How to Reframe the American-Israeli Alliance in a New Age of Great-Power Competition

In his new essay for Mosaic, Arthur Herman describes the “impasse” in Israel-U.S. relations occasioned by Israel’s increasing—and, it is said, increasingly worrisome—ties with China, America’s chief geopolitical competitor. In doing so, he records as well some problematic aspects on the American side, especially a deep layer of mistrust, harbored by some U.S. officials toward their Israeli counterparts, that stems from legacy grievances against the Jewish state including the Jonathan Pollard affair in the 1980s and crises in the early and mid-2000s involving Israel’s defense exports to China.

To resolve the impasse, Herman then proposes a Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty (DTCT), an instrument less formal and all-encompassing than an actual defense treaty, aimed specifically, and remedially, at marrying the unique industrial and technological strengths of each partner in the furtherance of their shared national interests.

I agree both with Herman’s diagnosis and with his proposed approach. Here I would like to broaden the discussion by offering some additional strategic context and delineating a number of specific steps toward a more constructive path ahead.