The terrorist attacks carried out by the Houthis against civilian targets in the United Arab Emirates in January 2022 drew political condemnation from the United States. It pledged to hold the perpetrators accountable and expressed commitment to the security of the UAE, while affirming: “we stand beside our Emirati partners against all threats to their territory”,  as stated  by the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. This position was reiterated in statements made by the secretary of state and the secretary of defense.

But Washington went further. In addition to intelligence cooperation on countering these threats, the US Department of Defense, in early February, said it was sending its destroyer USS Cole and fifth-generation fighter jets to protect the UAE’s airspace. Days later, Washington announced that it had approved the sale of 65$ million in equipment for the UAE’s missile defense systems. A similar deal was concluded with Saudi Arabia.

The development coincided with a unique military operation by US Special Forces to kill the leader of ISIS in a village near Idlib in North-Western Syria. US President Joe Biden celebrated the successful operation which, he said, was carried out to protect Americans and their allies and make the world safer.

The developments prompted researchers to pose the question: Would the United States re-think its strategy on the Middle East? In other words, would these developments prompt the US to increase its military presence, through deployment of equipment and troops, to protect the security of its allies? If this becomes a reality, it would mean that Washington is reconsidering a years-long strategy it adopted to reduce presence in light of what became known as the “heading East policy”.

Evolution of the US Policy

Certainly, it is too early to pose such a question. Great powers do not change their policies overnight, or following an incident here and there. The strategy pursued by the US implies a possibility for taking such measures within their context without the need to change the foundations on which it was built. This potential answer is based on an analysis of the evolution of US commitments towards friendly and allied states in the Gulf region and the wider Middle East, as well as the US identification of its national security and involved interests.

Over the past decades, the US interests were traditionally represented in defending Israel’s security, oil supplies, regional stability, allies and partners against foreign attacks. In the 1950s and the 1960s, the enemy was the Soviet incursions and what US diplomacy termed as “the world’s communist powers”, calls for independence of colonies and non-alignment policies pursued by Egypt under former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and other Arab states, which were offensive for Washington at that time. Later, enemies for Washington were extreme political organizations carrying out terrorist activities. Later on, a new goal emerged and Washington became concerned with preventing Iran from becoming a military nuclear power. Of course, the introduction of new goals and interests does not necessarily mean previous ones have to be removed or overridden. Rather, it was a rearrangement of priorities.

Evolution of the US foreign policy has always been governed by the goals of US presidents, each of whom had his own doctrine. The Truman Doctrine (1947) and the Eisenhower Doctrine (1957) were aimed at besieging the former Soviet Union by alliances, the most notable of which is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, established in 1949. In this region, the doctrines led to the launch of plans to defend the Middle East (1950-1951), including the Baghdad Pact (1955), the Eisenhower Doctrine (1957), the Central Treaty Organization, or CENTO, the new name of the Baghdad Pact after Iraq’s withdrawal in 1958. CENTO was dissolved in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

The Nixon Doctrine was based on the two-pillar policy and at core implies providing political and military support to both Saudi and Iran. In the post-Cold War era, when the United States became the world’s only superpower and new threats emerged, the Bush Doctrine was born. It was centered around combating terrorism and spreading democracy. To achieve these two goals, Washington did not hesitate to use military force and preemptive strikes, and even invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 and most recently created the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS in both Syria and Iraq.

Failures of this US policy led to the election of Barack Obama in 2009. Obama pursued a new doctrine based on reluctance to be involved in unilateral military intervention, while prioritizing diplomacy and the creation of international alliances and partnerships on a practical and realistic basis. The national security strategy of 2010 was focused on new threats to American interests in Asia, as the Middle East became less prioritized and new calls emerged for the US to reduce its military involvement in and commitment to the region. The approach continued into the Donald Trump Administration. With the exception of its position on Iran, Trump went on to reduce US overseas military involvement and even once described the Middle East as nothing but “sand and blood” and endless wars. The current president, Joe Biden, who upholds a continuation of Obama’s policies, seeks to revive the nuclear deal with Iran.

Protecting American Interests

Protecting American interests has always been a dominant principle of US policy on the Middle East. In the wake of the Iranian Revolution, the United States worked on increasing its military presence in the regional allies’ territory to be able to intervene whenever its interests are jeopardized. The US remained a major party in a majority of political, economic and military interactions in the region and played a decisive role in liberating Kuwait in 1991 and invading Iraq in 2003. It maintained military presence in bases and logistic hubs in Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE, Jordan and Djibouti, along with military facilities offered by other states. Moreover, the US remains the major supplier of arms, training and military advisors to many Arab states. It also has the huge Incirlik Air Base in Turkey and maintains strong military ties with Israel, its top ally in the region.

At sea, US Navy’s 5th Fleet, headquartered in Manama, Bahrain, protects the security in the Arabian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean. Its 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, which protects security in the Mediterranean Sea, Europe and Africa and is among the largest and most powerful military naval formations in NATO. Both fleets include combat ships, attack submarines, destroyers, air carriers, bombers and refueling aircraft.

With minor exceptions such as removal of American military bases in Saudi Arabia and the pulling of Patriot anti-missile batteries, withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq while keeping trainers and advisors and transferring some camps from Qatar to Jordan, the above-mentioned arrangements remain practically the same and have undergone only minor changes after Washington declared that it is heading East policy. All this remains part of the existing American military strategy.

Defense Commitment to Back Allies

The talk about US military withdrawal from the Middle East should be understood within this context. Washington’s aim is not to give up its military presence in the region. No official American documents or statements made by military and political leaders referred to such intentions. Rather, Washington aims to refrain from involving a large number of its troops in the region’s wars, as it earlier did in Iraq after 2003. It also does not want to take part in prolonged wars or conflicts, or do a repeat of its failed military intervention in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

But this does not also mean that the United States would not use its military to defend the security of its allied and friendly states if they came under foreign attack. That is why the American military support to the UAE is an integral part of this commitment, and becomes completely justified given the existing conditions and grounds. These include the fact that the recent attack was carried out by a group that is not in a declared war with the UAE and that it targeted civilian facilities. But despite that, it should be noted that the United States has not attacked the aggressors, and that it rather reinforced the UAE’s defense capabilities. Moreover, the US Administration is still considering re-designation of the Houthi militia as a foreign terrorist organization.

The limitations of change to the US strategy

The conclusion is that it would not be helpful to view the US support to the UAE against the recent terrorist Houthi attacks as a prelude to changes to the US strategy in this region. The military and security strategies pursued by major powers are drawn up based on careful and deliberate assessment of the map of global threats and risks, awareness of the balance of power with enemies in the long term and not only in the short or medium term, as well as on the outlook for potential scenarios for development of relations with allies and friends, on the one hand, and with enemies and rivals, on the other.

All US national security documents, and studies conducted by American think tanks, refer to China as the major challenge to the United States’ leading international role and global stature. As long as this belief continues to be embraced across the American strategic planning community, the priority will continue to be confronting China and Russia and whatever attempts are involved to contain both powers.

This implies an awareness that the Middle East is no longer a priority for US policies whether in terms of war or peace situations with the exception of the issue of Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, and that Washington is not willing to send a large number of its combat troops to participate in the region’s conflicts. But, again, this would not hold it back from providing military and logistic support and supplies and advisors to back its regional partners, especially given joint defense or military cooperation agreements it already signed with regional partners. In the case of the UAE, the United States signed a defense and security agreement which came into effect in May 2019, and provides for holding annual military talks the latest of which occurred in December 2021.