Page 151 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

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and Greece and thus NATO as a whole. Syria and Iraq also figured highly as possible
aggressors.
Despite all these American fears the NATO partners in the Central Region didn’t
really appreciate this idea of a crisis scenario. What followed, were hard discussions.
Not least German planners believed that possible aggressions on the part of the Warsaw
Pact in Europe were already enough to deal with and that the focus should be on them.
They were, however, not able to assert their views at the time, for the NATO Military
Committee approved the Middle East scenario in June 1969. But the discussions went
on.
This new development did not have positive connotations for the strategic position
of the AMF since its importance declined as a consequence of such extensions and
discussions. Although there many hopes in connection with the AMF, it played a quite
limited role in Wintex 71.
The AMF acquired more importance in NATO’s second series of major exercises
– the HILEX series which started in 1968, deliberately designed to contrast with the
Wintex series. The main focus was to single out the most flexible adaptation to crisis
situations, in particular at political levels, thereby involving the appropriate civilian
decision-makers in a prominent way. The exercise plans concentrated, to a much greater
degree than the Wintex exercises, on achieving political de-escalation without the use
of nuclear weapons.
The practical procedures for crisis management were then exercised in the 1970s. In
the respective scenarios the AMF came into play as a crucial element, thereby ultimately
highlighting its raison d’être. On this basis, the planning and the exercises went on.
The UK Mobile Force became integrated as well, here especially in connection with a
massive employment in the BALTAP area, including the use of Landing Ships Logistic.
The main practical business of the AMF were the field exercises, especially the so-called
Express series. Until 1990 about 100 Exercises in all contingency areas were helt.
Like it or not – the Oriental region still kept on going and influencing NATO as well.
This led to quite unforeseen and somewhat grave events. HILEX 9 in 1980 became, and
this is not yet really appreciated today, a kind of watershed in the strategic development
of NATO and the history of its exercises. The exercise coincided almost exactly with
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and was therefore cancelled as a precautionary step
to avoid escalation. There were considerable fears within NATO that the Soviet Union
might be provoked if it became known to the public that the Alliance was holding a high-
level crisis exercise while Soviet units were invading Afghanistan.
The major strategic background here was that the United States were more and more
drawn into the conflicts in this region. Washington saw the events at the Hindu Kush
and the events in the US embassy in Tehran at the end of 1979 as a massive threat to its
interests in the Gulf and beyond. The most important manifestation in this respect was
the Carter doctrine, which demanded unconditional resistance against any aggression by
the Eastern bloc in the Gulf. As a consequence, the Americans insisted that this region
was included also in the NATO plans in one way or another. The main document for
NATO was the “South West Asia Impact Study” which was published to all NATO