As the US scales back its military presence across the Middle East to focus on great power competition with China and Russia, it risks giving those two countries a chance to fill the gap and expand their influence around the Gulf, the top US commander for the region said on Sunday.
While traveling through the Middle East over the past week, US Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, fielded a persistent question from the military and political leaders he met: Is the US still committed to their country and the region, and what more support can they receive.
From the dusty battlefields in Syria to the rocket-pummeled neighborhoods in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, they worry that the US’ pivot to Asia means they will be left without the troops, ships, aircraft and other military aid they need to battle Iranian-backed militant groups attacking their people.
If the US is slow to respond, they might look elsewhere for help.
“The Middle East writ broadly is an area of intense competition between the great powers, and I think that as we adjust our posture in the region, Russia and China will be looking very closely to see if a vacuum opens that they can exploit,” McKenzie told reporters traveling with him. “I think they see the United States shifting posture to look at other parts of the world and they sense there may be an opportunity there.”
Speaking in his hotel room after meeting with Saudi officials, McKenzie said weapons sales would be one need that Moscow and Beijing could exploit.
Russia tries to sell air defense systems and other weapons to whoever it can, and China aims to expand its economic power and ultimately establish military bases in the region, he said.
In the few short months since US President Joe Biden took office, he has ordered the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and begun to review the US’ force presence in Iraq, Syria and around the globe. His administration is cutting US military support for the Saudi-led offensive against Iranian-back Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the Pentagon has moved ships, forces and weapons systems out of other Middle East countries.
However, Biden this month dispatched senior administration officials to the Gulf region to reassure nervous allies as the US looks to reopen talks with Iran on the 2015 nuclear deal, which then-US president Donald Trump scrapped three years ago.
The effort to restart talks with Iran has triggered worries in a number of Middle East nations who rely on the US to maintain pressure on Tehran and its campaigns to fund and supply weapons to militant groups in the region.
However, there is ongoing discussion within the Pentagon about sending more assets to the Pacific to fight a rising China, and US military commanders around the globe, including McKenzie, might lose troops and resources as a result. Those could include warships, such as the aircraft carrier now sitting in the Gulf, providing security for the Afghanistan withdrawal.
The Biden administration sees China’s rapidly expanding economic influence and military might as the US’ main long-term security challenge. Officials believe the US must be more ready to counter threats to Taiwan and China’s development of military outposts on man-made islands in the South China Sea.
Military commanders caution that China’s growing assertiveness is not limited to Asia, noting that Beijing is aggressively seeking footholds in Africa, South America and the Middle East.
“I agree completely that China needs to be the pacing threat we orient on,” McKenzie said in the interview with reporters from The Associated Press and ABC News. “At the same time, we are a global power and we need to have a global outlook, and that means that you have the ability to consider the globe as a whole.”
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