Iran’s delayed retaliation against Israel tests Pentagon’s global strategy
Uncertainty about an Iranian attack could put Pentagon planners in a bind, as they seek to keep high-maintenance US aircraft carriers and fighter squadrons on nimble rotation schedules and out of lengthy Middle East engagements.
This is an excerpt from Security Briefing, Al-Monitor's weekly newsletter covering defense and conflict developments in the Middle East. To get Security Briefing in your inbox, sign up here.
WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden came into office with ambitions to extract the American military from complex, multisided conflicts in the Middle East.
The reasoning lay not just in the American public’s distaste for the wars. At stake is the Pentagon’s ability to modernize and upgrade its overextended fleets over the coming decades, as it seeks to keep pace with a rising China and an increasingly aggressive Russia.
Yet for more than 10 months, Israel’s war campaign in Gaza has threatened to reignite volatile fault lines across the wider Middle East, as Iran and the various highly motivated militias that it arms and funds vow to dial up their own attacks in response.
