America’s Strategic Baggage in the Middle East: Is it Necessary and Sustainable

Col Daniel L. Magruder, Jr

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Introduction

A main challenge facing national security policy makers in the Middle East is how to reduce ambitions and military commitments to sustainable levels. How do the United States and its partners cost-effectively stabilize the region, deter Iran, and counter violent extremists? These are challenges that must be balanced against the structural changes in the international order. All the while, America’s military capabilities that underwrite conventional deterrence are eroding. While the United States is a global power with global responsibilities, the National Defense Strategy Commission warned about the “growing tendency to conflate the stating of desired objectives with the wherewithal to accomplish them.”1 A superpower should be able to sustain its posture in the Middle East until acceptable political objectives are met. Troop levels are low in individual war zones, casualties are rare, and the fiscal cost is a bargain by historical standards. However, these estimates do not consider strategic baggage accrued over the past two decades of sustained engagement in the region. And, while it is entirely possible the United States could sustain this level of effort, it does not mean it increases American security or prosperity.