Diplomacy & Crisis News

Efforts to punish the government are hurting ordinary Afghans instead.

Foreign powers’ obsessive focus on a transition process empowered generals and weakened democracy activists, paving the way to war.

“Consumption-led growth” is good policy but bad politics.

How a dated concept distorts geopolitics.

After months of negotiations, Islamabad looks close to securing additional economic aid—but the roots of its crisis run deep.

Putin looks unsteady amid reports that a top Russian commander had advance knowledge of the weekend revolt.

Ukraine’s dogged resistance to Russian aggression surprised many experts who anticipated a rapid Russian victory. It also elevated the importance of understanding a nation’s resolve to resist aggression as a critical determinant of war outcomes. Ukraine’s example naturally raises questions about Taiwan, which faces a similar potential threat of aggression from a powerful neighbor.

Taiwan’s capacity to resist invasion is an issue of top importance to the United States. Any U.S. military intervention in a China-Taiwan clash carries a high risk of escalation to a major war. Washington and the U.S. public might opt against intervention if Taiwan’s military rapidly collapsed or if the conflict appeared to be a lost cause. Conversely, a resolute and dogged Taiwanese defense could garner international sympathy and increase the likelihood of U.S. government and public support for intervention. Taiwan’s resolve also plays a critical role in enabling even the possibility of a U.S. intervention. Because the Pacific Ocean is so vast, it could require considerable time—potentially several months—for the United States to mobilize sufficient U.S.-based combat power to augment forward-deployed military forces and fight a major contingency in East Asia.

In a recently released report, RAND researchers evaluated Taiwan’s capacity to resist high-end attacks. We considered four factors: political leadership and society, military effectiveness, durability (ability to withstand punishment), and allied military intervention. We concluded that political leadership and society was the most important factor by far. Strong political leadership (in the form of respected national leaders capable of commanding and enforcing the public’s loyalty), a largely unified and cohesive public, and strong public support for a compelling national cause or ideology offer the most durable foundation for a resolute defense.

A prepared and capable military can bolster the effects of political leadership by denying the adversary an easy conquest. By staving off imminent defeat, Taiwan’s military could prolong the conflict and allow time for foreign intervention to arrive and for international sympathy to strengthen. Severe disruption to the economy and infrastructure of the island—along with mounting civilian and military casualties—may bolster public resolve in the initial phases of the conflict, but over the longer term, those disruptions are likely to erode public support for the war.

The promise of U.S. intervention offers an additional important resource for infusing determination and resolve, but the effects of a promised intervention will depend both on the state of the island’s political leadership and military capabilities and on the nature and scope of promised U.S. aid. In general, the weaker Taiwan’s political leadership and its military are, the earlier and more robust the U.S. intervention must be to maximize the prospect that Taiwan will avoid defeat.

Our study raises several implications for U.S. planners and policymakers. First, analysts should pay particularly close attention to the quality and strength of the island’s political leadership and degree of social cohesion in the lead-up to a crisis and conflict for insight into the island’s ability to withstand a large-scale Chinese attack. All other variables, including the state of its military and the island’s enduring vulnerabilities, should be regarded as of secondary importance.

Paradoxically, an evaluation of the island’s political leadership in peacetime sheds little insight into how it will perform at war, a point underscored by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s leadership, which appeared unremarkable in peace but bold and inspiring in war. This is because the circumstances of how and why a conflict begins can significantly impact a leader’s resolve and the population’s cohesiveness. Since we cannot predict what the circumstances will be, it is thus extremely difficult, if not impossible, to estimate how Taiwan’s leadership may perform in war.

Second, Taiwan’s disadvantage in the quantity of armaments and troops does not necessarily doom it to defeat. Taiwan can take important steps to improve the effectiveness of its military. However, even if Taiwan’s military dramatically improved its combat effectiveness, China’s military advantage will likely continue to grow owing to the enormous resource imbalance. Given these trends, Taiwan’s ability to withstand a major Chinese attack will increasingly hinge on the strength of its political leadership and social cohesion above all other factors.

Third, the impact of severe casualties and economic loss likely would cut two ways in a major war. Initially, Taiwan’s public likely would rally around the national leadership in favor of resistance to an aggressive China. However, over the long term, heavy costs of conflict likely would erode public support for continuing the war. Public backing for a war to defend against a Chinese attack could fade after an initial surge of support. How public support changes over time could vary depending on the strength of the island’s political leadership and degree of social cohesion, however.

Finally, U.S. military intervention will continue to remain important for Taiwan’s ability to withstand a large-scale Chinese attack, owing to the island’s vulnerability and military disadvantages. A well-led and socially cohesive Taiwan might be able to mount a determined resistance for perhaps many months, but over time the island’s vulnerability and the military’s inferiority would likely take a severe toll. Absent a robust U.S. military intervention, Taiwan’s government would be severely challenged to withstand a determined all-out Chinese attack indefinitely.

Dr. Timothy R. Heath is a senior international defense researcher at the nonpartisan, nonprofit RAND Corporation.

Image: Shutterstock.

In their much-talked-about Harper’s magazine essay, “Why Are We in Ukraine,” Benjamin Schwartz and Christopher Layne provide a coherent and convincing case against U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine. They argue that U.S. foreign interventions and geopolitical meddling in pursuit of global hegemony and dominance that went well beyond NATO expansion were responsible in part for Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

Schwartz and Layne suggest that Washington is fighting a proxy war, and a “decidedly hot” war—as opposed to a cold one—in Ukraine. They refer to the U.S. involvement there as the “most intense and sustained military entanglement in the near-eighty-year history in the competition between the United States and Russia,” with weapons provided by Washington inflicting casualties on Russians “directly or indirectly,” and with America “edging close to direct conflict” with Moscow.

Yet notwithstanding all the many ways in which the two depict and criticize U.S. policy in Ukraine, the historical analogy they seem to employ by implication—that of Vietnam, given that the title of their essay recalls a 1968 speech by President Lyndon B. Johnson entitled, “Why are we in Vietnam?”—is misplaced for a very simple reason: unlike that war in Southeast Asia, where close to 60,000 American service members had lost their lives fighting, there are no American troops engaged in combat in Ukraine. Nor are Americans fighting in Ukraine in the same way that they did in Iraq or in Afghanistan over the past twenty years. They aren’t fighting there at all.

A case can certainly be made—in the same way that U.S. post-Cold War, anti-Russia policies, in particular, the expansion of NATO and the support for Ukraine led eventually to the current war there—that American policies of providing diplomatic, military, and economic aid to Kiev could, at some point in the future, create the conditions for direct U.S. military intervention, and perhaps even to direct nuclear conflict with Russia.

Certainly, if and when Ukraine is invited to join NATO—a big and conditional “if”—the United States would then be committed to sending troops to help protect that country from outside aggression. This is in line with how we will soon be committed to defending Finland or, for that matter, other sovereign states like Montenegro. Some Anti-interventionists criticize those commitments, but these enjoy bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and don’t face any major public opposition.

Moreover, a case can be made that America’s support for Ukraine, even if it doesn’t join NATO, could be extended and yet not draw the United States into a military conflict.

In a way, the opponents of the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy recall the leading members of the foreign policy establishment who in 1948 opposed then-President Harry Truman’s decision to recognize the new state of Israel. They argued that American support for the Jewish state could prove to be costly for Washington in the long run.

They lost that debate then. But in retrospect, they were right that the long-term support for Israel would prove to be costly for the United States. Yet at no point in the seventy-five years of close cooperation between Washington and Israel has America been drawn into a direct military intervention in the wars between the Israelis and the Arabs—or with Soviet Russia, the former patron of Egypt. The sole exception that has proven this rule is the brief nuclear close call during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

If anything, despite the high costs of the relationship, U.S. public and congressional support for Israel has remained solid all those years, even at the height of the oil embargo that the Arab energy-producing states imposed on the United States to punish it for supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War.

The point is not that Schwartz and Layne are wrong in their criticism of U.S. policies towards Russia and Ukraine. Rather, it is that, unlike the long-term response to U.S. interventions in Vietnam or Iraq, the American public—and by extension, Congress—is apparently willing to sustain U.S. entanglements abroad as long as American boys and girls are not fighting there and their costs don’t involve many American casualties.

Indeed, studies conducted about public attitudes toward U.S. military interventions abroad have confirmed what is probably common sense: that there has been a direct correlation between the rise in the number of American casualties in those wars and public support for U.S. involvement in them. If anything, with the end of the draft and the rise of a volunteer American military fighting American wars, and with more soldiers surviving battlefield injuries, the public seems to be more tolerant of costly American military interventions, even in the face of American casualties.

Otherwise, how can one otherwise explain what amounted to American public apathy as U.S. direct military intervention in Afghanistan lasted for two decades, with close to 2,000 American servicemen killed and more than 20,000 injured? And when was the last time that Congress debated the presence of close to 30,000 American service members in the Korean Peninsula seventy years after the war there had ended?

Moreover, notwithstanding the rising “inwardist” public attitudes in response to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, these conflicts haven’t dulled support for military involvement, at least according to a recent survey from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The surveyors found that, instead of seeing a public that is shrinking back from getting involved in the world, “especially when there’s an ally involved, we’ve actually seen somewhat of an increase in support for using the military.”

Some public opinion analysts have, in general, suggested that the public has supported the Biden administration’s policies in Ukraine, including the economic sanctions imposed on Russia and the aid provided to Ukraine, but remain opposed to sending U.S. troops to fight in that country—something which President Joe Biden has insisted will not happen during his presidency.

From that perspective, it’s doubtful that by recounting the history of post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy—which antagonized the Russians and has been central to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine—the arguments made by Schwartz, Layne, and others are going to have any impact on the public or congressional attitudes.

Instead, opponents of these policies need to explain why they oppose backing U.S. NATO allies against a potential Russian threat and providing support to a friendly sovereign nation invaded by a foreign aggressor.

One should not really expect mounting public and congressional opposition to American assistance to Ukraine, a relatively democratic nation with people who “look like us,” when Washington has been providing a corrupt Middle East regime, Egypt, with over $50 billion in military aid and $30 billion in economic assistance since 1978.

A Ukraine that continues to be seen by America as a nation fighting for its survival against a U.S. adversary is more likely than not to continue to benefit from U.S. assistance—not unlike Israel, which, with $236 billion in military and economic aid, has become the largest recipient of American assistance.

Critics of the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, therefore, face a major challenge in trying to change public and congressional attitudes as long as the United States itself is not drawn directly into the fighting there.

It would probably make more sense for these critics to focus on how to reorient American policy towards Russia and create a new balance of power in Europe when the war ends, thereby ensuring that the conflict doesn’t remain frozen like in the Korean Peninsula. If that were to happen, then people seventy years from now might be forced to explain why the United States remains in Ukraine.

Dr. Leon Hadar, a contributing editor at The National Interest, has taught international relations at American University and was a research fellow with the Cato Institute. A former UN correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, he currently covers Washington for the Business Times of Singapore and is a columnist/blogger with Israel’s Haaretz.

Image: Shutterstock.

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An uncomfortable but profound question is being asked around Washington DC these days: has American capitalism failed, and if so, can it be rescued? This inquiry is central to a debate playing out in the heart of the U.S. political establishment as policymakers, experts, and others grapple with the geostrategic challenges of our time.

At the heart of this discussion is a small but increasingly influential center-right think tank, American Compass, and its founder, Oren Cass. A leading conservative domestic-policy wonk and former policy director for (now Senator) Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, Cass started American Compass to “restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity.” Better yet, as described by the Washington Post when the think tank was first launched, Cass and his followers are mounting:

…a frontal assault on the most hallowed principle of modern conservative economic policy — that market transactions should be given preeminent weight when setting public policy. [...] Cass and his allies, however, stand for the opposite idea: only democratic politics permits the collective judgment of the people to be heard, distilled and implemented. That judgment has a healthy respect for markets and economic freedom, but it has the wisdom to know when liberty becomes license and when the freedom of some is injurious to the health of society. In those cases, Cass and American Compass hold, it is not only proper for society to intervene in the market but also necessary for it to do so.

In the three years since its founding, American Compass has come far. Just one week ago, the organization held a fully-attended forum within the Russell Senate Office building that saw the participation of four Republican senators (Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance, and Todd Young), packs of congressional staffers, numerous influential commentators, policy wonks, and more. It is worth emphasizing how significant this is: in U.S. politics, proximity to political power is de facto power in and of itself. That a small think tank can host such an event within the literal halls of power is no small feat.

At this event, Cass and his team gave out multiple copies of their recently completed and appropriately named handbook, Rebuilding American Capitalism: A Handbook for Conservative Policymakers. This 104-page tome, loaded with analyses and policy proposals covering a broad number of issues—globalization, industry, finance, family, education, labor—is both a political platform and a definitive answer to the question raised at the outset: yes, American capitalism has failed, and yes, it can be rescued.

All this is timely and of particular concern to foreign policy practitioners and American strategists, especially given the return of great power competition and the coming multipolar geopolitical environment.

Great Power Competition Requires Great Industrial Capacity

The cold reality is that strategic competition between great powers in the modern era requires not only ample resources—a large, healthy, and growing population; a strong agricultural base; access to key mineral resources—but also sufficient financial and industrial capabilities.

As history has advanced, great power competition has increasingly required greater technical expertise. Technological advancement means new innovations, devices, and weapons, which must be designed, built, maintained, and upgraded. Moreover, the production of all these requires a sufficiently large industrial base that must be supported, conserved, and prioritized. Ensuring a steady supply of technical experts and financing is thus also essential—and increasingly so—to great powers.

The totality of this dynamic was made most clear in the European World Wars of the twentieth century. Warfare relied not just on millions of armed and trained men, as has long been the historical norm, but also on a wide variety of vehicles, machines, and gadgets. All of these devices—themselves products of an inherently scarce supply of experts—in turn, relied upon vast manufacturing and logical systems of production: industrial-scale farming, mining, refining, fabrication, shipping, and so on, all of which had to be supported by a strong financial sector and credit-worthy government. This dynamic was just as clear throughout the Cold War: the United States’ primary advantage throughout the conflict, and the reason for much of its current global primacy, is because it led the world in technological development throughout the twentieth century, which itself was largely derived from its mammoth post-World War II industrial capacity and economic model.

This longstanding historical norm—the struggle over resources, productive capacity, and technical know-how—was broken with what may now be called the post-Cold War Interregnum. The United States, left as the world’s hegemon after the fall of the Soviet Union, chose to embark on a mission to promote and support an integrated globalized economy. The result, it was declared, would nominally be mutually beneficial to all participants, with economic liberalization giving way to political liberalization, the advance of democratic progress, human rights, and economic prosperity for all.

The Free Market Nightmare…

This dream failed to materialize. In the Foreword of Rebuilding American Capitalism, Cass bluntly describes what the neoliberal, overly pro-free market economic policy of the post-Cold War era has produced in practice:

Comparative advantage is supposed to allow a developed economy like America’s to focus on the most advanced technologies, but the U.S. trade balance in advanced technology products has swung from a $60 billion surplus in 1992 to a $190 billion deficit in 2020. Innovation is supposed to drive productivity but, in the manufacturing sector, productivity growth has turned negative, with factories producing less per worker in the early 2020s than the early 2010s.

The economic system’s malfunction has dire human consequences. Whereas 40 weeks of the typical male worker’s income in 1985 could provide the middle-class essentials for a family of four, by 2022 he needed 62 weeks of income—a problem, there being only 52 weeks in a year. Nearly half of Americans report having fewer children than they want and, outside the most highly educated and compensated households, affordability is the most frequently cited obstacle. The average American can no longer expect to earn more than his father did at the same age. Poorer regions can no longer expect to catch up with wealthier ones. The bottom 50% of households had less wealth in 2019 than in 1989, though the top 10% added $29 trillion. Life expectancy is falling.

The fundamental issue at hand is not capitalism itself. As Cass notes, “the first 200 years of American history, as a backwater colonial republic grew into a continent-spanning industrial colossus and home of the world’s middle class,” demonstrates that the economic model can function quite well. The problem, rather, in Cass’ words, is an ideological belief that took hold which posited that economic activity should occur with zero government involvement, based on the grounds of maximizing individual autonomy: “...free individuals exercising free choice in the market, each presumably able to optimize his own life. The failure of families to form reflected merely a preference for other pastimes.” People, in other words, vote with their wallets. The result, which has amounted to companies opting to off-short and out-source industry in the pursuit of greater efficiency and higher profits, justified by delivering lower costs to consumers, has been:

 …a disaster for the nation. Globalization crushed domestic industry and employment, leaving collapsed communities in its wake. Financialization shifted the economy’s center of gravity from Main Street to Wall Street, fueling an explosion in corporate profits alongside stagnating wages and declining investment. The decline of unions cost workers power in the market, voice in the workplace, and access to a vital source of communal support. These trends [...] contributed to rising inequality, slowing innovation, narrowing of opportunity, and loss of middle-class security.

Aside from devastating damage to Americans’ economic livelihoods and futures, the United States has also de facto surrendered away its industrial-technological capacity, and with it, the country’s ability to self-renew its competitive advantage. Off-shoring manufacturing has not only resulted in the loss of millions of jobs and falling productivity growth but also a decline in our ability to produce new technologies. To quote Sridhar Kota and Tom Mahoney, “once manufacturing departs from a country’s shores, engineering and production know-how leave as well, and then innovation ultimately follows.” Studies have shown this to be true, with spending on research and development moving abroad to be closer to production and engineering. With the departure of that industrial capacity goes not only America’s ability to produce needed armaments on a war footing but also its ability to innovate and its technological-military advantage.

The Department of Defense has likewise sounded the alarm on these developments. In their FY20 Industrial Capabilities Report, which transcribes the department’s “priority industrial base risks and vulnerabilities,” the Pentagon provides a stark warning:

Together, a U.S. business climate that has favored short-term shareholder earnings (versus longterm capital investment), deindustrialization, and an abstract, radical vision of “free trade,” without fair trade enforcement, have severely damaged America’s ability to arm itself today and in the future. Our national responses – off-shoring and out-sourcing – have been inadequate and ultimately self-defeating, especially with respect to the defense industrial base.

This off-shoring/out-sourcing trend, when combined with environmental concerns, is limited not just to production but also to basic resource acquisition. Consider that U.S. leaders have neglected to maintain the country’s access to the critical minerals and materials necessary not only for retaining our military advantage but also for high-tech manufacturing and renewable energy technologies. Without these resources, twenty-first-century industrial leadership and real economic progress itself become impossible. America closed down its own primary rare earth minerals mine in Mountain View, California in the 1990s. Since then, China has come to account for 90 percent of global rare earth production, establishing its dominance in both mining and refining and leaving America to depend on a strategic competitor for 80 percent of its critical mineral imports. Once again, the Department of Defense has sounded the alarm on this matter, also noting in its 2020 Industrial Capabilities Report that:

[Emerging] technologies pose new problems for defense contractors and for the Pentagon in securing a trusted supply chain for critical items such as processed rare earth elements and microelectronics, where gaps and unanticipated interruptions can be triggered by the loss of a sole supplier for purely economic reasons, or by an embargo or military action by an adversary. Events of either type can jeopardize a sustainable industrial base.

The United States—having shorn its industrial-technological capacity and forfeited control over key resources and supply chains—is thus ill-prepared for an era of great power strategic competition. The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War—arguably a de facto proxy war between the West and Russia over Ukraine’s agricultural bounty, energy and mineral resources, industrial base, and ability to project power over certain geographical regions—illustrates current circumstances. Whether it be in ammunition, shipbuilding, or weaponry, it is now reasonable to worry that the United States does not have the material capacity to fight a large-scale industrial war.

…and the Danger to American Democracy

But perhaps most damning of all—even more than wrecking the industrial basis necessary for the United States to remain a pre-eminent geostrategic and economic actor in international affairs—is what the failure of the neoliberal agenda has meant for the U.S. political system itself.

When first established in the United States, corporations were oriented toward encouraging national development and pursuing economic achievements that no individual or family firm could do alone. Consider, for example, that Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. treasury secretary and the father of U.S. finance and industry, helped co-found the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures in 1791. This early corporation aimed to promote industrial development along the Passaic River in New Jersey, resulting in regional industrialization for over 150 years.

However, this model ran into problems from the 1880s through the 1930s. Corporations, simply put, were spectacularly successful—too successful, even. Such was their financial and industrial power—and their consequent political power—that they began to supersede or even capture the power of the state. The resulting situation, with a handful of individuals wielding disproportionate influence over the levers of government and public policy, was antithetical to republican governance.

Elected politicians of the time period were keenly aware of this in their efforts to restrain corporate power. Senator John Sherman, the statesman behind the eponymous 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act, declared, “if we would not submit to an emperor, we should not submit to an autocrat of trade.” Senator Joseph O’Mahoney stated in 1934 that “many of the modern corporations engaged in interstate commerce are greater and more powerful than most of our sovereign states.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attorney general, Francis Biddle, declared in 1944 that “When the industrial life of a country passes into the hands of a few individuals, their power over the direction of public affairs exceeds the power confided by the people to their elected representatives in the government itself.”

It is with great trepidation then that we hear contemporary elected officials talk about multinational corporations in the current political environment. Senator John Kennedy in 2019 declared that Google and Facebook “aren’t just companies. They’re countries.” Large commodity traders can determine the fate of entire nations through their control of energy and food. A number of banks and financial institutions are so powerful that they are, as the term goes, “too big to fail.”

It is through this lens, then, that the ongoing political debate of U.S. economic policy and the mission of American Compass, Oren Cass, and his various allies and followers must be understood: at stake is not only the future of U.S. geoeconomic (and thus, geopolitical) power, the livelihood of its citizens, and the fate of the current international order, but also, implicitly, the fate of the United States as a sovereign republic.

Can America Save Itself?

The challenge that Oren Cass and his colleagues have undertaken is thus great but not insurmountable. If anything, several recent political trends are in their favor.

Abroad, the war in Ukraine put the reality of America’s poor military-industrial situation in stark relief, triggering something of a political awakening. Leading Washington think tanks, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies to the Center for New American Security, have published reports and studies of varying quality proclaiming the newfound need for industrial policy. Elbridge Colby—a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who led the development of the 2018 National Defense Strategy (and is widely considered to be a future secretary of defense)—has been warning that a war with China could be lost if the U.S. industrial base isn’t up to par. For a high-level official (who notably was also special assistant to the president for the defense industrial base in 2017–2018) to issue such warnings is quite telling, especially given consistent signs that he’s correct. Overall, Washington officialdom—and consequentially, policymakers—have suddenly discovered that the industrial base really matters.

Domestically, political progressives focused on economic policy are also beating the same drum as Cass and his followers. This neo-Brandeis movement, focused on reviving 1930s-style antitrust enforcement, has gradually gained power and scored victories. It is telling, as leading antitrust policy wonk Matthew Stoller notes, that the Wall Street Journal editorial page has written 64 attacks on Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan in less than two years. Stoller’s own organization, the American Economic Liberties Project, something of a left-wing counterpart to Cass’ American Compass, has also been making great strides in influencing Congress, the Biden administration, and Washington officialdom and policy thinkers more broadly. For once, reforming America’s economic model appears to be a genuine bipartisan cause.

Time will tell how Cass, American Compass, and its ideological allies fare in the coming years. The success of last Wednesday’s forum paints a rosy picture. There remains, however, a few major concerns with Cass’ agenda that this humble observer cannot shake off: a broader reform of American capitalism and its current economic incentive structure will mean addressing thorny political issues.

Consider some practical national security concerns in the world of technology. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple may be hulking giants with more power than some countries, which needs to be restrained. But it is precisely their size and scale that allows them to render services—such as cybersecurity for the ordinary user/consumer—that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. Would a thousand small companies, rather than a handful of large ones, be able to mount a comparable cybersecurity defense effort against foreign adversaries? Would Americans’ personal data really be safer if it were shared with smaller companies, as some argue, if foreign actors could acquire those smaller companies? It is doubtful. Like telecom companies, Big Tech firms may be natural monopolies, requiring political compromise and extremely detailed regulation.

Likewise, consider what the re-orientation of economic incentives in the U.S. economy might look like in practice. The push for globalization and the off-shoring of American industry and jobs, for instance, was driven by the argument that everyone would benefit from lower costs. Yes, jobs are lost, but consumer ultimately benefits from cheap food, consumer goods, cheap labor, and so on. Cass and cohort would propound, correctly, that this trade was certainly not worth it if it came at the cost of American livelihoods and the country’s industrial base (with its strategic value)—to say nothing of American democracy itself.

That is certainly true, but consider what reversing some of this would look like in practice. Suppose, for example, that fair trade laws were to be reintroduced, as Mattew Stoller argues. This would certainly go a long way in checking the power of large retailers and “empowering Main Street over Wall Street,” as it were. But it would also mean an increase in prices for the ordinary consumer, who might very well revolt at the ballot box.

This, perhaps, is the real question that American Compass, and Americans more broadly, must wrestle with: are U.S. voters ready and willing to accept that a higher cost of living and some economic pain in the short and medium term, if not longer, is the literal price for the preservation of U.S. democracy?

It is hard to say now, for this thesis has yet to be tested. Pessimists would contend, not unfairly, that the prospect is dubious. But given Americans’ historical tendency toward grit, endurance, and hope for a better tomorrow, the answer may yet surprise us all.

Carlos Roa is the Executive Editor of The National Interest.

Image: American Compass/Twitter.

The conflict between Iran and Israel has substantially intensified over recent years, with its scope broadening daily. Israel’s worries about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, regional influence, and military advancements have positioned it as a key player in responding to these perceived threats. As such, with the aim of strengthening deterrence against Iran, Jerusalem has designed a strategy of death by a thousand cuts, which includes intensifying covert operations against Iranian interests.

Unlike its previous strategy, which focused on sabotaging Tehran’s nuclear program and assassinating its nuclear scientists, Israel now appears to have extended its web to target other scientists and officers in charge of missile and drone programs, as well as members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force. Additionally, Jerusalem is utilizing its diplomatic capacities to further operationalize this strategy of “death by a thousand cuts” by expanding its relations with Iran’s neighboring states—especially those that do not have good relations with Iran. Strengthening relations with Azerbaijan and the Kurdistan Region, normalizing relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and reopening its embassy in Turkmenistan are among its actions in this regard. 

Given all this, what has Iran done? It seems that Iran’s response to Israel’s actions can be evaluated in the framework of two short-term and long-term approaches. Tehran’s short-term approach to Jerusalem’s actions has mainly included a case-by-case response, including targeting positions and assets related to Israel in the sea or a third country. In this regard, drone attacks on Israeli ships in the Persian Gulf and missile attacks on the Mossad headquarters in Erbil have been carried out. In addition, Iran’s long-term policy toward Israel has always been based on creating a defensive front in the Eastern Mediterranean. By propping up Palestinian groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement alongside Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran has endeavored to turn Lebanon and the Gaza Strip into defense embankments against Israel. 

How Iran’s West Bank Strategy Came to Be

The term “Arming the West Bank” was raised for the first time in the middle of the 2014 Gaza War. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated that he considered the only way to rescue Palestine was by “arming the West Bank like Gaza.”

A month after the end of the conflict, the notion was raised again in Khamenei’s meeting with Ramadan Abdullah, the former secretary-general of the Islamic Jihad Movement. In this meeting, Khamenei stressed the need for “serious planning to join the West Bank in confronting Israel” with the aim of increasing Israel’s security concerns.

These statements were welcomed by Palestinian militant groups. Among others, Khaled Qaddoumi, Hamas’s representative in Tehran, considered this approach to be a serious and important option for resistance groups in Palestine—if supported by Iran, they could change the balance of power in what Palestinians see as the occupied territories.

In Iran’s view, this approach stands out because of how vulnerable Israel is to it. Not only is the West Bank relatively close to Israel’s three key cities and military-economic centers—Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa—but also the presence of Jewish settlers and more than two million Palestinians provides a rich environment for Iran to open a new front. Unlike Iran’s other deterrence measures, arming the West Bank would inflict more deadly blows on Israel by reducing the geographical distance as much as possible. The approach could paralyze Israel’s security system and blockade Israel within its own borders by expanding the geography of the conflict.

How Would the Strategy Be Implemented?

Iran has plenty of options on the table to pursue this approach: it can transfer small arms and light weapons through non-state allied intermediaries, provide training to facilitate the production of light weapons inside the West Bank itself, finance the purchasing of weapons from arms dealers, and more.

Tehran, however, faces a few obstacles in attempting to pursue this strategy. The borders of the West Bank, for one, are strongly patrolled by Israel and Jordan, impeding any easy arms shipments. Similarly, the Palestinian National Authority will not look kindly upon the arming of its domestic political rivals and the potential diplomatic damage that this could result in.

On the other hand, Iran was seriously involved in Syria and Iraq and had focused on defeating Saudi Arabia in regional conflicts. Despite these obstacles, some reports show that at the same time, Qassem Soleimani, the late commander of the Quds Force, in contact with the commanders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, emphasized the arming of the West Bank as Iran’s priority in the occupied territories. Also, while many experts were talking about the impossibility of this strategy due to many hurdles, former Iranian diplomat Hussein Sheikh al-Islam rejected this issue and said: “We know how to deliver weapons to the West Bank. We have already delivered weapons to other fronts.”

As some news sources, quoting Israeli security officials, have revealed, Lebanese Hezbollah, the main non-state ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has transferred light weapons to the West Bank. In addition, the smuggling of arms through dealers or other people to the West Bank has grown significantly in recent years. The latest example in this regard was the arrest of Imad al-Adwan, a Jordanian lawmaker, by Israeli police on charges of trying to smuggle weapons to the West Bank.

The idea of negotiating with Israel has faded among the Palestinians for various reasons (such as the continuation of settlements, the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by Donald Trump, and the inauguration of the most right-wing government in Israel). In return, they have turned to individual armed struggle, which has gained unprecedented popularity among the young generation of Palestine, especially after the intensification of arms smuggling to the West Bank.

The emergence of new armed groups in the West Bank, such as the Jenin Brigade, the Balata Brigade, and, most notoriously, the Lions’ Den, shows a change in approach in this region. In the past two years, the beginning of a new round of conflicts in Nablus, Jenin, and Sheikh Jarrah and numerous attacks against checkpoints, soldiers, and Israeli settlements have led some analysts to consider the continuation of this situation as the beginning of the Third Intifada. Iran openly supported the actions of armed groups in the West Bank. Esmail Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force, praised the Palestinian youth of the West Bank and said: “Before the West Bank was armed, few actions were taken against Israel in this area, but today, in some days, more than 30 operations are conducted.” Ramzan Sharif, the spokesman of the IRGC, also announced that these groups are fully supported by Iran.

From a macro perspective, it seems that Iran is pursuing two strategic objectives via its policy of arming the West Bank: the unity of Palestinian groups in confronting Israel and the addition of a new front in the battle with Israel. The importance of unity among the Palestinian groups lies in the fact that after the end of the Second Intifada, the West Bank was out of the conflict with Israel, and the armed groups were active only in the Gaza Strip. In the current situation, the unification of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip can lead to the formation of a joint command structure in order to coordinate information and operations between Palestinian groups under the supervision of Iran and Hezbollah. This happened for the first time in the war of 2021, known as Saif al-Quds. 

Also, the gradual expansion of West Bank arming will increase Iran’s capabilities in any possible action against Israel. Especially if the pursuit of this policy is accompanied by the transfer of more advanced weapons such as rockets, mortars, and short-range missiles. In this case, Israel can be attacked from at least three fronts: southern Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. As it stands, it seems that the third decade of the twenty-first century in the Middle East should be called the era of intensification of the Cold War between Tehran and Jerusalem and the confrontation between the two strategies: Arming the West Bank and death by a thousand cuts. Especially after the normalization of Iran’s relations with Saudi Arabia and speculation about the continuation of de-escalation with Arab neighbors, Iran’s capacity to focus on confronting Israel will increase.

Dr. Amir Hossein Vazirian holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, Iran. His research interests are primarily focused on Iran’s foreign and security policy and Middle East Studies.

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For more than a year now, the question of whether Taiwan is next if Russia is allowed to take over Ukraine has been repeatedly asked. Some have argued that defeating Russia may save Taiwan, while others have urged against equating the actions taken by Vladimir Putin with the possible ones that Xi Jinping may take.

The conversation is worth having. There are merits to the assertion that in responding to the invasion of Ukraine, the West can demonstrate that it is a cohesive and effective force. Likewise, there are also merits to the claim that the strategic significance of Ukraine and Taiwan—as well as the threats posed by China and Russia—are intrinsically different.

Yet there is another discussion that is equally, if not more, important. It centers around the question: would the West respond with equal determination if China invades Taiwan? Today, alarmingly, it seems unlikely.

On April 26, China’s Xi Jinping and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy held their first war phone call, leading to much speculation regarding China’s role as a potential global peacemaker. Such speculation, understandably so, worried and frustrated many in the United States. These ill feelings originate not solely from the fact that China would likely prioritize Russian interests, but also because if China, the United States’ biggest economic and political competitor, were to become the peacemaker of the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II then what would that mean for the state of global affairs and the position held by the United States?

What appears evident is that the illustrated harms faced by China due to Ukraine’s propped-up military resilience exist mostly in the imagination of American think tankers and politicians. Realizing this does not require getting inside the heads of Chinese officials. The strength of the Sino-European relationship is illuminating enough.

Consider that while in the United States we talk about China and Russia as simultaneous threats, in France, Emmanuel Macron comes back from his Beijing visit saying that the European Union will not become a U.S. “vassal,” claiming that the union must resist involvement in U.S.-China disputes over Taiwan. German companies, despite Washington’s attempts to isolate Beijing, continue to venture into China out of economic necessity. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU wants to “de-risk” but not “de-couple” from Beijing—particularly given a 98 percent dependency on China for rare earth minerals. Other examples abound.

On the other hand, among Republican senators, for instance, the “China is Watching” claim has been perpetually shrieked. Yet not even the most vocal China hawks have made a significant push to have European statesmen or, at the very least, Ukraine, publicly state that China should be watching closely or that China-led peace deals should be treated as ridiculous. In refusing to amount such opposition, the same individuals that argue that China and Russia are parts of the same threat are exhibiting either incompetence or dishonesty. If China and Russia are indeed two sides of the same coin, as they suggest, then why is it that Americans are alone in treating them as such?

In light of these concerns, on March 2, I asked Irish ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason, Italian ambassador Mariangela Zappia, and the Danish ambassador Christina Markus Lassen two simple questions: is China our biggest threat in the long-term, and is Taiwan an independent country?

The Irish ambassador responded by saying that “we have to be careful with pushing Russia and China into a corner,” completely inverting the logic used by those concerned with Chinese expansion in the United States, as she implied that cooperation with China is worth pursuing. The real threats, Nason claimed, are “the climate crisis and the nuclear threat.”

Similarly, both the Italian and the Danish ambassadors refused to make statements about whether Taiwan is an independent country, with the Italian ambassador claiming that “cooperation with China is benefitting all of us” and that “China is a rival in values” that follows a “predatory approach to governance.”

If the direct responses from three ambassadors and other comments by EU leaders (Macron, von der Leyen, etc.) are anything to go by, then in the eyes of a good number of European leaders, China is far from perfect but the most prescient threat they face is Russian. Intelligently, unlike Washington, they have been able to prioritize their resources and efforts in accordance with their needs. As such, Europe finds itself in what is really a favorable position: Europeans can rely on American assistance vis-à-vis Russia, but ensure that when it comes to playing in a different arena—primarily the Indo-Pacific—they can sit down and observe.

Meanwhile, when the same logic is used in the United States by those who argue that we must not push Russia toward China and that we must prioritize deterring America’s—not Europe’s—main threat, our partners from across the Atlantic are quick to display their indignation.

Aside from Russia, the status quo leaves the United States in the worst position. Despite our consistent and generational support to Europe, the idea of them sacrificing close to as much as what we have sacrificed for them seems implausible.

If countries were people, this would be labeled a toxic relationship. But countries are not people, they are countries. When cleansed from rhetoric, the reality is that the Europeans are not our friends, they are our allies—in specific scenarios under specific circumstances.

If the United States wants to deter China, we need our European partners to express with the same confidence seen regarding Ukraine that China cannot be a peacemaker, and that Chinese expansion poses a threat to them and their partners.

Some may be quick to suggest that in 2020, China became the EU’s main trading partner, meaning that they would never take a stronger position. Still, the reality is that in 2021, according to the EU itself, the United States is just 1.5 percent away from China in terms of trading goods, and militarily, they have grown accustomed to our support.

So, yes, we can push, just like China does.

At the minimum, individual European leaders should reciprocate what NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said four months ago when he said that “China doesn't have much credibility because they have not been able to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine.” Additionally, Washington must pressure Europeans into exhibiting their opposition to Chinese expansion as a precondition for increased, or even continued, support. It is that simple.

If Europe cannot do this, if they continue to be characterized by softness toward China, then they are taking America’s defense of their sovereignty for granted. It is essential then to delineate our priorities—weakening China matters more to us than weakening Russia—and openly emphasize that a refusal to oppose Chinese expansionary efforts is disloyalty toward us. Given the nature of reciprocity, this is not too harsh; it is reasonable.

If pursued effectively, this framework could lead to the United States spending and focusing less on Ukraine, or European countries taking stronger positions regarding China. Both options are better than the status quo.

To prevent future conflict, the West must constrain the Chinese Communist Party’s expansionary efforts. To do this, we do not just need Europe, but we also need them more than they need us in Ukraine. They know this, and we should make them act like it.

Like China, it is time that we place conditions and set standards when cooperating. We must let Europe know that it is a two-way street— if we stand with them, they must demonstrate that they will stand with us.

Juan P. Villasmil “J.P. Ballard” is a commentator and analyst who often writes about American culture, foreign policy, and political philosophy. He has been featured in The American Spectator, The National Interest, The Wall Street Journal, International Policy Digest, Fox News, Telemundo, MSNBC, and others.

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Lebanon’s political problems and solutions have a strong tendency of repeating. This reality has become increasingly apparent in the ongoing failure to elect a new president—an arena where the international community is once again making some significant moves to effectively save the country. Indeed, as Beirut continues to bicker over candidates and other long-running feuds, the country’s political elites likely expect and hope to rely on their international backers to resolve strictly Lebanese problems. While undesirable, international action likely constitutes the only path toward a new government in Lebanon today given current political obstacles.

Recent French efforts are at the forefront of international action in Lebanon today. French president Emmanual Macron recently dispatched his new envoy for Lebanon—former Foreign and Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian—to meet with Lebanese elites and encourage constructive dialogue on the presidential file. Le Drian is a major political actor in France, carrying substantial international influence and skill, which reflects Paris’s seriousness in resolving Beirut’s gridlock. The envoy described his trip to Lebanon as “a consultative mission ... to ensure the country moves on from the political impasse.”

Yet interestingly, Le Drian expressed that he would not push for any candidate in his visit—including a third-party option that could lead to consensus between Lebanon’s major political blocs. This comes as a surprise given Paris has privately supported Hezbollah-backed Suleiman Frangieh for months following its public-facing support for reformist elements in recent years. Whether Le Drian’s comments reflect another shift in France’s position remains to be seen, although Frangieh’s viability is certainly questionable at best following former finance minister and senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official Jihad Azour’s strong showing in the last presidential vote on June 14.

Le Drian took this message to each of the major Lebanese political actors, meeting with the leaders of each of the leading political parties and independent reformist camp, Maronite patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri, and Prime Minister Najib Mikati. He also met with General Joseph Aoun—the head of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and a rumored presidential favorite amongst many stakeholders working on the Lebanon file.

Some of Lebanon’s political elites have made clear that international pressure is unnecessary. Samir Geagea, head of the conservative Lebanese Forces (LF) party, did not mince words following his meeting with Le Drian: “The solution doesn't need French, American or Iranian intervention … What is needed is a sovereign domestic decision.” Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) head Gebran Bassil expressed similar sentiments in his meeting with Le Drian as well. Both are major Christian parties in Lebanon that are usually opposed to each other, until recently.

The French push follows a meeting on June 16 between Macron and Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) in Paris. The two leaders reportedly discussed Lebanon’s woes at length, calling for progress on the presidential file. Just days later, rumors of a potential conference in Riyadh in August or September began to appear in Lebanese media. Qatar and Egypt are supposedly playing a role in setting up what is being described as a “new Doha”—referencing the 2008 Doha Agreement that ended an eighteen-month political crisis that erupted into violence.

Thus, as Lebanese political elites and international actors claim to support a Lebanon-led initiative, global and regional powers are pulling strings in the background. While MbS has openly called Lebanon’s presidential issues an “internal affair” and has gradually backed Riyadh out of the Mediterranean country’s affairs, the crown prince has a vested interest in resolving disputes to avoid the political violence that evolved in 2008. Indeed, a Saudi-led (or supported) initiative to resolve Lebanon’s political dispute makes sense alongside the kingdom’s turn toward pragmatism and diplomacy in support of its Vision 2030 economic development agenda. 

The other major stakeholders likely understand this as well—including Iran. The question at play ultimately becomes one of getting Lebanon’s elites in the same room to make the necessary political deals that only international guarantees can backstop. Recent diplomatic exchanges across the region reflect a concerted effort to achieve this outcome—not limited to the Saudi foreign minister’s visit to Tehran and the Iranian foreign minister’s current Gulf trip.

Whether or not the Iran-Saudi deal helps facilitate such a meeting remains to be seen, although the warming of ties between the regional rivals certainly suggests the deal can be a net positive on any political efforts to subsequently lower the temperature in Lebanon. Indeed, while some have argued that Riyadh chose to cede Lebanon to Iran and Hezbollah in its re-normalization with Tehran, this is hardly a foregone conclusion. Rather, those with a stake in Lebanon likely prefer—at a minimum—a status quo arrangement that leads to some reforms without destabilizing the country further. This is particularly true of West Asia’s regional powers given no one side can sustain a full takeover of the country with their proxy of choice—including Iran and Hezbollah given the former’s economic woes.

Thus, all eyes should be on France’s current diplomatic push in relation to a regional effort to institute cross-party dialogue between the major Lebanese political actors. This probably will not result in a Frangieh or Azour presidency, particularly given both candidates appear to be positioned for the sake of such a dialogue on a consensus candidate at this stage. If this is truly the case, Aoun could become the next president of Lebanon, barring some procedural and constitutional hurdles, and understanding varying international support for his candidacy. Expect dealmaking on other issues as well—namely that of the prime minister’s office and central bank governor position that will open in July following Riad Salameh’s end-of-term.

Such a process highlights the repetitive nature of Lebanese politics—one that has continuously failed to address systemic shortcomings that regularly reproduce the same problems. International stakeholders would be wise to use any opportunity for dialogue to address the root causes of the issues at play. Unfortunately, the cyclical nature of the situation at hand will likely prevail, applying bandages to wounds that require much more attention and care.

Alexander Langlois is a foreign policy analyst focused on the Middle East and North Africa. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service. Follow him at @langloisajl.

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