U.S. Marines battle imaginary enemies across desert dunes watched by a mass of glinting binoculars.
Staff officers sit in rows on a hilltop swapping notes under a hot sun as Kuwaiti tanks fire and U.S. warplanes swoop in a test of the skills that drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991.Three years after the Persian Gulf War, increasingly sophisticated joint exercises are establishing close ties between the armed forces of the tiny gulf oil state and the United States, its main non-Arab ally.
The goal is to deter any future aggressor by teaching high-tech war to Kuwait's small military and fostering U.S.-Kuwaiti comradeship to smooth coordination in any future emergency.
"We measure the success of our exercises in the friendships we can build," said General Michael Delong of the First Marine Expeditionary Force. "Ideally every country wants to be independent militarily, but the goal here is for our forces to deploy rapidly and to fight with Kuwait in an emergency."
Kuwait must become like a porcupine to defend itself from aggressors such as much larger neighbor Iraq, which invaded in 1990 and claimed the emirate as its "19th province," said one U.S. military official who declined to be identified.
"If we can make Kuwait's quills sharp enough, that is a deterrent. There's no reason that can't be done," he said.
Diplomats say it is a balancing act; training closely with Kuwaitis to instill self-reliance and build friendships, without fostering overdependence on Uncle Sam.
Kuwait, nervous about a still-hostile Iraq, signed defense pacts with the United States, France, Russia and Britain after its liberation to try to boost its mauled and looted defenses.
It also went on an arms-buying spree, becoming the world's biggest spender on weaponry on a per capita basis.
It is now preparing to learn how to use the hundreds of Patriot air defense missiles, 218 M1-A2 Abrams tanks, 254 British armored vehicles and a sophisticated American air defense system being delivered over the rest of this decade.
Eventual military integration of the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain remains a cherished dream.
But in the meantime Kuwait's main military support remains large Western powers and in particular America.
The United States does not station forces in Kuwait.
But it does position arms and equipment in the emirate and offshore in special ships in the region under the U.S. military "forward positioning" doctrine in which troops are flown in during emergencies and quickly use weaponry already in place.
More tanks, howitzers, multiple-launch rocket vehicles and other arms will arrive by the end of 1994 to join 44 main battle tanks, 44 armored vehicles and eight artillery guns said by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies to have been in Kuwait since the gulf war.
Some have their doubts Kuwait can ever independently use the new weapons to maximum benefit, saying cultural differences and lack of war experience mean that a U.S. operator may always have to be on hand if Kuwait is ever again involved in a conflict.
But America is quadrupling its military advisers in Kuwait this year to a total of around 85 to help train the Kuwaitis on the new U.S. weaponry. Britain already has about 30 military advisers working with the Kuwaiti military.