Wars in the West could drain forces needed in East Asia

President Trump is reportedly mulling options for undertaking three different military operations, none of them in East Asia. He continues to increase the show of military force off Venezuela’s coast and for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s departure from office. He also has acknowledged that he has authorized CIA operations inside the country.

Although Trump has denied that the U.S. would go to war with Venezuela, multiple reports have emerged that the White House is considering several options for a miliary operation against the Maduro regime. Doing so could well involve committing considerably more forces than those currently deployed in the Caribbean or that the administration anticipates it would need for such an operation.

Yet at the same time, Trump is also threatening to use force against Muslim radicals in Nigeria, most notably Boko Haram. Late last week he wrote on Truth Social that “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed.” He added that he was making Nigeria a “country of particular concern” and in a second post wrote that if President  Bola Ahmed Tinbu did not act to stop  “the killing of Christians,” then Washington not only would cut off all aid to Nigeria but also “may very well go into that now disgraced country “guns-a-blazing to wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”

The U.S. already provides intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to several countries where Boko Haram operates, including Nigeria, and Trump has not specified what kind of additional military action he might authorize. Any kinetic operation to defeat the terrorists would have to involve more than a few small military units, since Boko Haram attacks Christians (and indeed Muslims, too) over a wide swath of territory including not only northeastern Nigeria, but also Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

Moreover, the U.S. has never been able to eliminate terrorists quickly, whether in the Philippines in the early twentieth century or more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the relatively comprehensive defeat of the Islamic State has not entirely wiped it out that terrorist group — American troops continue to strike at its affiliates in Iraq, Syria and Somalia.

Finally, there have been numerous reports that the Administration is considering sending troops into Mexico to fight the drug cartels that operate there. President Trump has publicly regretted that his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Sheinbaum, opposes American forces conducting military operations in her country.

The last time American troops entered Mexico was 1916, when Woodrow Wilson sent 6,000 troops under General John J Pershing to capture Pancho Villa, whose bandits had raided Columbus, New Mexico. Pershing’s forces remained in Mexico for eleven months but failed to catch Villa.

As with any fight against Boko Haram, an operation against the cartels, even if approved by Mexican president Sheinbaum, would call for thousands of American land forces. And those forces might require considerable time to accomplish their mission, as was the case in the hunt for Villa, if indeed it that mission can be accomplished at all.

It is certainly possible that Trump will not authorize any of these operations. Nevertheless, the fact that he has spoken of the use of military force in areas to which Department of Defense planners traditionally assigned low priority does appear to reflect the reported thrust of the soon to be released National Defense Strategy.

The priority that reportedly is being assigned to Homeland Defense could incorporate the use of force against Venezuela and inside Mexico — though certainly not in Africa. Yet given the challenges that both operations in the Western Hemisphere would certainly face, it is not at all clear that the United States could at the same time sustain its deterrent in East Asia, which remains an important if not critical Administration priority as well.

Moreover, while Europe might receive lower priority in the new defense strategy, the president has not foresworn assisting in NATO’s defense against a possible Russian attack. Indeed, he has gone even further in publicly committing Washington to the defense of Poland and the Baltic States in the face of Moscow’s aggression.

The administration might take a more relaxed view of a confrontation with China because Trump has said Chinese President Xi Jinping assured him Beijing will not authorize an attack on Taiwan during Trump’s term of office. In theory, that could provide Washington the flexibility to conduct military operations elsewhere, including Venezuela, Mexico or for that matter Africa or Europe.

Verbal assurances from dictators mean very little, however. Indeed, Hitler not only convinced Stalin that he would not attack the Soviet Union, Germany signed a full-blown treaty to that effect. The Nazi promise lasted less than three years before it was broken. Xi’s assurances might be equally worthless. In that case, forces tied up in longer than expected operations in Latin America or Africa might be sorely missed if China does choose to attack Taiwan while Trump is still in the White House.

Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.