The Challenges the U.S. Would Face in Gaza

On Tuesday morning, I was at the United States Military Academy, in West Point, for a national-security conference. I was invited to observe several classes of cadets in a comparative-politics course. At the end of each class, their instructor, a young Special Forces major who had already seen a variety of conflicts during his short career, would give the students the chance to ask me questions about the “real world” Army. I find such interactions with cadets to be fun and engaging. After warming up, they always seem to get around to asking: What are the hot spots in the world, and where do you see us serving in support of our country during our career?

In answering, I give them my own history. Entering West Point in 1971, my class expected to serve in Vietnam. But by the time we’d graduated, five years later, America was out of that war. Most of us were instead sent to Europe, preparing for a clash between the Soviets and NATO that never arrived. After the Berlin Wall came down, we thought our nation would be at peace for years—but then the Army, which had trained for years to defend the border of Germany, found itself attacking Iraqi forces in Desert Storm. Then, after 9/11, we conducted counterterror and counterinsurgency fights in two distinctly different countries we’d never expected to go to.

The message for the cadets? As soldiers, prepare yourself for anything. Go where you’re sent, conduct operations to the best of your ability, serve your nation well, and follow your oath to defend the Constitution.

That night, in my hotel room, I watched the president stand next to the Israeli prime minister and suggest where the next generation of U.S. soldiers might go. Most Americans were surprised by Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States would be “taking over Gaza”—that we would clear unexploded ordnance, “level the site,” deploy U.S. troops if necessary, and turn the area into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

After the press conference, I watched analysts, human-rights activists, and Middle Eastern officials condemn the proposed displacement of Palestinians, with some seeing in the proposal a violation of international law.

As stunned as I was by Trump’s announcement, my first thought was: If the military were told to deploy, how in the heck would it do this mission? As a commander, I had been assigned some tough missions. And I remembered reading that when General George C. Marshall made Dwight D. Eisenhower the commander of the European invasion force in World War II, he gave him the succinct written order to “enter the continent of Europe and defeat the Nazi war machine.” Eisenhower wrote that he was immediately overwhelmed by the scope and scale of that mission, the resources that it would require, and the operational environment—enemy, allies, terrain—the troops would face. But he started his planning, and eventually executed the D-Day landings. If the U.S. could pull that off, how much more difficult would it be for it to take over Gaza and turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East?

Answering that question requires translating Trump’s general directive into the specifics of implementation. First, consider the dimensions of the Gaza Strip. At approximately 141 square miles, it’s six times the size of Manhattan. Just razing half-destroyed structures, ridding the area of rubble, and erecting new buildings would present a daunting engineering challenge. One engineer I spoke with that night estimated that the cost would be $30 billion to $80 billion. That broadly aligns with the United Nations Development Program’s estimate of $30 billion to $40 billion.

The UN also estimates that the war has left more than 50 million tons of rubble in Gaza, and claims that clearing that debris could take more than 15 years. Given that more than 170,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed during the Israeli military’s months-long operations, replacing them would require thousands of civil, structural, electrical, and environmental engineers coordinating their various disciplines, and could take decades.

Who would do this work? One cable pundit suggested using the United States Army Corps of Engineers. That organization has only about 35,000 civilian and 700 military personnel, and is already stretched thin by its domestic responsibilities. Deploying even a portion of the Army Corps would require a considerable commitment, and extensive support for the force within the area of its operation. Such an endeavor would likely necessitate extensive coordination with international partners and private organizations to manage the substantive building effort.

What the military calls the operational environment, or OE, is something that any commander or manager must assess before committing forces to an area. The Gaza/Israel OE is fraught with dangers that would affect and impede the already-challenging rubble-removal and construction efforts. The intelligence needed to counter the activity of terrorist groups comes from a variety of agencies, including the CIA, the FBI, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. All of these are undergoing personnel scrubs by DOGE, which is interrupting the flow of information that would help identify, prevent, and respond to threats. Dismissing senior counterterrorism leaders at the FBI, or encouraging large numbers of CIA officers to leave the agency, will weaken international intelligence sharing, risk increasing terror activity, and heighten international-security risks.

Almost-uniform international opposition would further complicate the challenge. Palestinian leaders were quick to denounce the demand that more than 2 million Gazans leave their home. Our European allies—on whom we depend for support in the area—met Trump’s comments with skepticism and criticism. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that forced displacement would be “tantamount to ethnic cleansing.” And the proposal also aroused domestic opposition, including from some of Trump’s closest political allies.

When Eisenhower was told to storm the European continent, he could count on the support of the American people, our allies, and our intelligence services—and could draw on enormous resources made available for the task. If the Gaza mission were to be handed to the military today, it would enjoy none of those advantages.

I purposely have not provided what the military calls a troop-to-task requirement, or an analysis of the number of soldiers that would be needed to accomplish the mission. And if troops did go to Gaza as part of this operation, as the president said might be needed, some of them would likely never return—just as thousands didn’t return from storming the beaches during World War II. Before the current administration goes any further, it should take stock of that reality.