(Note: This was written as an assignment for U.S Foreign Policy Process on November 7th, 2023 before the large scale attack from Iran on April 13th, 2024.)

The conflict in Israel and Gaza has been the major political crisis in the Middle East and the new focus of most national policy and intelligence agencies. For a month now, the war has been a source of intense partisan debate in the American legislation and as of 11/12/23, there has been no aid or support being sent to Israel as Republicans continue to lock up the House of Representatives. As the weakness in the government is being exposed, Iran and its proxy nations may be planning to expand the conflict into the wider Middle East. The nature of Iran and how it supports its proxies makes it hard for us to fully understand what they may be planning.

According to a CNN story, the US intelligence community believes that Iran is planning a response to Israel’s military invasion of Gaza, but in a way that preserves them from a direct military conflict with Israel and the US. However, there is still space to worry as Iran may not have total control over its proxy armies such as that of Lebanese Hezbollah which may attempt a direct military engagement with IDF soldiers, potentially bringing them into the conflict as well and making the rest of the Middle East unstable (“US Intelligence Currently Assesses Iran and Its Proxies Are Seeking to Avoid a Wider War with Israel | CNN Politics.”). This is a major development as the US legislature is still unable to produce spending bills for essential governmental agencies, delaying sending military support to Israel which would give time to Hezbollah and Iran to plan a more sound plan. Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian claimed that the war in Gaza expansion to the rest of the Middle East is “inevitable” due to Israeli aggression (“Iran Warns of ‘inevitable Expansion’ of Israel-Gaza War.” Al Jazeera). Though it is unclear what he meant by inevitable expansion, it presents a tough spot to be in for American foreign policymakers and links to the wider foreign policy issue America is in right now. Ukraine aid is still currently being debated in Congress, with House Republicans generally against sending more money, but are also supportive of sending money towards Israel for their defense. If Congress passes a resolution sending aid to Israel while also preventing aid to Ukraine, this becomes the behavior of the US in these modern conflicts. America would then be seen as fickle and only supportive when it’s in their best interests or convenient. Pulling support for Ukraine cements our behavior as a country that only helps when it is still advantageous and not when it’s right. Iran and other hostile countries like North Korea can follow Russia’s footsteps in Ukraine, where they just wear down American resolve over a few years and then punch right through the undersupported opposition. This is one of the aspects of the calculus of deterrence, giving a potential challenger insight as to whether a defender or supporter will back down. 

Another aspect of deterrence is the protege country concept. Israel is basically a jewel to America in an otherwise hostile region of the world and is therefore highly prized and valuable to American interests. Compared to Ukraine, America doesn’t have much political or economic interest in the area and has allies in Europe to balance the threat in the region, making Ukraine much less valuable and more likely to be dropped when costs become too high to maintain the conflict. This can’t really happen to Israel as it is one of the only supporters of American interests within the Middle East and will be defended by the US in most circumstances. This concept matters because if past behavior of America is to drop support for countries that don’t have much value to them, challengers will then prioritize countries that don’t have much political power or meaning to the wider international community and either directly attack them or absorb them into the wider country. The threat from the Iranian foreign minister can be a precursor to this event, as he threatens that the conflict will become a larger regional conflict. Iran would never directly engage in military conflict with Israel as it has too much political meaning to the US. Still, conflicts against its neighbors like Kuwait or Qatar who have less value to the US may be on the table for sparking a larger conflict. As explained before, the calculus would be that the US will give up its support for the smaller country when it becomes a political disadvantage for politicians at home. 

Military balance is fairly straightforward. The US has a massive military complex compared to Iran and terror organizations and is able to go head-to-head with most world militaries. However, the different spans of time and strategy for each of those may change. The US will most likely want a quick conflict as the loss of life and political consequences at home would be major and therefore will focus on the immediate and short-term balance of force against Iran and its proxies. Iran may plan a defensive strategy for the immediate and short-term balances, only wanting to use cheap and readily available hardware. The long term is where this becomes an issue. Because the US wants a short war and knows the conflict will be politically unpopular at home, the only long-term strategy is how to get military personnel or equipment out of the combat zone before the enemy arrives to claim it. After the US begins its long-term strategy of leaving the combat zone, Iran will use whatever military it has left to finish the conflict and achieve whatever goals it has for the wider Middle Eastern conflict. This would be catastrophic as Iran would become exponentially more powerful within the region due to establishing proxies or by direct control. 

Deterrence is one of the most critical ways that a nation can defend itself. It prevents bloodshed before it becomes an option and can guide how we plan responses based on our deterrence history. By halting support for Ukraine in the House, it sends a message that the US no longer wants to deal with the conflict and stop its support. This will establish a history of stopping military operations before they can be seen or making those decisions haphazardly, such as that of the 2021 Kabul Airlift which was very roughly planned and executed. If this history becomes well known to challengers, it can then look at the political or economic value a victim country may have. Rwanda is a great example of horrific crimes being committed within the country, but major political players paid little mind to it as Rwanda had little to no political or economic value to those players. Finally, the establishment of force balancing between three different time frames. The US tends to want short wars, as they will become politically unpopular the longer they go on. Once this behavior is seen by challengers, they can exploit that by engaging in asymmetrical warfare where the supporters are slowly whittled away as the conflict seemingly goes nowhere. Once the big players are out of the picture, challengers can then spring into action and destroy the weak defenses left behind by larger players.