Leon T. Hadar: Israel’s Post-American Future
[Leon T. Hadar is a research fellow at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank. A shorter version of this article was published in Haaretz.]
“We cannot exist alone.” That is Israel’s national security axiom acknowledged by President Shimon Peres during an address in Jerusalem in November. “For our existence we need the friendship of the United States of America,” stressed the Israeli statesman, highlighting the geo-strategic reality. “It doesn’t sound easy, but this is the truth,” he added. It’s not easy for a client-state to admit that its own survival depends on a global patron.
It’s even more challenging for leaders of a dependent state to recognize that the great power they are relying on may be entering into an imperial twilight time,–that it’s not so great anymore. Inertia, wishful thinking and the power of vested interests explains why elites in the empire’s capital–as well as in the provinces–continue to share in the misconception about the hegemon’s ability to exert global influence–even as that influence is being eroded.
But after a prolonged “recognition lag”–extending from the military fiasco in Iraq to the financial meltdown in Wall Street–it’s becoming clear to policymakers in Washington that the U.S. is facing the prospects of geostrategic decline. The military is overstretched in unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a decaying economic base financed by Chinese loans is making it difficult to sustain expansive global commitments. The Unipolar Moment is coming to an end and rising global powers are creating the conditions for the evolution of multipolarism.
It seems, however, that Israeli leaders continue to operate under the illusion that the U.S. remains the paramount global power...
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“We cannot exist alone.” That is Israel’s national security axiom acknowledged by President Shimon Peres during an address in Jerusalem in November. “For our existence we need the friendship of the United States of America,” stressed the Israeli statesman, highlighting the geo-strategic reality. “It doesn’t sound easy, but this is the truth,” he added. It’s not easy for a client-state to admit that its own survival depends on a global patron.
It’s even more challenging for leaders of a dependent state to recognize that the great power they are relying on may be entering into an imperial twilight time,–that it’s not so great anymore. Inertia, wishful thinking and the power of vested interests explains why elites in the empire’s capital–as well as in the provinces–continue to share in the misconception about the hegemon’s ability to exert global influence–even as that influence is being eroded.
But after a prolonged “recognition lag”–extending from the military fiasco in Iraq to the financial meltdown in Wall Street–it’s becoming clear to policymakers in Washington that the U.S. is facing the prospects of geostrategic decline. The military is overstretched in unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a decaying economic base financed by Chinese loans is making it difficult to sustain expansive global commitments. The Unipolar Moment is coming to an end and rising global powers are creating the conditions for the evolution of multipolarism.
It seems, however, that Israeli leaders continue to operate under the illusion that the U.S. remains the paramount global power...