This week I’d like to tackle a much-discussed topic in American security circles: the decision of the Trump administration to withdraw troops from Syria. The President announced via twitter that ISIS was defeated and that it is time for the American troops to return home. Plenty of folks seem to say that a withdrawal is a bad policy, mainly as it would surrender Western influence as Jim Mattis said according to the New York Times. In this blog post I will play devil’s advocate and give some reasons why leaving Syria would be in the US’ national interest.
The US has a history in getting stuck in the Middle East the last twenty odd years and the most obvious reason why the US should leave is to avoid having troops in Syria get stuck in a conflict it doesn’t want to commit enough to in order to win or to have the military do construction work for years on end. Mission creep is easy and there is always more one can do but at the end of the day it comes down to opportunity costs. The US military has a set number of people working for it, a set amount of hardware, and a set amount of money and it should strive to utilise those resources as efficiently as possible. I can’t say whether or not having troops in Syria is the optimal use of US military power but there are certainly other places were those resources could be put to good use, there are conflicts from the Sahel to Ukraine and the South China Sea where the US has an interest after all.
The second reason why one could argue that the US should pull out of Syria is that it really has achieved its goals and therefore has nothing left in Syria to do. The principal reason why US forces were sent to Syria was to defeat ISIS but the reason wasn’t because ISIS might attack American civilians but because having a fighting force which unites Sunni’s across the Middle East would up end the balance of power in the region. The US should act as an offshore balancer, i.e. play sides off each other so that no one power in the Middle East can become strong enough to challenge the US. ISIS has been defeated in the sense that it is no longer a territorial power which could seriously challenge the balance of power, and sure it might still be a dangerous terrorist group but only states have sufficient capabilities to be able to pose a serious threat for a state like the US. In essence, the situation is resolved, never mind that the US didn’t do most of the fighting or that al Assad is still in charge in Syria because the impetus for having troops in Syria is gone so there’s no point anymore.
As always the point of the blog post isn’t to argue for or against the withdrawal but to consider a different point of view. Please share your thoughts on the subject in the comment section below or on Twitter.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump-syria-turkey-troop-withdrawal.html
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