The Biden administration's mixed messages on Mideast escalation, a DEFP livestream event, avoiding war in the Taiwan Strait, and more.

ENTANGLEMENT

The Biden team is wary of a regional Mideast war. So why are U.S. troops still in harm's way?

"Israel said its military is starting to shift from a large-scale ground and air campaign in the Gaza Strip to a more targeted phase in its war against Hamas," The New York Times reported Monday. Troop levels in civilian areas will draw down, the story said, and Gaza will see more surgical ground operations and fewer airstrikes.

But just one day prior, a Wall Street Journal report told a more complicated story. "We are fighting an axis, not a single enemy," the paper quoted Israel's defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who pledged Israel will use enough force not only to crush Hamas but to deter other regional adversaries through long-term war.

The hopeful narrative in the Times report is appealing, but the darker forecast at the Journal should serve as a caution to U.S. decisionmakers—especially given extant U.S. military activity in the region. This could be a yearslong, region-wide conflict, and it is crucial to avoid unnecessary U.S. entanglement.

Tangling threads

Secretary of State Antony Blinken toured the Middle East over the past week to urge against escalation. [WSJ / Dion Nissenbaum and William Mauldin]
- Blinken argued Monday that an expanded conflict serves no one's interests, claiming a wide array of regional leaders are "doing everything possible to deter escalation." [State Department]
- In meetings Tuesday, he "present[ed] a plan for Gaza's future based on his discussions with Arab and Turkish leaders [but] received little public response from Israeli officials." [WaPo / Steve Hendrix and John Hudson]
Meanwhile, a U.S. strike in Baghdad last week "killed an Iran-linked militia commander and risked accelerating the regional fallout" from Gaza. [WaPo / Mustafa Salim et al.]
- The attack means "peace is not lasting," Baghdad resident Sarah Jamal told WaPo. "It started in Syria, then Lebanon, then Iran, and now here. We're being dragged into this, and we have no say." [WaPo / Salim et al.]
- Iraq said the strike violated U.S. assurances, and Baghdad announced plans—which may or may not come to fruition—to remove U.S. forces from the country. [Reuters / Ahmed Rasheed and Phil Stewart]
- "We stress our firm position in ending the existence of the international coalition after the justifications for its existence have ended," said Iraq's prime minister. [Reuters / Rasheed and Stewart]

Savvy strategy

The Israel-Hamas war risks escalation in two senses, DEFP's Rajan Menon and Daniel R. DePetris argue at The Guardian: "a vast increase in death and destruction" and spread to include new parties.
- Already there are "daily skirmishes along the Israel-Lebanon border" between Israel and the Iran-linked Hezbollah.
- The "IDF has been attacking Iranian proxies in Syrian-controlled territory," too.
- "In Yemen, the Houthis, another Iranian-linked militia, have attacked Red Sea shipping lanes more than two dozen times, prompting the U.S. to create an international maritime coalition to maintain freedom of navigation and, along with 11 other nations, to issue a warning: cease or face the consequences." [The Guardian / Menon and DePetris]
At Inkstick, analyst Alexander Langlois is not optimistic about prospects for the second type of escalation:
- Tehran "appears to be tempering its bombastic rhetoric," but it can only do so much to moderate the militias it backs around the region.
- "Militias can be unorganized, especially during increased tensions," and one "mistake or misinterpretation, coupled with long-running and hated U.S. troop deployments in the Middle East, could spell disastrous results."
- The Biden administration "should implement a restrained diplomatic approach that focuses on de-escalating potential and actual points of friction in the region or risk putting U.S. soldiers and citizens in harm's way."
- "U.S. policymakers must consider a serious exit strategy [from Iraq and Syria] or, at minimum, efforts to relocate exposed forces to secure locations." [Inkstick / Langlois]

YOU’RE INVITED

You're invited to join DEFP for a free livestream discussion with the Quincy Institute's Andrew Bacevich, the Stimson Center's Barbara Slavin, DEFP Policy Director Benjamin Friedman, and DEFP Fellow Daniel DePetris on Tuesday, January 16th at 11 AM ET.

QUOTED

"Israel has a right to target Hamas members abroad, and the United States has a right to defend its forces in the region. Yet the flareups that threaten wider war for the United States confront us with the question of what U.S. interest is served by going to war for Israel, effectively on behalf of its war in Gaza."

– DEFP Policy Director Benjamin H. Friedman, as quoted in, "Killing of senior Hamas leader in Lebanon stokes fears of Gaza war spreading beyond enclave." [CNBC / Sam Meredith]

MAPPED

U.S. forces in the Middle East

The United States still maintains a robust military presence of around 46,000 forces in the Middle East. Enlarging that force presence could deter regional powers, chiefly Iran, from greater involvement in the Israel-Hamas war—or it could escalate the conflict, drawing the U.S. into a needless regional fight.’

Learn more in DEFP's explainer, "Withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and Syria."

Sober analysis

Deterrence gap: Avoiding war in the Taiwan Strait

[USAWC Press / Jared M. McKinney and Peter Harris]

In this monograph, the authors argue that the risk of the People's Republic of China invading Taiwan has been increasing for two reasons: a constellation of discrete deterrents that once constrained Beijing from invading Taiwan has decayed and, simultaneously, the incentives for China to exercise restraint toward Taiwan have decreased. […]
While this is an alarming assessment, the authors are not fatalistic. Leaders in Taiwan and the United States can establish policies to lower the risk of invasion (to say nothing of Beijing's obvious potential to rule out war as an option). In this way, alarming prognoses can reverse trends, allowing preferable paths to emerge—in this case, pathways to a stable peace across the Taiwan Strait.
This is the monograph's second purpose: to deduce sound policy recommendations for deterring China. Just because an invasion is becoming more likely does not mean Taiwan, the United States, or any other entity should treat war as inevitable. It matters why war is becoming more likely and what can be done about it.

Read the full analysis here.

Mixed Mideast messages