Reserve Force

The US announced that we would not deploy two brigades to Iraq, reducing our brigade strength to 15 in the next rotation early this year.

I figured that the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, which we are keeping in Kuwait as a reserve just in case it is needed in Iraq, can also serve as a force to protect Kuwait should we take action against Iran. If the Iranians strike toward Basra as they did many times in the 1980s, we'd have a powerful combat unit to reinforce the British.

What I did not immediately appreciate is that 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, which will largely remain in Kansas as it sends 1,000 troops to Iraq to assist in training Iraqis, could still be a substantial reserve force in case Iran acts up. Presumably the brigade troops could still be airlifted in to fall in on whatever equipment it would have taken over if deployed as first planned. Or it could fall in on pre-positioned equipment in Kuwait (assuming we have reconstituted the brigade set we used for the original invasion).

With a substantial amount of Iraqi units controlling their own battle space, presumably we could also scrape together several more brigades on short notice to stop any desperate Iranian attacks into Iraq.