The recent speech by United States Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling for a new government in Israel was the equivalent of a political earthquake hitting U.S.-Israel ties that are becoming increasingly fragile. The Democratic Senator is himself Jewish and has had one of the longest relationships with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who he has now charged with “too willing to tolerate the civilian toll” in Gaza.
Earlier, after meeting former U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Mr. Trump had told him that he would suspend military aid to Ukraine when he came to power. His campaign staffers have noted that Mr. Trump would seek to “quickly negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war” and that the former President believed that the Europeans should pay more for the cost of the conflict.
The U.S. and the Ukraine war
The Israel-Hamas and the Ukraine wars are two important global issues which are playing out in unforeseen ways even as the U.S. is hurtling towards its epochal presidential elections eight months from now. To what extent they will be driven by election-year politics or their own future course is unclear. But, for better or for worse, the U.S. is playing a key role in both of them and their outcomes could have consequences for the standing of the country, regardless of who wins in November 2024.
The U.S. has provided some $75 billion in military and civil aid to Ukraine since February 2022. Most of the aid has been used in weapons purchases, keeping the government functional and its humanitarian requirements. Observers say that the bulk of the military aid has been spent in the U.S. to purchase equipment ranging from Stinger missiles to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) weapons systems and artillery ammunition.
But, since the end of last year, an additional $60 billion assistance has been stuck in the wrangling of the U.S. Congress. The Administration and the Pentagon have been left scrounging for funds to ensure that Ukraine gets some military equipment. But soon this is also likely to run dry. The European Union (EU) has committed some €144 billion in aid to Ukraine. Of this some €93 billion is financial and economic support, €33 billion in military support and €17 billion in supporting refugees within the EU; another €12 billion is in financial, economic and humanitarian support by individual EU States. But the Europeans are nowhere near providing the level of military assistance that the U.S. has. It is unlikely that the U.S. will send further military aid in 2024, though the Senate has approved a new package, but it needs to pass the fractious House of Representatives.
The U.S. is in a strange place with regard to Ukraine. It obviously does not want a Russian victory, but it also does not want the war to expand or to drag on. Speaker Mike Johnson knows that if he brings the Senate bill to vote in the House of Representatives, it will pass with the help of traditional Republicans. But the Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans would thereafter vote for his removal.
The situation on the ground is none too good for Ukraine. With the failure of its summer offensive last year, it has not been able to find a viable strategy to counter the Russians. Shortages and poor tactics have led to a highly publicised defeat in Avdiivka.
After blundering in the initial invasion of Ukraine, the Russians have learnt their lessons well. They have used their superiority in numbers and equipment to stymie the Ukrainians. They have a clear edge in electronic warfare and artillery, and are using their Unified Gliding and Correction Module (UMPK) Glide bombs to devastating effect on the war front. On the other hand, the Ukrainians are short of key artillery ammunition, with a substantial portion of it having been diverted for Israeli use by the Americans last October.
Israel and its Gaza actions
The other uncomfortable issue is Israel’s war on Hamas. The U.S. remains, perhaps, the only major country backing Israel. But now, very publicly, U.S. President Joe Biden himself and Mr. Schumer are raising issues about Israeli strategy, or the lack of it. Former U.S. official Richard N. Haass, who is also Jewish, wrote in The Wall Street Journal recently, “Israel’s actions have left it worse off, at a great cost to itself and its relationship with the US and in the lives of innocent Palestinians.” These actions and comments reflect that change in public sentiment towards Mr. Netanyahu in the Democratic Party and the liberal Jewish-American community.
Having destroyed most of Gaza, Israeli forces are now threatening the last corner of the strip — Rafah. Mr. Biden has warned that an attack there would be to cross the U.S. redline because it would most certainly result in a large number of civilian casualties. But Mr. Netanyahu seems to be motivated by just one impulse — his own political survival.
Israel has so far demonstrated what it could do militarily, but under the right wing Netanyahu government, it has refused to put forward any political alternative for the Palestinians. Israel needs to articulate a future that leads to a sustainable peace in the region and an Israel-Palestinian reconciliation. A Palestinian state, even with limits on its sovereignty is the only path to that goal. Indeed, Mr. Netanyahu’s strategy of supporting Hamas in the past was aimed at splitting the Palestinian opinion and using the fear of Hamas to shape Israeli public perceptions.
On both Ukraine and Israel, the future U.S. approach appears to be clouded. Though we know the trajectory of the Biden policy and its shape, it is still difficult to predict the future because the earlier bipartisan approach to foreign, especially security policy is now history. Whether it is political parties, or demographies, changes are taking place in the manner with which the U.S. views the world. For example, younger Americans are less positively inclined to Israel than the older ones. Indeed, last October a YouGov poll found that more people between the ages of 18 to 29 empathised with Palestinians than with Israelis.
The Trump factor
But the bottom line here is that we are still eight months away from the U.S. election and, as of now, neither the U.S. or Ukraine is about to throw in the towel. Both sides remain committed and need each other. Besides hardware, Ukraine is receiving substantial intelligence support from the U.S. in the form of real-time information on Russian deployments. The way the Americans see it, the Ukrainians are weakening one of their major adversaries. The massive loss of personnel and equipment will without doubt temper Moscow’s future policies towards the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
But without doubt a victory of Mr. Trump would be majorly disruptive. This would definitely affect U.S. policy towards Ukraine. As for Israel, Mr. Trump is likely to remain a strong supporter that he has always been. One must recall that it was he who decided to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in the place of Tel Aviv.
But a Trump victory, which will change the political calculus in Washington DC, has implications for Ukraine and the NATO alliance. The Europeans are rushing to fill the American breach, but it is a case of too little and too late. The momentum in the war is with the Russians right now and if Ukraine is not able to regain it, there is every possibility of a Ukrainian collapse if the U.S. decides to step aside.
This would have wider consequences such as undermining the role of the U.S. as a guarantor of European security. American unreliability will also affect its alliance relationships in the Indo-Pacific — with South Korea, Japan and the Philippines, and its growing partnership with India.
Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi
