OPINION:
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Americans are largely focused on the 2024 election, for good reason, but the future history of our civilization is currently being written in the Middle East.
The Israeli military is committed to urban warfare against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel is also engaged in selective strikes against Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and Iran — and punitive strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
At the same time, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is threatening retaliatory strikes against Israel.
Israel has the most successful, high-tech society in the region. It has remarkable tactical and operational military capabilities. It has applied advanced science and technology to challenges such as missile defense. But it seems to lack strategic vision and focus. In the long run, winning each day is necessary — but not sufficient.
This insight hit me in 1984 when Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick invited me to dinner at the U.N. ambassador’s residence, which was in the Waldorf Astoria. Irving Kristol was also there. He was a great intellectual and one of the founders of the neoconservative movement.
I asked Kristol if he thought Israel would exist in 100 years. He thought about it for a moment and responded: “A hundred years? I know that Israel’s here today. I think that is good. If you tell me that Israel’s here tomorrow, I think that will be good. I have no idea about 100 years. But I like the fact that today Israel is here.”
At the time, I thought it was a pragmatic response. Kristol had lived through the Holocaust, Israel’s war of independence and the wars it fought in 1956, 1967 and 1974. Israel was still there — and had grown more powerful, wealthier and more secure.
Yet being here today doesn’t answer the question of long-term survival. That takes strategic planning, which must occur at three levels.
The first level is immediate. A country must be adequately secure and prepared to fight this year. It must have the necessary equipment to survive a crisis. If any of these requirements is not met, there is an immediate problem to solve.
The second level considers the next 15 years. What are the indicators of potential danger? What would overwhelm those indicators? Is the country prepared to make the investments, restructuring and planning to achieve survival?
The third level of survival is long-term survival. Is the country managing its environment over time so that it is more likely to survive than be overwhelmed?
All three layers must be covered simultaneously. Two out of three is not enough — and anything less is a potential crisis.
The most elegant example of strategic planning is the American effort, which started with World War I and continued through the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Americans fought World War I. Then our leaders studied and thought about it for 20 years. We fought in World War II and were then confronted by the Soviet Union. We brought to bear everything we learned in a lifetime of fighting. We invented the Cold War and produced National Security Council Paper 68, the most important historic strategic planning document in modern times. I recommend that everybody read it. This April 15, 1950, document clearly provided an explanation of the world in which we were living.
Essentially, American leaders said that the creativity of a free people is so much more productive and inventive than the activities of a totalitarian state that, over time, the West would inevitably drown the Soviet Union. They believed that the key was to contain the Soviets long enough for the imbalance between the two systems to become overwhelming. That strategy finally succeeded in 1991. It’s astonishing to read NSC 68 and think about the intervening years.
Importantly, strategic planning at the national level is political, cultural and economic. In the long run, those three can crush an enemy’s ability to fight a kinetic war. It’s an important thing to remember. Long-term survival means being so strongly positioned that you don’t have to be in constant strife with your neighbors.
I mention all this because, in the long term, Israel’s survival and America’s survival are linked.
Anti-Israeli forces are inherently anti-American. Israel’s war is America’s war. We have as great a vested interest in ensuring that Israel survives on every front against the Houthi, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and others as we would if it were Maine or California.
When the leadership of Hamas says that “not a single Jew will remain.” I think that’s really clear, and Israel should take it seriously.
When Iran’s Parliament chants “Death to America” — and the ayatollah explains on Iranian television that this is policy, not a slogan — a rational America should take that seriously.
When Iranian proxies are targeting Americans abroad, we can’t ignore that.
If Israel is defeated, our shared enemies will become stronger — and they will continue attacking us. They will not be appeased or sated.
Israel’s survival requires precisely the strategic planning efforts that America needs. We cannot focus solely on winning kinetic wars or the immediate threats in front of us (although they are important). We must focus on winning the cultural, political and economic arguments at home and abroad — and we must do so decisively.
We must be at least as tough as our opponents, because they will wipe us out if given the chance.
Make no mistake: Our civilization is at stake. We must be prepared to defend it with all the intensity it deserves.
• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. And subscribe to the “Newt’s World” podcast.
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