Americans are largely focused on the 2024 election, for good reason, but the future history of our civilization is currently being written in the Middle East.
The Israel Defense Forces are deeply committed to urban warfare against Hamas in Gaza. Israel is also engaged in selective strikes against Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and Iran—and punitive strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
At the same time, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is threatening retaliatory strikes against Israel.
Israel has the most successful, high-tech society in the region. It has remarkable tactical and operational military capabilities. It has applied advanced science and technology to challenges such as missile defense. But it seems to lack strategic vision and focus. In the long run, winning each day is necessary—but not sufficient.
This insight really hit me in 1984, when Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick invited me to dinner at the U.N. ambassador’s residence, which at that time was in the Waldorf Astoria. Irving Kristol was also there. He was a great intellectual and one of the founders of the neoconservative movement. I asked Kristol if he thought Israel would exist in 100 years.
He thought about it for a moment and responded, “One hundred years? I know that Israel’s here today. I think that is good. If you tell me that Israel’s here tomorrow, I think that will be good. I have no idea about 100 years. But I like the fact that today Israel is here.”
At the time, I thought it was a pragmatic response. Kristol had lived through the Holocaust, Israel’s war of independence, and the wars it had fought in 1956, 1967, and 1974. Israel was still there—and had grown more powerful, wealthy, and secure.
Yet being here today doesn’t answer the question of long-term survival. That takes strategic planning, which must occur at three levels.
The first level is immediate. A country’s security must be adequate and prepared to fight this year. It must have the necessary equipment and be able to survive a crisis. If any of these requirements are not met, there is an immediate problem to solve.
The second level considers the next 15 years. What are the indicators of potential danger? What would be required to overwhelm those indicators? And is the country prepared to make the investments, restructuring, and planning to achieve survival?
The third level for survival is long term. Is the country managing its environment over time in such a way that it is more likely to survive than be overwhelmed?
All three of these layers must be covered simultaneously. Two out of three is not enough—and anything less is a potential crisis.
The most elegant example of strategic planning is the U.S. effort starting with World War I through the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Essentially, U.S. leadership said the creativity of a free people is so much more productive and inventive than the activities of a totalitarian state that, over time, the West will inevitably drown the Soviet Union. They believed that the key was to contain the Soviets long enough for the imbalance between the two systems to become overwhelming. That strategy finally succeeded in 1991. When you read NSC 68 and think about the intervening years, it’s an astonishing document.
Importantly, strategic planning at the national level is political, cultural, and economic. In the long run, those three can crush an enemy’s ability to fight a kinetic war. It’s an important thing to remember. Long-term survival means being so strongly positioned that you don’t have to be in constant strife with your neighbors.
I mention all of this because, in the long term, Israel’s survival and the United States’ survival are linked.
Anti-Israeli forces are inherently anti-American. Israel’s war is America’s war. We have as great a vested interest in ensuring that Israel survives on every front against the Houthi, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and others as we would if it was Maine or California.
When the leadership of Hamas says, “not a single Jew will remain,” I think that’s really clear, and Israel should take it seriously.
When Iran’s parliament chants “Death to America”—and the Ayatollah explains on Iranian television that this is policy, not a slogan—a rational America should take that seriously.
When Iranian proxies begin targeting Americans abroad, we can’t ignore that.
If Israel is defeated, all of our shared enemies will become stronger—and they will continue attacking us. They will not be appeased or sated.
Israel’s survival requires precisely the strategic planning efforts that the United States needs. We cannot focus solely on winning kinetic wars or the immediate threats in front of us (although they are important). We must focus on winning the cultural, political, and economic arguments at home and abroad—and we must do so decisively.
We must be at least as tough as our opponents, because they will wipe us out if they get a chance.
Make no mistake, our entire civilization is at stake. We must be prepared to defend it with the intensity it is worth.
