Number of US troops in Middle East vs USA

Law enforcement authorities in the United States struggled to maintain order after protesters supporting Donald Trump swarmed the US Capitol on 6 January, putting it on lockdown.

Which begs the question were there not enough troops? Because in Washington, where the mob attacked Capitol Hill has about 3,400 National Guards and 59,383 active US Troops. 

In addition to that ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration as the new president of the US, more than 20,000 National Guard units have been summoned.

The entirety of the US has about 1,205,253 active troops ready. California and Virginia have the highest active US troops which reached 167,671 and 130,035, respectively. 

However, there are at least 15,000 US troops in the Middle East, according to US Central Command (USCENTCOM) and United States Department of Defense (DoD).

In a Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) report published based on the quarterly assessment of how many US troops are in the country or the world, Bahrain ranked the highest as of September 2020 with the highest number of US troops of 40004.

Even though DMDC does not publish their troops' number during ongoing operation, various media sites have published that there are currently 2,500 US troops in Iraq and 2,500 in Afghanistan. 

Since operations began there in 2001, this is the lowest number of US troops in Afghanistan after President Donald Trump tried to continue to make good on his campaign pledge to get America out of "endless wars," by pulling thousands of troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. 

In Syria's northeast, there are about 500 U.S. troops guarding ISIS oil fields and operating alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey and Kuwait have 1685 and 2169 active US troops, respectively.

Middle East countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates barely crossed 500 active US troops

This article has been prepared with information form USCENTCOM, DoD, and DMDC