Trump’s America First Strategy Builds Deterrence Through Strong US-Israel Alliance, Experts Say
Critics once called it isolationist. But national security experts now say Donald Trump’s “America First” strategy is proving to be something else entirely — a hard-nosed policy of deterrence built on strong alliances, especially with Israel.
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Mike Makovsky, CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), said Israel effectively absorbs threats that would otherwise demand U.S. military action. “Historically, there are about three reasons why we have interests in the region,” he said. “One is Israel. Two is oil. And three is Islamic extremism — terrorism, Shia and Sunni.”
Makovsky said it is ironic that the America First debate has resurfaced “only a few months after Israel smoked America’s Mideast enemies.” He pointed to Iran’s nuclear advances and the role of its proxies. “They’re building ballistic missiles… They could reach the eastern seaboard of the United States,” he said. “You marry missiles with nukes that could hit the U.S. — you’ve got the North Koreans on the West Coast; do you really want Iran that could hit the East Coast?”
According to Makovsky, Israel’s campaign against those threats shows the alliance’s strategic value. “What did the Israelis just do? They took care of it. The United States came in with the B-2 at the very end… but it was Israel that did all that work,” he said.
He added that Israel “pretty much finished off Hamas,” weakened Hezbollah — “which has hundreds of American soldiers’ blood on their hands” — and continues to confront the Houthis to “ensure freedom of navigation.” That, he argued, is deterrence in action: “As long as we support Israel, we give them some help, we give them the weapons they need, they’re really doing our work.”
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Makovsky made a similar case for regional stability: “The biggest threat to the Gulf Arab oil exporters … is Iran,” he said. Without Israel’s containment of Tehran, “Iran would have taken over the Middle East, most likely. And if you care about oil prices, that’s not too good.”
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Makovsky warned that abandoning Israel would erode America’s credibility worldwide. He recalled what a senior Arab leader once told him: “If America doesn’t help Israel attack the nuclear facilities of Iran, it will be one of the great catastrophes.”
“That’s because everybody in the Mideast, everyone in Asia, knows that the U.S.–Israel relationship is one of the closest in the world,” Makovsky said. “If we don’t help Israel, it undercuts our credibility. The Chinese and the Russians and the North Koreans know that if we’re not going to support Israel, we’re not going to help other allies … and it would make us more vulnerable to the Chinese without a doubt.”
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Read the full piece in Fox News Digital.