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Commentary
Wall Street Journal

A World without American Deterrence

A gradual retreat into strategic passivity led to the world’s spinning suddenly out of control.

walter_russell_mead
walter_russell_mead
Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship
US President Joe Biden joins Israel's Prime Minister for the start of the Israeli war cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023. (Miriam Alster/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Caption
US President Joe Biden joins Israel's Prime Minister for the start of the Israeli war cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023. (Miriam Alster/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill Gorton asks Mike Campbell in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises.”

“Two ways,” Mike replies. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

Suddenly, the Biden administration faces a massive and complicated crisis in the Middle East. Missiles and warplanes streak across the skies above Gaza. Saudi Arabia bitterly criticizes Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocities, and much of the Arab and Islamic world has exploded in rage against the Jewish state. Mobs rampage through the streets, and American diplomats take shelter amid protests outside U.S. embassies from Baghdad to Beirut. Iran threatens Israel with more attacks, and Hezbollah is keeping pressure on Israel’s northern border.

Read the full article in the Wall Street Journal.