U.S. Military Struggles to Find a Strategy Amid Sudden Policy Changes in CENTCOM Region by Howard Altman, Meghann Meyers and Shawn Snow – Military Times
The rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from northeast Syria, which included U.S. forces bombing their own equipment at the bases they hastily left behind, is a vivid example of how the U.S. military is being forced to cope with national security and foreign policy decisions announced at the speed of a tweet.
Although President Donald Trump long ago telegraphed his interest in pulling out of Syria and reducing the U.S. military role in other parts of the world, the cascade of events that unfolded after his Oct. 6 conversation with Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan highlights the mounting challenges heaped on military planners and the troops they command.
The spate of sudden decisions from the White House has called into question the future of the five-year fight against Islamic State militants as well as the entire strategy that underpins the U.S. presence in the U.S. Central Command region…