backbone of any defence. Britain had hoped, as Egypt grew more restive and assertive after World War II, to be able to settle that problem. Out of these considerations came the concept of an Allied Middle East Command.