America’s Retreat From The Persian Gulf

From deep within the imperial war machine, there is a sensation approaching sentience, or at least a dim sense of self-preservation, albeit too little, too late. As much as military censors pooh-pooh Iran's attacks on 'Israel', CENTCOM is shitting itself. As former CENTCOM commander Frank McKenzie has said, “There is no strategic depth,” and “The United States will not be able to maintain these bases."  What he proposes is a wholesale retreat from the Persian Gulf. What he doesn't understand is the historical nature of this defeat.

General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr, USMC 14th commander of U.S. Central Command

Retired General Frank “Spuds” McKenzie (aka General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr, USMC 14th commander of U.S. Central Command) specializes in running away. He retreated from Iraq, retreated from Afghanistan, and then retreated from serving America entirely. He now works for JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National inSecurity, which has “of America” tacked on as a fig leaf over naked foreign interference. I would care if “Israel” was a real country, but it's not. America, ‘Israel,’ rump Europe, it's all one White Empire and they all suck. As a representative of the imperial blob, Spuds has got the message from Iran, though of course, he still advocates assassinating the messenger (“strikes against Iranian national leadership could be considered.”)

In his new capacity as a think tank mercenary, Spuds at least has the sense to recommend withdrawing American forces from the Gulf. He said, “The United States will not be able to maintain these bases in a full-throated conflict, because they will be rendered unusable by sustained Iranian attack. It is the simple tyranny of geography.”  The problem he's talking about is that the White Empire has lost air supremacy over 'Israel', which has its best air defence. and the most strategic depth. 'Israel' is a good 1000 km away from Iran while American defence are within spitting distance. America's occupation of the Middle East was always morally indefensible, but now it's militarily indefensible also.

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), right, and Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, Israel Defense Forces Chief of General Staff, left, attend a briefing at U.S. Central Command headquarters, June 22, 2021. (Wiki)

As Spuds sour grapes it, “A secondary lesson of this successful (sic) operation was the importance of strategic depth—the Iranians had to go a long way to get to Israel, and there were many opportunities for early warning and interception. This is, of course, precisely the animating factor behind western basing. The corollary, of course, and not so positive, is that bases along the southern coast of the Arabian Gulf enjoy none of this geographic advantage.”

Spuds is referring to 'Israel' spending billions of dollars not stopping Iran's Operation True Promise I and II. Westerners laugh that Iran didn't kill anyone (only three, as actual accidents), not understanding that this takes considerably more fire discipline and control. Spuds is trying to make fine wine out of sour grapes by calling the 'Israeli' defense 'successful.' If 'Israel's' defense—which included all imperial assets in the area—was so successful, why the fuck are you retreating?

If you look at the map, retreat is precisely what Spuds proposes. He calls it “Potential Contingency Basing Structure,” which is just another word for retreat. He said, “based on warning and indications of war, land-based air defenses would relocate to the western bases from their locations along the Arabian Gulf.”   This is just running away with imagination. Like Shakespeare said, ‘that which we call retreat, by any other name would smell as sweet.’

A Historical Hinge

The forest that losers like Spuds miss for the trees is history. He spent his whole life retreating but doesn't connect the dots. He gets the details right—that America's bases and machinery are built for old wars—but doesn't get what this makes them. History. Warfare is in a constant state of co-evolution (sword and shield, fortress and missile) and you cannot rest on your laurels. History is full of examples of hubris put down.

The Chinese thought they had the best defenses in the world, but then they got overrun by Mongols that could shoot and ride for days. Western Europe thought they drew a line around Germany, but then the Nazis blitzkrieged right through [and around] it. You can have the best military in the world, but then the world changes, and suddenly your assets become liabilities. That's what's happening to America right now.

America's military is based on bases, bombers, and missile defenses (and/or “strike aircraft, tankers, and air and missile defense” as Spuds puts it). These former assets, however, are now liabilities. As Spuds says, “the thousands of short-range missiles that Iran possesses are a factor here. There is no strategic depth. An F-35 is very hard to hit in the air. On the ground it is nothing more than a very expensive and vulnerable chunk of metal sitting in the sun.”   As Spuds also acknowledges, “If the attacker is able to take out air defense radars with swarms of drones, then it will be very hard to conduct a successful ballistic missile defense.”  He doesn't discuss aircraft carriers, but Yemen chased those rust-buckets out of the Red Sea already, they have no hope in the Gulf. It's not that Iran has developed a peer military to America. It's that they have leapfrogged them. The US military can only lash out at civilians and assassinate leaders, which has little military value. Militarily, they're lost. They're dinosaurs, and October 7th was the asteroid that exposed them.

Aircraft were once the default way of delivering bombs and now the bombs deliver themselves. Satellites and spy planes were the way of gathering intelligence, but now you can get drones off the shelf. Finally, missile defenses offered impunity, but now even the Iron Dome gets overwhelmed. We have now seen that missile defenses do not work against masses of missiles, counter-insurgency does not work against miles of tunnels, and nothing works against a djillion drones. It's a fascinating story of military evolution built, as it is, on a throne of a million bones. Sword and shield always evolve together, and only occasionally does one slip ahead. This is one of those moments.

This is a sea change in history, as you can witness by looking at the seas around Araby. The US Navy has lost the Red Sea to a country without a Navy (brave Yemen), and the US Everybody has lost the air to a country without an Air Force (brilliant Iran). America has vast superiority in manned weapons (planes, ships) but they're vastly inferior when it comes to unmanned missiles and drones. They've been left behind in the next generation of military technology. Even within the bilious blob, there's a growing awareness of how fucked they are. Western technology is still plenty good at slaughtering civilians, assassinating leaders, and bombing hospitals, but they cannot prosecute a serious war anymore. To be honest, they couldn't (and didn't) since World War II. This is why Spuds' entire career has been retreat, including this current recommendation. The old dog only knows one trick, which is cut and run.

The Long Retreat

I call this period of history America's Long Retreat, because it is. America conquered a lot of land in WWII, and they've been steadily losing it ever since. America has been unable to raise a large army since Vietnam. They have been unable to field and army since Afghanistan. They're just furiously sacrificing pawns to cover up their own cutting and running. The fact is that depreciation and deindustrialization have defeated the US military before they even take the field. Their guns are simply too rusty and they can't make enough bullets anymore.

America is still floating aircraft carriers from the 1970s and flying airplanes from the 1980s. This is supposed to defend against modern hypersonics and drones and it can't, won't, and doesn't. America is still deployed to fight a Soviet Union that doesn't exist. Its hundreds of bases are no longer assets to offend with; they're liabilities that America has to defend, at great cost. And, increasingly, America's air defense systems only scare their accountants. They're throwing million dollar missiles at thousand-dollar drones, and simply get overpowered. As Spuds said,

In a war with Iran, the central calculus will be the measurement of how long the Iranians could sustain a drone and missile bombardment of neighboring countries, in the face of our efforts to strike their launching systems and command and control facilities. It’s important to be very clear that there is only one air force in the world that is capable of a sustained campaign against Iranian missile and drone forces—the U.S. Air Force (along with the U.S. Navy). To operate over Iran and to seek and find their missiles and drone launchers means having the ability to gather intelligence, to suppress air defenses, to deploy low-visibility loitering platforms, and the ability to command and control the operation in real time. Israel possesses some of the capabilities, but not the capacity for extended operations. This is an important distinction, because these operations could last for weeks. No Arab state has these capabilities.

He's right that American proxies can't do anything, but he's wrong that America can do much more. The full force of the US Navy and all its vassals has been deployed to defend 'Israel's' airspace, and they can't do it. The US Navy and Air Force have lost the Red Sea and been laughed out of town. Messing with Iran would be 1000x worse. Spuds is right about the need to retreat from indefensible bases, he just doesn't understand how far.

USN carrier USS Ronald Reagan: Intimidation and punishment platforms. They look formidable, but they are painfully obsolete. Pathetically vulnerable to far cheaper modern drones and missiles.

Spuds proposes moving to a “Western Basing Network,” ie to bases in Saudi Arabia and 'Israel'. But A) those countries (even 'Israel') don't really want them B) that's not far enough and C) how? Spuds wants to retreat from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, which they've already lost. America's at the end of a long retreat and they get it but they don't get it. They don't need to retreat from one side of Arabia to another. They need to go wee wee wee all the way home.