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The Biden administration is changing the face of America’s military presence around the world, and the latest evidence of this is in the withdrawal of U.S. missile systems from a number of countries.
The Wall St. Journal reports, on 19 June, that Patriot anti-missile batteries are being pulled from countries including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait. Saudi Arabia will also lose the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, and jet fighter squadrons across the region will also be reduced.
The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan is winding down, despite some in the Pentagon expressing second thoughts as to the wisdom of U.S. withdrawal, as we wrote about last week, in our 15 June article, “PENTAGON: KEEP THE 20 YEAR LOSING AFGHAN WAR GOING,” and, under Biden, the U.S. is shifting its military focus from counter-insurgency to China.
And the Biden administration sees a greatly reduced risk of war with America’s major Middle East adversary, Iran, because the U.S. is now negotiating the resurrection of the nuclear treaty that Obama entered into and which Trump scuttled.
Furthermore, after selling Saudi Arabia hundreds of billions of weaponry over the last decade alone, as reported by Arms Control Association, “In a significant reversal from the Trump administration, President Joe Biden said that the United States would end its support for “offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.”
They also reported that Biden “pledged support for a ceasefire and revitalizing peace talks between warring factions in Yemen,” thus the U.S. presence in the area and having bases and troops in Saudi Arabia is deemed less essential.
The U.S. presence is also being reduced in Iraq, where Iranian-backed forces using drones still threaten U.S. and coalition troops, launching numerous attacks in the last few weeks; those same forces have launched over 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia so far this year. Iran has denied involvement in those attacks. Patriot anti-missile systems are ineffective against drones, as they are designed to counter ballistic missiles.
An official of Biden’s Defense Dept. calls all this shifting around “a realignment of resources with strategic priorities,” and said that the forces and materiel being removed represent only a small portion of the “tens of thousands of forces still in the region,” and that “substantial forces” and “substantial posture” are still being maintained in the region. Even some of the forces withdrawn from Afghanistan are being relocated to the Middle East.
Russia and China may see reductions in U.S. presence as an opportunity to expand their military and economic influence, but the Biden administration believes that continued U.S. involvement, in the form of joint military exercises, arms sales and security cooperation, for example, as well as troop presence, will keep those powers from replacing American influence.
The Wall St. Journal, like the New York Times, seems to characterize Biden’s military policies as strategic and masterful, while Trump’s were chaotic and de-stabilizing.
TREND FORECAST: The pullback of some eight Patriot anti missile batteries and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense antimissile system from Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, is, in effect, minimal. Should military conflicts escalate between Syria and Iran vs. Israel and/or Yemen vs. Saudia Arabia, for example, the U.S. military/industrial/intelligence complex will return in force to the Middle East.
And as we have forecast, there will be no military conflicts between the U.S. and China or with Russia. Both nations have advanced weaponry and considering that the United States has not won a war since World War II and could not even register a success in Afghanistan after 20 years, there may well be a growing reality in Washington that peace and prosperity is more profitable than losing wars.