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America's Approach to Its Allies Is Backward
(Wall Street Journal) Jakub Grygiel - When our enemies' advances cause a massive disequilibrium, then it's in America's interest to back our allies and let them take the necessary risks to restore stability. We often do the opposite. We restrain them when they are attacked - with dire consequences. In the Middle East, Iranian proxies have escalated dramatically, with Hamas's attack on Israel last year, the Houthis targeting shipping vital to global trade, and Iran striking Israel with the largest single ballistic missile attack in history. The Biden approach to this mayhem has been to constrain our allies' defensive responses in the name of "escalation management." Restraining U.S. allies when they're responding to the aggression of our common enemies is ineffective and counterproductive. Equilibrium won't be restored unless the aggressor is pushed back. By telling Israel while it's under attack to limit its responses and not to strike too hard at the enemy, a new equilibrium may be achieved, but it will be more beneficial to the attacker, encouraging further aggression and war. So far, Israel has been successful in destroying Hamas and decapitating Hizbullah because it has ignored the Biden calls not to strike too hard and to negotiate with the two groups. Israel chose not to be constrained by Washington and is succeeding. The best geopolitical asset we have is our allies. When the frontier is on fire, Washington should unleash our allies that want to defend themselves and thus restore a beneficial equilibrium in their region. The writer is a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.