Hal Brands
It’s useful to be reminded, occasionally, that there’s only one superpower. Operation Midnight Hammer, the globe-spanning strike against Iran’s nuclear program, was a demonstration of power projection that America’s rivals can only envy. Unfortunately, the operation is also testament to how badly US military power is being strained, and how unserious the nation’s debate on defense strategy has become.
That debate has featured, in recent years, two warring camps. In the first are those who warn that the threat of war with China is rising and that interventions elsewhere make it harder to prepare for that fight. In the second are those who argue that the US has vital stakes outside the western Pacific and that a global power can’t simply quit crucial regions such as the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Oddly, recent events show that both groups have a point.
President Donald Trump may style himself a peacemaker. But in just five months, he managed to fight two Middle Eastern wars. In the spring, he ordered a vicious bombing campaign to halt Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Last month, the US supported, and ultimately joined, Israel’s war against Iran.
Those decisions caused controversy within a Make America Great Again movement that is often skeptical of Middle Eastern interventions. Yet the attacks nonetheless occurred because the US does have important interests there — preventing an Iranian bomb, beating back grievous challenges to global trade — and no other country can vindicate them when they are challenged.
Trump thus joins that long, bipartisan line of presidents who tried and failed to deprioritize the Middle East. This probably isn’t the last time he’ll send forces surging there. If Iran quickly reconstitutes its nuclear program, the next crisis could be just weeks or months away. But if it’s foolish to think that the Middle East will leave the US alone, it’s also foolish to think that American interventions there come cheap.
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