New paper out today: The Case for Withdrawing from the Middle East. THREAD (1/): defensepriorities.org/explainers/the…
The US is in the Middle East for three main reasons: oil, Israel, and terrorism. There must be something witchy about those things, because the region is a dwarf: ~3% of world GDP, ~3.5-5% world population. If a single state possessed those resources, we wouldn't worry much (2/)
Oil: FP scholars almost uniformly misunderstand how energy markets work. As M.A. Adelman argued in 2004, "U.S. oil policies are based on fantasies, not facts." The dreaded "oil weapon" is a dud, and normal instability doesn't cause economic catastrophe. (3/)
People worry about Israel's security, but US troops in the region are not what's protecting it. Massive QME, 90 nukes including on Dolphin subs are. Moreover, recent US policy in the region has unleashed sectarian chaos, ISIS, Iran, none of which benefits Israel. (4/)
Terrorism doesn't require large US ground troop deployment in the region and probably worsens as a result. As John Mueller has pointed out, smart risk analysis types were shrugging at the terror threat in 2002. The case has only grown stronger since. (5/)
Costs: Sure, we have frittered away trillions on self-destructive wars in the region, but even in peacetime the best estimates of the cost of our commitment to the region is on the order of $65-70 billion per year. That's a lot of money that could be better spent elsewhere! (6/)
Bottom line: If the past 20 years should have proved anything, it is that the United States does not have the answers to the problems of the Middle East. The good news is that it does not need them. (7/)
Many thanks to @BH_Friedman, @JRCookson, @defpriorities for their help bringing this paper to light. (Remaining deficiencies are my fault.) Let the Twitter roasting begin! @ me! (8/8)
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