Will Joe Biden really end our forever wars?
The Afghanistan withdrawal should be just the first step in a wider push to draw down the US military presence in the greater Middle East.
Gil Barndollar is a Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities and at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship. From 2018 to 2019, he was Director of Middle East Studies at the Center for the National Interest. His writing has appeared in USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The National Interest, The American Conservative, and US Naval Institute Proceedings, among other publications. He provides frequent commentary and analysis on foreign policy issues to national and international media and has appeared on CNN, Fox News, and the Fox Business Network.
From 2009 to 2016, Dr. Barndollar served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps. He deployed twice to Afghanistan, as a light armored reconnaissance platoon commander and as a combat advisor with the Georgian Army. He also led a Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) platoon during deployments to Guantanamo Bay and the Persian Gulf.
Dr. Barndollar holds an AB in history from Bowdoin College and MPhil and PhD degrees in history from the University of Cambridge. At Catholic University Dr. Barndollar is leading a project examining America’s All Volunteer Force and modern conscript armies.
The Afghanistan withdrawal should be just the first step in a wider push to draw down the US military presence in the greater Middle East.
Could is not should, of course, but those who say a full pullout within weeks can’t be done are wrong.
For realists and restrainers, November 8, 2016 was the high point. Since then, Trump’s foreign policy has been mostly conventional Republican, with an extra dollop of incompetence and chaos.