At first glance, you would think that foreign policy realists would not care in any way that Israel is at war in Gaza. Yes, it is a humanitarian disaster and possible genocide, but is brutal behavior a rare occurrence in international politics? Aren't realists the first to point out that in a world without a central government, governments will not hesitate to take certain actions if they think they will benefit from it and that no one will stop them. Remember how the United States reacted after Pearl Harbor or after 11/XNUMX, how Russia is behaving in Ukraine, or how the opposing sides are behaving in Sudan and you will understand what I am talking about.
Still, prominent foreign policy realists — including Chas Freeman, John Mearsheimer, and my little self — are extremely critical of Israel's behavior in Gaza and the support it receives from the Biden administration. Isn't it strange that the followers of a hard heartless approach to world politics are suddenly talking about morality? It's not.
This confusion stems in part from a frequent misunderstanding of realism; primarily the understanding that its proponents believe that ethical dilemmas should play little or no role in foreign policy. It's ridiculous, which becomes clear at the first reading of some canon of realpolitik.
Hans J. Morgenthau wrote an entire book exploring the tensions between political efficiency and moral principles, and emphasized that “moral questions (of politics) raise their voices and demand answers”. EH Kar was not a true realist, but he wrote a classic work of realism and made it clear that moral considerations cannot be excluded from political life. Virtually all of Kenneth Volz's works on international politics focus on the problem of peace and the conditions or policies that strengthen or undermine it, and he has consistently criticized the tendency of powerful states to commit evil in pursuit of idealistic goals. And prominent realists such as George Kennan, Walter Lippmann, Morgenthau, Volz, and their intellectual descendants opposed many of America's actions, both for strategic reasons and on moral grounds.
Like all human beings, we who find realism a useful way of thinking about world politics also have moral principles and would like to live in a world where those principles are more consistently respected. It is true that realists take into account the moral dimension of international politics precisely because they recognize how easy it is for states and other political groups to act immorally. Realists aren't surprised by what's happening in Gaza - as I've pointed out, plenty of other states have done terrible things at times when they believed their interests were threatened - but that doesn't mean realists approve of what Israel and the US are doing.
Realists' criticism of the Gaza war stems in part from their commitment to the limits of military power and the importance of nationalism. They are acutely aware of the difficulties that foreign invaders usually face when trying to dominate or destroy another nation by armed force, which is why they have concluded that Israel's attempt to destroy Hamas by bombing and invading Gaza is doomed. It is becoming increasingly clear that Hamas will survive the Israeli attack, and even if it does not, new resistance organizations will emerge as long as the Palestinians are occupied, denied their basic political rights, and gradually stripped of their territory.
Equally important is the fact that realists oppose Israel's actions (and US complicity) because that combination undermines America's global position. The war in Gaza has made it clear that America's commitment to a “rules-based order” is meaningless; it's honestly hard to believe that American officials can say that phrase with a serious expression on their face.
The recent United Nations General Assembly resolution granting new "rights and privileges" to Palestine - which passed by 143 votes to 9 with 25 abstentions - showed America's growing isolation as well as the persistent US veto of UN Security Council resolutions that call for a ceasefire. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is demanding an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant for war crimes and crimes against humanity (along with Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniya and Mohamed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri). Washington will undoubtedly reject it, and further show how out of sync it is with most of the world.
The time American leaders have devoted to the conflict between the roughly 15 million people in Israel and Palestine is time they could have spent visiting other key allies, crafting better policies in Ukraine, developing effective economic strategies for Asia, channeling global support to address climate change or on a number of other far more important topics
Surveys also suggest that US popularity has fallen sharply in the Middle East and slightly in Europe, while support for China, Russia and Iran has increased. Less than a month after the war began, a report by the pro-Israel Institute for Near East Policy in Washington warned: “America is losing compared to its adversaries because of the war in Gaza. The percentage of Arabs who believe America played a positive role in the war is only 7 percent, with figures as low as 2 percent in countries like Jordan. By contrast, the percentage of Arabs who say China is playing a positive role in the conflict includes 46 percent in Egypt, 34 percent in Iraq and 27 percent in Jordan. Moreover, Iran seems to benefit greatly from this war. The median percentage of those who say Iran has had a positive impact on the war is 40 percent, compared to 21 percent who say it has had a negative impact. In countries like Egypt and Syria, the percentage of those who say that Iran has a positive influence in Gaza is even higher, reaching as high as 50 percent and 52 percent.
Also, war is not cheap. The US Congress approved billions upon billions of dollars in additional aid to help Israel destroy Gaza, along with $320 million for a floating dock that the United States had to build because the "ally" we support would not allow aid agencies to send aid trucks. US military forces have used expensive missiles and bombs against the Houthis in Yemen, who have begun terrorizing ships in and around the Red Sea in protest of what Israel is doing. I know these amounts are not that big for a country with a 25 trillion dollar economy, but it would be nice to spend this money to help Americans instead of helping to kill Palestinians in Gaza. The next time future budget hawks in Congress say they have to cut some domestic programs, remind them how much they were willing to pay for Israel's war.
War also consumes enormous amounts of the time, energy, and attention of top officials. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and CIA Director William Burns traveled to the region on multiple occasions and spent countless hours grappling with these issues. The same goes for other high-ranking officials, including President Joe Biden. The time American leaders have devoted to the conflict between the roughly 15 million people in Israel and Palestine is time they could have spent visiting other key allies, crafting better policies in Ukraine, developing effective economic strategies for Asia, channeling global support to address climate change or to a number of other far more important topics.
The next time future budget hawks in Congress say they have to cut some domestic programs, remind them how much they were willing to pay for Israel's war
The big winners in this story are of course Russia and China. For many people around the world - and especially for much of the global south - the carnage in Gaza lends credence to claims by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping that global American "leadership" is sowing conflict and suffering and that the world would be better off in a multipolar order where power distributed more equally. You may not agree with that argument, but millions of people do, and our current politics lends it credibility. Meanwhile, Chinese leaders are wasting no time visiting Israel and giving Netanyahu a chance to publicly humiliate them; they have their hands full building economic ties and strengthening the "borderless" partnership with Russia. Surely they give thanks every day for the costly distraction that the war in Gaza represents for the United States.
And finally, realists object to what Israel is doing because it brings absolutely no strategic benefits to the United States. Although its value is sometimes exaggerated, during the Cold War it could be argued that Israel was a useful counterbalance to Soviet influence in the Middle East. However, the Cold War ended more than 30 years ago, and unconditional support for Israel today does not make Americans safer. Some defenders of Israel now argue that it is a powerful counterweight to Iran and a valuable partner against terrorism; but they fail to mention that our relationship with Israel is one of the reasons why the United States has a bad relationship with Iran and one of the reasons why terrorists like Al Qaeda chose to attack the US.
The plain fact is that bombing Gaza until there is nothing left of it will not make Americans safer or more prosperous and is completely contrary to the values Americans like to propagate. It could even make the United States less safe, if it inspires a new generation of anti-American terrorists like the late Osama bin Laden. Nor will that policy make Israel safer, only a political solution to the conflict can do that.
And that's why realists like me shake our heads at what the US and Israel are doing today. On rare and wonderful occasions, states can pursue policies that simultaneously represent their strategic interests and moral values. In other cases, they have to choose between the two and the choice is difficult (especially when it is in favor of the other). However, in this case, the US is actively undermining its own strategic interests and supporting the mass killing of innocent people, largely because US leaders are trapped in an outdated view of the conflict and too beholden to one powerful interest group. To any good realist, doing bad for no good purpose is the worst sin of all.
The author is a columnist for the magazine Forin Polisi
Translation: NB
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