While President Trump talks about trying to make a deal with Iran to end the war, more U.S.

troops are headed to the region.

The 82nd Airborne Division's first combat brigade team has been ordered to deploy, and the

marine amphibious warship, the USS Tripoli, is expected to arrive in the Middle East in

the coming days, along with other assets.

So what new capabilities do these forces bring and how might they be used?

For that, we turn to two people with extensive military experience.

Retired Army Colonel Joel Rayburn served in the first Trump administration on the national security staff

with a focus on Iran and

the Middle East. He's now at the Hudson Institute. And retired lieutenant colonel Frederick

Weary focused on the Middle East during his two decades in the Air Force. He's now at the

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Jack Rayburn, let me start with you. What new capabilities

will the United States forces have with these new troops? Good to be with you. Well, the troops of

the 82nd Airborne Division that are being deployed, that's part of the rapid deployment force

that can deploy anywhere in the world with very short notice.

The 82nd Airborne Division, the brigades and battalions of that division,

are uniquely trained for forcible entry into contested territory.

So they're the kind of troops that do rapid insertion into, for example,

strategic infrastructure like an airfield.

If you think about the war in Grenada back in the Reagan administration, it was the 82nd

Airborne Division that seized the airfield on Grenada. And they usually do that in order to

pave the way for, open the way for follow on, more robust, heavier forces to come in after them.

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