What U.S. policymakers must understand about current conflict in the Mideast, charitable impulses vs. national security, talks for Ukraine, and more.

STRATEGY BRIEF

Three U.S. priorities amid the Israel-Hamas war

The United States is not a direct party to the Israel-Hamas war, of course. But close U.S. ties to Israel and an ongoing American military presence in the region—particularly U.S. boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq, but also the tens of thousands of American forces stationed in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere—mean the U.S. is inevitably affected by the conflict.

The reality of that connection makes it vital for policymakers in Washington to understand the risks of escalation and how the U.S. could be drawn into a wider war. It is also crucial for U.S. leaders to clarify our narrow and consistently defensive security priorities in this situation, which may overlap with Israel's but are far from identical.

U.S. priorities

The United States can and should avoid direct military involvement in the conflict, as it has in previous Arab-Israeli conflicts. No major U.S. interest is served by direct involvement, Israel can handle its own defense, and the risk of escalation and blowback against the United States is profound.
Washington should work with all parties to prevent the conflict from spreading to new fronts and expanding into a regional war. A wider war would pose significant harm to U.S. national security interests around the world.
The U.S. should redeploy its troops from Syria—and eventually Iraq—to larger and better defended bases in order to deny Iran its most dangerous lever for escalating the war. The U.S. presence in northeast Syria is the most urgent to redeploy, as it remains most at risk of succumbing to a major attack that kills American troops.

Key risks, context, and implications

American support for Israel shouldn't include U.S. ground troops. The U.S. also shouldn't contribute troops to any hypothetical U.N. peacekeeping mission, which could last decades.
The U.S. can exert pressure to:
- Push Israel to adhere to the law of war, especially where Gazan civilians are concerned.
- Push Qatar, which hosts senior Hamas leadership, to facilitate release of Hamas-held hostages.
The longer the war continues, the more it expands regionally, and the more civilians are killed, the greater the risk of blowback to the U.S. through terrorist attacks on U.S. bases, embassies, and citizens.
- U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria were attacked by Iran-backed Shia militia groups at least 27 times in the latter half of October, per the Pentagon.
- Redeploying U.S. troops from northeast Syria would deny Iran leverage to widen the war.
- Here and elsewhere, U.S. force posture should evolve to a "surge" rather than "maintain" framework.
For Israel, the issue of post-conflict governance in Gaza remains a major and, so far, unaddressed question. The dismal U.S. record in Iraq and Afghanistan should serve as a cautionary tale.

Read more in DEFP's new explainer: "Understanding the Israel-Hamas war"

Quoted

"[Washington should] stop confusing charitable impulses with U.S. national security interests and seeing our own security on the line in every conflict in the world. [That thinking] has this tendency to compel us to be a kind of global empire."

– DEFP Policy Director Benjamin Friedman, as quoted in "As Biden prepares a pitch for aid to Ukraine, Israel in a single package, foreign policy 'realists' are asking, 'Exactly where is this taking us?'" [The New York Sun / M.J. Koch]

Survey says

Most Americans think it's time to push for peace talks in Ukraine

The Eurasia Group Foundation reports:

Diplomacy between Ukraine and Russia has so far floundered. Russia recently dismissed a Ukrainian peace plan. And outside powers—such as Italy and China—have, to no avail, pushed peace proposals in the last year to nudge the warring parties toward a negotiated settlement. The United States, for its part, has so far refrained from pressuring Ukraine to conduct peace talks with its invader. As one senior official put it, it's up to Ukraine "to determine how victory is decided and when and on what terms."
Most Americans, however, think the United States should push for a negotiated settlement. Across the political spectrum, the most frequent reason given is the high human cost of war.

Read more from the Eurasia Group Foundation here.

Sober analysis

Moving to an offshore balancing strategy for East Asia

[DEFP / Peter Harris]

The distribution of power in the Western Pacific has been shifting in China's favor for the past several decades. The popular view in Washington is that the United States must counteract these adverse shifts in power via a strategy of military primacy in East Asia—that is, the pursuit of local military superiority in all possible theaters of Asia by U.S. forces.
This view is misguided. Primacy should not be considered a desirable end in itself, nor is it necessary to secure U.S. policy goals in East Asia.
For present purposes, America's policy priorities in East Asia can be defined as follows:
1. Prevent the outbreak of a major war in East Asia, especially one involving a treaty ally.
2. Preserve the territorial status quo, except for amendments made via the peaceful resolution of existing boundary disputes.
3. Dissuade any large country or regional bloc from embracing economic autarky.

Read this new explainer from DEFP here.

3 priorities in this war