Deterrence Is More Than Deployments: The Effects, and Limitations, of the Administration’s Naval Movements in the Middle East
By John Bird & Jacob Olidort , Ari Cicurel
December 14, 2023
The United States appears to be confusing deployments for deterrence. The use of U.S. military force has been too infrequent, too inconsistent, and too limited to deter Iranian attacks.
On December 3, the USS Carney assisted three commercial shipping vessels facing attacks from the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen and intercepted three drones targeting the ships. While U.S. Navy vessels have helped protect commercial shipping in Middle Eastern waters, the United States has failed to deter the wave of at least 87 Iran-backed attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria and twelve incidents of Iran-linked maritime aggression since the start of the Israel Hamas war. The United States has deployed significant military assets to the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East in hopes of deterring Iran and its proxies from expanding the war and to stop the near-daily attacks on U.S. personnel. The deployments and this approach have failed to accomplish these objectives.
Despite Iran not directly joining the war and the expanded Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel not escalating to a full-scale multifront war, the spate of Iran-backed strikes on U.S. forces did not subside when the United States deployed more military assets to the Middle East. As one defense official told the Washington Post, “There’s no clear definition of what we are trying to deter … Are we trying to deter future Iranian attacks like this? Well, that’s clearly not working.”
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/12/14/deterrence_is_more_than_deployments_the_effects_and_limitations_of_the_administrations_naval_movements_in_the_middle_east_998859.html
