When General Michael Erik Kurilla presented the annual posture statement for his combatant command to Congressional committees recently, he chose to open it by looking back to its history. It has been forty years since Central Command has been carved out of the long-established European and Pacific Commands. As Kurilla mentioned, the original threats in the 1980’s were Soviet and Iranian. Later, in two wars, Saddam Hussein was the arch-villain, with Osama bin Laden drawing the United States into a long involvement in Afghanistan. With the addition of Israel as a valuable partner to CENTCOM, and with Iran and Russia once again of main concern, what seems to lie ahead for CENTCOM?
To help us chart both past and future, let’s turn to Washington DC Dr. Michael Doran, Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute, Washington DC; former Senior White House advisor on the Middle East, Brigadier General (Ret.) Mark Kimmitt, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, and Amir Oren.
