The drums of military escalation are beating louder in Washington. As the conflict in Gaza continues to rage, there are growing calls—some whispered in policy circles, others shouted from political podiums—for direct US military involvement.
Already, approximately 200 US troops have been deployed to Israel to monitor the ceasefire deal in Gaza. These forces, specializing in logistics and security, will staff a civil-military coordination center in Israel.
But before American troops find themselves drawn into yet another Middle Eastern quagmire, policymakers should step back and ask a fundamental question: What conceivable strategic interest justifies putting American lives on the line in Gaza?
The argument for intervention typically rests on humanitarian grounds or regional stability concerns. These are emotionally compelling narratives, but they collapse under scrutiny.
The US has not intervened militarily in countless humanitarian crises around the globe. If humanitarianism were the driving principle of American foreign policy, our military would be perpetually deployed.
It is not, because humanitarian concerns, while important, have never been the actual determinant of where America fights.
What we’re really witnessing is mission creep dressed up in the language of necessity. It begins with military advisors and intelligence operations. Then comes air support. Before long, American soldiers are on the ground, nominally in support roles, but increasingly drawn into direct combat.
This is not speculation—it is the well-worn playbook of American interventionism from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan. Each began with limited objectives and evolved into open-ended commitments with unclear endpoints and mounting casualties.
The strategic calculus is equally problematic. The Gaza conflict is fundamentally rooted in issues that no amount of American military power can resolve: Palestinian statehood, Israeli security concerns, competing historical claims, and regional power dynamics.
These are political and diplomatic problems. Military force cannot create a durable political settlement; it can only complicate negotiations and deepen resentments.
Moreover, direct American involvement would reshape the conflict’s dynamics in dangerous ways. It would hand propagandists a gift—the ability to frame the conflict as between the US and Palestinian or broader Arab interests rather than as a localized Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
This would expand the conflict’s scope and generate recruitment narratives for extremist groups across the region. American soldiers would become targets not just for local actors but potentially for Iranian-backed militias and other regional powers using Gaza as a proxy battleground.
Consider, too, the opportunity costs. American military and financial resources are finite. Every dollar spent in Gaza and every soldier deployed there is a dollar not spent and a soldier not available for other potential crises or commitments.
At a moment when great power competition with China is supposedly the top strategic priority, does it make sense to embroil American forces in the Gaza imbroglio? The uncomfortable truth is that the United States cannot manage or resolve the Gaza conflict through military means.
What it can do is drain resources, lose lives, alienate allies, and entangle itself in a conflict where American interests are secondary to local and regional actors who will ultimately determine the outcome.
If policymakers are serious about stability in the Middle East, they should pursue the unglamorous work of diplomacy: supporting ceasefire negotiations, facilitating humanitarian aid and allowing regional powers to find their own political solutions.
This is less satisfying than the illusion of control that military intervention provides, but it is vastly more prudent. History suggests that Washington will likely ignore this counsel. The temptation to act, to do something, to project power is often too strong to resist.
But before the first American soldiers are deployed to Gaza, US decision-makers should confront a basic question: are they committing to this conflict for clearly defined strategic objectives with realistic timelines and exit strategies, or are they simply sleepwalking into another open-ended entanglement?
If the honest answer is the latter, then restraint—however unfashionable—remains the wisest course.
This article was originally published on Leon Hadar’s Global Zeitgeist and is republished with kind permission. Become a subscriber here.
