Tech. Sgt. Erik Gudmundson, US Air Force
Mike Sweeney, Modern War Institute: Nothing is Forever: When the US Military Eventually Leaves the Middle East, It’s Going to Need a Plan
Fifty-one years ago, British Foreign Secretary George Brown informed his American counterpart that the United Kingdom was leaving the Persian Gulf in the next few years, expediting an existing withdrawal plan. Britain was decamping because it had to: it no longer could afford the costs of its imperial commitments throughout Asia.
The United States today is different from 1960s Great Britain in two important ways. On the one hand, it has not (yet) overextended itself to the point where it is forced into an ignominious retreat from the Middle East stage. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t have a coherent plan for how to address the future of its regional posture before such overreach becomes fact—or in the event internal conditions in the Middle East render US presence untenable.
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WNU Editor: It is a prudent to have a plan. But I suspect that when the day arrives for the U.S. to leave, it will be sooner than what was expected.
2 comments:
Leaving the Middle East? Give up all those lucrative defense deals? I don’t see it short of the USA muscled out of its dominate position. So I agree, it will happen unexpectedly and ahead of schedule but not soon.
A plan Anon and Russ would likely like,
Establish a very large military presence using the America's unwanted immigrants, pull out and/or disable the equipment left behind, and the few real "American" personnel and then abandon the rest.
Two problems solved in one stroke. They are out of the Mid East, got rid of the "immigrants" and the new "ISIS" people they created will carry on from there disrupting as they go.
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