Compass Points - The Next Day

Send in the Marines

Compass Points - The Next Day

Send in the Marines

September 1, 2024

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Sunday is a time for reflection.

With the arrival of September, relaxing days on the beach become only a memory. Back in the summer of 1958, however, not everyone was relaxing at the beach, some people were storming the beach.

Everything can change in only a day. One day is a normal day, but the next day turns into storming the beach. No warning. No long-term preparation. Get ready. Be ready. Go.

When a crisis erupts in the world, policy makers in Washington DC get together for an all-day meeting. They review the situation. They discuss short-term and long-term dangers. They go through options. They consider the global policy tools that can be used immediately.

Typically, senior staffers then provide three "Goldilocks' recommendations. One course of action is too strong, one is too weak, and one is just right. The Commander in Chief makes the decision.

Then, the next day, the very next day, somewhere around the world, forces of the United States go to work.

It began with another unexpected crisis in the Middle East. On July 14th in the summer of 1958 a small brigade of troops was passing through Bagdad on their way to Jordan to provide support to the Jordanian King. Instead, the troops surrounded the palace in Bagdad and staged their own coup. They demanded the King surrender. When the King and his regent surrendered, they were shot and killed. It was thought the troops were working for the Egypt's President, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser was aligned with the Soviet Union. Many Middle East countries worried that they might be in danger. Lebanon asked the US for help. Author, Bruce Riedel explains what happened in Washington, DC.

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The news of the Iraq coup prompted Eisenhower to hold an emergency meeting of the National Security Council principals. It began with a briefing from CIA Director Allen Dulles. Dulles said that information was very incomplete, but the coup had decapitated the royal family. The rebels were carrying Nasser placards, and the mob was chanting Nasser’s name.

On the regional implications of the coup, he painted a bleak picture: Lebanon’s Chamoun was already asking for American troops, and Jordan was acutely vulnerable. “If the Iraq coup succeeds it seems almost inevitable that it will set up a chain reaction that will doom the pro-West governments of Lebanon and Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and raise grave problems for Turkey and Iran.” Israel, Dulles predicted, would take over the West Bank and East Jerusalem “if Jordan falls to Nasser.” The entire Middle East — or at least its Arab components — might fall to Nasser, in his view. Russia would be the beneficiary.

Allen’s brother, the secretary of state, chimed in with a long analysis on how the Soviets were behind Nasser and stood to gain control of a block of states from Morocco to Indonesia. The president concluded the meeting by saying that it was clear in his mind “that we must act or get out of the Middle East entirely.” At risk was a devastating defeat in the Cold War, even worse than the loss of China to communists a decade earlier.

-- Bruce Riedel, Brookings

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At the end of the meeting, President Eisenhower ordered the Marines to land in Beirut the very next day. Riedel recounts what happened the next day,

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At 3pm on July 15, 1958, 1,700 U.S. Marines stormed the beaches of Beirut. They were ready for combat, weapons loaded, and backed up by a full 70 warships in the Mediterranean Sea (including three aircraft carriers: the USS Essex, USS Wasp, and USS Saratoga).

-- Bruce Riedel, Brookings

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The Marine landing force in Beirut was not met with hostile fire. They were greeted by friendly sunbathers. That does not matter. The Marines were ready to storm the beach and they did. They brought a combined arms force ready to deter, assist, and fight. The mission was a success. No wider war broke out. Cooler heads prevailed. Sadly, as is too well known, troubles in the Middle East have continued down through the decades and troubles continue today.

Much can be learned from the Marine landing force that stormed the beaches of Beirut in the summer of 1958. First, the Marines were ready to land on order. Second, the Navy was ready to support the Marines. Finally, and perhaps hard for the Marine Corps of today to grasp, the Marines in 1958 were never asked how they preferred to be used.

Neither Eisenhower, nor the Dulles brothers, nor any other senior policy maker had any interest in what mission the Marines wanted to perform. If the Marine Corps had spoken up and said, "landing on beaches is so old fashioned, we have our own plan for sitting on defense on islands in the Pacific" every senior officer in the Marine Corps would have been fired.

It has never been the role of the Marine Corps to decide how and where Marines will be used. Marines are ordered to accomplish missions as assigned by regional combatant commanders operating under the direction of the Commander in Chief. Marines do not tell the Commander in Chief and his representatives how Marines will be used. Instead, it is the job of Marne Corps leadership to train and equip Marines to accomplish a wide variety of missions that will be assigned by others.

Compass Points salutes the Marines who were ready without warning to land in Beirut in 1958 and also salutes all the current Marines who are getting themselves ready today so they can answer when the unexpected call comes tomorrow.

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Brookings -- 10/29/2019

Beirut 1958: America’s origin story in the Middle East

By Bruce Riedel

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/beirut-1958-americas-origin-story-in-the-middle-east/