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experiments, hoping to devise ways of suppressing violent radicalism while fostering pro-Western stability. The implications of these experiments for the U.S. military have been almost entirely unhappy.
    For Americans in uniform, the Greater Middle East now became the primary zone of conflict, both active and prospective. Between 1945 and 1980, U.S. forces suffered virtually no casualties in the GME due to hostile action. During the 1980s, that changed. Since 1990, U.S. forces have suffered virtually no casualties outside that region.
    For bureaucracies, of course, shifting priorities are a godsend, offering opportunities to expand. The Pentagon welcomed the discovery—or invention—of the Greater Middle East, rife with potential for justifying the creation of new programs, offices, weaponry, and commands. The armed forces wasted little time in seizing those opportunities.
    Until the 1980s, in the pecking order of Pentagon regional headquarters, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) had ranked first, with U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) not far behind. As senior American proconsul in Europe, the four-star EUCOM commander general wore a second hat. He was NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), as splendid a title as the military world has ever conferred.
    In those days, the Pentagon had not even bothered to create a command for the Greater Middle East. The SACEUR attended to the region in his spare moments. Today, to manage its sundry activities in the Islamic world, the Pentagon maintains two regional headquarters: U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).
    Back at his headquarters in Belgium, a U.S. officer still carries the title SACEUR, but he no longer reigns supreme over anything. Indeed, during the past three decades, the U.S. forces at his disposal have shrunk by 80 percent. Many of those that remain rotate back and forth between training bases in Germany or Italy and theaters like Afghanistan where the real action occurs, the SACEUR functioning less as their commander than their landlord. 10 As the SACEUR keeps up appearances while presiding over his dwindling domain, the commanders of CENTCOM and AFRICOM increasingly exercise the sort of authority that once was SACEUR’s. Although he may still live in a fancy house, no one much cares what the SACEUR has to say. England’s queen and Japan’s emperor might empathize.
    That the Pentagon should divvy up the Greater Middle East, delineating the jurisdiction of adjacent proconsulates, was entirely consistent with standard U.S. military practice. Ever since World War II, the Pentagon has made a habit of overlaying a U.S. military map on the world’s political map. Subdividing the globe into right-sized compartments facilitated the effective projection of U.S. might—so at least the national security establishment came to believe. In Washington, this belief achieved canonical status, no more subject to question than the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility or the Baptist belief in scriptural inerrancy. The emergence of CENTCOM and AFRICOM as important regional commands testified to the persistence of this conviction.
    Created in 1983, U.S. Central Command today presides over an “area of responsibility” encompassing twenty nations, as it seeks to “provide a stronger, more lasting solution in the region.” With this goal in mind, CENTCOM—according to its mission statement—“promotes cooperation among nations, responds to crises, and deters or defeats state and nonstate aggression, and supports development and, when necessary, reconstruction in order to establish the conditions for regional security, stability, and prosperity.” 11
    Progress toward achieving these ambitious goals remains elusive. General James Mattis, CENTCOM commander in 2012, opened his annual “Posture Statement” with this admission: “Change is the only constant and surprise continues to be the dominant force in [a] region [plagued by] poor governance, a