Dynamic Force Employment is the Future of America’s Middle East Presence

The US aircraft carrier "USS Dwight Eisenhower" crosses the Strait of Hormuz into the Arabian Gulf on November 26, 2023. INFORMATION TECHNICIAN SECOND CLASS RUSKIN NAVAL / AP
The US aircraft carrier "USS Dwight Eisenhower" crosses the Strait of Hormuz into the Arabian Gulf on November 26, 2023. INFORMATION TECHNICIAN SECOND CLASS RUSKIN NAVAL / AP
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Dynamic Force Employment is the Future of America’s Middle East Presence

The US aircraft carrier "USS Dwight Eisenhower" crosses the Strait of Hormuz into the Arabian Gulf on November 26, 2023. INFORMATION TECHNICIAN SECOND CLASS RUSKIN NAVAL / AP
The US aircraft carrier "USS Dwight Eisenhower" crosses the Strait of Hormuz into the Arabian Gulf on November 26, 2023. INFORMATION TECHNICIAN SECOND CLASS RUSKIN NAVAL / AP

Few things grab the attention of Arab leaders who are friendly to Washington more than America’s military presence in the region. Even the slightest drawdown greatly worries and often drives them to assume the worst about US intentions.

A calm assessment of America’s changing geopolitical priorities, followed by an understanding of how the United States has sought to adjust its military posture in the region, should ease the worries of Arab partners, or at least some of them.

While it is true that the United States has reached fatigue in the Middle East given its costly interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the more powerful driver behind reducing military investments in the region is the US strategic prioritization of the Indo-Pacific and European theaters.

Checking China and countering Russia requires more resources than previously allocated to each respective theater, and given that US resources are limited, they must be brought in from other places. By any objective account, the United States had an oversized presence in the Middle East, which made the region a natural candidate for a reduced US military footprint.

The view of US abandonment of the Middle East has needlessly dominated policy and emotions in the region. It remains baseless. So long as the region contains strategic natural resources including high percentages of oil and gas, and so long as the export of those resources is crucial for the wellbeing of the international economy, the United States will care about the region and devote resources to maintain stability in that vital part of the world. The question now is how the United States can preserve its interests, strengthen its partnerships, and commit to its stabilizing mission in the region with fewer resources at its disposal.

There’s no doubt that Washington has struggled with this question at the policy level – the conflict between Israel and Hamas is just the latest example of the limitations of US Middle East policy. But what’s encouraging is that the US Department of Defense has stepped up and proposed some creative ideas regarding the future of America’s military presence in the region. Enter dynamic force employment.

The concept of dynamic force employment was officially introduced in the 2018 National Defense Strategy. Implemented in the Middle East more than anywhere else lately, it seeks to reduce routine deployments to provide flexibility and make peacetime force movements more agile without compromising on combat readiness. Current commander of US Air Forces Central Command, Lt. Gen. Greg Guillot, argued that “dynamic force employment deployments demonstrate the ability to move combat capability into theater just in time for when it is required, not just in case it might be needed.”

Dynamic force employment also better protects US forces from Iran’s threat of missiles and unmanned aerial systems. In his posture statement on March 15, 2022, former CENTCOM Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie correctly noted that “distributing forces more broadly outside of the most significant Iranian threat ranges not only enhances survivability but also demonstrates an increased capability to rapidly mass combat effects...”

And that’s precisely what CENTCOM has demonstrated in its approach to the region over the past few weeks and months. We’ve seen the United States deploy additional military assets including aircraft carriers, warships, and fighter aircraft to respond to the rising threat of Iran’s threat network. These resources had to come from other regions including Europe and even from military bases in the United States.

Dynamic force employment shouldn’t suggest that the United States has switched to a strategy of offshore balancing or that it is about to gradually give up its forward-deployed military presence in the Middle East. An effective posture that contributes to the missions of deterrence, reassurance, and security cooperation must have an element of forward deployment.

To deter Iran, the United States must have assets in theater to affect the decision-making calculus of the leadership in Tehran and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. To be sure, US deterrence against Iran has been contested. But it would be even less effective without immediate and powerful American means of punishment in theater that could prevent Iran from quickly establishing facts on the ground in a crisis.

To reassure partners, the United States needs visible and permanent military power in the region. Regional partners feel a lot more reassured by the constant basing of American troops and equipment on their soil because it reflects a certain level of US commitment to their security. Also, to effectively conduct security cooperation, the United States needs troops and trained personnel in the region to advise and assist their counterparts. The entire enterprise of security cooperation is about building trust and personal relationships, and you simply cannot do that remotely.

How much forward presence is necessary to effectively pursue all three of these missions is always hard to know. One also has to recognize that when it comes to posture, there is an inherent tension between deterrence, reassurance, and security cooperation.

While security cooperation doesn’t need a large US footprint – it needs the right kind of personnel in the right places more than anything else – partners will always prefer a robust and sizable presence. With respect to deterrence, it is virtually impossible to know how much US firepower is enough to be effective because the concept itself is incredibly hard to measure and evaluate (it also depends on several other variables including credibility and consistency) and because Iran consistently operates below the threshold of war.

Dynamic force employment is supposed to smartly balance between all three missions by keeping a forward-deployed presence while putting a bigger premium on maintaining access, investing in adaptability, and building resilience. This is particularly challenging because regional partners could decide to reduce US access if they see that Washington is further drawing down its physical presence.

Access becomes even more important to the United States as tensions with Iran grow and the likelihood of war increases. The first few moments of a potential confrontation or even military crisis between the United States and Iran require a high degree of US operational flexibility, which can only be enabled by access.

In the end, any US discussion of posture, be it in the Middle East or elsewhere, should be informed first and foremost by strategy. Strategy drives posture, not the other way around. There is no point in debating numbers of American troops and capabilities in the Middle East if Washington doesn't have a clear idea of what objectives it wants those troops and capabilities to achieve.

But even when that moment of clarity in US Middle East strategy comes, Washington should always remember that the regional partners get a vote. Without their access and permission, the United States can do very little in the Middle East.



'Save Us': Gazans Want Trump to End War with Israel

"God willing the war on the Gaza Strip will end and the situation will change," Trump told AFP.
"God willing the war on the Gaza Strip will end and the situation will change," Trump told AFP.
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'Save Us': Gazans Want Trump to End War with Israel

"God willing the war on the Gaza Strip will end and the situation will change," Trump told AFP.
"God willing the war on the Gaza Strip will end and the situation will change," Trump told AFP.

Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday want Donald Trump, who won the US election, to end the war between Israel and Hamas that has devastated their territory.

The conflict sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack has taken an appalling human toll in the Gaza Strip, displacing most of its residents, causing widespread hunger and death, and leaving hospitals struggling to cope.

"We were displaced, killed... there's nothing left for us, we want peace," Mamdouh al-Jadba, who was displaced to Gaza City from Jabalia, told AFP.

"I hope Trump finds a solution, we need someone strong like Trump to end the war and save us, enough, God, this is enough," said the 60-year-old.

"I was displaced three times, my house was destroyed, my children are homeless in the south... There's nothing left, Gaza is finished."

Umm Ahmed Harb, from the Al-Shaaf area east of Gaza City, was also counting on Trump to "stand by our side" and end the territory's suffering.

"God willing the war will end, not for our sake but for the sake of our young children who are innocent, they were martyred and are dying of hunger," she told AFP.

"We cannot buy anything with the high prices (of food). We are here in fear, terror and death."

For Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, where violence has also surged since October last year, Trump's victory was reason to fear for the future.

"Trump is firm in some decisions, but these decisions could serve Israel's interests politically more than they serve the Palestinian cause," said Samir Abu Jundi, a 60-year-old in the city of Ramallah.

Another man who identified himself only by his nickname, Abu Mohammed, said he also saw no reason to believe Trump's victory would be in favor of the Palestinians, saying "nothing will change except more decline".

He said all US presidents "are in favor of the State of Israel", the Palestinian from east Jerusalem told AFP.

The United States is Israel's main political and military backer and despite pressure from President Joe Biden's administration for a ceasefire, the support has not wavered.

Imad Fakhida, a school principal in the main West Bank city of Ramallah, said "Trump's return to power... will lead us to hell and there will be a greater and more difficult escalation."

"He is known for his complete and greatest support for Israel," he added.

- 'We expect peace' -

During his first term in office, Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights and helped normalize ties between Israel and several Arab states under the so-called Abraham Accords.

The Accords were condemned as "treason" by Palestinian leaders who feared they undercut their aspirations for a homeland, and led to disgruntlement in Hamas.

The war erupted on October 7, 2023 after Hamas militants attacked Israel, resulting in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 43,391 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry the United Nations considers reliable.

During his campaign for a return to the White House, Trump said Gaza, which is located on the eastern Mediterranean, could be "better than Monaco".

He also said he would have responded the same way as Israel did following the October 7 attack, while urging the US ally to "get the job done" because it was "losing a lot of support".

More broadly he has promised to bring an end to raging international crises, even saying he could "stop wars with a telephone call".

In Gaza, such statements gave reason for hope.

"We expect peace to come and the war to end with Trump because in his election campaign he said that he wants peace and calls for stopping the wars on Gaza and the Middle East," said Ibrahim Alian, 33, from Gaza City.

Like many of the territory's residents, Alian has been displaced several times by the fighting. He said he also lost his father to the war.

"God willing the war on the Gaza Strip