5. Military Policy Objectives in the Middle East
To determine the success of US policy in the region requires identifying specific US objectives. Those considered in this section are based primarily upon Pentagon strategy documents, the CENTCOM annual posture statement (released around March every year), and speeches and congressional testimony given by Pentagon officials. This analytical approach assumes that when government officials claim they are attempting to achieve something, they are being sincere and that those statements reflect America’s actual policy objectives. The US employs other elements of national power in the Middle East, for example through diplomatic or economic policy, but these efforts are overwhelmingly marshalled in support of the overall military operation, or supplanted by the actions of military forces themselves. Thus, this section focuses on military policy in the region, because non-military approaches – for better or worse – inevitably take a back seat.
The following four strategic objectives have been consistently expressed by civilian and military officials as the reason and purpose for the US military’s various postures in the Middle East, over the past two decades. There are several other underlying and attendant goals, but these four objectives best summarize the motives of the US.
First, the presence of the US military enhances regional security overall and reduces political instability within Middle East governments. This strategic objective has not been achieved, in large part because the 2003 US-led invasion and subsequent military occupation of Iraq engendered a massive Sunni-dominated insurgency, remnants of which became the primary fighting force of ISIS. By 2017, nearly one-third (31 per cent) of the 49 ongoing conflicts in the world – defined as those with at least 25 battlefield deaths – involved ISIS.110 In total, the ill-fated decision to invade Iraq has led – directly and indirectly – to more than one million deaths, with another 7.6 million people displaced by the war.111 In addition, close to 4,500 US active-duty, National Guard and reserve members died fighting in Iraq, while more than 1,500 Pentagon contractors were killed supporting the war effort – approximately one-third of whom were American citizens.112 The direct financial cost to the US for the invasion, occupation and reconstruction of Iraq is in excess of $825 billion.113
Most recently, enhancing Middle East security has focused on restraining what Pentagon officials refer to as Iran’s ‘malign influence’ in the region – meaning Tehran’s promotion and support for proxy forces and sectarian-aligned political movements in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and elsewhere. According to CENTCOM, the US military has failed to restrain Iran, with the military command’s most recent posture statement declaring flatly, ‘We have not seen any improvement in Iran’s behavior’ since the Iran nuclear deal was signed in July 2015.114 This is a core mission of CENTCOM, which the command itself acknowledges has not been successful. Certainly, Iran has taken advantage of the chaos and instability caused by US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US-backed air campaign against Houthi forces in Yemen since 2015, and close support of the US for the Sunni minority monarchy that represses and rules a majority Shia population in Bahrain. The pursuit of America’s interests in the region, combined with the US military’s infrastructure needs, has allowed Iran to expand its reach and influence outside of its borders; in effect, enabling rather than restraining Iranian power.
The US military’s ability to reduce political instability in the region has been decidedly mixed. A 2017 study of US military training programmes conducted from 1970 to 2009 found that countries receiving such training were twice as likely to experience a military-backed coup attempt as countries with no comparable training.115 Indeed, the region has recently experienced prominent successful or attempted military coups in Egypt (2013) and Turkey (2016). But, the more consequential impact on political stability stems from the presence of US troops. A 2018 RAND study found that there is no association between US forward deployed troop presence and increased state repression, within the countries where those troops are deployed.116 However, US forces become associated and implicated by local populations with their governments’ repression. Of the 15 countries covered in this study where troops are stationed, only Israel is considered ‘free’, and Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon are ‘partly free’.117 Meanwhile, all the countries – to varying degrees – rely heavily upon internal security and military forces to consolidate and maintain political control.
Most US fatalities from terrorism since 9/11 are the result of attacks perpetrated by non-networked terrorists resident in the United States, or acts that have directly targeted Americans living and working in the very countries where the US has intervened to prevent or destroy so-called safe havens.
Second, US military presence prevents the emergence of safe havens from which transnational terrorist organizations can operate and plan attacks. This objective is based upon an unquestioned assumption repeated by national security officials since 9/11: terrorists need a safe haven from which to plan and conduct terrorist attacks. In reality, this is not the case as can be determined by assessing the source of attacks against Americans.118 Between 9/11 and the end of 2016 (the last year for which there are data), 440 US citizens were killed in terrorist attacks, 184 of whom were killed inside the United States by self-motivated ‘lone wolves’ – 104 by Islamic jihadists, 72 by far right extremists and eight by black separatists. In addition, more than 200 Americans died in acts of terrorism while in Iraq or Afghanistan.119 In other words, most US fatalities from terrorism since 9/11 are the result of attacks perpetrated by non-networked terrorists resident in the United States, or acts that have directly targeted Americans living and working in the very countries where the US has intervened to prevent or destroy so-called safe havens.
Moreover, keeping US ground troops in the region increases the likelihood of anti-American terrorism. As international relations scholar Alexander Braithwaite determined in his study on recent overseas stationing of foreign military: ‘the deployment of troops overseas increases the likelihood of transnational terrorist attacks against the global interests of the deploying state.’120 In short, troops maintained in foreign countries to prevent terrorism actually increase the probability that those troops’ home countries and global interests will experience terrorism.
Another predominant US military tactic is the use of airstrikes, which have had mixed results in reducing terrorist safe havens and threats in the Middle East. On the one hand, the four-year extensive bombing campaign – in coordination with ground forces – against ISIS succeeded in reducing the amount of territory it controls in Iraq and Syria by more than 80 per cent.121 The campaign has seen the estimated number of ISIS fighters in both countries shrink from as many as 31,500 in 2014 to 15,000 in 2016, the last year for which there are data.122 On the other hand, between 2010 and 2016, despite more than 300 US airstrikes in Yemen that have killed approximately 1,000 people, AQAP membership has grown from ‘several hundred’ to ‘up to four thousand’, according to the State Department’s annual terrorism report.123 Of those 300-plus strikes, more than 120 occurred in 2016; in December 2017, CENTCOM acknowledged that ISIS in Yemen, ‘doubled in size over the past year’.124 It is clear that without being partnered with forces on the ground with the capacity to capture and control territory, airstrikes alone cannot reduce the scope of terrorist threats and may, in fact, exacerbate them.
The third objective of the US military presence in the Middle East is to assure the free flow of oil and natural gas to and from the region. Since Jimmy Carter first dubbed this a ‘vital national interest’, the US military has generally been successful in contributing to the achievement of this strategic objective. The outcome of the 1987–88 Tanker Wars demonstrates that the US military has the naval capabilities and flexibility to diminish the impact of Iran’s unconventional tactics in halting oil shipments. In the past decade, and as recently as in July 2018, Iranian officials have intermittently threatened – either directly or indirectly – to close the Strait of Hormuz to shipping.125 These threats are credible as Iran has the capacity to stop oil shipments transiting through the strait for several months with its current arsenal of anti-ship cruise missiles and naval mines.126 The fact that Iran’s threats to block the Strait of Hormuz has never caused a sustained increase in the price of oil is due to the energy market’s belief that US military forces could rapidly clear naval mines and fully defend tankers shipping oil and natural gas.127
Fourth, the US military presence will build the capacity of regional militaries so they can defend and secure their own sovereign territory. Since Dwight D. Eisenhower complained to two US generals in 1959 that European governments were ‘making a sucker out of Uncle Sam’, every US president has sought to induce or compel regional governments to take more responsibility for their own security.128 This includes maintaining a professional officer corps, fielding combat-ready forces, buying advanced weaponry and deterring or defeating threats to each country’s sovereignty and national interests. This form of security cooperation is highly consequential, as a 2014 RAND study found that US security cooperation correlates with a reduction in the political fragility of host nations.129 Another RAND study has found that building effective capacity depends primarily on the recipient military having the absorptive capacity to plan and manage cooperative activities, and assuring the support is aligned with host nation needs.130
While the US military has assisted in building the capacity of local militaries to defeat internal threats, the region has continued to see numerous cross-border strikes, limited interventions and outright invasions. Unsolicited violations of state sovereignty of countries that have benefitted from US security cooperation in just the past 15 years include: Iran into Iraq; Iraq into Kuwait; Turkey into northern Iraq; Israel into Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon; Lebanon into Israel; Saudi Arabia into Bahrain; Yemen into Saudi Arabia; and Syria into Lebanon, to name but a few examples. Border security and territorial integrity are the only places military training and equipping efforts can be realistically evaluated in practice. Based upon the consistent cross-border attacks and invasions, the capacity of regional militaries remains wholly insufficient and underdeveloped.
110 Petterson, T. and Eck, K. (2018), ‘Organized Violence, 1989–2017’, Journal of Peace Research, June 2018, vol. 55, no. 4, p. 536, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343318784101?journalCode=jpra (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
111 Brown University (undated), ‘Costs of War: Summary of Findings’, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/summary (accessed 7 May 2018); Physicians for Social Responsibility (2015), ‘Body Count: Casualty Figures After 10 Years of the “War on Terror”’, https://www.psr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/body-count.pdf (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
112 DeBruyne, N. F. (2017), ‘American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics (CRS Report No. RL32492)’, Congressional Research Service, 26 April 2017, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf (accessed 7 May 2018); US Department of Labor (2018), ‘About the Defense Base Act Case Summary Reports’, www.dol.gov/owcp/dlhwc/lsaboutdbareports.htm (accessed 7 May 2018). This is only an estimate, because the Department of Labor does not provide comprehensive data for US citizens killed while working as contractors in warzones; Zenko, M. (2016), ‘Mercenaries Are the Silent Majority of Obama’s Military’, Foreign Policy, 18 May 2016, https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/18/private-contractors-are-the-silent-majority-of-obamas-military-mercenaries-iraq-afghanistan/ (accessed 7 May 2018).
113 Belasco, A. (2014), ‘The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 (CRS Report No. RL33110)’, Congressional Research Service, 8 December 2014, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
114 US Central Command (2018), ‘State of General Joseph L. Votel on the Posture of U.S. Central Command’, 27 February 2018, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20180227/106870/HHRG-115-AS00-Wstate-VotelJ-20180227.pdf (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
115 Savage, J. D. and Caverly, J. (2017), ‘When Human Capital Threatens the Capitol: Foreign Aid in the Form of Military Training and Coups’, Journal of Peace Research, 13 July 2017, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022343317713557 (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
116 O’Mahony, A. et al. (2018), U.S. Presence and the Incidence of Conflict, Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, p. 74.
117 Freedom House (2018), Freedom in the World 2018: Democracy in Crisis, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018 (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
118 Zenko, M. and Wolf, A. M. (2015), ‘The Myth of the Terrorist Safe Haven’, ForeignPolicy.com, 26 January 2015, https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/26/al-qaeda-islamic-state-myth-of-the-terrorist-safe-haven/ (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
119 Data from the State Department’s country reports on terrorism. For 2002, 2004 and 2008, when the State Department did not publish these data, this figure relies on RAND’s Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents (2002), the Bureau of Consular Affairs (2004), and the National Counterterrorism Center’s 2008 Report on Terrorism; New America Foundation (2017), ‘Part VI: What is the Threat To the United States Today?’, https://www.newamerica.org/in-depth/terrorism-in-america/what-threat-united-states-today/ (accessed 8 Jul. 2017).
120 Braithwaite, A. (2015), ‘Transnational Terrorism as an Unintended Consequence of a Military Footprint’, Security Studies, vol. 24, no. 2, 2015, pp. 349–375, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09636412.2015.1038192 (accessed 23 Aug. 2018); Dimant, E., Krieger, T. and Meierreks, D. (2017), ‘Negative Returns: U.S. Military Policy and Anti-American Terrorism’, CESIFO Working Papers No. 6693, September 2017, https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/17106-diman-krieger-meierrieks.pdf (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
121 Jamieson, A. (2017), ‘ISIS Revenue Falls 80 Percent as Militants Lose Ground in Iraq, Syria’, NBC News, 29 June 2017, https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-revenue-falls-80-percent-militants-lose-ground-iraq-syria-n778071 (accessed 10 Sep. 2018).
122 US State Department (2014), Country Reports on Terrorism, ‘Chapter 6. Foreign Terrorist Organizations’, https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2014/239413.htm (accessed 10 Sep. 2018); US State Department (2016), Country Reports on Terrorism, ‘Chapter 6. Foreign Terrorist Organizations’, https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2016/272238.htm (accessed 10 Sep. 2018).
123 US State Department (2010), Country Reports on Terrorism, ‘Chapter 6. Foreign Terrorist Organizations’, https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2010/170264.htm (accessed 10 Sep. 2018); US State Department (2016), Country Reports on Terrorism, ‘Chapter 6. Foreign Terrorist Organizations’.
124 US Central Command (2017), ‘Update on Recent Counterterrorism Strikes in Yemen’, release no: 17–446, 20 December 2017, http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1401383/update-on-recent-counterterrorism-strikes-in-yemen/ (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
125 Dehghan, S. K. (2018), ‘Iran Threatens to Block Strait of Hormuz Over U.S. Oil Sanctions’, The Guardian, 5 July 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/05/iran-retaliate-us-oil-threats-eu-visit-hassan-rouhani-trump, (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
126 Talmadge, C. (2008), ‘Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz’, International Security, Summer 2008, pp. 82–117, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/closing-time-assessing-iranian-threat-strait-hormuz (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
127 Scholars have noted that assuring the oil and natural gas shipments in the region does not require such a sizable US military footprint in the region. See, Rovner, J. and Talmadge, C. (2014), ‘Hegemony, Force Posture, and the Provision of Public Goods: The Once and Future Role of Outside Powers in Securing Persian Gulf Oil’, Security Studies, vol. 23, no. 3, 2014, pp. 548–581, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15325024.2014.935224 (accessed 23 Aug. 2018).
128 Office of the Historian (ND), ‘226. Memorandum of Conference With President Eisenhower’ in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Western European Integration and Security, Canada, Volume VII, Part 1, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v07p1/d226 (accessed 10 Sep. 2018).
129 McNearney, M. J. et al. (2014), Assessing Security Cooperation as a Preventive Tool, Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
130 Paul. C. et al. (2013), What Works Best When Building Partner Capacity and Under What Circumstances?, Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.