Saying that the U.S. has the right to defend itself doesn't mean the United States must defer to Israel on all things, especially when it is harming American interests abroad. Washington officials say are concerned about protecting civilians amid ongoing Israeli military operations on the ground in Gaza, but these same officials continue to support $3.8 billion a year in military aid, plus more on the way.
Meanwhile, the war in Gaza increases the risk of the United States itself getting into a wider war. Biden's unwavering support is putting U.S. global standing at risk and harming its national security.
The president has the leverage to stop this. But leverage doesn't work unless you specify a cost or apply real pressure, a step the Biden administration has so far, been unwilling to take. Watch more below:
Khody Akhavi is Senior Video Producer at the Quincy Institute. Previously he was Head of Video for Al-Monitor and covered the White House for Al Jazeera English, as well as produced films for the network’s flagship investigative unit.
The Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, though it lacks a coherent strategy, is at least centered on an explicit guiding principle: Russia must not be allowed to win in Ukraine. This sentiment is widely shared by U.S. allies across the Atlantic. "I have a clear strategic objective,” said French President Emmanuel Macron in a recent interview. “Russia cannot win in Ukraine.”
But, even in this consensus position, there is a major fly in the ointment: there has not been enough serious consideration of what a Russian victory in Ukraine would look like. The discussion has, instead, centered on alarmist predictions that obfuscate more than they reveal about Russian intentions and capabilities. “Who can pretend that Russia will stop there? What security will there be for the other neighboring countries, Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and the others?” said Macron, echoing the unfounded narrative that Russia’s ultimate goal is to attack NATO states.
While it is true that Russia’s victory in this war broadly contradicts U.S. interests, a closer look at Moscow’s possible endgame scenarios in Ukraine reveals that total victory — even if it were possible — is not in Russia’s interests and is probably no longer expected or desired by the Russian leadership.
Moscow, according to Western officials, can win this war simply by defeating Ukraine’s Armed Forces (AFU) on the battlefield. At first blush, it seems like a reasonable enough interpretation of a belligerent state’s wartime objectives, but this simplistic framing of the conflict quickly falls apart upon further examination.
What would really happen if the AFU’s lines collapsed — a prospect that, though not yet imminent, appears increasingly less distant by the day — and Russian forces found themselves in a position to steamroll Ukraine?
Even if Ukrainian forces are conclusively routed on the frontlines, besieging such Ukrainian strongholds as Kharkiv and Zaporizhia — let alone Kyiv and Odessa — will prove immensely taxing. Months of drawn-out fighting over the much less significant cities of Mariupol and Bakhmut offer a small, yet nonetheless harrowing preview of what these sieges would entail.
Occupying all of Ukraine would be prohibitively expensive for Russia even in the short term, let alone for a prolonged or indefinite period. The West would likely do its best to dial up these costs by funding and coordinating partisan activities all across Ukraine, but especially in the country’s western half. There is, after all, ample historical precedent for such activity in the form of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which resisted Soviet authorities for up to five years following the end of World War II.
Prior to Russia’s invasion, commentators urged Western leaders to turn this conflict into “Putin’s Afghanistan,” with Ukrainian partisans playing the role of 1980s mujahideen fighters. These suggestions were tabled because the Ukrainian government did not, in fact, collapse in the fateful weeks following the invasion, but it remains the case that any Russian attempt to control all of Ukraine would likely precipitate a prolonged insurgency campaign and incur terrible costs as a result.
Ukraine’s collapse likewise amplifies the risks of a direct clash between Russia and the West. The establishment of a de facto boundary between eastern Poland and Russian-occupied western Ukraine would create a dangerous flashpoint that, in the absence of meaningful deconfliction channels, could erupt in a shooting war on NATO’s eastern flank.
Nor would such a war necessarily be inadvertent on the part of the West; a total Ukrainian collapse would likely spark calls among the Baltic states and at least several major European powers for direct Western intervention on the ground, whether in the form of a NATO expeditionary force or a coalition of the willing drawn up from individual NATO members. Macron has openly and repeatedly stated that the West should not rule out an intervention along these lines; though his proposal was soundly rejected by the U.S. and Germany, it can be expected that political pressure to “do something” to stop Russia will build in Europe and the United States if Kyiv’s defeat becomes imminent.
The Kremlin is well aware that it cannot unilaterally achieve its wartime goals no matter how well it does on the battlefield. Indeed, its goals extend well beyond Ukraine, though not quite in the way that Macron and the Biden administration believe. There is no evidence that Moscow has any intention of launching wars of conquest against Poland, the Baltics, or other NATO states, but it is certainly seeking to extract a host of strategic concessions from the U.S. and its allies in areas including prohibitions against eastward NATO expansion and limitations on force deployments along NATO’s eastern flank.
The war that Russia is waging in Ukraine is thus a proxy for the Kremlin’s larger coercive strategy against the West, though it is not at all clear that conquering Ukraine will bring Moscow any closer to getting its desired concessions. The AFU’s collapse would certainly induce a state of panic in Western capitals. Yet it is difficult to see how this panic can be translated into a concrete willingness by the Biden administration and other Western leaders to strike the kind of grand security bargain Moscow seeks.
In fact, considering how politically invested current Western governments are in Ukraine’s war effort, there is a chance that Ukrainian collapse could produce the opposite reaction and render Western leaders even less likely to enter into substantive talks with Moscow.
Simply put, Russia has little to gain and much to lose by “winning” in Ukraine, if winning is defined as occupying the entire country. Instead, Russia’s incentive is to use its growing advantages as a lever for negotiating with the West. The Kremlin, in light of these conditions, has previously hinted at establishing demilitarized buffer zones in Ukraine that are not under Russian control.
Regardless of what happens on the battlefield in coming weeks and months, Moscow has started something it cannot unilaterally finish. This gives the U.S. tremendous inherent leverage in shaping the outlines of war termination — Washington and its allies should use it now to bring an end to this war on the best possible terms for the West as well as Ukraine.
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Palesitinians leave Khan Yunis towards safer areas in Rafah following the directives of the Israeli army, instructing residents of the Hamad area to vacate their homes and proceed towards Rafah, near the border with Egypt, 03/04/2024 via Reuters
Israel has begun launching airstrikes in Rafah ahead of a likely invasion of the city, where more than 1.5 million Gazans have taken shelter in camps near the border with Egypt.
The airstrikes came just hours after the Israeli government told Palestinians to flee the city, a demand that aid groups fear will worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where famine has begun to take hold. The European Union’s foreign policy chief called the evacuation order “unacceptable.”
The apparent decision to invade Rafah comes as ceasefire talks broke down over the weekend. Israel says the logjam came after an alleged Hamas attack on Israeli soldiers at the Kerem Shalom crossing, while Hamas blamed the breakdown on Israel’s decision to start evacuations of Rafah.
The possibility of an Israeli assault in Rafah puts President Joe Biden in a precarious position. The White House has already found itself at odds with many Democrats due to Biden’s refusal to break with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his deadly campaign in Gaza. A bloody escalation of the war would further divide his party and ratchet up pressure to do something to stop Israel’s campaign.
Biden may have already internalized that message. On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that, absent a credible plan to protect civilians, “we can’t support a major military operation going into Rafah because the damage it would do is beyond what’s acceptable.”
But the Biden administration has consistently balked at opportunities to hold Israel accountable for alleged war crimes and human rights abuses. Just last week, the White House walked back a threat to restrict weapons transfers to certain Israeli units due to “gross violations of human rights.”
A new chance to restrict arms sales could come Wednesday of this week, when the Biden administration will issue a mandatory report to Congress evaluating Israel’s assurances that it won’t use American weapons in ways that violate U.S. and international laws.
An independent analysis from legal experts and former State Department officials found numerous attacks that should have already triggered a cutoff in U.S. support. And nearly 90 House Democrats signed a letter last week calling on the administration to suspend certain weapons transfers to Israel.
A key question is whether a Rafah invasion will further restrict the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid. Experts say Israel has already violated U.S. law stipulating that Washington will not give weapons to countries that block American aid transfers, and a Rafah invasion would likely lead to further violations.
There is also significant doubt surrounding Israeli assurances that its operation will minimize harm to civilians. Those who are now fleeing Rafah will reportedly have to evacuate to nearby Khan Younis and al-Mawasi, neither of which has the capacity to receive incoming displaced people or provide them with much-needed aid.
It’s unclear how many Gazans will be able to escape before the full-scale assault begins. Israel’s previous actions suggest that its tolerance for killing civilians is higher than that of that of the Biden administration.
Biden will have a chance to impart that message later today, when he will reportedly speak with Netanyahu and presumably urge the Israeli leader to change course. But the question remains: Is the Biden administration finally ready to publicly break with Israel?
Providing funds towards artillery and munitions development, replenishing defense systems, and Gaza aid, the package also includes $1.2 billion towards Israel’s sci-fiesque “Iron Beam” laser weapon, a prospective directed energy system for air defense.
Once operational, Iron Beam’s systems appear slated to revolutionize Israel’s defense capacities, escalate the ongoing crisis in Gaza and already boiling tensions in the Middle East, and normalize lasers’ use in warfare as efforts towards directed energy weapons (DEWs) intensify. What’s more, the U.S. seems interested in procuring Iron Beam and adjacent technologies to its own ends, perhaps facilitating DEWs’ further future proliferation.
What is Iron Beam?
A prospective successor to Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system, which launches missiles to intercept and shoot down incoming threats within Israeli borders, Iron Beam is a directed energy system that neutralizes or brings down incoming projectiles with a fiber laser.
"[Iron Beam] is a game-changer because we cannot only strike the enemy militarily but also weaken it economically," former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett remarked back in 2022, explaining that with Iron Beam, “[Israel’s adversaries can] invest tens of thousands of dollars in a rocket and we can invest two dollars to cover the cost of the electricity in shooting down the rocket."
Bad weather can blunt the system’s effectiveness, however, which means Iron Beam is perhaps best used in tandem with the Iron Dome system for comprehensive air defense.
Aware of their potential, a number of countries are developing DEWs. The UK recently tested its “DragonFire” laser weapon, which reportedly can hit a coin from a kilometer away. And Russia’s Peresvet laser system, designed to disable or “blind” high-altitude spacecraft, like satellites, and the Zadira laser system, which can shoot down drones, further, are being tested on Ukraine’s battlefields.
Likewise, the U.S. spends about $1 billion annually to develop laser and adjacent directed energy weaponry. Notably, the U.S. Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office is overseeing an Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High Energy Laser prototype program, awarding Lockheed Martin with a contract for the project in October 2023. Once operational, the laser is designed to counter or neutralize rockets, artillery, mortars and other projectiles hostile to warfighters in tandem with a military’s other defense components.
Ultimately, DEWs offer a cheap, accurate solution for militaries looking to counter drones and other aerial threats. But their destructive capacities, where Iron Beam’s lasers are able to neutralize and destroy many projectiles with a simple laser fire, are clear and contribute to an ever more perilous future for warfare.
Military aid to Israel accelerates DEW proliferation
Iron Beam’s pending operationality, whose deployment is reportedly being expedited by manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, poses heightened dangers within the context of Israel’s ongoing destruction of the Gaza Strip. Although Iron Beam was created for defensive purposes, Israel could plausibly repurpose its lasers as offensive purposes. Indeed, Israel has previously utilized other controversial and experimental weapons systems in Gaza, such as its new AI-powered Gospel and Lavender systems for military targeting.
Meanwhile, just as the U.S. had purchased batteries for Israel’s Iron Dome in the past (after October 7, it leased the two Iron Dome missile systems it purchased back to Israel), the U.S. is considering procuring Iron Beam for itself, suggesting that U.S. military aid to Israel is not only about assisting an ally, but also about expanding and upping U.S. military capacities.
Ultimately, U.S. military aid to Israel enables and exacerbates its campaign against the Palestinian people while fueling prospects for greater conflict in the region. When applied towards projects like Iron Beam, moreover, such funds assist the introduction and normalization of consequential and destructive weapons systems within military contexts without substantive public debate.