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- [00:01]
A
Julia, I have to say, given that you're recently returned from a tropical locale, you don't have the usual, my usual kind of pastiche that I have, which is that I'm usually like bright, bright red. But you seem very reasonably colored. Obviously you are a complete native. You figured out and mastered the system.
- [00:18]
B
It's called makeup, Scott.
- [00:19]
A
Ah, ah, that is an advantage, I suppose.
- [00:21]
B
But also from 18 years of living in Hawaii, I, I would get tanned from a sort of a white to kind of a beige. No one will ever believe that I'm from Hawaii unless I show pictures. Sadly, yeah.
- [00:36]
A
I get a little tan from walking by a fryer at a McDonald's. So that's okay all around. You're doing reasonably, reasonably well. Dan and Ari, have you guys got to do any vacation traveling yet or you guys still have your vacations ahead of you?
- [00:49]
C
So I'm actually off this weekend to a kind of local theater festival in Charleston, West Virginia, or I'm sorry, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, Virginia, which I commend to everyone. It's five kind of small, low budget plays that they run throughout the weekend. So doing lots of small things like that to culturally enrich myself and maybe hit the beach once or twice. But other than that, it's a pretty low key summer for me.
- [01:16]
D
No vacation yet, but I just came back from Ankara, which was a work trip, but. And Dan will be very excited about this. I am planning my first road trip in the Midwest, which means that I'm going to be adding a bunch of states I've never been to to my list of, you know, 50 states I would like to explore at some point. So, you know, stay tuned. We'll have a lot more to share about Michigan specifically and possibly Indiana.
- [01:42]
B
You know, being from Hawaii, you know, I never really had been to the middle of the country. And so my thought on them was always that they were square states. Because when you're flying over them and you look out the window, you see nothing but. But squares. Is that not true? I mean, you're there on the ground.
- [01:59]
C
I will say there are a lot of grids, right? And open space meant you could keep the grid going and going and going.
- [02:06]
A
So that's not a slam, that's just good land use policy. Just take it. That's efficient, man. You need those right angles to run them together. Otherwise you got dead space in the middle. Everybody's doing circles, you end up with all those little edges. Wendy's learned this years ago.
- [02:17]
C
The DC L' Enfant design is kind of a disaster from, from a traffic management point of view, so aesthetically so nice.
- [02:25]
A
Those avenues, you can't get enough. Hello everyone and welcome back to Rational Security, the show where we invite you to join members of the Lawfare team as we try to make sense of the week's biggest national security news stories. I am your host, Scott R. Anderson. Thrilled to be back for another week with my very talented Lawfare colleague to help me make sense of said news stories. It has been a very international week, lots of international news stories, and I have my international crew here joining me once again. Joining me first off is veteran of Rational Security, going all the way back to 1.0, I have no doubt is Lawfare's foreign policy editor, general foreign affairs and national security maven, Dan Byman. Dan, thank you for coming back on the podcast.
- [03:08]
C
Always happy to be here, Scott.
- [03:10]
A
Also joining us is Lawfare contributing editor, former public service fellow, now Vice president at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Ari Tabatabay. Ari, thank you for coming back on the podcast.
- [03:19]
D
Thanks for having me again.
- [03:21]
A
And joining us is Lawfare's most recent addition. The most recent Lawfare public Service fellow following in Ari's footsteps is none other than the newly refreshed, tropically sun kissed Julia Curley. Julia, thank you for coming back on the podcast.
- [03:34]
B
Absolutely, Scott. You can see how tanned and ready to go I am.
- [03:38]
A
There you go. In spite of the makeup, evidently. But we'll take it. We'll take it. Well, we have had a big week in the makings in international affairs. Let me get right into it with our topics and tee it up for our conversation. Topic one for this week. Truce or Consequences? The fragile ceasefire that had paused the US Iran war since the spring now appears to have collapsed. After Iran struck several commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the United States has launched several successive nights of strikes, hitting more than 300 targets across Iran. Iran has in turn retaliate against US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, or at least attempted to do so. Speaking from the NATO summit in Ankara, one of our other topics conversation this week, President Trump declared the June memorandum of understanding over, even as he insisted that talks towards a lasting peace could continue. By the weekend, Iran had declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and US Officials were describing the ceasefires fully broken down. Then yesterday, President Trump escalated further, declaring that the United States would keep and run the strait as its self styled guardian, instating a blockade on Iranian ships and charging a 20% fee of all cargo passing through. Although he has since walked back that last requirement as of this morning, an arrangement that Tehran unsurprisingly has flatly rejected, as I suspect have a few other countries in the region. At least on that 20% point, is the war fully back on and is there any diplomatic path left to pull both sides back from the Brink? Topic 2 Root Awakening NATO's leaders gathered in Ankara last week for a summit that Secretary General Mark Root billed as the launch of NATO 3.0 a stronger, more self reliant Europe inside an alliance less dependent on the United States. Allies touted rapid progress towards last year's pledge to spend 5% of GDP on defense, announcing more than $50 billion in new procurement and at least 70 billion euros in fresh military for Ukraine. But the gathering was overshadowed by friction with President who publicly berated allies for declining to help in the Iran war and briefly revived his campaign to acquire control of Greenland before ending On a somewhat more conciliatory note, what did the Ankara summit actually accomplish and what does NATO 3.0 mean for the alliance's future? Topic 3 Bad Bromance the once close alliance between Washington, Jerusalem and between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is showing unusual public strain. Trump has repeatedly clashed with Netanyahu over Israel's continued military operations in Lebanon, which have threatened the Iran ceasefire, and over the stalled second phase of his Gaza peace peace plan, which is all but wilted as Hamas has refused to disarm and Israel has refused to withdraw. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth abruptly canceled a planned trip to Israel earlier this month and a possible F35 sailed to Turkey has added to the unease between the two countries. The tensions turned vivid this past week when Democratic Representative Rokhanna said he was detained for more than an hour by armed Israeli settlers and then later by the IDF during a visit to the west bank and armed settlers attacked the CNN crew and other journalists just days later at home. Israeli confidence in Trump has plummeted in advance of Israeli elections later this year, even as US primaries produced a number of candidates, a record number of candidates critical of Israel, particularly on the left. Just how strained is the US Israeli relationship and how might Israel's coming elections and America's midterms reshape it? So for our first topic, Julia, let me start with you on this. We have been living under the ceasefire for the last several weeks in Iran. It was a ceasefire they think. I'll had a lot of people raising a lot of questions about the wisdom of it, but the one brights of it that most people seem to agree is that it seemed to open the door for some traffic to come through the Strait of Hormuz in the last week. Now this has completely broken down to the point, I think it's fair to say that looks like we are back to square one. The United States is blockading Iranian ports. The United States is going back to its Operation Freedom that installed in May or something similar model where it is purporting to provide security to vessels transiting the Strait. We don't know exactly what the terms of that look like, how effective it will be and talk about that, I have doubts myself. But regardless, we, we basically seem to be in a situation a lot like where we were in May before the ceasefire, which is that we are not yet seeing a full resumption of the scale of hostilities. The scale of targeting that we saw in the first 30 days of the military campaign, nothing close to that, but we are seeing a substantial clip up in the kind of assertive targeting we are seeing of Iranian targets moving beyond just self defense strikes to these, as CENTCOM often describes it, presidentially authorized strikes. These are strikes using the President's Article 2 authority, not premised on the basis of kind of a more direct self defense theory that are going after Iranian capabilities primarily threatening the Strait so far, although who knows where it can go from here. How big a breakdown is this do you think, in this ceasefire? I mean, is there a space to recover from this? And what is the path forward from here? It strikes me that this is a situation that doesn't have frankly like an easy road out.
- [08:14]
B
Thanks, Scott. I think that the big picture is that this was not a peace that failed. This was a pause that was written by a real estate developer and a son in law. That was always going to fail. It was going to fail because the terms of the deal could be interpreted by both sides in a mutually incompatible way. And it was going to fail if the Israelis were co belligerence in the fight, but not actually a part of the deal. The deal itself said nothing on Lebanon, which turned out to be one of Iran's core issues. Israel kept striking in southern Lebanon. Netanyahu said the struggle was not over. And so this was an amateur hour deal that was produced with a detonator built into it. And so what I think we're in for is a period which I would call a violent competitive bargaining phase. There's an American ideal of how a conflict should end, which is that there should be unconditional surrender. Sometimes we'll even turn our enemies into our allies. But that's not actually how most wars end. And so what I think we're in now is a bargaining phase, haggling over the terms with a strike, pause, shuttle diplomacy and repeat, where the shooting and the talking are one negotiation.
- [09:22]
A
So it is a difficult pattern to understand exactly where this goes in, because we're seeing, we've seen this sort of back and forth throughout the ceasefire's lifespan. I mean, we saw US military action against Iranian targets, I think just days after the MOU was negotiated, and we saw it a kind of repeated clip. But there are small, narrow, targeted actions, usually directly in response to some sort of threatened action, at least as described by US forces. And clearly in my mind, intended to say, okay, Iranians, we're not going to let you go too far in targeting vessels, but we're not going to try and re. Escalate in a way to break down that tolerance, that sense that we want to preserve the broad architecture of this MOU really is what seems to have broken down in the last week. Both you can argue about who. Who did it first, but, you know, at least in terms of the description for the administration, and I actually think this more or less lines up with reporting, it does look like we saw some really substantial, serious attacks against shipping happening, particularly more on the Oman side of the Strait, where we've seen vessels kind of moving, trying to evade and worried about Iranian threats, including someone where we saw a ship completely disabled. You saw 11, I believe there were Indian sailors having to evacuate, one of whom was still unaccounted for, at least of the last report I read, so may well end up proving to be a fatal attack. And that appears to reciprocate this. The cycle where the United States is now hitting back. You can call it re establishing deterrence, my least favorite phrase in these sorts of discussions, whatever you want to call it. But they're trying to take more proactive action targeting the Iranians. How do you come back from that sort of cycle? I mean, we're in an escalatory cycle now. It seems to me the response of the Iranians in response to perceived American actions, that they escalated. Now the United States has escalated against Iran. Now Iran has escalated against regional partners, and not only a pretty broad swath of regional partners. We had missiles reportedly intercepted on their way to US military facilities in Jordan, you know, a far stretch beyond the Gulf. So talk to us about what sort of path you see out of this. How do you actually get out of this sort of dangerous cycle? And is the MOU a vehicle to do it. Or is this about stepping beyond MOU and accepting that we're back to square one? Julia, I'll turn to you first. And I'll turn to Ari and Dan next.
- [11:27]
B
So I'm fairly pessimistic that we're going to get back to a deal that is any better than the terms that were on the table before the most recent round of violence. So CENTCOM is saying that it's keeping a target list as leverage, trying to use force as a messaging tool. But at the end of the day, the Iranians have the upper hand. They have the Strait of Hormuz, where they can use it to throttle traffic, to match the mood at the table, to ratchet up the pressure on the United States. There's a mismatch in the level of interest and commitment between the two parties. We have Iran fighting a war of survival, ready to impose costs upon the US that we're not willing to sustain in a war of choice that we began that's been unpopular from the beginning. And so with the administration not articulating a credible outcome that's any different than the status quo ante, the Iranians are just going to wait until we eventually negotiate ourselves down and provide greater and greater concessions for them to stop the attacks upon vessels that are transiting the strait, which is now functionally closed.
- [12:32]
A
Aria, let me turn to you. I want to take your perspective on this. Let me add one other wrinkle under this. We've seen at least some reports so far, unconfirmed reports, that there was some back channeling happening from the Iranians, at least some of the early strikes, particularly against them. The shipping reports indicate some fuddy inter on, particularly I think really tied to the negotiating team, was saying that this was actually essentially a rogue IRGC element, or an IRGC element acting independently without the full sign off of the architecture, saying they want to get on track towards a ceasefire, but that this was something that was out of their control, not sanctioned by them. Do you give much credibility to those reports? I mean, they are unconfirmed. I don't think we really know. Does it seem plausible to you, at least? And what does that tell us about the added difficulties of negotiating here when, again, the Iranian leadership structure, even now, even after the funeral of the Ayatollah this past week, still seems a little unclear exactly who's in charge and exactly who is calling the shots?
- [13:28]
D
Yeah, well, so I agree with everything Julia has said so far, which is that I think, in essence, this is the new steady state for the foreseeable future. We are probably. And I think, Scott, you asked at the. At the beginning, do we come back from this? And I don't think we do for the foreseeable future. I think what we're going to likely see is these episodic kind of escalations. And whether it's accompanied by some sort of message from Iran saying, oh, it was just rogue IRGC people doing this or not, I think we're going to probably see these episodic tensions and then kind of at the same time, on and off negotiations between the two sides that are not really going to go anywhere. And by not going to go anywhere, I mean nowhere substantive. Right. Like we're not going to end up with a comprehensive deal that actually addresses the various things that at the outside of the war, were laid out as the key objectives for these operations, including degrading Iran's nuclear capabilities, ensuring Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon, and so on and so forth. So I think this is just the new steady state. And, you know, I think that to Julia's earlier point, the Iranians have seen the writing on the wall. They got a bunch of concessions on the front end of these negotiations that essentially gave them everything they had been wanting for years and years that no other administration had given to them. And that includes language on US Withdrawal from the region and includes language on determination of all US Sanctions on Iran, including things like human that were not even on the table at that point. Second, the President has signaled over and over again that he is not particularly interested in focusing on this issue for the foreseeable future. He feels like he's kind of, you know, done what he set out to do, and he can kind of control the situation, the way things are going, and he is interested in moving on to Cuba and other issues. And three, the elections are just four months away. And this is as far as foreign policy issues go. This is probably gonna be one of the issues that actually sticks on some level in the minds of voters as they go to the ballot box. Not because they particularly care about what's going on in the Middle east, but because they care deeply about the economic impact of this conflict. And from everything we've seen, from fertilizers to oil to basically gas to prices, all of those things are being affected by this conflict. To your second question about this IRGC rogue narrative, it is a narrative that has been, you know, there for a long time that is a very convenient one for Iran to dangle in front of us every few years when things happen. Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely, I don't think so. Especially in this environment where the IRGC has really attained a more consolidated influence over the political situation in Iran. And so I do think that especially in times of conflict where the regime is actually really trying to kind of maintain its grip on power, it's trying to consolidate. You're not really going to have a ton of rogue activity by IRGC operatives. I do think it is a very convenient narrative for them to put out there, though, and say, hey, we're negotiating with you. We don't know what the other guys are doing. I mean, there is, you know, you have to a. It's the kind of narrative that we've heard over and over again. I don't think it's typically proven to be correct for the most part. And I think in this case it is even less likely that it is an accurate depiction of what's going on domestically within Iran.
- [17:16]
A
Dan, let me turn to you on this because, you know, there's a lot to be said. We've heard from Julia and Ari about this idea that we're returning to a new steady state in this sort of situation. Part of that steady state is something that President Trump does suggest in his tweets he's trying to address, but it's something that's proven hard to be, which is that the general military control of the Strait of Hormuz. He says we're going to essentially become the guardians of the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to start asserting control over it and then being able to guarantee safety. And that's why we get our 20% or our lucrative trade and investment deals with the Gulf countries, which is what he's kind of replaced the 20% with as of this morning. The problem with that strikes me that this is what the United States said it was going to do in early May with Project Freedom, I think it was called. It said they're going to do this at various points. And it's always been kind of ruled out as a, as a possibility. Or at least their assertions of US Military presence hasn't actually stopped their rave attacks enough to allow maritime shipping to come back to the level that you would need to address the economic problems from this. So operationally, what would be needed if you were actually able to accomplish that goal? Do we have a sense of that and how feasible is that? What would the cost be? What would the trade offs be?
- [18:29]
C
So the cost is a human cost and a political cost. You could imagine kind of multiple types of deployments. One is a Continual large scale US Navy deployment in the region where the United States is really trying to control or at least shape naval traffic anywhere near Iran, especially as you get to the strait. And that is certainly doable. We have an exceptionally capable navy. But there's an incredible strain being put on the force. And we've already seen that in terms of very basic things like maintenance and in general kind of modernization efforts and training. And given the demands on the Navy, especially in the Pacific, there's a real opportunity cost to keeping large forces. And then if you want to talk about actually opening the strait there, you get the ground troops. And this could be relatively limited numbers with a lot of air power, but you're still putting people on the ground and you're giving the Iranians a target. And military operations, especially of this sort, it's really hard to make predictions about how many people might die. But certainly there's a high possibility that some Americans would die in these operations. And the longer they went on, the more that likelihood is. And President Trump is exceptionally sensitive to U.S. casualties. I think he embarked on this operation on the kind of naive assumption that this could be immaculate from a US Point of view. We'd go in and the Iranians, after a couple days would just surrender or at least kowtow, and this would be over. So there certainly are possibilities, but there isn't enthusiasm, at least to my knowledge, on the US Military side for this, and certainly not on the side of the politicians in the Trump administration, especially, as I can tell, including the President of the United States himself. Every person you've talked to on this podcast probably has their own personal working model of President Trump. So I'll give you a couple of my insights or, or that people can take with many grains of salt. But he does seem to be exceptionally short term in his thinking. It seems to be, how do I get through the problem I'm facing right now and just have it off the front pages this week and we'll move on? And I think that showed up to a degree in the mou, which, as Julia said, was just not written by serious professionals because that would have taken more time and required more effort. And instead there was a rush to it. And not surprisingly, the problems with the MoU contribute to the collapse of a very fragile ceasefire. But I don't think Trump is thinking particularly long term. I think he was putting pressure on Israel earlier on Lebanon, because he wanted a ceasefire now. And I think he's thinking, okay, how do I get the Iranians back on the table in the Short term. I do think I'm perhaps a bit more optimistic than Ari and Julia about this. Not in the sense of maybe optimistic is the wrong word. I believe in a greater likelihood of a return to more of a ceasefire and think of this as a spectrum rather than as an absolute. But part of why I believe that is I believe the Trump administration is willing to make concessions for everyone who is part of the session. We've all kind of watched Iran US relations over the years, and the concessions that were already on the table were actually rather staggering from a historic US Point of view. But I think Iran spots weakness on the US side and is probably correct. So I think there's at least a possibility the Trump administration might return to even more concessions, especially as the price of oil and gas starts to rise, as anger from US Gulf allies who do have access to the present increases. So that's at least one scenario that's a possibility.
- [22:24]
A
So that brings us to this question about what the Middle east begins to look like, if this is something like the new reality. I think what you're describing, Dan, is in the spectrum of saying close enough to the status quo or the status quo on average, over the last month. Somewhere in that kind of spectrum is where we may lie. And if that's the case, it strikes me as like that's a pretty dramatic shift in the region from a lot of different perspectives. One, it means you got the Gulf states reliant upon a major export route for a lot of their goods on Iran. That's going to give them a persistent point of leverage, even if you get some sort of negotiated solution from the United States. How long are the Gulf states going to be completely willing to work through the United States? I suspect a lot of them are going to have an incentive to work side deals. You've also got countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia who are the ones most heavily hit by the direct inability to get these energy exports from the Gulf imports in a particular refinery facility. So, like Singapore, India, or particularly extremely hard hit by this, they're probably going to make deals with Iran. You have a revenue source for Iran, you have increased leverage for Iran over some pretty strategically significant parties, if you think about India on the one hand, the Gulf states on the other. I suspect this also causes fairly substantial complications for the Gulf as being a place to host US Military forces, because it really increases the cost of transit and of location. What does the region begin to look like if this is the new normal? Dan, I'll start with you on that.
- [23:56]
C
So this is A really great and to me, very important question. The United States is stepping back in some ways from big attempts to shape the region. So we're seeing movement away from trying to do deals on Israel, Palestine, for example. But at the same time, we are seeing this continuation of a US Military presence. So I can imagine lots of allies going in very different directions actions, and some of that might be positive. They might take more of the burden on themselves for security. Some of them might work more with one another than they have in the past. We're seeing this with the UAE and Israel as one example. But a lot of it's going to be allies and partners working across purposes. And that historically has required a lot of very patient U.S. diplomacy. And that's something that this administration has not really focused on. And so I could easily imagine in some parts of the region, Turkey and Israel coming near blows in Syria is just one example, not just because they have different interests, but because the United States early on did not nip problems in the bud because it wasn't paying attention to these. We could see some of the Gulf states trying to placate Iran rather than confront Iran because they believe, perhaps correctly, that the United States is not going to be backing them them if there's a dispute. You could imagine some degree of military action at times by some states against others, probably in a much more limited way, but nevertheless the kind of hard to call it a Pax Americana where there's been so much bloodshed. But the idea that the United States was going to arbitrate disputes and push partners to work together, at least not fight each other, that to me is probably going to go away or at least diminish significantly.
- [25:52]
A
So, Ari, let me turn to you and pull in a little bit of what's going to be our second topic. But I want to pull in a relevant nexus here, which is European particularly, and NATO allies. A number of their economies are more exposed to the economic effects of this than we are, at least in some of direct effects, particularly around agricultural products, things like that. Global oil prices kind of affects everyone, although in theory they're a little more vulnerable to that as well, because they may not have the same available ability of alternatives. United States has were to cultivate additional alternatives. But we really haven't seen much. We've seen a limited willingness to engage around this issue. You see Macron doing some specific diplomacy, targeted diplomacy certainly was involved in facilitating the MoU. We haven't seen much willingness on the European partners to engage in any sort of military activity yet. And that is an interesting departure. You think about the Houthis crisis of 2023, 2024 under the Biden administration. You saw European and other allied countries actively involved in those efforts. They were genuinely national efforts, even though I would say the United States, I think, did most of the kinetic work, particularly in terms of airstrikes and things like that. Do we see space for that changing anytime soon? I mean, there are real reservations about the Iran conflict that I think are very valid and legitimate from policy, from legal perspectives. But the case for self defense, at least legally against Iran, international law gets stronger the more Iran starts hitting more and more of these neighboring states. Then you have the economic impact and then you have the fact that the original sin of the United States and Israeli intervention begins to fade as problems mount and the new Iranian regime is making all these decisions. So is there a point where you may see the Europeans more involved, which may lend itself to a more complete military solution, or is that something the United States is going to have to bear on its own for the foreseeable future?
- [27:34]
D
Well, I think partially the Europeans are trying to figure out what we've been talking about for the past, however many minutes here, which is where is all of this going? What are the assumptions that have underpinned decades of policy on Iran that have been blown up by this whole conflict and the MOU and everything that has happened since, which is many assumptions. How do they navigate this situation where they have, you know, this is a conflict that is deeply unpopular with a lot of their domestic populations. They're also, we'll come back to this in a bit. They're also trying to manage their intra NATO tensions with the United States. And at the same time they're just trying to kind of figure out where they're introduced, interests lie in Iran and they cannot, for the first time, I think in a really long time, they cannot really rely on the United States to take those into account. And that is significantly different from where we've been before. And certainly, you know, we had tensions with Europeans on, you know, the return to JCPOA under the Biden administration. There were tensions going back a decade and a half about what the JCPOA should look like under the Obama administration. But you've never had a situation in which they could not essentially count on the United States to even consider or try to understand what their interests are, let alone try to actually advance some of those things in any kind of policymaking process vis a vis Iran. So, you know, I think they're just trying to navigate a lot of these things and on some level has just created this situation where they can't really move forward because they're trying to understand where we all go collectively as a, as international community, where the dust settles, whether the, the ceasefire is back on or not, and what the situation on the strait looks like. They have noted that there are discrete areas where they would be willing to work with the United States. The freedom of navigation operations is the first and foremost where they have said that there is precedent for this through various maritime security constructs that the Europeans have led in the past that they would be engaged in trying to kind of keep the strait open, keep, keep energy and essentially commercial shipping to continue flowing through the strait. And they're willing to do some of that work. It's just a matter of where do we land and where does the shooting stop and where does that sort of next phase begin? And there's too many questions, I think, for them to know where they're going from here. So that is one of the main issues. And I think to what Dan was saying and going back to this whole notion that all of our assumptions when it comes to Iran and on some level the broader Middle east have been fundamentally just reshaped by this conflict. There's going to be a number of conversations both in Europe and here on what our toolkit actually looks like going forward with Iran. Right. If this MoU in whatever way survives, and if the sanctions end up being lifted it because there is movement in that direction, then that is going to significantly reshape the way we have dealt with Iran in the past. And by the way, Iran is not going to stop some of the behavior that had led to the sanctions, that we've had, the sanctions architecture. So how are we going to respond going forward? And that is obviously going to be a question for US Policymakers, which I am not certain to Dan's point, would just the of limited bandwidth and limited attention span that they're actually doing that thinking. I think it's certainly also going to be a question for the Europeans going forward because they've had, in some ways they've been able to kind of tag along with US Policy for over a decade and a half at this point. And now they don't have the luxury of doing that anymore.
- [31:18]
A
So before we move on to our next topic, Julie, I want to circle back to you to put on your IC analyst hat a little bit on this. I am not a regional expert, but I've been following this stuff for 20 or 15 years as a grad student a little bit in government and sort of other issues. And an outcome like this is something that I think was always a background concern about any sort of military action involving Iran. The scenario I heard the most discussed, I think over the years is more the concern of state collapse in Iran, facilitating a failed state, but that the outcome was somewhat similar, which is that, well, then you have these small sub national actors that can present a very different, difficult to address threat on a lot of different dimensions to a lot of different interests in the region, because Iran straddles such a significant, strategically significant kind of corner of the region, but particularly the Strait of Hormuz being foremost among them. In some ways, what we see now is worse than that because we see what looks like a regime that is still kind of in control of the state. Setting aside maybe there are some rogue cells and things like that, but some sort of cohesive entity at least within reach of re establishing control of the state, even if, if there's still some internal fighting going on that is in a position, feels like it's in a position to be able to level these sorts of threats and then capitalize upon it much more strategically with much more significance. What lesson do you pull from that, from the fact that the Trump administration pursued this choice? This is not a surprise. This is an outcome that was on the table. I think it's an outcome that was probably baked into most assessments that the president would have been presented with from at least the career intelligence analysts and career policy people, because it's been in the the zeitgeist for 20 years. What lessons do you take away from it and what lessons do you think also others are taking away from it, whether it's rivals like China and Russia, whether it's allies in Europe? What are the big lessons that their intelligence analysts are looking at this enterprise and saying, here's what this comes out with. Here's what it tells us about the United States at this particular moment?
- [33:10]
B
Well, I think allies and partners are going to take American incoherence as a large part of the story. I know that the president has walked back back his statement that he would impose a toll on the strait. But if there was one thing that the US Superpower was supposed to do, which it was to keep open the freedom of the seas. And if we adopt the Iranian theory of the strait, I don't know what's to prevent, for example, Beijing from imposing its own toll on traffic in the Taiwan Strait or for other middle powers to attempt to do that with their own contested bodies of water. It has been a bedrock principle of the US that the freedom of the seas is invaluable. And so abandoning that takes away a real benefit that the US has provided to its allies and partners over the years. I think that our adversaries have also learned from this episode that the way the US Conducts itself in a conflict where we escalate, then run out of endurance, look for an exit, and then can't even hold our position as our domestic political position collapses is not a good playbook for the United States to maintain. Deterrence.
- [34:21]
C
Yeah, I want to foot stomp what Julia is saying. I think it's plausible to me at least, that when we look back at this five or 10 years from now, the biggest legacy of all this may actually be on US Relations with allies around the world, where there was a really remarkable set of kind of statements, where first there was no coordination with allies and a real sense of disdain for their needs. And this was happening even as the United States and Israel, these attacks were causing grave economic harm to many countries around the world and at the same time, very bitter complaints that the allies weren't helping. And this, of course, comes in the context of things like Greenland and other, what allies saw as kind of grave affronts, a sense that the United States was. Was going to kind of recklessly involve them in unnecessary problems and then be angry that the United States didn't help. And this, I think, is understandably pushing allies to think twice about U.S. security guarantees, to think twice about U.S. relations. And even though many allies were not directly affected in the sense of none of their nationals were attacked, everyone has been affected economically. And the seeming chaos of the US Approach where. Where the end result is a United States kind of desperately trying to get back to a status quo ante, but unsuccessfully doing so. To me, many allies are going to look at the United States with questions. And sometimes I will warn as a caveat to my own remarks, I'm often in the middle of one particular crisis or another. You think this is going to be earth shaking, and then five years later, it's kind of a bar trivia question of what happened. But I do think that this really is a kind of sharp moment that takes existing trend that were very negative and probably reinforces them perhaps in ways that might be quite lasting.
- [36:21]
B
So I was traveling in Europe earlier this year in the late spring, and all over local television were stories of farmers that were going to be unable to plant their spring crops this year because they couldn't afford the price of gas. And on local television, the analysts and then the government put the blame for that squarely on the shoulders of the United States. They pointed out that we started a war, that we did not consult with them, and now their own people would have to pay the price. And so I fear that that kind of memory is going to stick with the populations of our allies and partners for some time.
- [36:56]
A
Well, speaking of those allies and partners, let us go to our second topic where they are at center stage. Ari, I want to turn to you on this. You have been in Ankara, I'm assuming, not by coincidence, over the course of this summit. Talk to us a little about what you saw there, how much of some of these lessons and perceptions that Dan and Julia have laid out about the summer allies might be taking about Iran. And you can put other chapters in that same book as well, Greenland being perhaps the biggest narrative arc or turning point, I think, of the second Trump administration, at least for Europeans so far, arguably at least before the Iran conflict. Talk to us about what you heard, what you learned about the state of NATO and how it all feeds into this vision of this NATO 3.0 that the Secretary general has been putting forward in large part to satiate the demands of the Trump administration. I think at least most people perceive it that way.
- [37:51]
D
Well, I would encourage folks to read my latest column in Lawfare with my co author John Drennan about NATO 3.0 and what it looks like. I'll provide some of the top lines. Let's start with just overall, I think the summit could have gone a lot worse. Worse. It could have gone a lot better as well. So we got some. We lost some. Let's start with the tensions and what didn't go particularly well. And we can start with where we left off, which is on Iran. Iran is obviously was not really supposed to be a big agenda item at the summit because it is not a thing that NATO is really designed to concern itself with. But it was everywhere. It was really overshadowing a lot of the discussions precisely because of what both Dan and Julia just brought up in the last, last piece of the Iran conversation, which is that the allies were not consulted with. They're still trying to figure out what the plan is here, how they fit into the plan, what comes next. And so there were so many conversations and I got so many questions from European colleagues asking me, how did you guys underestimate Iran's resilience, Iran's ability to respond, the straight closure prospects, to which I said, well, you should read my colleague Julia's latest piece in Lawfare, actually, it wasn't out yet. But essentially what has happened to the national security decision making structure and processes, because that has a lot to do with why we did not anticipate some of the things that have occurred since then, or I should say some people anticipated them, not the people, unfortunately, making the decisions. So the Iran piece was very much real, was very much overshadowing a lot of what was going on in Ankara. The second thing, as Dan mentioned, Greenland is still looming, not the least because the President landed and within hours of his being on the ground, he was meeting in his bilateral meeting with President Erdogan, and he brought up Greenland and prompted all these series of responses from the Finnish delegation, from the Danes, of course, and so on and so forth. So Greenland is not resolved. And, you know, the Europeans keep reminding us that this is a really significant thing, that when you have the Danish Prime Minister have to come out and say, we will defend every inch of NATO territory, including our own, from the dominant ally, this is not an insignificant thing. The third piece is that there was so much time and bandwidth that was just spent overall managing the United States. And you could really see that at the official level, you could see it at the kind of unofficial level where people were constantly saying, thank you so much to the Trump administration for reminding us that we need to grow up and take care of our own security and just trying to really say the right things so that they would not blow up this process. Because there were concerns ahead of the summit that we would end up with a summit that was cut short, even though they already shrunk the amount of time that would be spent in Ankara precisely to avoid that from happening. There were concerns that all of the, these tensions on Iran, on Greenland and so on and so forth would essentially mean that the summit would become full of tension and not really lead to where it was supposed to lead. So there was a lot of time and bandwidth that was spent kind of managing the United States. And this is something that we're seeing beyond the summit as well, where all of this time that is spent on Greenland we could actually be coordinating on how do we push back on Russian and Chinese security concerns or security concerns that we have with Russian and Chinese activities in the Arctic. Instead, we're spending all of this time talking about whether we're going to acquire Greenland or not. But putting all of these tensions aside, there were a few good things that actually came out of the summit. First, we got a strong declaration, a short one, but we got one that actually names the threats of Russia that actually reiterates commitment to Article 5. And overall just kind of, you know, does all the things you want a declaration like that to do. The second piece that I think was positive was that you had this defense industry forum, the first of its kind to happen. And evidently from what I was hearing on the ground from folks, it does need some tweaking. There are, there's certainly room for improve, for improvement, but it is taking the conversation about burden sharing and defense spending to the next stage. And that is a positive thing. And if we're going to be doing more of kind of integration and so on and so forth, these are precisely the kind of conversations that need to happen related to this. One thing that was very encouraging to me, this is number three, is that there's all of these conversations about Europeanizing NATO as the United States kind of takes a step back. And I was really encouraged by the kind of conversations, the kinds of conversations that are happening in Europe, which is that they're not just talking about defense spending, which is where, where the administration is still spending a lot of its time, they're taking it to the next step. They're talking about not just how do we turn that defense spending into capabilities, but beyond that, what are the effects we're trying to achieve and how do we get there and how do we make sure that there are no gaps that are left because we're all chasing the same few capabilities and leaving other things behind. How do we make sure that we're more integrated? So all of those are the right conversations that need to be happening. And I was to going, glad to see that they're happening. Whether or not the United States is lagging behind is a separate conversation we can have. And finally, Ukraine. So on Ukraine, there was the bilateral meeting that the President had with Zelensky. It went mostly fine. He made some disparaging comments about the Ukrainians and the Russians being children fighting in a park. But ultimately he did say that he was going to sign off on Licensed to Build the Patriots domestically in Ukraine. We can have a full conversation about what that actually looks like. There's been really interesting debates on this, I think in the past few days with folks who are very reasonable, very knowledgeable on both sides of it. But nonetheless, there was a reiteration of support for Ukraine and that was a positive thing. And the last thing I'll say also on the issue of Ukraine, is that the conversation within NATO is now moving from Ukraine as a recipient of our support, of our equipment, of our aid, to actually a provider to actually a partner from whom we can learn a lot of lessons on innovation, on what they're doing on the counter drone front, certainly, but even beyond that. And so as these adversaries, Iran, Russia and others are integrating, how do we learn those lessons and bring them back into nature?
- [44:41]
C
NATO.
- [44:42]
D
So that was a lengthy kind of description, but these are the kind of positives and the negatives of the summit?
- [44:49]
A
No, I think it's incredibly useful. And it is one of these things where I think every time when you hear there's a NATO summit, you never feel great about it. When this president, I think everybody gets a little anxious as to what exactly is going to come out of this. And net it seemed to be kind of a non event with a couple of little kerfuffles, but then kind of ending on a kind of nice tone. There are all these reports about some closed door meeting that President Trump would have with heads of state where he said essentially, we want to stay with you, we want to stay with this partnership, yada yada, which is conciliatory change of tone. But what it makes me think of is exactly this time last year, exactly this time last year, which I've talked about in this podcast before, I was in Aspen, Colorado for the Aspen Security Forum and I sat down record an episode of Lawfare Daily with Shashank Joshi, who was the defense editor for the Economist. I think now he's actually based in D.C. so, Josh, look us up, drop us a line if you're around town. And we talked about what he was hearing traveling around Europe, talking to military leaders around Europe. And he said at the time they felt pretty good about the U.S. relationship. They were like, we looked at those rocky few months right after the president came into the White House. We feel like since then he's saying the right things about Ukraine. We had had a pretty good NATO summit right before then, as I recall, that was fairly conciliatory. People were happy that the progress they'd made towards more defense spending. I mean, everything seemed pretty copacetic. And then we had Greenland come about in January. So Julia, I want to come to you on that. How has the European perspective towards the Trump administration changed over the last, let's say, year or two years? I think Europeans and NATO allies in particular got used to President Trump saying pretty disparaging things about the alliance during the first Trump administration when he was out of office. That's not new. And for a long time they nodded in the direction of doing things like yes, in part because some of them were Sustainable, long standing US Demands like greater defense spending. But it was still seen as like these are bumps on the road. The road is still there. And at least my sense of it is that the last year that has shifted. You're seeing much more serious consideration by Europeans of the idea of Europe without the United States. And part of that is probably driving some of the more positive conversations I hear Ari describing, I suspect, because you have to take seriously obviously the need for that independent capability to be willing to sink the political and actual real costs into developing it. Does that strike you as right, Julia? What is it that you think hangs over this sort of relationship? Is it Greenland, the real pivotal moment? Is it Iran? What is it that actually led to that break and what does it mean for the relationship after Donald Trump? Is this something the United States can come back with? Is this a Trump problem or is this a shift in how they've used view the United States even without Donald Trump in charge?
- [47:33]
B
I think they've at least while Donald Trump is in charge, they've taken him seriously, that this will be a transactional relationship, that Trump wants allies loyalty and their money. But to not count on the United States performing the alliance, part of the alliance if push comes to shove. And so I think you do see a real effort in some countries in Europe to take those defense spending requirements more seriously, knowing that they can't count on the United States in all scenarios to defend them as they had in the past. So you see the United States treating our European allies as customers or vendors. And in some cases they really did show up. So we had announcements of Europe and Canada investments up to 139 billion over the last year. There was another announcement of 50 billion more and more. And then there's a program called the drone edge of 40 billion for uncrewed systems over the next five years. And so I think that there is still a strong desire for American weapons and American technology. But it's the alliance part of the alliance that is increasingly in doubt.
- [48:39]
A
So Dan, let me come to you on that point and I'll do this. I'll introduce to you again. I'm going to come to you to the predict the future question a little bit bit. Because if we are see Europeans taking this idea of an independent European defense capacity seriously, I suspect you do. I do see the sign saying they're taking it seriously. Maybe the political will won't bear out, maybe Macron will lose, every other European official lose and they just don't have the domestic will to do it. It's A real possibility. And arguably that's kind of what's happened over the last 40 years when you've seen push in this direction. But so far it seems like it's got legs. People are taking it seriously, it seems got political bias from across the political spectrum in Europe to some extent. What does that mean to a transatlantic alliance? 10, 15 years, an hour when that capacity begins to ripen? In the past we've heard a lot of chatter about interdependent capabilities and building up, but usually was all just code words for European reliance upon the United States. And notably that was actually a strategic posture of the United States. The United states part of U.S. security assistance policy is the tail is the idea is that when you sell someone weapon system, they become reliant upon you for parts and supplies. And that's part of seen as an advantage of those sales. That's what gives us leverage over them. This is deliberately cutting that out really. Not immediately, but in the long term. The stated goal is Europe stands alone and it doesn't rely upon the United States. And that means you lose that leverage. How big a deal is that? What are the downsides of that and what are maybe the upside of that?
- [50:08]
C
So if it happened in a way that was amicable, I would see it as largely positive. And I would say so for two reasons. First, historically, and perhaps less today. But I'd like to get back to historically, the United States and Europe's democracies share a lot of values. So in places where the Europeans have intervened or have interests, the United States historically has often had similar interests and goals. And there were plenty of disagreements on the margins. I don't want to make this sound like everything was very smooth, but in general, they kind of saw the world in similar ways with similar foes and had similar objectives. So having greater European capacity would be a very good thing. And it would mean that the United States would have to do less. And if you believe the United States has responsibilities and interests in economics, Asia, having Europe be able to handle Europe would be tremendously freeing and allow a lot more US capacity without as much US spending and sacrifice in the Pacific theater. So to me there could be tremendous pluses. But you want it done as part of a partnership as opposed to. To go back to our Denmark example. Denmark preparing for a two front war, right? Denmark wanting to help guard the rest of Europe against Russia and concern that its territory in Greenland is going to be attacked. You don't want it to be Europe developing capabilities that are focused on trying to guard against the United States as opposed to working with the United States on certain kind of niche high end areas where maybe extra spending is just redundant and you could get a lot of synergies if the United States and Europe are working closely together. So I think you could easily lose some of those potential synergies and thus have expensive spending on the same capabilities in ways that would not be necessary if there were a partnership. And you would lose Certainly some U.S. influence. If you look at say the U.S. intervention in Libya, the dependence of the Europeans on the United States militarily gave the United States more leverage. There are plenty of examples like that. I'd be willing to give that up for greater European capacity. But what I worry about is it's being done in the worst possible way. It's being done in part as a sense that the United States is going to act against European interests as opposed to the United States and Europe have shared values and therefore Europe stepping up can help serve both the US And European values.
- [52:42]
B
So I think looking ahead, there is a little bit of good news, bad news for the future of the alliance coming out of this summit. In the bad news category, I think the Pentagon is already planning on doing a six month posture review which could lead to this, the withdrawal of additional forces before the Europeans are ready. I think on the good news side of things was Ukraine. Surprisingly the positive statements or the lack of negative statements in some cases, the President's announcement that he would be open to Ukraine co producing Patriot missiles was probably a positive signal. I personally have a hard time seeing how the Ukrainians could possibly do that given the situation in a live war. I think the United States only currently has co production agreements, agreements overseas for patriots in Japan and Germany. And so it may be difficult for Ukraine to accept that assistance and they may be better off militarily focusing on more cost effective asymmetric systems than trying to spend a lot of money on one of the world's most sophisticated strategic air defense systems. So I put a negative at the end of the positive. Great.
- [53:50]
D
Yeah. Can I jump in on a couple of things? One, on the kind of of overall question of what happens now, right. Are the Europeans essentially just biting their time waiting Trump out and then we go back to normal in two and a half years if we have, you know, somebody who is a non Trump Republican, non MAGA Republican or a Democrat. And I think there, the Europeans, I mean I think there is a lot of discussions within Europe of whether that is, you know, this is just a fluke or not. But I think the overwhelming Sentiment that, that I hear from colleagues is that they tried the whole let's go back to normal under Biden, and that didn't work, not the least because we just, you know, three years later, we ended up with Trump returning to office. But also because fundamentally, the system that we have in the United States right now just doesn't offer any predictability for allies. Right. We go back and forth now seemingly every four years, not even every eight years, between a president who threatens to take over Greenland and then one who comes back and says allies and partners are at the center and at the heart of my national security and national defense strategies. And so if you're Europe, how do you plan for this? It's just extremely hard to be a dependent variable to the United States when you don't know which way the United States is going to go go. And Congress, which is supposed to provide that kind of, you know, at least a little bit of certainty and predictability is missing in action. And maybe it will return to action in a few months. But again, this is there's just no guarantee there. And I think it just makes it much more likely that we'll see Europeans continue to take the steps that they're taking, which is, I'm not predicting that they're just going to decouple at this point. They can't. They don't want to. But certainly they'll take the steps that they need to gain that strategic autonomy that we hear so much about from certain European capitals. And we should also add there are regional differences within Europe on what that looks like. The French are much more forward leaning on this. They have always been. They will continue to be. That can change or that can become even more the case in a few months if somebody like Le Pen ends up winning the presidency in France. I'm sure we'll talk about that at some point in the future. Future. And then you have the Baltic states, who are perhaps a bit more willing to stay close with the United States because they need to, because the threat is right there next door. So there are also regional differences that we should account for. On Julia's point about the Patriots, this has been really fascinating, actually, because one of my first reactions coming out of the summit was, okay, well, now the president has said he's going to be issuing these licenses, number one, let's see if he actually does. That is a big if. But if that does happen, what does that look like? Can Ukraine actually get, can it actually produce the Patriots domestically? And I've heard a lot of really interesting conversations on both sides of this, folks who are very knowledgeable, who have very different opinions on whether that is the case or not. Some people say, look, you know, if you'd asked me previously, I would have said no. But we've seen how much the Ukrainians are able to do and accomplish when they're given just a little bit right over the past five years. And so they will make the most out of this. And this is coming from very senior former officials who've said it on the record, so I can name them. Deborah Rosenbloom, who oversaw acquisition sustainment in the Biden administration for DoD General Cavoli yesterday said a similar thing on one of the program that we had at the council. And then on the other side of it, I've heard folks say, yeah, but these are very complicated systems. It is going to take a long time for the Ukrainians to be able to actually produce them domestically. And at that point, does it really matter? So it might be more of a political statement of we are with you than it is an actual kind of no kidding defense capability advancement for the Ukrainians. I don't have any opinions either way. I'm not educated enough on the specifics of how you build a Patriot missile. But it's been interesting to hear the different conversation on this one.
- [58:09]
A
Yeah. To go one point back to what you raised, your point about Congress and the checks on President Trump, I really think gets at the heart of what I suspect a lot of Europeans are experiencing coming away from the last 18 months from and how it colors relationship moving forward because there was this idea that President Trump was rhetorically a problem in the first term term threatened to do a lot of things, didn't really do anything to fundamentally disrupt the NATO alliance or the transatlantic alliance or a lot of other global alliances really mostly status quo on for the most part some issues in East Asia, a few other places but but not fundamentally undermining them. The assumption with that was going to be the same and that that reflected not only the fact that President Trump, maybe his heart wasn't in behind his rhetoric, but also that maybe he the president alone couldn't do those sorts of things. It's pooh politically damaging their legal barriers. I think something has convinced the Europeans in the last year that that's not the case and I suspect it's Greenland. I think I've said this on this podcast before. There is a moment where you just heard the tenor change in European's voice. And I mean like Europeans I talked to in person around Washington D.C. and was meeting with at the time where all of a sudden you had this timber of fear entering the voice around the Greenland debate. This is the same moment where we got reporting two months later that Denmark started sending soldiers to blow up their airports and with blood and live ammunition explosives on a short emergency order. That's not something you, when you think somebody's acting specifically rhetorically. And I remain convinced that Europeans had some piece of intelligence or some sort of analysis that got to many of them that said Trump is actually serious about this and they're preparing, perhaps they're preparing for it and it's not clear anything's going to stop them. And we don't know if they're wrong. That's the scary part of all this. Like, I don't think Congress would have been thrilled about that. But would, you know enough members of Congress to actually voted against it, done anything to stop it? Could they have given that you would probably need a super majority to enact legislation contrary or to repeal Appropriations or you'd have to wait for the next NDAA or Appropriations bill, which at that point was months and months away. It's not clear there are sort of checks there. So I'm not sure you can get that sort of stability back with Europeans or other allies, unless you do have a bit of a shift in this huge executive dominated US foreign policy that we've developed over the 20th century. Because. Because that was okay when you seem to have a president cabined by a lot of elitist opinions and institutional support and political checks. But all those have kind of fallen by the wayside, or at least they're not as strong as what they once were. It's not clear what allies are supposed to look to, to say what's really keeping people within the lanes. Where are the guardrails? Congress can install guardrails, but it's a heavy lift. And whether they're willing to do so and take the political capital to do so if the opportunity arises anytime soon, I mean, that's a big question. But without it. But it's hard to imagine those relationships returning to where they were just two years ago in my mind.
- [60:53]
D
So, yes, I fully agree that I think Greenland was kind of this moment of it wasn't just rhetoric from the perspective of the Europeans and Denmark specifically, as you noted, they're doing contingency planning. And that is a pretty serious thing for them to be doing. But I think it's also the broader pattern that we're seeing. It's not just about Greenland. It's also the Fact that a few weeks before or a few months before the president was talking about taking over Canada and making it the 51st state, which we forget and perhaps we dismiss as a. I certainly am guilty of doing that because we just hear so many things from the White House these days that we have to dismiss, otherwise we just will never stop. But that was a very serious thing to say about our, you know, some of our closest friends and neighbors and they're just kind of like living their lives. And all of a sudden we're talking about taking over Canada as the 51st state. And then there is the interference attempts into European elections with support for the far right movements and groups and parties in Europe that are seen so negatively in certain countries like Germany, France. Certainly there has been the tensions with, you know, the Italian Prime Minister Meloni. So it's a pattern as well. Right. I think Greenland is the kind of shorthand and certainly has really snapped something. But, but there are so many different things that have been happening and that will continue to happen and that makes it really hard for Europeans and for, for, for Canada. So kind of dismiss things and say, oh well, this was a one off, let's move on. Right. There's all of the, there's this pattern of actions and, and words that are really forming a picture that is not, there's not a pretty picture when it comes to the US Involvement in NATO and in Europe.
- [62:49]
A
Well, speaking of key relationship and alliances, let us turn to another one with our remaining time. To us and that is this question of the U. S. Israeli relationship. I think it's fair to say it's been a rough couple of weeks for the US Israeli relationship on top of a rough couple of years. Even though we've seen coordinate military action against Iran twice now in the past year, we've seen the Trump administration acquiesce to Israeli military action on a number of fronts. On top of, during the first Trump administration, we saw the US Government of course, move the embassy to Jerusalem, acquiesce to Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, taken a number of other steps kind of backed by the Bibi government. We have seen this moment of tension arise around Lebanon and the ongoing hostilities there, around the impending failure, if not already actual failure of the Gaza peace plan. That was such a signature action of the Trump administration early on in the second time term in office. Although frankly it doesn't get discussed or raised much anymore, which may be telling. And on top of that, perhaps more fundamentally, while that could be a product of the unique policies and personalities of both governments at the moment. So we're seeing this real shift in elections and views and people being in office, this set of primaries we've seen kind of rolling out in the United States for the last several weeks. We have seen a number of candidates almost entirely on the left get elected who are vocally critical of Israel in a way that would be really hard to square with mainstream Big D Democratic Party politics 15 years ago in places where it seems highly implausible, like New York City, it's kind of an amazing development. A lot of it is stirred by criticism of Israeli's human rights record of the Gaza conflict. Very discrete issues, you can say. And I think it's correct to distinguish those from necessarily the broader relationship with Israel as a people, as a country. And I certainly distinguish those, frankly in my personal views. But I also think the tenor, the political tenor that's rising to these candidates and giving them so much propulsion and ability to proceed with this not necessarily being a plank of their agenda, but still part, clearly part of their political identity is really telling about how the relationship with Israel is viewed as a political matter between the two parties that seems inevitably going to feed into this particular election. So, Dan, I want to come to you on this. I mean, I think you have been a close watcher of the US Israeli relationship and a lot of dimensions, particularly the security dimension, but other dimensions as well, frankly, a lot deeper, a lot longer than I have. Does my sense that we are at a nadir, at least in I think, my natural life that I can think of, or at least I've been paying attention at this particular moment for that relationship. And, and what does that mean? What are the drivers of that and how can they be ameliorated? Or do we want them to be ameliorated? Is it right that they be ameliorated? Or is this actually reflecting realities that are just we have to deal with?
- [65:39]
C
So I would say in terms of sentiment, it's simply at a nadir. I don't think it is in terms of actual cooperation, there's still a huge amount of military cooperation across the board. Commercial ties are strong. Person to person ties are strong. So if you kind of just could silence the rhetoric, then you'd say, oh, it's a very strong relationship. But of course you can't silence the rhetoric, nor should you. And I think your comments hit on a lot of points. Bibi sold himself to the Israeli people, I actually think accurately, as someone who could go into the halls of power in Washington and the halls of power in the Kremlin and get things done for Israel. Right. So a tiny country, you have this leader who appears to have the biggest names in the world listening to him. And this, we would have said four or five months ago, really reached a peak with cooperation against Iran, where Israel encouraged the United States to join in a war in 2025 and then did so again in 2026 and really fought alongside the United States in a way that really hasn't been done in most other other US Military campaigns where there was relatively equal contributions by Israel and the United States, certainly on the intelligence side, but also just in terms of airplanes flying over Iran. So playing a significant role. So it was at an extremely high level and then comes crashing down. And it came crashing down for reasons that lots of other allies and partners around the world have discovered. We he talked about Trump being very short term. So he's thinking, what can this country or leader do for me today? Trump believes very strongly in his interpretation of US Interests and doesn't really care much about the politics or interests of U.S. allies. And you have a big issue disjuncture where I would say the United States and Israel both don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. But for Israel, it's existential, existential. While for the United States it's much more simply of a negative foreign policy outcome. For Israel, Iran's medium range ballistic missiles are a tremendous concern, not a real focus of the United States, Lebanon, something that Israel is tremendously concerned about, not a focus of the United States, but conversely, freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz is not something that Israel is particularly focused on, but is a tremendous concern to the United States. So. So you have these very different priorities and as a result, the policies go in very different directions. And that's also because the United States has been pursuing a deal that I think Israelis rightly believe is very forgiving of Iran, that gives Iran a lot more potential power in the long term if it is implemented. And for Netanyahu personally, this is a real blow. He's someone who has campaigned as being there to kind of destroy Hezbollah and bring security back to Israelis so they can go home in the north. But also on his ability to create outcomes that Israel wants. And that isn't happening with the Trump administration. And we've of course seen the shift in the Democratic Party that's become much more critical of Israel. But the thing I would stress is it's also a demographic shift that, yes, there is a Democrat versus Republican divide, but there's a huge divide between younger Americans and, and older Americans. So there's far more people in both parties being willing to criticize Israel. And Trump has shown repeatedly to the point where I don't think there's any question about this, that on every issue he can bring the Republican Party with him, that there will be some people who will break with him, there will be others who criticize him, there are others who are less enthusiastic. But the bulk of Republicans will go along with Trump if he says it's no longer in the interests of the United States, United States to work as closely with this country. And as a result, the Israelis are running much more scared. They put all their chits on the Republican Party. And with Trump being much more of a question, that bet is one that might not be paying off and might even be backfiring on them, as opposed to the more historic approach where they were seeking bipartisan support. And the shift in the Democratic Party, as we all know, this is all primary based. It's not the bulk of voters in either party. It's a very small select number of voters in each party that is determining the nominees. And there's a part of the Democratic Party that not only is critical of Israel, but sees this as an overwhelming US Concern, where to me it's as someone who is interested in the nature of American government to see people who are running for maybe mayor talking about Israel, Gaza. Right. As if mayors of different cities are going to play a major role in this. But nevertheless, it is an issue in these campaigns in a way that is real, even if people like me are at times chuckling over this. And so this is something that has energized people, just the way illegal immigration was energizing people in parts of America that had almost no presence of illegal or for them, hardly immigrants. So these things are quite real and are quite powerful. And I think we're likely to see it in not only the coming election, but in elections in the future.
- [71:00]
A
Ari, let me come to you with this, but let me add a little twist to the question or expand a little bit. What does this trajectory, if it does prove to be a political through line, which is going to manifest unequally across parties in different contexts. But Dan's right. While we're seeing these candidates on the left, we should note there's also a big debate happening in the right that really splits the president's coalition around the US Relationship with Israel and how far it should go. And a lot of the rising figures in the Republican Party, J.D. vance among them, are on the more skeptical side, or at least people around him are on the more skeptical side of at least certain aspects of that relationship. So if this through line is true, is through and continues, what does that mean about the shape of this alliance and this relationship moving forward? We know we have the MoU around security assistance getting renegotiated next year, I think, or they're starting to get renegotiated next year. We know we have a couple. I know it's during Trump's term. I can't remember exactly when. You know, that's like one of these big pivotal moments. There's other aspects of this relationship that aren't set on an auto timer but that will inevitably flare back up. And frankly, when you have an administration other than this administration, you're going to feel a lot pressure to more pressure to take action potentially on things like west bank violence where we saw a sanctions regime, the Biden administration stood up, that this administration took down and to back off things like the IC SEC and these other points. So these points of continuity and common ground now are unique to this administration, maybe to Republican administrations, but particularly the adamants to it seems unique to this administration. So what does that mean? What does this relationship look like five or ten years from now?
- [72:33]
D
Yeah, I agree with a lot of what you said and what Dan said. I think it is interesting that you do have that generational kind of shift. Right. But I think you're also seeing it along the lines of, of kind of party affiliation breakdown where you have kind of normal Dems, I would say sort of regular run of the mill Dems and run of the mill kind of traditional Republicans who are probably fairly aligned when it comes to the relationship with Israel. And then you have the kind of two side, two extremes. I don't mean it in a radical way, but kind of the two, the far, the further left and further right that meet a little bit in their skepticism of the relationship, relationship with Israel in some instances purely based on policy issues, in some instances, let's be honest, because of anti Semitism and other issues. Right. But you do have, I think you're seeing this in the elections throughout the country and especially more progressive sides of the political, of the Democratic Party, but also kind of the more parts of the MAGA world that are coming together in terms of, of really criticizing Israel. It's been really interesting watching some progressives go on Tucker Carlson's show, for example. They don't see eye to eye on anything, but they see eye to eye on this particular issue. So it's Making some interesting bedfellows here, what it means for the future of US Israel relations. Well, one, I think it's been interesting to see that Israel has essentially been insulated from a lot of Trump's tensions with close allies and partners over the past 10 years. But that seems to be changing. So where the relationship is left off in two and a half years when the president leaves office is actually not. You know, if you'd asked me five years ago, I would have said, well, you know, we all know where it's going to be left off. I am not so sure anymore. And the longer this conflict goes on with Iran, the more tensions there are in the relationship and the more, you know, Trump might be willing to, to take steps that no one else in the political system that we have could or would be willing to do. So where the relationship gets left off in two and a half years is a really fascinating thing that we'll have to watch. But I do think that fundamentally, to Dan's point, operationally, there are still a lot of ties and a lot of benefits that United States gets from its work with Israel, whether it's intelligence sharing, whether it's military to mill mill kind of channels. There are a number of things where we are integrated with Israel, we're continuing to be even more integrated with Israel. And I don't see that changing anytime soon. Even as strategically and in terms of political objectives and then just kind of domestic politics, there's certainly tensions that are happening and the fissures will, I think, keep deepening for the foreseeable future. Future.
- [75:27]
A
Well, you know, Ari anticipated the question I was going to bring to you, Julia, to close this out. But let me, let me build on what she said. There are lots of valid grounds, I think it's fair to say, for Americans to criticize Israel and Israeli policy. A lot of them are deep seated and are not going away. There's also, however, the other part of the relationship that often gets ignored, which is this long history of cooperation, real cultural ties, real historical ties, real mutual defense cooperation to mutual benefit, among a variety of other benefits that can't be overlooked, I don't think. And that's easy to undersell because it doesn't have a vocal contingent supporting it in the current environment. But it's real and that is motivating, although in some cases perhaps maybe exaggerated. Everything from frankly, Joe Biden's kind of unique attachment that really informed his approach to Israeli Gaza conflict and sort of other issues to frankly, lots of politicians of his generation, how they think about Israel, I think that's a big driver of this split, is how you value those things. From your perspective as somebody who thinks about the US Security posture and interests today, what are those core chunks of the relationship that are valuable and how do you navigate a relationship where you are likely to feel pressure and probably right founded pressure in the eyes of many, to criticize Israel, to object to Israel, to potentially even try and take steps to constrain Israel around parts of their domestic policies, Other things they've done that people think are foundationally wrong, even as you have other areas where cooperation is so driven and often driven for very good reasons as a US Interest. How do you balance that? How do you navigate that moving forward?
- [77:08]
B
Yeah. So I think this is actually at the heart of a really deep debate that is happening within the Democratic national security establishment. The Biden administration, which I served in. The Senior Director for Strategy, who wrote the National Security Strategy, Tom Wright, who's a friend of mine, published a piece in the Atlantic about a week ago that talked about this internal debate. And really a wrenching debate is ongoing about whether the United States, beginning in the Gaza war, should have done more to condition assistance to Israel because we really determined not, not in any significant way. And there is a live debate beyond what is in the primaries right now going forward about what is a different approach to Israel that might look more like a normal security alliance that the US has with other nations where we would show less deference to Jerusalem, where our country's interests diverge and a stronger American tie to the reform Palestinian Authority. This is very much a live debate within the democratic national security circles that's unresolved. But it is obviously emerging that a large group of Democrats are unwilling to return to the type of relationship that we have had in the past. And incidents like the detaining of a U.S. congressman that happened this last week in the west bank by settlers is not going to have help this more traditional approach within national security circles to Israel. Now that gets me to your question about our security ties with the Israelis. Now, obviously we have a deep and long standing security and intelligence relationship with the Israelis, which I can't talk about here. But needless to say, we'll take your word for it. Needless to say, I think in a new administration there will be a real look at conditioning some of that assistance sense on different Israeli approaches to things like the Palestinians and regional security, where the United States has been put in a position where Israel has started wars and expected unflinching US Support. And under this administration we have come to their assistance and at their urging, we have joined broader regional wars. But I think that a new Democratic administration is likely to impose much more conditionality on the relationship and expect greater US Influence over that kind of decision making.
- [79:38]
A
Well, there's lots more to discuss in this vein and frankly, it's a conversation that's going to be with us for many, many years to come. But for now, we are out of time. That said, this would not be rational security if we did not leave you with some object lessons to ponder over in the week to come until we are back in your podcatcher. Dan, what did you bring for us today?
- [79:55]
C
So over the weekend my wife and I saw the movie the Invite, which I both recommend to everyone and strongly urge you to stay away from. It is well acted. It is really almost like seeing a play. You have four very good actors in a confined space and a good script. And it's nice to see someone who prefers movies where they invest in the script and the actors rather than the special effects. This is quite impressive and my hat is off to Olivia Wilde and others who are responsible for this for really great work. But it's very disturbing and anyone who is or has been in a relationship I think will find aspects that are particularly disturbing and so well done. But I'm not sure I came away happier having seen it.
- [80:50]
A
A mixed suggestion. I like it. It's good. Maybe save it for the singles out there for folks to check out the conversation. Ari, what did you bring for us this week?
- [80:59]
D
Well, I'm going to watch the invite tomorrow. I already had booked my ticket, so we'll have to reconvene and see how I feel about it. Okay. I bring along the theme of Israel. I bring a Israeli jazz musician, Avishai Cohen, who just came out six weeks ago, I think with his new album Eternal Child. This is someone who's been in the kind of jazz on the jazz scene for the past 30 or so years, has done really interesting work, work blending classical music and jazz, various Middle Eastern traditions and jazz. For this album he returns through his kind of jazz, pure jazz roots and it's a fabulous album and I highly recommend it. No reservations, no split recommendation. Just go listen to it.
- [81:48]
A
A great, a great recommendation. That was not on my radar that that was coming up. I'll have to check that out. For my object lesson, I am going to do a brief in memorial for someone who is a major foreign policy figure, if a complicated one, who passed away this week. That is, of course, Senator Lindsey Graham. I met Senator Lindsey Graham exactly once that I can recall. I actually think I may have met him more than one time. I interact with him substantially. Once at Embassy Baghdad, where we were both working out in the gym, and he accused me of stealing his floor mat for doing curls on, which I don't think I did. But he was very exasperated that I appeared to have purloined his floor mat, of which we're in relatively short supply. And that was the entire substance of our interaction, which was he was not rude about. He was just kind of a little disappointed in this young embassy employee that had it, that had seen fit to not properly respect the etiquette of the gym environment. Lindsey Graham kind of has chased me my whole career. In a weird way, I think if you were a national security head in the post 911 era, if you were somebody who particularly your career to some extent for a couple years, your whole life kind of centered around Iraq policy. Lindsey Graham was a major figure in the those sorts of circles. From his kind of pragmatist maverick roots with the sort of Troika with John McCain and Joe Lieberman from back in the day all the way to his weird mega inflection. He's taken over these last 10 years. It is a crazy career arc. And he's always somebody who was somebody who played the political game aggressively and well, if in ways you didn't always appreciate, but also did have some really principled stands that he would use that leverage to advance, some of which I foundationally disagree with. But many, you know, you have to respect that somebody who stuck to their guns. Ukraine is one of those. Notably, I think his departure from the Senate, along with Mitch McConnell and frankly, a lot of the other retiring senators who are kind of the Ukraine lobby in the Senate on the Republican side who are retiring, is going to be a big loss for Ukraine after November and after January when the new Senate sets. Regardless, he's a complicated figure. And so I've been reading a bunch of these memories, trying to say which one of these captures this figure who I've kind of followed for a long time and taken interest on. And I think the one I read that I liked and I captured, it's relatively short, which I recommend, is Michael War kind of piece, looking back, entitled Lindsey Graham's Tenacious Pursuit of Influence in the dispatch on July 12th. So I'll make that my recommendation. I think it captures the very odd career arc and frames it in kind of a personal note about what the perspective of this kind of unique man is. But if nothing else. He was kind of a lion of this issue set that we all follow. And I do think we all have to acknowledge his passing and the fact that it could prove quite consequential on a number of fronts in the years to come without his voice there for good or for ill. And with that, Julia, let me hand it over to you to bring us home. What did you bring out for your object lesson?
- [84:23]
B
Yes, so in the last week I recorded a podcast for Lawfare with Mike Feinberg on the weaponization of the dni. And I filed a paper for Lawfare on how the White House broke the NSC and the interagency policy planning failures that led to the disaster in Iran. But that's not the object lesson. The lesson is that I did both from Hawaii. Hawaii, where I'm from, from my mom's porch and from within a hot tub on Kauai.
- [84:50]
A
For audio listeners, we're getting a video slideshow of the evidence of this you may not be able to see.
- [84:56]
B
So the object lesson for my fellow deep staters out there. You know, at CIA we often think about leaving the government as a divorce. But as seen in these pictures, I want you to know there is life after the skiff.
- [85:08]
A
There you go. A lesson hard earned. I will say that is the best part about not being in government anymore is your ability to work from just about anywhere. I will say from my experience. So another I will double down on that object lesson from you, Julia. For now, though, that brings us to the end of this week's episode. Rational Security is of course a production of Lawfare, so be sure to visit lawfourmedia.org for our show page, for links to past episodes, for our written work and the written work of other law firm contributors, and for information on lawfair's other phenomenal podcast series. While you're at it, be sure to follow Lawfair on social media wherever you socialize your media. Be sure to leave a rating or review wherever you might be listening and sign up to become a material supporter of Lawfare on Patreon for an ad free version of this podcast, among other special benefits. For more information, visit lawfaremedia.org support our audio engineer producer this week was Noam Osband of Goat Rodeo, and our music, as always, was performed by Sophia Yan and we are once again edited by the wonderful Jen Pacha. On behalf of my guests Ari, Dan and Julia, I am Scott R. Andersen and we will talk to you next week. Till then, goodbye.