Name: US reinforces its military presence as thousands of marines head to the Middle East
Uploaded: 2026-03-25T23:02:33.000Z
Duration: 8 min 31 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Let's take a closer look at the latest U.S. troop deployments.

The amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli is leaving Taiwan.

It's scheduled to arrive in the Middle East later this week.

vessel is carrying the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, with its complement of F-35 stealth jets and about 2,300 Marines.

Another assault ship, the USS Boxer, left Southern California last week along with accompanying warships.

It's expected to arrive in the region by mid-April, with around 2,200 Marines from the 11th Expeditionary Unit, and

2,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division are expected to deploy in the Middle East in the coming days.

Joining us from Washington, D.C., is Jason Campbell.

He's a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and former civilian Pentagon official.

So, first of all, we've heard the White House talk about hitting Iran harder than ever before, unleashing hell.

W-what is the White House threatening from a military analysis perspective, do you think?

Um, it's very difficult to say a-authoritatively because we, we've been hearing this rhetoric now on a on a near daily basis, um, from President Trump, from other senior officials.

is carrying out airstrikes along with Israel on, on a host of, of military targets throughout the country.

Um, what one day of unleashing hell ties to another, or what's being done differently, however, has yet to be articulated, and

it seems to be at least partially part of the just the rhetoric coming out of out of this administration.

Could it be intensified airstrikes on targets like the power plants, which Donald Trump had threatened to do, something that Western leaders have for a while condemned Russia for targeting energy infrastructure in Ukraine, uh, framing it as outrageous, barbaric, and

Is, is that really what Donald Trump would, uh do you see him really going through with that?

Well, I think part of h-his intent here is to, um, be less than, uh, uh, specific on some of the details.

I think, at the very least, he wants the Iranian regime to, uh, think that he's capable of doing that and that he will do it.

Um, we've certainly heard, uh, you know, not just rumors, but

the president himself threatened to, you know, expand these targets outside of what would be considered strictly military a-and into some of these, uh, o-other, uh, civilian domains, like, like you said, power plants and, and

Um, what we haven't seen yet is, is their willingness to do it, um, which I, I think would, uh, uh, be a significant, um, uh, escalation, uh, in, in the war.

figured out a way to protect Gulf allies were it to do something like that, um, in the last what is it now, 48, uh, I don't know, 72 hours since that threat was made?

Or is it just not, uh, looking at that and not too worried about the cost that the Gulf might pay in terms of Iranian retaliation?

a-and its Gulf partners are, you know, have, have their, uh, uh, respective abilities to, to confront Iranian threats.

Um, they've had to expend a lot of those, uh, assets here in the last few weeks.

Uh, I don't know that the U.S. has anything to do with that.

But, Jason, we, we've st we've still seen Iranian missiles make it through, right, and, and

hit oil installations, even if the, the, the interception rate is, is high.

And that is, is some of the most vulnerable in, uh, infrastructure in the Gulf, uh, are some of these, uh, uh, you know, connected to energy a-and electricity, uh, uh, water desalinization.

Um, these are things that I, I think are absolutely a factor that weigh, uh, i-in the, the mind of President Trump and, and

certainly the Pentagon as it, it, it, it considers its next steps, and

I think should do so with the, um, if not understanding, then certainly the assumption that Iran would, would hit these types of, of targets in kind.

Could the U.S. we know a lot of U.S. troops, or some U.S.

troops, a lot is a, a relative term, I guess.

So I think the numbers come to something like 8,000 are on the way in on various ships.

Um, could they be used in your understanding of, of military planning?

Could they be used to seize an island, for example, something the Iranian Speaker of Parliament seems convinced from his statements tonight that, uh, is w you know, is something the U.S.

Well, certainly, as you said, 8, 8,000 is, is, uh, a, a number that is, is, you know, relative.

Um, it's certainly not what you would call anywhere near an invasion force in terms of the, uh, Iranian mainland.

Um, there is a lo a lot of speculation about some of the islands, be it Karg, um, farther up, uh, the Persian Gulf, or some of the smaller islands closer to the Strait of Hormuz.

Um, even if, if it was going to, uh, the some sort of a s a-attack or, or invasion was gonna focus more on, on some of these smaller, uh, uh, uh, uh, targets, I, I, I have a lot of, uh, concern about, um, what these, uh, the amount of risk these would, uh, be taking on, the forces there.

Um, you know, we've got these, these forces are all sort of, uh, crisis management-type forces that are, uh, available to be called on in, in cases of an, an emergency.

Um, I think my concern now is that the Pentagon is just sort of reaching out to these units because they're, they're available to go and don't necessarily conform to a, uh, a preplanned operation.

Uh, I think that if you put even 6 to 8,000 forces on one of these islands, they would, uh, uh, be at great risk to, uh, a-absorb a, a lot of, uh, uh, firepower from, from Iran.

Uh, I don't know how long they could, uh, hold an island under that level of risk.

And quite frankly, I don't know whether or not that would move the strategic needle, uh, in the favor of, of the U.S.

and Israel in terms of, of opening the Strait of Hormuz in the first place.

So you mentioned the exposure to missile and drone attacks.

How are we seeing the Pentagon take other necessary steps, usually for the deployment of ground troops, things like logi-logistics, supplies for food?

How would you resupply them with ammunition?

How would you redeploy them, assumedly, at some ti uh, at some point, or rotate them?

And again, this is where that 8,000 number, um, really, i-in the grand scheme of things, isn't all that many.

And these Marine Expeditionary Units are, you know, what we call organically, uh, uh, uh, supported, um, wi as a as a unit.

They have an air element, a ground element, obviously a naval element, um, and

The problem is they're, uh, best, uh, suited for, you know, an operation that might last a couple of weeks.

And if this, uh, you know, as speculated, if they're going to be used to, uh, uh, hold an island for a longer duration and under, you know, what, what would be I would expect to be pretty persistent fires, um, all of those logistical questions are going to come into, uh, uh, uh, uh, the, the frame very quickly.

And what forces might be available to either backfill or service some sort of a, uh, uh, an emergency element, uh, probably wouldn't be ready because these are the contingency units that they're relying on for such an attack.

thanks for coming and, um, helping us get through some of them.

Jason Campbell there, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.