US Retrenchment in the Middle East: Prospects and Implications

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

In the two decades since 9/11, the United States has engaged in a series of costly wars and policy misadventures in the Middle East. The region’s economic importance to the United States has also lessened, while developments further east, notably a more assertive China, are prompting a grand strategic rethink. Many scholars and policymakers now debate the merits of adopting a more restrained posture towards the Middle East. This panel explores what such a strategy of retrenchment might look like in practice, examining the implications of a pivot for the US, as well as its allies and adversaries. Joseph Parent and Paul MacDonald assess the costs and benefits of changing course, drawing on the experience of all great power transitions since 1870. They find that structural conditions favour retrenchment in an era of moderate relative decline and offer a series of recommendations on how to achieve this. William James and Andrew Payne argue that domestic political constraints on the development and execution of US grand strategy place limits on the Washington’s ability to make such a shift, illustrating their case with the example of President Obama’s mixed success in reorienting US policy in the Middle East. Emily Whalen then places recent efforts to strengthen ties between Gulf states and Israel in historical perspective with a case study of the 1983 Lebanese Civil War, demonstrating how US attempts to facilitate retrenchment by brokering alliances in the region may be frustrated by local political conditions. Finally, Nicole Grajewski examines the perspective from Moscow, analysing how Russia’s perceptions of its own status and role as a great power are likely to shape its response to possible US disengagement.

Sub Unit

• Division 19: International Security 

Individual Presentations

• Disengaging from the Middle East: U.S. Retrenchment After the Pandemic - Joseph M. Parent, University of Notre Dame; Paul K. MacDonald, Wellesley College

• Retrenchment Begins at Home: Barack Obama and the Politics of Restraint (Pre-Recorded) - Andrew Payne, University of Oxford; William D James, University of Oxford

• Reoccurring Retrenchment: U.S. Efforts to Disengage in Historical Context - Emily Ingrid Whalen, The University of Texas - Austin

• Russia, the United States, and Regional Order in the Middle East - Nicole Bayat Grajewski, University of Oxford

Chair

• William D James University of Oxford