Thread. @ilangoldenberg has some thoughts on why not to withdraw precipitately from Syria, and about what he calls America’s “yo-yo” tendency to pull out of the Middle East & then get pulled back in. I understand his logic; it’s widely shared in the US national security world.
2. It’s fair, however, to point out some problems with it. One is with the “yo-yo” metaphor itself. This misstates the nature of US involvement in the region, which is in truth a serious of measures to cope with the consequences of the 2003 Iraq invasion.
3. Another is the size of the commitment @ilangoldenberg says is necessary, a couple of thousand troops in Syria. As he is aware, to this must be added several thousand US troops in Iraq, several thousand more spread across the northern half of Africa...
4...naval and air assets in the Persian Gulf, and finally the interminable commitment in Afghanistan — plus the logistical resources needed to support a diverse, widely dispersed force over very long supply lines. This commitment to the region is only modest compared...
5... to the peak of the Iraq war ten years ago. Its objective, if I may paraphrase @ilangoldenberg, is to keep things from getting any worse. It’s not clear to me how public support for combat missions with this objective can be sustained for any length of time.
6. There is, finally, the matter of China. To put it another way: China, China, China. Obama’s “pivot to Asia” was less substance than rhetoric in large part because he continued US military commitments in Afghanistan & elsewhere. More important, ...
7... and putting this as tactfully as I can, there are contingencies in US-China relations no sane person wishes to see, but for which we must nonetheless be prepared. We won’t be if the American military’s attention continues to be occupied with wars from Niger to Afghanistan.
8. Things could, as @ilangoldenberg rightly says, go very wrong in the Middle East. They could go a lot wronger, with respect to American interests, in the South China Sea.
9. I dread, very honestly, what Trump & his team may do about Syria. I have no confidence that Trumper decisions will be based on any strategic logic, or indeed on any more than a desire to win a few news cycles away from Mueller-related stories.
10. With that said, the American military is over-committed in southwest Asia and Africa. This over-commitment has real costs and risks that a generation of analysts long preoccupied with the terrorism problem are not giving their due weight. [end]
As I was saying in 9., above. Per @AlexWardVox
