The U.S. military has reportedly deployed additional troops throughout the Middle East ahead of President Donald Trump announcing that the United States has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital or that he is otherwise ordering the U.S. Embassy to relocate there from Tel Aviv. World leaders, experts, and observers all warn that the decision could fundamentally undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and trigger widespread political unrest throughout majority Muslim countries. On Dec. 5, 2017, U.S. Central Command, which has responsibility for American military activities throughout the Middle East and Central Asia – with the exception of Israel, which is the responsibility of U.S. European Command – told Foreign Policy’s Paul McLeary that it had “contingency plans in place.” The U.S. Marine Corps had dispatched elements of its Fleet Antiterrorism Security Teams, or FAST Companies, to provide additional security at American embassies across the Middle East, according to Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin. Trump is expected to officially detail the new policy on Dec. 6, 2017.

“We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem,” then candidate Trump told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, on March 21, 2016. “I want to give that [Israeli-Palestinian peace] a shot before I even think about moving the embassy to Jerusalem,” he told Mike Huckabee during an interview on the former Arkansas Governor’s Trinity Broadcasting Network in October 2017. While Israel claims Jerusalem as its exclusive capital, the Palestinians want it for their own future state. This Old City within is home to some of the most holy sites in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, some literally on top of each other, which has already made it a contentious location for millennia.

USN FAST Marines during a training exercise in Morocco.

A 1995 law, unimaginatively called the Jerusalem Embassy Act, required the U.S. government to move the embassy into the contested city by 1999, but all American presidents since then have signed a waiver every six months delaying the order. Though there are reports that he could push back the decision again, Trump increasingly seems to have decided that the potential for Israeli-Palestinian peace has run its course. It remains unclear whether if he will decide to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, move the U.S. Embassy there, or both. Either way, the message would be clear, that the United States understands the city to be the Israeli capital now and forever. Absent a final, mutually agreed upon settlement of the issue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, making the move is almost certain to provoke protests and potentially violent skirmishes at and near American government and facilities U.S. nationals own and operate in Israel and the occupied territories, the Middle East as a whole, and beyond. The reported U.S. military moves make it clear that they are well aware of this fact.

Since the infamous attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 12, 2012, both the Pentagon and the State Department have implemented various contingency plans and bolstered the size and scope of available quick reaction forces around the globe. U.S. Central Command’s contingency planning is likely part of a standing and overarching U.S. military operating concept focused on the potential of widespread global unrest, nicknamed Operation New Normal, the exact details of which remain classified.

Still, as a result, it is almost certain that every one of the U.S. military’s regional commands has a broad plan in place to respond to widespread public disturbances and that they would coordinate with each other to make the best use of their respective resources. The FAST elements, which the Marine Corps enlarged after Benghazi, are a early line of this scalable defensive posture defense. The Marines already have a close relationship with the State Department and provide a standing guard at various Embassies and diplomatic posts.