US Should Learn, Not Lecture: Israel & Ukraine Show Tactical Brillian

Michael Rubin

Source Link

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon flies a presence patrol over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Feb. 23, 2025. Fighting Falcons fly routine patrols over the AOR to deter aggression and bolster the regional defensive posture. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jackson Manske)

ODESSA, UKRAINE—Too often, policymakers in the White House and Pentagon, or pundits on cable news shows, approach war fighting in far off lands with a 6,000-mile screwdriver.

They try dictate strategy and often criticize states for their failure either to follow U.S. practices. Many proponents of and participants in the Iraq and Afghanistan surge, for example, chide allies for not following that playbook without any sense of self-awareness that the surge appeared to sacrifice short-term quiet for long-term chaos in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ‘6,000-Mile Screwdriver’: Why US Must Stop Dictating to Frontline Allies

Accompanying criticism about failure to follow U.S. diktats is the tendency to chide allies for their refusal to engage in diplomacy with sworn adversaries.

Hence, for decades U.S. diplomats and even many military officials, urged Israel to accept Hezbollah as a fact of life. A sitting U.S. ambassador once told me at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that “Hezbollah is not a terrorist group” and that Washington would fail in its policy until it accepted that. During the Biden administration, U.S. policy—especially that of Special Energy Envoy—Amos Hochstein was to accommodate the terrorist group.

Hochstein was not alone. Both the Biden and also George W. Bush’s team criticized Israel for its tactics and efforts to fight Hezbollah. Quietly, officials in each administration urged diplomacy with the group, if not directly than through intermediaries like Germany.

Israel shocked the United States with its sabotage of Hezbollah beepers. After years of planning and with an imagination that the U.S. national security and intelligence bureaucracy lacks, it castrated Hezbollah, figuratively and in many cases literally.