“Who the fuck does he think he is? Who is the fucking superpower here?” President Bill Clinton famously blasphemed in 1996. More than 25 years later, Bill Clinton is a retired vegan recovering from heart problems who occasionally comments on politics while studiously avoiding references to Jeffrey Epstein. The guy who couldn’t identify the superpower, Benjamin Netanyahu, is still the Prime Minister of Israel, whence he is now inspiring
Excellent insights. A big part of the problem is US military culture which for almost a century since WWII has been wedded to the concept that the US must always be in the lead. That conviction went on afterburners, thanks to Goldwater Nichols, which established permanent ‘combatant’ commands for every region of the world.
Great article Jeremy Shapiro - lot's of wisdom and common sense in here. Stuff that "goes without saying" yet too often goes unsaid, and "unprocessed" by the foreign policy pundit and expert class and politicians.
A few comments and nitpicks, not really detracting from the fundamental correctness of your thesis:
"With few friends in the world beyond America, Israel is highly dependent on its US partner for its very survival."
This is quite probably not true now, and only has been true for limited time periods in the past. This isn't to say the U.S. does not provide plenty of "freebies" to Israel, supplies diplomatic cover, aid and subsidies and loan terms that save its taxpayers billions, and resources that make hard choices easier to make or easy to simply avoid. But Israel's survival now isn't dependent on the US, and its survival at creation wasn't dependent on US *intentional government policy action* at least. US intentional government policy action was probably vital for Israeli survival in the very end of the 60s and 1970s and possibly through most of the 1980s, when Israel faced Arab neighbors with large conventional armies provided with real-time regular resupply by the Soviet Union and was likely on Soviet nuclear target lists. During the 1973 Yom Kippur war was probably apogee of Israeli dependence on US support for survival, with *only* the US agreeing to resupply Israel against multi-front, Soviet supplied Arab armies attacking, and *only* Portugal permitted transit of resupply goods while all other western nations, in addition to the third world and eastern bloc buckled to the Arab League/OAPEC oil embargo to deny resupply and transit facilities for resupply to Israel during the war.
Israel today simply faces nothing like this existentially threatening foreign coalition. It faces Hamas and PIJ insurgencies and the Hizballah parastate in Lebanon, but is at peace with Egypt and Jordan. It faces asymmetric threats from Iran and other Iranian-backed groups, but still limited. Syria is formally at war but has wrecked itself the last dozen years. Iraq, one layer behind, has been wrecked the last thirty years. Neither the Soviets and Chinese, whatever their chain of positive ties to Iran or Syria, are committed to an Iranian or Arab existential jihad against Israel. Iran, because of its size and even without nukes could be a large threat, but its threat is attenuated by distance. It would be more threatening if it were located where Egypt or Jordan are.
For the end of US support to Israel to threaten Israel's survival, itself a huge hypothetical, requires a secondary hypothetical to emerge, that after the end of US support, a global diplomatic boycott, globally successful BDS movement, total trade embargo, plus a resumed commitment by Arab neighbors to match and overcome Israel militarily. Now one could argue, I suppose, that the first hypothetical of US disengagement would create the permissive conditions for the second hypothetical, and anti-Israeli global and regional coalescence, to occur, but there is no guarantee that the necessary actors would get their priorities together to do this as efficiently and effectively as would be required to succeed in destroying Israel.
---enough on that one---
“Russians cannot imagine that the leaders of countries such as Ukraine have minds of their own. For Moscow, Ukrainian hostility is simply the veiled extension of American hostility”.
Absolutely - I have found some Latin Americans, like Mexican and Argentine commentators who've only been on the receiving end of American or British power, can't conceive of the Ukrainian war in Ukrainian terms, only in terms of "what Washington has put Ukraine up to". I'm sure many others in the "Global South" feel the same way.
"As Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer controversially noted, the Israelis are the master of this technique"
It really should not be controversial. It is obvious. The controversy is simply manufactured by politically-motivated denial.
"But of course, all allies play this game and many of them are nearly as good at it as Israel."
And some really are not, even if they throw money at it, like Saudi Arabia - I've seen some of their advertising sections and I'm like "oh you'll be so sad at how little that moves the opinion needle".
And you have to be perceived as a needle, it's not a linear relationship of simply spending X money = X support. You need to have a certain historical track record, say flattering things, avoid dissonance.
"The American public may not care about or be able to locate Ukraine on a map, but they do care that their President projects a sense of control and leadership in the world. The idea of weakness is anathema in US politics."
This perverse pride can be used by many a foreigner to manipulate the US against their regional enemy or many an exile against their home government. Lindsay Graham falls for it literally *every time* and never sees a challenge internationally that shouldn't be answered with armed force and regime change. He's an idiot. As was his mentor McCain by the end of his life.
"The US alliance system is in the parlance of the Pentagon, a self-licking ice cream cone."
The foreign policy "blob" and politicians have taken it that far, yes.
"the US seems to feel that it must sustain allied commitments because it has them"
Here is what sometimes makes me think, nuclear proliferation --- to Allies, could actually be a relief. And if Iran finally got their own, what would be the point of the nonproliferation taboo anymore anyway, just to keep our own allies wimpy, pacifistic, and dependent?
Excellent insights. A big part of the problem is US military culture which for almost a century since WWII has been wedded to the concept that the US must always be in the lead. That conviction went on afterburners, thanks to Goldwater Nichols, which established permanent ‘combatant’ commands for every region of the world.
Great article Jeremy Shapiro - lot's of wisdom and common sense in here. Stuff that "goes without saying" yet too often goes unsaid, and "unprocessed" by the foreign policy pundit and expert class and politicians.
A few comments and nitpicks, not really detracting from the fundamental correctness of your thesis:
"With few friends in the world beyond America, Israel is highly dependent on its US partner for its very survival."
This is quite probably not true now, and only has been true for limited time periods in the past. This isn't to say the U.S. does not provide plenty of "freebies" to Israel, supplies diplomatic cover, aid and subsidies and loan terms that save its taxpayers billions, and resources that make hard choices easier to make or easy to simply avoid. But Israel's survival now isn't dependent on the US, and its survival at creation wasn't dependent on US *intentional government policy action* at least. US intentional government policy action was probably vital for Israeli survival in the very end of the 60s and 1970s and possibly through most of the 1980s, when Israel faced Arab neighbors with large conventional armies provided with real-time regular resupply by the Soviet Union and was likely on Soviet nuclear target lists. During the 1973 Yom Kippur war was probably apogee of Israeli dependence on US support for survival, with *only* the US agreeing to resupply Israel against multi-front, Soviet supplied Arab armies attacking, and *only* Portugal permitted transit of resupply goods while all other western nations, in addition to the third world and eastern bloc buckled to the Arab League/OAPEC oil embargo to deny resupply and transit facilities for resupply to Israel during the war.
Israel today simply faces nothing like this existentially threatening foreign coalition. It faces Hamas and PIJ insurgencies and the Hizballah parastate in Lebanon, but is at peace with Egypt and Jordan. It faces asymmetric threats from Iran and other Iranian-backed groups, but still limited. Syria is formally at war but has wrecked itself the last dozen years. Iraq, one layer behind, has been wrecked the last thirty years. Neither the Soviets and Chinese, whatever their chain of positive ties to Iran or Syria, are committed to an Iranian or Arab existential jihad against Israel. Iran, because of its size and even without nukes could be a large threat, but its threat is attenuated by distance. It would be more threatening if it were located where Egypt or Jordan are.
For the end of US support to Israel to threaten Israel's survival, itself a huge hypothetical, requires a secondary hypothetical to emerge, that after the end of US support, a global diplomatic boycott, globally successful BDS movement, total trade embargo, plus a resumed commitment by Arab neighbors to match and overcome Israel militarily. Now one could argue, I suppose, that the first hypothetical of US disengagement would create the permissive conditions for the second hypothetical, and anti-Israeli global and regional coalescence, to occur, but there is no guarantee that the necessary actors would get their priorities together to do this as efficiently and effectively as would be required to succeed in destroying Israel.
---enough on that one---
“Russians cannot imagine that the leaders of countries such as Ukraine have minds of their own. For Moscow, Ukrainian hostility is simply the veiled extension of American hostility”.
Absolutely - I have found some Latin Americans, like Mexican and Argentine commentators who've only been on the receiving end of American or British power, can't conceive of the Ukrainian war in Ukrainian terms, only in terms of "what Washington has put Ukraine up to". I'm sure many others in the "Global South" feel the same way.
"As Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer controversially noted, the Israelis are the master of this technique"
It really should not be controversial. It is obvious. The controversy is simply manufactured by politically-motivated denial.
"But of course, all allies play this game and many of them are nearly as good at it as Israel."
And some really are not, even if they throw money at it, like Saudi Arabia - I've seen some of their advertising sections and I'm like "oh you'll be so sad at how little that moves the opinion needle".
And you have to be perceived as a needle, it's not a linear relationship of simply spending X money = X support. You need to have a certain historical track record, say flattering things, avoid dissonance.
"The American public may not care about or be able to locate Ukraine on a map, but they do care that their President projects a sense of control and leadership in the world. The idea of weakness is anathema in US politics."
This perverse pride can be used by many a foreigner to manipulate the US against their regional enemy or many an exile against their home government. Lindsay Graham falls for it literally *every time* and never sees a challenge internationally that shouldn't be answered with armed force and regime change. He's an idiot. As was his mentor McCain by the end of his life.
"The US alliance system is in the parlance of the Pentagon, a self-licking ice cream cone."
The foreign policy "blob" and politicians have taken it that far, yes.
"the US seems to feel that it must sustain allied commitments because it has them"
Here is what sometimes makes me think, nuclear proliferation --- to Allies, could actually be a relief. And if Iran finally got their own, what would be the point of the nonproliferation taboo anymore anyway, just to keep our own allies wimpy, pacifistic, and dependent?