Foreword: The U.S. Army’s role as an instrument of foreign policy is usually viewed in a strictly military sense. This book tells the story of an Army agency supporting national objectives in a different way. It traces the development of a major construction project, managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, that helped bring peace between two long-time antagonists in the Middle East, Israel and Egypt. The Corps has managed construction in support of American policy overseas many times, but this role is not widely known outside of the Corps.
While telling the story of one of the more substantial, recent Corps of Engineers accomplishments, this book also speaks to the present and future. Large programs such as the air base construction mission in Israel demand broad vision from those who plan and execute them. Their management must be set up with a view to the evolution of the program through its entire life cycle and not extemporized as the program moves through predictable phases of start-up, expansion, maturity, completion, and closure. There are lessons here for thoughtful managers, in the Corps of Engineers and elsewhere in the Army, and we commend this book to them and to others interested in the diverse ways in which the Army serves as an agent of national policy.
