Trump’s military buildup in Caribbean limits his options in Iran
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. President Trump ordered a military buildup in the Caribbean in the fall as part of the pressure campaign against the now-ousted Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro. That move now limits his options if conflict breaks out between Washington and Tehran over a popular uprising in Iran, according to current and former defense officials.
In a sign of the Trump administration’s shifting priorities, the Pentagon now has 12 warships assigned to the waters around the Caribbean, versus only six in the Middle East, according to a Navy official. And there is no aircraft-carrier strike group in either the Middle East or Europe since Trump ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier group from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean in October, a marked departure from previous periods of tension with Tehran.
Without an aircraft carrier and its associated air wing, including jet fighters, helicopters and electronic-jamming aircraft, the number of military aircraft in the region is also limited to those allowed to deploy to other nations’ bases. While U.S. naval forces “are ready to operate anywhere in the world and do what is required of them…it’s about risk at the end of the day," Adm.
Daryl Caudle, the chief of naval operations, told reporters on Wednesday. “This is risk to mission, and can be risk to force, and certainly risk to objectives, if combined commanders don’t have the forces they need." That doesn’t mean the military couldn’t carry out the order, if Trump decides to authorize a strike on Iran in response to the regime’s crackdown against the protesters. The Pentagon could order Tomahawk missile strikes from destroyers deployed to the Middle East, as well as send jet fighters stationed in the region
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