Back to the Basics of Shared Values in the US-Israel Relationship
Recently, I was asked whether I might consider revising the book I wrote on the US-Israeli relationship entitled Doomed to Succeed. Turmoil in Israel, the most right-wing, religious government in Israel’s history, and President Biden’s decision to hold off inviting Prime Minister Netanyahu to Washington led to concerns about where the relationship might be headed, […]
What an Improved Nuclear Deal with Iran Should Look Like
Twenty years ago, on 17 March 2003, Mohammed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported to his board that Iran was in breach of its Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations – which require a signatory to use all nuclear technology in the country exclusively for peaceful purposes and to follow a policy […]
The Roots of Israel’s Judicial Reform Proposal
A bitter debate has now engulfed Israeli society over the proper role of the judiciary. The new government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, began its term in January by introducing far-reaching reforms to the judiciary, which I have already described in detail. The continuing strong reaction to these proposals, well described by my JST […]
China’s Middle East Marathon
China’s evolving role in the Middle East is analyzed by US Ambassador Peter Pham.
The Unity Trap
General Stanley McChrystal and Ellen Chapin reflect on the tension between debate and consensus in McChrystal’s military career and in other episodes of US history.
American Military Guarantees Boost Ukraine’s and NATO’S Long-Term Prospects
Introduction In a hard-hitting essay published here in the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, A Year of War, the Washington Institute’s Anna Borshchevskaya paints a sobering picture of what Ukrainians, and all in NATO, face. She argues that Russians view the war as an existential struggle for their future. Washington and the rest of NATO are now rightly ensuring that at a minimum […]
How Would Republicans Conduct American Foreign Policy Today?
The global order is changing rapidly. China is brokering normalization between Iran and Saudi Arabia while the United States brokers normalization between Arab states and Israel. Turkey and Russia are both antagonists and collaborators in multiple hot spots. Ukraine’s military is proving stronger than Russia’s. Alliances and friendships in the Indo-Pacific are coalescing against Chinese […]
The Quad Is for Real, Thanks to Abe
“Japan is not now and will never be a tier-two power,” declared Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington in February 2013. He was there to champion the idea of a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Japan, the United States, India, and Australia. He succeeded in […]
Israel’s Policy Toward Iran's Nuclear Program—Some Counterfactual Remarks
If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes that a nuclear Iran is Israel’s greatest threat, then why is his government focused instead on passing domestic judicial reform legislation as its top priority? This question, posed by a former head of the Mossad’s Iran department, appeared in the headlines of Israel’s daily Yedioth Ahronoth on March 3. […]
A Year of War
A year after invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin defines the war as an existential battle for Russia’s survival. In a classic case of the aggressor blaming the victim, Putin says the West invaded Russia using Ukraine. “It’s they [the West] who have started the war. And we are using force to end it,” he said on […]
The Leaderless Protest Movement in Israel
Since December 2022, every Saturday evening after Shabbat, tens of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated against the judicial reform proposals of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government. Former generals and judges, economists, journalists, hi-tech professionals, medical workers, shopkeepers, young students and their grandparents who fought in the War of Independence, native-born Israelis and recent immigrants, and Arab […]
A Chinese View of US–China Relations
[Note from the Editors: We have added parenthetical comments to the article for context in several places.] The United States frames its relations with China as a great power competition, in terms of the Biden administration’s national security strategy, for example. China claims to have a different view, having just emerged from three years of […]
