@article{Dorion-Soulié:298833,
      recid = {298833},
      author = {Dorion-Soulié, Manuel},
      title = {The origins of CENTCOM American hegemony, car culture, and  European oil dependence},
      publisher = {Graduate Institute of International and Development  Studies},
      address = {Geneva. 2020},
      number = {BOOK},
      pages = {403 pages},
      year = {2020},
      abstract = {In 1983, the United States created CENTCOM, the unified  military command responsible for the Middle East to this  day. Recently declassified NATO archives reveal that in the  1979-1983 period, American officials pressured Europeans to  increase their defense commitments so that the US could  divert troops to the Persian Gulf. American officials  claimed that it was for Europe, and not primarily for the  US itself, that American forces should defend gulf oil  flows. Europeans accepted this argument, and provided  political and military support for American policy. To  investigate the American claim and the European reaction, I  ask two broad research questions. Was Western Europe really  dependent on Persian Gulf oil and if so, how had this  dependence been constructed? Did the record of US policy in  the Middle East since 1945 support that it was motivated by  European oil dependence, or did the American claim emerge  in 1979? Based on research in NATO, American, French, and  OEEC/OECD archives, I make three arguments. First, the main  purpose of CENTCOM was to protect oil flows to Europe.  Second, this is in perfect continuity with the “logic of  containment” as it emerged in the late 1940s and was  applied to the Middle East throughout the Cold War. Third,  European oil dependence was a function of the adoption of  car culture, itself a product of American influence as a  socio-economic model, American industrial and commercial  activity in Europe, and American economic aid during the  Marshall Plan. In this sense, I argue that American  cultural hegemony over Europe was a prime motive for the  expansion of American military hegemony in the gulf.},
      url = {http://repository.graduateinstitute.ch/record/298833},
}