Trump's 'Liberation Day' Tariffs: Fair trade or global trade war?

FA 2023/12/30 How Israel Could Lose America Netanyahu Risks Letting the War in Gaza Jeopardize an Essential Alliance Shalom Lipner In Dealing With the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, America Has No Easy Way Out Biden Must Take Risks, Talk Straight, and Act Boldly Aaron David Miller and Daniel C. Kurtzer The Rebirth of Russian Spycraft How the Ukraine War Has Changed the Game for the Kremlin’s Operatives—and Their Western Rivals Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan The Medicis of the Middle East? How the United Arab Emirates Is Plotting Its Rise Neil Quilliam and Sanam Vakil The Best of Books 2023 This Year’s Top Picks From Foreign Affairs’ Reviewers How Israel Could Lose America Netanyahu Risks Letting the War in Gaza Jeopardize an Essential Alliance By Shalom Lipner December 29, 2023 An Israeli armored personnel carrier driving along the Gazan-Israeli border, December 2023 Clodagh Kilcoyne / Reuters Israelis are still reeling from the devastating effects of the most colossal intelligence and operational failure in their country’s 75-year history. Israel’s long-held assumption that “smart fences” and the generous flow of foreign money would keep Hamas contained has unraveled. The October 7 raid on southern Israel left staggering numbers of victims—almost 1,200 dead, thousands wounded, more than 240 abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages, and hundreds of thousands displaced. Israel’s national trauma will endure for the foreseeable future. In the immediate aftermath of the assault, the Israeli government declared an emergency mobilization of the Israel Defense Forces, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu committing to “finish” a war that Israelis “didn’t want.” Now approaching its three-month mark, Operation Swords of Iron—as the Israeli military action in Gaza was initially dubbed—continues unabated, after a brief hiatus in late November during which 105 civilians were freed from Hamas captivity. Netanyahu has announced that the campaign’s aims are to eliminate Hamas, recover all the kidnapped Israeli citizens, and ensure that no element in Gaza can threaten Israel again. But the timetable for the completion of the ambitious IDF offensive remains nebulous, as do the contours of a feasible endgame for Gaza. What is abundantly clear, however, is that Israel’s latitude to pursue its stated war objectives would be vastly constrained were it not for the emphatic support of the United States. As the fighting persists and gaps emerge between the U.S. and the Israeli positions, Israel has strong reasons to invest in keeping its primary alliance intact. To ensure that its bond with the United States survives this war, Israel must not only manage the current military campaign judiciously but also tackle domestic political problems and determine once and for all how it plans to settle its conflict with the Palestinians. SWITCHING GEARS The present chapter in the decades-long relationship between Netanyahu, who returned for his latest stint as Israel’s prime minister last December, and U.S. President Joe Biden got off to a rocky start. Biden—who has often recalled signing a photo for Netanyahu with the words “I don’t agree with a damn thing you say but I love you”—waited four conspicuous weeks after his inauguration before calling the Israeli leader. Many viewed the delay as payback for Netanyahu’s procrastination in congratulating Biden for defeating President Donald Trump in 2020. (When Netanyahu finally called Biden, Trump blasted the prime minister for exhibiting a lack of loyalty.) The Biden administration made no secret of its dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s choice of coalition partners from Israel’s extreme right—most notably, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—promising to hold the prime minister personally accountable for the actions of his government. It was not long before Washington acted on that pledge. In January 2023, when Ben-Gvir ascended the Temple Mount, a sensitive religious site that houses the al Aqsa mosque, during his first days in office, U.S. officials sharply condemned the move and eschewed direct engagement with Ben-Gvir. Tensions escalated later that same week, after Justice Minister Yariv Levin unveiled controversial plans for a drastic overhaul of Israel’s judicial system. Fallout from the apparent disconnect between the U.S. and Israeli governments was particularly embarrassing to Netanyahu, a politician who prides himself on a superior understanding of American politics. The premier was left waiting by his mailbox for a coveted invitation to the White House; he is the first Israeli prime minister in more than 50 years to have been denied an Oval Office meeting during the first year of his term. Smotrich, for his part, was treated as persona non grata when he visited Washington in March. He and Ben-Gvir have been shunned by bipartisan congressional delegations to Israel and, together with other members of their factions, excluded from the guest list for the annual Fourth of July reception hosted by the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. Clashes between the Netanyahu government and the Biden administration over the intended transformation of Israel’s judiciary also spilled regularly into public view. In January 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken—on his first trip to Israel since the country’s November 2022 election—added quality time with civil society representatives to his itinerary, giving a morale boost to critics of Netanyahu’s agenda and delivering a not-so-subtle hint of U.S. concern about the fate of Israeli democracy. Israel’s latitude would be constrained were it not for emphatic U.S. support. The White House expressed similar misgivings. Speaking in June at a celebration of Israel’s 75 years of independence, Vice President Kamala Harris pointedly highlighted “strong institutions, checks and balances, and . . . an independent judiciary” as pillars of democracy in both the United States and Israel. Eli Cohen, Israel’s foreign minister, retorted hours later that Harris probably had not even read the proposed law and that she would not be able to identify a single component of the reform that “bothers her.” The brutal events of October 7 reset this caustic cycle. Animosities between Biden and Netanyahu did not disappear, but sympathy for Israel’s predicament overrode lingering disagreements. Biden, arriving in Israel on October 18 as the first-ever U.S. president to visit the country amid a war, promised the people of Israel that the United States would “stand with” them. “We’ll walk beside you in those dark days, and we’ll walk beside you in the good days to come,” Biden vowed. On the whole, U.S. officials have maintained their backing of IDF operations in Gaza, deferring often to Israeli prerogatives. Blinken, asked on December 10 when he expected the IDF to conclude its military campaign, responded bluntly, “These are decisions for Israel to make.” On December 8, casting a veto of a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, the U.S. deputy ambassador reasoned that such a halt would “only plant the seeds for the next war, because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace.” Washington has issued periodic admonitions, such as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s assertion on December 2 that “protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral duty and a strategic imperative.” But such comments have not diluted the overall impact of a U.S. policy that—as Austin also confirmed—upholds “Israel’s bedrock right to defend itself.” Biden has preferred to embrace Israel in public and convey U.S. reservations in private conversations with Israeli leaders, evidently reckoning that this strategy grants him more influence over Israel’s calculus than a confrontational approach would. The president’s personal appeals have yielded some results by, for example, helping persuade Israel to abort plans for a preemptive strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon in the days after Hamas’s initial attack. Skeptics of Biden’s methods point to the scale of the destruction the IDF has inflicted in Gaza, despite the efforts of U.S. backroom diplomacy—but the United States is also acting on its vested interest in Israel’s success at routing Hamas, which Washington has designated as a terrorist organization. Either way, Israel has benefited significantly from its ally’s friendship. FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES The United States’ attachment to Israel has evolved gradually since President Harry Truman’s recognition of the Jewish state on May 14, 1948. It was not until the 1960s, under President John F. Kennedy, that Washington began to provide military hardware to Israel. Shipments of Hawk antimissile batteries were soon followed, under Kennedy’s successor, President Lyndon Johnson, by M-48 Patton battle tanks, A-4 Skyhawk light attack aircraft, and F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers. The first explicit U.S. pledge to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge—an assurance of Israel’s military superiority over its rivals—came in a 1982 letter from President Ronald Reagan to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. U.S.-Israeli cooperation has been turbulent at times, but it has maintained a steady upward trajectory. U.S. security, diplomatic, and economic assistance has bolstered Israel’s position in a volatile region. Having a “big brother” over its shoulder has enabled Israel to punch above its demographic weight and geographic size, projecting strength well beyond its borders. And the United States’ commitment to Israel has endured through both Democratic and Republican presidents, including the most recent holders of that office. As president, Trump formally acknowledged Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory. His actions affirmed a broad consensus among Israelis and sent a formidable message to neighboring countries about U.S. support for Israel. Trump’s “Vision for Peace, Prosperity, and a Brighter Future for Israel and the Palestinian People”—a plan that most Israelis expected to fail—never led to U.S. acceptance of the Netanyahu government’s aspiration to extend Israeli sovereignty throughout the West Bank, but it became the catalyst for the Abraham Accords, which brought Israel’s surreptitious ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain into the open. Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the United States and an engineer of the deal, explained the logic in 2021: “The reason it happened, the way it happened, at the time it happened was to prevent annexation.” Pro-Palestine demonstrators at a protest in Washington, D.C., December 2023 Tom Brenner / REUTERS This is not to say U.S.-Israeli relations were without problems. In 2017, Trump divulged Israeli intelligence to Russia, possibly revealing sensitive collection methods. He repeatedly accused American Jews who vote for Democratic candidates of being “disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel,” not only entrenching Israel as a wedge issue and jeopardizing bipartisan sponsorship of close U.S.-Israeli ties but also stoking anti-Semitism. And his unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal without an alternative plan to stymie Iran’s race to acquire nuclear weapons only accelerated Tehran’s progress. Netanyahu encouraged Trump’s decision at the time, but that move has, arguably, made Israel less secure today. Despite early frictions, the Biden administration’s support for Israel since October 7—expressed in words and deeds—has been uncontestable. U.S. civilian and military officials have been constant fixtures in Israel, often participating in consultations with Israel’s war cabinet. The United States has sent Israel multiple airlifts of bombs and other munitions to replace its depleted inventories. Washington has also intervened to block UN Security Council resolutions that would sanction Israel or insist that the IDF end its mission in Gaza, called attention to the plight of the hostages being held by Hamas, and worked to secure their freedom. It has demanded that other countries condemn the acts of sexual violence that Hamas’s fighters committed against Israeli girls and women. Speaking at the White House on October 10, Biden warned Israel’s enemies not to join forces with Hamas. “To any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation,” he said, “I have one word: Don’t.” Among the chorus of world leaders who have urged similar caution, Biden was the only one who deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups and other military assets to reinforce the warning. The president’s steadfast support has been all the more remarkable as the United States enters an election year, given the vocal criticism of Biden’s Israel policy in some quarters of his own party. Biden has preferred to embrace Israel in public and convey U.S. reservations in private. On the other hand, differences have begun to emerge between U.S. perspectives and Israel’s operational priorities. As the fighting in Gaza continues, the United States has lobbied on behalf of “tactical humanitarian pauses,” which—as happened during the truce from November 24 to December 1—would give Hamas time to reestablish internal lines of communication and reposition its forces for additional attacks on IDF troops and missile launches on Israeli cities. (Israel’s government has been amenable to these pauses, another of which is now under negotiation, only for the sake of facilitating hostage releases.) Hamas has also exploited U.S. appeals for Israel to allow more food, fuel, and other aid into Gaza. Although civilian needs are pressing, the terrorist group has been caught commandeering this aid to sustain its hold on power. Biden’s objections to “indiscriminate bombing” by the Israeli Air Force and to the high numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza have compelled Israel to recalibrate the IDF offensive, which some Israeli leaders allege has prolonged its duration and exposed Israeli soldiers to heightened danger. Overall, however, Israel has gained much from its partnership with the United States. The Abraham Accords advanced the formal integration of Israel into the Middle East, altering the regional map in ways that enhance Israel’s security. Although combat in Gaza has slowed the pace of normalization, Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE have all indicated that they do not intend to abandon their connections with Israel. And Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, in a meeting with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on December 13, expressed interest in the idea of eventually joining their ranks. The United States’ material and political cover has also been essential to Israel’s ability to restore its lost deterrence after the disaster of October 7. “You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself—but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to,” Blinken said in a message to the Israeli people on October 12. The secretary’s precise balance between validating Israel’s independent capabilities and reaffirming the United States’ commitment to its welfare illustrates why Israel cannot afford to lose its best friend. NO GUARANTEES Israelis have always attributed staunch U.S. support for their country to a set of shared values—including freedom, pluralism, and democracy—and interests, such as the promotion of peace and stability. That ground is shifting now, especially as younger Americans express dramatically less affinity for Israel than older generations. Joe Biden, who has asserted often that “you don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” may well be the last Democratic president with impeccable pro-Israeli credentials. This trend should, and does, worry Israel. The stark reality is that the country has no viable alternative to the succor of the United States. Hedging its bets, as other Middle Eastern countries have done, by building relationships with China and Russia—permanent members of the UN Security Council that have both taken the side of Hamas—is not an option for Israel. And lately, even Biden himself has begun to qualify his statements about the war in Gaza. In a speech on December 12, he affirmed that “Israel’s security can rest on the United States,” but he added that Israel is “starting to lose” its support in other parts of the world. Harris, meanwhile, has advocated a “tougher” line in Washington’s dealings with Netanyahu. Rather than trying to close this distance from the United States, Netanyahu might actually be seeking to spark a row with Washington in order to improve his own job prospects as his approval ratings plummet. “A prime minister who cannot withstand American pressure should not enter the prime minister’s office,” Netanyahu announced to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on December 11. But engaging in public brawls with the United States is the last thing Israel needs right now. To avoid a future in which Israel is forced to resist existential perils without recourse to U.S. military arsenals or UN Security Council vetoes, Israeli policymakers must change tack. Israel has no viable alternative to the succor of the United States. First, they must take care in prosecuting the Gaza campaign. The inclusion of opposition party members in the war cabinet was a responsible step in that direction. As the war proceeds, the IDF should pursue its aims—which Israelis overwhelmingly endorse—as quickly as possible while minimizing collateral damage and the injury of innocents. To that end, the IDF chain of command should be meticulous in identifying legitimate operational targets, authorizing attacks only when those standards are met. It should also continue to implement ethical protocols for combat. Demonstrating professionalism and integrity will help Israel avoid a repeat of the 2006 war in Lebanon, when the absence of an unambiguous Israeli victory prompted U.S. President George W. Bush to conclude that Israel “mishandled [its] opportunity” to land a decisive blow against Hezbollah and its masters in Iran and Syria. Israel desperately needs to prioritize national security over politics. A supplementary 2023 budget passed on December 14, which was meant to cover the unanticipated expense of the war in Gaza, diverted precious funds to unrelated bureaucracies—including the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage and the Ministry of Settlement and National Missions—to satisfy key constituencies of the Netanyahu coalition instead. There is widespread concern that the 2024 budget will follow the same pattern of allocating resources for political patronage to religious parties at the same time that the United States is being called on to help offset the costs of the war. Netanyahu also canceled cabinet votes to approve the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority and to allow Palestinian laborers from the West Bank to return to work in Israel—the IDF; the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency; and the National Security Council all favor the employment measure, under certain stipulations—in order to avoid tangling with hard-line ministers whose incendiary statements and actions he generally tolerates. The prime minister’s own use of inflammatory rhetoric to shore up his lagging poll numbers, moreover, is sowing divisiveness while Israelis mourn their dead. Repairing Israel’s broken social contract, which had previously enabled its diverse society to coalesce around shared Jewish and democratic principles, and holding new parliamentary elections as soon as the security situation permits are two obvious ways to restore confidence in the country’s elected leadership among both Israeli citizens and Israel’s external backers. Israel desperately needs to prioritize national security over politics. Finally, and most urgently, Israel needs to formulate a clear position on the Palestinian issue. When the state of Israel was created 75 years ago, it had to fight off threats to its survival; today, Israel’s stewards must articulate a coherent vision of its ultimate destination. Otherwise, they will struggle to convince the United States and other countries to remain by Israel’s side. Netanyahu must lift his embargo on genuine discussion—within his government and with the Biden administration—of what will come after the Gaza conflict, and define not only what Israel will not countenance but also what outcomes it will accept. The prime minister has rebuffed attempts to have this conversation for fear of destabilizing his ruling coalition. Biden has expressed his frustration with this situation, commenting on December 12 that Netanyahu “has to change,” but the “government in Israel is making it very difficult.” Whether Israel wants one state, two states, or something else, its leaders and citizens need to decide on a course soon. They should recognize also that, no matter what their decision—and it is their decision alone to make—it will have consequences not only for Israel itself but also for its essential relationship with the United States. If the United States were to become sufficiently disenchanted with Israeli policies that Washington imposed conditions on the provision of U.S. military assistance, Israel could find its operating environment drastically restricted. The Biden administration’s recent delay of the export of more than 20,000 M-16 rifles intended for Israeli civil defense teams because of U.S. concerns about settler violence in the West Bank could be a harbinger of further impediments. With Hamas vowing to replicate the savagery of October 7 until Israel is “annihilated,” Hezbollah escalating its attacks across Israel’s border with Lebanon, Yemen’s Houthis disrupting Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, and Saudi Arabia still dangling the prospect of normalization, Israel’s next moves could be the difference between deepening violence and progress toward peace. SHALOM LIPNER is Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council. From 1990 to 2016, he served seven consecutive premiers at the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. The Medicis of the Middle East? How the United Arab Emirates Is Plotting Its Rise By Neil Quilliam and Sanam Vakil December 29, 2023 Matt Murphy For a long time, the United Arab Emirates was known mostly for a boom-and-bust real estate market, the consumerist glitz of Dubai, and vast oil resources. But over the last two decades, the UAE’s reputation has undergone a dramatic shift. Under President Mohammed bin Zayed, the UAE has spent billions of dollars building up and modernizing its military, becoming what former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis has dubbed “Little Sparta.” The UAE has also made itself the Middle East’s financial center. And the country has forged working relations with almost all the region’s actors, including Israel, as well as with every worldwide power, particularly the United States. The UAE has clear ambitions: instead of being known primarily as a regional player, the UAE wants to be more like Singapore, deploying global and economic power dramatically disproportionate to its size and helping offset its geographic vulnerability. To that end, the country has cut new trade deals, invested in overseas projects, and turned itself into a tourist destination and transportation and logistics hub. Should the UAE deliver on its ambitions, analysts searching for an apt comparision may have to look to the Medicis, the dynastic powerhouse that ruled Florence from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The Medicis did not govern much territory and were never at the center of Europe’s conflicts. But the family became a major player by using trade and banking to influence the larger empires in its neighborhood. They established an enduring alliance with France, maintained strong diplomatic ties with England, and fostered connections with the Holy Roman Empire. Florence became a focal point for economic activity, scientific discovery, and cultural achievement, including by funding Galileo and Michelangelo. The UAE brings plenty of advantages of this effort: a well-educated population, a location halfway between the world’s biggest economies, substantial reserves of oil and gas, and, relatedly, outlandish wealth. It has a secular governance model and, unlike its neighbors, is relatively tolerant of different faiths. The UAE is part of U.S. President Joe Biden’s vision for a Middle East economic corridor that connects India and Europe. It has strong ties with other emerging middle powers, such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia, thanks to its investments in their markets. It has even normalized ties with Israel, a historic adversary. And despite Hamas’s attack and the popular but contained outcry against the war in Gaza, Israel and the UAE are maintaining economic and diplomatic relations. Yet the UAE is nevertheless constrained in its quest for influence and power. It is highly dependent on oil, and it is facing pressure to rapidly decarbonize. It must fend off Islamic radicalism and regional instability. It has a long-standing territorial dispute with Iran, whose proxies have attacked the country. It faces stiff competition from its neighbor Qatar, with which it shares many features, and an even more significant challenge from Saudi Arabia. Riyadh, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, is also trying to become the Middle East’s political, economic, and energy heavyweight. It is making investments designed to diversify the economy and make the Saudi market more attractive to foreign countries and companies. Many of these economic policies could adversely affect the UAE’s status and ambitions. The Medicis, of course, became and remained powerful despite competition from bigger states. Their wealth, economic expertise, and political influence allowed them to navigate international politics and establish connections with influential figures and rulers across Europe. But the Medicis’ political influence declined as family members fought among themselves, making it easier for external forces to push the state around. Eventually, in 1737, the last Medici ruler died without a male heir, and the dynasty ended. The fact that two of the September 11 hijackers were Emirati citizens was a rude awakening. The UAE could encounter similar difficulties. Since it is also governed by a family, future leaders might face competition from their brothers, uncles, and cousins. If a president dies without naming a clear successor, such infighting could pull the UAE in multiple directions. Predatory regional states could then take advantage of the country’s dysfunction, using it to dislodge the UAE from its status as a Middle Eastern leader. The UAE could very well be the source of its own undoing. Its independent foreign policy, designed to protect it from global tumult, often puts it at odds with its neighbors and the United States. The government has supported militant proxies in foreign conflicts, spreading instability. And the country’s efforts to diversify the economy away from oil could flop, prompting the kind of stagnation that exposes leaders to criticism from within. For now, the UAE does not seem to be at acute risk of experiencing the massive turbulence that undid the Medicis. Mohammed bin Zayed, known as MBZ, has made sure the family sticks together, ruling alongside his five full brothers in a system that is based on consensus. The six brothers have already agreed that MBZ’s son, Khaled bin Mohammed, will be his successor, likely ensuring a smooth transition of power. As long as the family stays unified and governs efficiently, the country should have the ability to punch above its weight. In the near term, a powerful UAE could help the West. The country and the United States are now longtime partners, and if Washington keeps promoting the UAE’s security, the UAE will mostly help promote U.S. interests in the Middle East. But in the long term, a strong UAE may not benefit anyone except the UAE. The country is a transactional actor, and so it will switch allegiances as soon as the global balance of power tips in Asia’s favor. The UAE, after all, does not favor democracy, and it is not naturally aligned with the West. It has built ties with China and maintained them with Russia, whose president it happily welcomed to COP28. The UAE wants to use outside powers as it sees fit, and so no outside power—above all the United States—can count on it to serve as a proxy in the Middle East. OUT OF MANY The United Arab Emirates was formally created in 1971, following the United Kingdom’s announcement that it would withdraw from east of the Egyptian city of Suez in 1968. MBZ’s father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, merged Abu Dhabi with Dubai and five other territories and became the resulting country’s first president. Located between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the UAE was immediately subject to competition between its much larger neighbors. But Zayed, who ruled until his death in 2004, worked to balance the two heavyweights, cooperating with its neighbors and staying neutral during conflicts, such as the Iran-Iraq War. The September 11 attacks shocked the government and compelled the UAE to adopt a more aggressive posture. The fact that two of the hijackers were Emirati citizens was a rude awakening, showing that passivity had allowed other actors—including Islamist extremists—to operate within the UAE’s borders. As a result, the country’s government began working to purge Emirati society of radical Islamist influences. It issued rules that barred religious leaders from discussing politics, and it prohibited known conservative or radical Islamists from publishing their material. Educational reforms to overhaul the state’s curricula away from Islamist influences, already underway, accelerated. Under pressure from Washington, the state established elected municipal councils. The country’s relationship with the United States was of new importance to the UAE, which saw stronger U.S. ties as an antidote to managing regional security challenges. Under MBZ, then the defense minister, the UAE began investing more in its relationship with Washington, including by stepping up to fight alongside U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Joining Washington’s coalition had the added benefit of giving Emirati soldiers operational experience and beginning to transform the UAE into a capable military power. A decade later, as protests broke out across the Arab world, MBZ and his brothers believed that the Muslim Brotherhood was behind the unrest, and they feared that Islamists would challenge their secular model of governance and foment dissent within their country. When Bahrain was rocked by protests in February 2011, the UAE quickly deployed 500 troops to Manama. Their soldiers, along with Saudi troops, helped Bahrain put down the demonstrations. Bahrain’s monarchy remained in place. At home, the UAE arrested members and activists associated with Islah, an Emirati-based Islamist group it accused of organizing a coup. The government designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization in 2014 and drove all domestic remnants of the organization underground. After Mohamed Morsi—a Muslim Brotherhood politician—freely won the presidency in Egypt, the UAE helped sponsor the military coup that drove him from power. Biden speaking with MBZ in New Delhi, September 2023 Evelyn Hockstein / Pool / Reuters Egypt helped shaped the UAE’s thinking in other ways. When the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama did not defend Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak—Morsi’s predecessor and a long-standing U.S. ally—as he faced overthrow, the UAE began to conclude the United States was not committed to the Middle East’s security. It was further disenchanted when Obama failed to enforce his infamous redline against chemical weapons use in Syria. The UAE began diversifying its political partnerships, including by forging economic links to China. It also started using its own military to project hard power across the region and to undermine Islamists. To project such power, the UAE took a page out of Iran’s playbook. In 2012, the UAE started cultivating armed groups that were fighting against Islamists in Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. It also began lending these groups military, financial, logistical, and diplomatic support. The interventions have prolonged conflicts in each jurisdiction by making it hard for once ascendant Islamist groups, such as Egypt’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, to reestablish dominance or challenge regional governments. Its 2015 Yemen intervention has provided an illustrative snapshot of how the UAE’s interventions can play out. That year, the UAE joined an Arab coalition to fight against the Iran-backed Houthis while also supporting the United States in its fight against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State (also known as ISIS)—both of which have a presence in Yemen. The UAE also used the civil war in Yemen to take on the locally based Muslim Brotherhood and to support Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council, which has sought self-rule. Over the course of the war, tensions between the STC and the Saudi-backed government resulted in a power struggle that drew resources away from the original fight against the Houthis, who continue their northern dominance. The UAE’s 2020 withdrawal from Yemen paved the way for an internally recognized coalition government that included the STC and cemented the group’s position of influence in Socotra Island and on the southern coast. But the UAE’s five-year involvement still helped worsen a war that has had, and continues to have, devastating humanitarian consequences. Still, MBZ—who became the UAE’s official leader after his older brother had a stroke in 2014—does not appear overly concerned that Yemen has damaged his country’s reputation. He knows that Western policymakers and their publics tend to conflate political Islam with jihadism. By prolonging conflicts and keeping the spotlight on Islamist organizations, the UAE has been able to sell a self-serving narrative to Western leaders: that it is holding the line against religious extremism. By positioning itself as an enemy of extremism, the UAE has been able to earn ongoing Western support for expanding Emirati power. FRIENDS AND ENEMIES The UAE’s ambitions have provoked opposition within its region especially. Its rivalry with Qatar, another small monarchy flush with hydrocarbons, is particularly stark. Qatar’s astonishing rise to prominence in the 1990s, following the rapid development of its natural gas resources, has shown that rulers tolerant of political Islam can also offer citizens a high quality of life. And Qatar has given safe haven to radical Islamist leaders and offered support to Muslim Brotherhood groups, including Hamas’s political leadership and top Taliban officials. Tensions between Qatar and the UAE ran high throughout the first decade of this century. But they bubbled over during the Arab Spring. The UAE withdrew its ambassador from Doha in 2014 over Qatar’s support for Islamist forces. Then, in 2017, the UAE worked with Bahrain, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to blockade Qatar until it complied with 13 stringent demands. These included shutting down Al Jazeera (the major international news organization funded by Qatar), downgrading ties with Tehran, and closing a Turkish military base that Qatar has hosted since 2016. The UAE believed that, faced with such an extensive regional boycott, Qatar would buckle. But the UAE overestimated its clout, and the blockade backfired. Turkey provided food aid and sent further military support to Qatar. Iran also sent food, and it allowed Qatar Airways to use its airspace. And Qatar continued to cultivate new economic partnerships and drew closer to the United States. Today, it is an important interlocutor between Tehran and Washington and Israel and Hamas. (Since the war in Gaza began, for instance, Qatar has helped negotiate the release of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners.) The rest of the Gulf, meanwhile, suffered. After three and a half punishing years, Saudi Arabia forced Bahrain, Egypt, and the UAE to end the blockade, even though Qatar appeared not to have given in to the demands. The reversal also showed that even Saudi Arabia, a traditional Emirati partner—one run by MBZ’s distant relatives—is not always a good friend. In fact, some of Saudi Arabia’s own national priorities are in direct tension with the UAE’s. The two countries are locked in an escalating economic and scientific competition, including over which Gulf state will dominate the tourism, trade, and space exploration industries. They are also competing to diversify their economies away from fossil fuel production. Saudi Arabia is desperately playing catch-up, having started the race at least 30 years later than the UAE. But it has aggressively tried to beat its neighbor. In 2021, for instance, it announced that international businesses with Saudi government contracts would have to establish regional headquarters in Riyadh by 2024—a clear attempt to get multinational companies to move their Middle East headquarters out of the UAE. To project power, the UAE has taken a page out of Iran’s playbook. The UAE has found ways to fight back. It aligned its workweek with the Western one. (In Saudi Arabia and most of the rest of the Middle East, the workweek starts on Sunday.) It continues to promote its relative tolerance for different faiths, including by opening a synagogue. It has even started granting citizenship or permanent residence to some expatriates, a privilege that foreigners cannot obtain in other Gulf states. And the UAE is still far ahead of Saudi Arabia in its efforts to move away from oil dependence, even as Saudi Arabia attracts international attention and investment for its diversification plans. The UAE has also worked to reinforce its partnership with the United States. Although the UAE questioned U.S. commitments to its security, especially after the Obama administration signed the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement (which MBZ believed legitimized Tehran’s expansionist regional behavior), Washington remains the UAE’s security provider of choice. Emirati leaders have worked to build stronger ties with both the Democratic and the Republican Parties, as well as their constituencies. It has, for example, spent millions on lobbying to cultivate closer relationships with interest groups and former government officials across the political spectrum. The UAE’s ultimate goal is a long-term U.S.-Emirati bilateral security agreement that would create lasting security guarantees and give it direct U.S. security protection. Right now, the UAE has been negotiating a deal that, although short of the NATO-style agreement MBZ envisioned, would provide defense collaboration if the UAE limits its technological and security cooperation with China. But the UAE and the United States remain far apart, and MBZ could be waiting for the results of the U.S. election—in which a President Donald Trump might be more compromising—before signing on to anything. Yet even a strong security guarantee from Washington would not overcome Emirati inclinations to hedge. MBZ and his brothers are still forging deeper connections with Washington’s adversaries—and even some of the UAE’s traditional opponents. The country let the Chinese company Huawei build its 5G cellular network and has maintained a neutral posture between Russia and Ukraine, keeping an open line of communication with the Kremlin and abstaining from a UN vote condemning the war. It has allowed Russians to keep vacationing in Emirati cities and to park their assets in Emirati banks; bilateral trade between Russia and the UAE increased almost 68 percent in 2022. And after Iranian proxies attacked ships in the Persian Gulf and Saudi oil facilities in September 2019, the UAE dispatched one of its leaders to Tehran to de-escalate tensions. These discussions led the UAE to renew commercial ties with Iran. Today, the UAE is the Islamic Republic’s largest regional trading partner. The Burj Khalifa tower, the tallest building in the world, Dubai, December 2023 Amr Alfiky / Reuters That did not, however, stop Iranian proxies in Yemen from attacking Abu Dhabi’s airport in January 2022. The strikes were a stark reminder that even de-escalating tensions with Iran will not guarantee the UAE’s security. Partially as a result, the Emirati leadership has simultaneously built a partnership with Israel. In 2020, it signed the Abraham Accords, normalizing ties with Israel for the first time in history. And unlike Jordan, one of the few other Arab states that has full relations with Israel, the UAE did not recall its ambassador after the war in Gaza began. The Abraham Accords were a watershed moment, one that demonstrated just how focused the UAE is on realpolitik instead of Arab or regional causes, including the future of the Palestinians. Instead, they reflect the overlapping interests of the UAE and Israel, such as a shared concern that the United States would no longer assist them if Iran attacked. They also reflect shared concerns about the danger of Iran’s proxies, the risks of Islamic radicalism, and the dangers that come from armed Islamic groups such as Hamas. It is not surprising, then, that the UAE hopes Hamas—which has Muslim Brotherhood links—will be displaced from Gaza. The war has made clear to the UAE that its strategy remains vulnerable to its geography, and it knows that Islamists are a regional threat. That is why, since the start of the war, the UAE has reaffirmed its ties with Israel. They remain part of its broader strategic plan. Still, the UAE taken aback by Israel’s military response. It has therefore used its UN Security Council position to lobby for a cease-fire and humanitarian aid. Without a cease-fire in hand, the UAE (like most regional states) has refused to take part in or support discussions for what should come after the war, leaving the Biden administration to take the lead. But behind the scenes, the country has a plan. It wants Muhammad Dahlan, a former leader in the Palestinian Authority, to then run the territory. It will likely use its influence with Israel to push for Dahlan to take charge, even though Dahlan is a highly controversial figure. It will also want to address Iran’s role as a patron of Hamas and to weaken Iran’s network of proxies—including the Houthis, who have disrupted shipping in the Red Sea. TRUST THE PROCESS The Abraham Accords have already led to increased defense cooperation between the UAE and Israel. But they are designed to do more than just bolster security. They are also supposed to help the UAE’s economy. The agreement created bilateral economic, technological, and commercial opportunities in a variety of industries, including energy, tourism, health care, and ports. It prompted the UAE to lift visa restrictions on Israelis and to sign a free trade agreement with the Israeli government. The accords have also helped the UAE develop deeper economic relations with the United States and could therefore link the UAE to supply chains beyond the Middle East. All in all, the deal is supposed to boost trade to $4 billion within five years. So far, however, the tangible benefits of the deal are uncertain. There are not yet any estimates of how much economic growth the deal has produced, and Emiratis have been reluctant to build people-to-people exchanges with Israelis. The war will make integration between the states even more difficult. And the UAE’s relations with Israel have not exactly been a boon for democratic politics. The UAE nefariously used Israeli-produced Pegasus spyware to hack dissidents, journalists, and, according to The Guardian, the phone of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It is difficult to say how much the country’s autocratic behavior is a vulnerability for the government. There is very little data about Emirati public opinion, and it is hard to know whose opinion even matters to the government; over 90 percent of the UAE’s residents are not citizens. But the government made it very clear during COP28 that it will brook no sign of dissent. Authorities charged 87 Emirati activists with terrorism offenses for staging a series of peaceful protests, many of whom are already in prison (and have been for almost a decade), even though the whole world was watching. The UAE, it seems, does not worry much about the optics of being a repressive state. The UAE might have been more concerned about how its crackdown looked if the protests had been larger. Yet in general, Emirati citizens appear content with the affluence and comfort their state offers relative to elsewhere in the Middle East. Although poorer citizens from the northern Emirates who have lost loved ones fighting in Yemen have expressed some discontent, it is not nearly enough to challenge the government. The UAE’s vision for the future is rooted in a simple imperative: survival. That most of the population is made up of foreigners could create future challenges for the country’s rulers. The UAE has a population of 9.3 million, of which some 665,000 are UAE nationals. The remaining 8.7 million are migrant workers, most of whom are temporary contract workers drawn from South Asia and Southeast Asia. These workers arrive under a temporary guest worker program and become part of the infamous kafala (sponsorship) labor system, which has been widely criticized by international rights groups for exposing migrant workers to abuse. Activists have documented exploitative working conditions, overcrowded living accommodations, restrictions on freedom to organize and bargain collectively, and withheld salaries. Although UAE authorities have introduced a number of laws to address these problems, they are rarely implemented, and the pattern of exploitation persists. Workers, for example, continue to frequently report sexual abuse. As a result, home governments, such as the Philippines, have sometimes prevented female workers from being recruited by the UAE. But these bans are short-lived, as the need for remittances prevails. It therefore seems unlikely that these workers will seriously undermine the government, at least in the near future. In 2010, Abu Dhabi released UAE Vision 2021, its agenda for improving the country’s education, technological development, infrastructure, and overall economy. Since then, the UAE has expanded its universities, airports, and downtowns; established the Middle East’s premier space program; overhauled its tax system; and created new, longer-term visas aimed at attracting highly skilled workers. Still, in several critical areas, the plan has come up short. The country failed, for example, to introduce labor reforms that would make it easier for workers to switch employers (and thereby push up wages), and it has not done enough to get Emirati citizens in the workforce. Although the UAE is less dependent on oil today than it was in the past, oil rents still account for 15 percent of the economy. Its banking and tourism industries—which the UAE sees as the country’s future—remain strong, but they are under growing pressure from regional competitors such as the Saudis. The UAE has a new plan—Vision 2071—that serves as a more ambitious version of Vision 2021. This time, the state says it will invest more in health care, education, and tech industries to diversify the economy. It also claims that it will work harder to move away from fossil fuels. At COP28, the UAE helped get nearly 200 countries to agree to transition away from carbon. Yet there are reasons to doubt the UAE’s sincerity. The country has committed to increasing investment in its fossil fuel industry in the near term, and when it comes to fighting climate change, the UAE is investing almost exclusively in technologies such as carbon capture, which are designed to extend the longevity of the oil sector. To make its 2071 Vision a reality, the UAE will need to be more serious about climate change. It will also need to make real investments in improving the productivity of its own citizens and shoring up its security. STAYIN’ ALIVE MBZ’s vision for the future is rooted in a simple imperative: survival. The Middle East presents a harsh and unforgiving security environment, and as a small state, the UAE is especially vulnerable to turmoil. Securing the sustainability of family rule and the longevity of the UAE may therefore require both more wealth and more power. So far, MBZ has played his hand effectively. The UAE has become a case study for how small states can play an outsize role in international politics and economics, much as the Medicis did. But the Medicis also fell apart as the family lost its unity and shared vision. As the centuries passed, inheritance and succession disputes, along with internal feuding factions, weakened its control. Meanwhile, the rise of other powerful families in Italy challenged Medici supremacy, and other nearby city-states gained power and further diminished the Medicis’ political leverage. Eventually, with less talented leaders at the helm, the family suffered significant financial and political losses that led to the dynasty’s demise. MBZ and his brothers face many of the same tensions that eventually led to the Medicis’ collapse. The family gets along well now, but it has a history of infighting. It is surrounded by other assertive regional states, and local conflicts could spill over into its boundaries. The UAE also faces challenges the Medicis did not have. As MBZ well knows, the United States may not always be a good security partner. And in the long term, climate change could lead to extreme temperatures and droughts that make the Arabian Peninsula uninhabitable. Fulfilling its global ambitions will help the UAE survive these challenges, in particular its pivot away from the oil industry. But ultimately, the best way the country can stay alive is by coming to terms with its geography. Although the UAE might seem ahead of its neighbors now, many states are hot on its tail and undermining its security. As a result, rather than trying to hinge itself beyond the region, the country’s long-term security and economic interests will be better served by a stronger regional security framework—a process that requires deeper regional integration and more effective conflict resolution mechanisms. Family infighting may eventually bring about the demise of the UAE—nothing lasts forever—but unless it comes to grips with its geography, living in a rough neighborhood dwarfed by hegemonic powers on all sides will undo it first. Ultimately, this means the UAE must accept that no matter how much it projects its power, it will always be penned in by Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The seven emirates cannot escape their physical limitations, and their external partners—however much they pledge support—will not endlessly safeguard the country. Future historians may well compare the Medicis with the al-Nahyans. But the state will have to make it to, and then past, 2071 first. NEIL QUILLIAM is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme. SANAM VAKIL is the director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme. Don’t Give Up on a Better Russia An Opposition Activist in Moscow on How His Country Can Change By Aleksei Miniailo December 28, 2023 Antiwar protesters in St. Petersburg, Russia, February 2022 Reuters February 24, 2022, was the worst day of my life. When I woke up to news that Russia was invading Ukraine, it felt impossible to believe. I knew that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been massing troops along Ukraine’s borders, and I had read that Western intelligence agencies believed war was imminent. A couple of days before the invasion began, I had even submitted an application to hold an antiwar rally in Moscow. And yet the idea that Putin would try conquering Europe’s largest country—one with so many cultural and familial ties to Russia—still felt unfathomable. I hoped the headlines were wrong, and that journalists had mistaken another provocation for a full-blown attack. Alas, they had not. As I read more, it quickly became evident that the assault was real. In photos and videos, I saw explosions on the streets where I once walked with my friends. My relatives in Zaporizhzhia were writing to me from a missile shelter. As a Russian opposition activist, I am no stranger to horrible Kremlin behavior: I have protested against rigged elections, seen my colleagues get arrested, and spent two months in jail myself—barely avoiding charges that carried a prison term of up to 15 years. But watching the invasion begin was more terrible than anything I had experienced before. After it became clear the invasion was real, I gathered with friends and allies to brainstorm what we could do. It would have been easy, in that moment, for us to fall into despair. But as activists and researchers, we knew that Putin’s regime was less steadfast than it seems. We had seen Putin use polls and elections to create an impression, both within Russia and outside the country, that he has overwhelming support—an impression that helps him both control Russians and influence foreign politicians. And we worried that many Russian pollsters would struggle to adjust their methods to a wartime environment. We began a research project, called Chronicles, in which social scientists would endeavor to understand how deep Russians’ support for the invasion actually goes. Pro-war sentiment appears to be much weaker than many think. Although most Russians passively accept the invasion, only 12 percent of Russians can boast at least a minimally coherent pro-war position: one where they simultaneously declare support for the war, say they would not accept a Russian loss, and believe that the state’s priority should be military spending instead of social spending. According to our research, the percentage of Russians who say they would support withdrawing from Ukraine without reaching Moscow’s military goals is higher than the percentage who say they would oppose such a decision—40 percent to 33 percent. (The latter figure has decreased from 47 percent in February.) Russia’s elite has mixed feelings, too. According to many Western analysts, the Russian establishment is unified in support of Putin’s “special military operation.” But relatively few Russian elites are vocal about their backing. Many of them—including those who are named among Putin’s possible successors—have, at various points, tried to distance themselves from the war. And even some of the war’s biggest supporters appear unhappy with Putin’s leadership. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny, which the former overall commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine may have known about in advance, was a great illustration of this dissatisfaction. To end the mutiny, after all, Putin had to humiliate himself by negotiating with Prigozhin, a person who massacred army officers and publicly called Putin what, in Russian, translates to “accomplished old asshole.” The fact that Prigozhin later died in a mysterious plane crash hardly makes this outcome less embarrassing. To help end the war and bring about democratic change, activists are working to capitalize on disaffection among both the establishment and ordinary people. Our team, for instance, is preparing a grassroots project that will paint a picture of what everyday life in a democratic Russia might be like. We believe that focusing on day-to-day issues is essential: to most people, the idea of better schools, hospitals, and cities is way more comprehensible and motivating than calls for establishing the rule of law and holding free elections. We must persuade Russians that, if the country works on improving itself instead of fighting abroad, they will be more prosperous and secure instead of poorer and more vulnerable. If Russians are convinced this is true, more of them might decide that the high costs of challenging the regime are worth the benefits. Within Russia, pro-war sentiment appears to be much weaker than many think. Western voices and policies often make this task—already tough—even tougher, by trying to collectively punish all Russians and treating the country as irredeemable, even with an end to the conflict and change in leadership. Most of Europe, for instance, is reluctant to accept Russians trying to flee Putin’s regime. Borders with Russia are being closed for ordinary Russians (although oligarchs still find ways to get out). Some Americans and Europeans have even talked about breaking Russia apart, arguing that it is the only way to overcome Moscow’s imperial legacy and make Europe safe. Such talk inadvertently bolsters Putin’s claim that the war in Ukraine is defensive and that he is protecting Russians from a rapacious NATO. It has driven much of the country’s elite even closer to Putin, even though many of them lost billions of dollars because of his conflict. A different course would be more effective. To steer both the Russian establishment’s and ordinary people’s opinions toward returning occupied territories to Ukraine, the United States and Europe need to grant protection to people running from Russia, and they need to stop discriminating against Russians abroad. They have to make more compelling assurances that they will not try to dismember Russia, and they need to offer some form of amnesty to officials who oversee a democratic transition. Finally, and most important, they have to lay out a clear road map of how, and under what conditions, they will lift both individual and national sanctions. This program may not satisfy Ukrainians and some of their allies, many of whom want to see Russia suffer for its malevolent deeds. It will also not inspire idealists, who believe that Russians should fight against the war and for democracy simply because doing so is right. As an idealist myself, I understand the disappointment. But Ukraine, the West, and ordinary Russians should have a unified interest: ending the war as soon as possible, returning occupied territories to Ukraine, and returning to a peaceful life. The United States and Europe can help achieve these aims by convincing our peers that withdrawing and democratizing will have major benefits—instead of serious costs. RISKS AND RETURNS Individual decisions are typically motivated by potential risks and rewards. And for Russians today, the costs of pushing for democracy far exceed the benefits. Moscow has long made sure that dissent is dangerous. Even before the war, simply attending a protest could easily land someone in jail, sometimes for years. But since the war began, the penalties have grown. Today, basic acts of resistance—like wearing a yellow T-shirt and blue jeans (matching the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag)—can land someone in jail. Depending on the scale of the action, the sentence might be short, but in a country where most people live on a salary of around $500 per month, even a brief period of detention can deprive people of the ability to feed their children. And lengthy sentences are common. Writing an article criticizing Putin or making social media posts calling for an end to the “special military operation” can lead to prison terms that might extend for up to 15 years. Those are the legal punishments. Many Russian journalists and politicians have also been assassinated or nearly assassinated for criticizing the government during Putin’s reign. In 2003, Yuri Shchekochikhin, a Russian investigative journalist, died in suspicious circumstances; relatives, colleagues and civil society actors believe he was poisoned. Boris Nemtsov, one of the country’s most prominent past opposition leaders, was shot dead in 2015 near the Kremlin. Last June, when the antiwar activist Anatoly Berezikov died in detention, his lawyer said it was because of torture. Many other antifascist activists have been tortured—including by being electrocuted naked. Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most famous opposition leader, barely survived being poisoned by Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB; today, he is in prison. Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition activist, survived two poisoning attempts. Now, he is in jail for 25 years. Since February 24, thousands upon thousands of Russians have stood up against the invasion. But they have not stopped it. More than 20,000 have, however, been detained by the police, many of whom were then beaten and tortured. They are only the latest protesters that, despite working hard and taking great personal risks, did not realize their aims. The widespread 2017 and 2018 demonstrations against Russian corruption and autocratic rule did not result in major reforms. Mass protests against Putin’s norm-breaking 2012 presidential campaign failed to stop his return to office. In fact, the last successful protest aimed at Russia’s federal government took place in 2005, when the elderly blocked the country’s most important highway to get their social benefits back. Russian police officers detaining a protester in Moscow, September 2022 Reuters Russia’s experience is, unfortunately, typical of autocratic countries. In Venezuela, years of demonstrations against President Nicolás Maduro yielded arrests and mass repression but no regime change. Iran’s 2022 antigovernment protests captured the hearts of people all over the world, yet public executions and thousands of arrests subdued the unrest. Next door to Russia, in Belarus, over 500,000 citizens—or at least one in every 20 people in the country—demonstrated against President Alexander Lukashenko’s fraudulent 2020 reelection. Ultimately, the Belarussian state snuffed out the dissent with unremitting violence. Even in democracies, protests are often ineffective. Millions of people in the United States demonstrated against the war in Iraq, but their government went ahead and invaded anyway. In some post-Soviet states, protest movements have had more success. In Ukraine, for example, the 2014 Maidan revolution successfully toppled the country’s corrupt president after he tried to stop Ukraine from deepening relations with the EU. But Kyiv, unlike Moscow, was not an authoritarian regime. The demonstrators did not expect mass arrests or killings in retaliation for their actions. When over 100 people were, in fact, killed by the police, the movement had already gained almost unstoppable momentum. The protesters also had support from major political parties, elected officials, newspapers, and television channels. Dissenters in today’s Russia do not have any such backing. Putin, slowly but steadily, has either subdued or destroyed these institutions. His regime went about it in a clever way. There was no obvious turning point in Putin’s takeover, no moment when democracy was dealt an undisputed final blow. Instead, he just piled on a series of straws that eventually broke the country’s back. IN THE WAY Russia, however, is not hopeless. There are opposition groups, including mine, that are trying to convince the country that a more democratic and peaceful future is both better and possible—and we are far from hopeless. According to our team’s phone polls, more Russians (46 percent) want the state to prioritize social spending over military spending than the other way around (26 percent). Almost half—47 percent—empathize with people who try to dodge military service, as opposed to the 36 percent of people who condemn their behavior. It is difficult to estimate the number of Russians who actively support the war—defined as Russians who volunteer, donate to troops, or otherwise go out of their way to assist with the operation. But by our estimates, the number is below five percent. In fact, willingness to serve in the army is so low that the state offers up to $11,000 just for signing the contract with the military. Russians are not unrestrained warmongers. Most are willing to end Moscow’s assault on its neighbor. Critics might argue that our conclusions are prejudiced because of the team’s political positions. But the professional pollsters do all due diligence and use rigorous methods to ensure that our data is valid. We are transparent about how we conduct surveys, publishing our questionnaires and anonymized datasets so that any social scientist can check and criticize our work—critiques that we, in turn, use to improve our methods. And for the most part, our findings do not contradict those of other researchers, be it Russia Watcher or the Levada Center. They just show that, for many Russians, support for the war is paper thin. That there is discontent, of course, does not mean there will be active opposition: responding to a poll is different from taking action. To turn unhappiness into constructive action, activists must persuade disaffected Russians that the return is worth the risk and that doing nothing at all will land Russia in an even worse situation than it is in now. In order to do so, Russian opposition figures try to explain Russia’s real economic situation and what is happening with the war through analytic materials and through political entertainment shows broadcast on YouTube, which is not yet blocked in Russia. We are also actively trying to show what a peaceful democratic Russia might look like. The United States and Europe have in some ways complicated our task, in part through restrictions that make it harder for us to function. Mitya Aleshkovsky, for instance, a Russian nonprofit and media manager well known for his antiwar and anti-Putin stance, encountered numerous problems with international banks and PayPal when he tried to create a nongovernmental organization aimed at supporting Russia’s antiwar initiatives. Latvia revoked the license for TV Rain, a liberal Russian television channel that Moscow had kicked out. (Latvian officials contended, falsely, that the station supported the invasion.) Western rhetoric has encouraged ordinary Russians to stand by Putin. Western societies have also made life needlessly difficult for ordinary Russians fleeing the regime. The vast majority of NATO states make it hard for Russians to get visas or residence permits. The EU states that border mainland Russia—Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—have prevented most Russians with existing tourist visas from entering. These barriers are entirely self-defeating. Ostensibly designed to demonstrate the anti-Putin stance of Western politicians, the restrictions’ most important accomplishment is reinforcing Putin’s message that the West views all Russians as the enemy. They also prevent many able-bodied and smart young men—the people whom Putin needs to prosecute his conflict—from evading conscription. The West does, of course, have an interest in preventing a certain class of Russians from enjoying life in its cities: Putin’s cronies. And Washington and Europe’s post-invasion crackdown on Russian oligarchs, years overdue, was welcomed in the Russian opposition community. But the West may ultimately need to go easier on these figures than it would like. After Putin himself, Russia’s elite are the country’s most powerful people, and the West’s tough stance means they have zero incentive to push for an end to the conflict. The Kremlin, of course, will punish them for dissent. But U.S. and European commentators have threatened to punish them, too, as part of a peace agreement. As a result, their safest course of action is to stand by the current regime and its ongoing invasion. “For all his failures,” the political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya wrote in Foreign Affairs in November 2022, Putin “remains their best bet for preserving the regime that keeps them safe.” Western rhetoric has also encouraged ordinary Russians to stand by Putin. Although the population has not bought in on the invasion, they do not want to see defeat in Ukraine destroy their country, and some U.S. and European groups have published articles declaring that Russia should be dismembered. For example, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe—an independent commission of the U.S. government, designed to promote human rights and peace on the continent (and elsewhere)—declared that “decolonizing Russia” should be a “moral and strategic objective.” Most U.S. and European elites may not agree with these calls, but they are quickly picked up by Russian news outlets and blasted to every household in the country. Propagandists then use them to argue that Putin is, indeed, fighting to save Russia. It is therefore little wonder that millions of Russians have not taken to the streets. They know that the costs of public dissent are far too high, and the potential returns of democratization seem very low. ANTI-PUTIN, ANTIWAR, PRO-RUSSIAN For many Western observers, what concerns Russia’s 140 million people is unimportant. Moscow launched an imperialist invasion, and so Russian suffering may simply be the price of stopping the Kremlin. Some Westerners may even want to see Russians hurt. According to reporting by The Washington Post, anti-Russian sentiment in Europe is on the rise, and Russian immigrants throughout the continent have been harassed, irrespective of their political views. In the Czech Republic, for example, a Prague University professor declared that he would not teach Russian students, and store owners have put up signs saying they will not welcome Russian visitors. But this type of thinking is counterproductive (and it undermines principles of universal human rights). Antagonizing ordinary Russians will not help persuade people to actively oppose the invasion or support democracy. It will do nothing to transform Russia into a safe, committed, and predictable partner. And Russia will need to transform if the world wants a satisfactory ending to this conflict, or if it wants to be sure that Moscow will not start new ones. The war has reached a stalemate, and so Ukraine may not be able to retake all occupied territory unless Russia decides to pull back. Even if Kyiv does succeed in pushing Russia out of Ukrainian land, the Kremlin is unlikely to call it quits. Given Putin’s past behavior, Moscow would likely continue ordering attacks from across the border or try to interfere in the elections in the United States or EU. Walking past an electronic screen showing an image of Putin, Moscow, December 2023 Maxim Shemetov / Reuters U.S. and European leaders would therefore do well to take a new approach. They could start by pledging explicitly, loudly, and repeatedly that they will not try to break Russia apart in the event Moscow cedes or loses the war. They could continue by not rejecting ordinary Russians trying to come into their countries, both because those Russians are fleeing from participation in the war and because they are usually well educated and could greatly contribute to Western economies. The United States and Europe should also make it clear that the entire Russian elite would not be penalized if Russia stops or loses the war and transforms. Only those confirmed to have actively taken part in war crimes would face punishment. To help win over elites, Western governments could suggest conditions under which officials without a track record of war crimes would be spared from personal sanctions when the war ends. If such officials defect, Western states could even lift sanctions on them before the war finishes. Relatedly, the United States and Europe may want to offer amnesty to Russians who have participated in minor regime crimes in exchange for a willingness to oppose Putin and make Russia return to a path of peace and cooperation. The West should bear in mind that most current high-level Russian officials have participated in corruption, electoral fraud, and other authoritarian offenses. If they are afraid of facing retribution for these sins, they are likely to stick with Putin and do their best to thwart democratization. There are, of course, war criminals who need to be held accountable; my colleagues and I are not calling for amnesty all around. Nor are we calling for an end to all, or even most, of the sanctions right now. But the West could be more judicious in how it applies certain restrictions, and it should lay out conditions for ending them. Ordinary Russians need to know that, if their country withdraws from Ukraine, the West will lift sanctions and allow the Russian economy to grow, making it easier for them to earn a living. Thankfully, some Western officials have made it publicly known they are willing to help the Russian people if the invasion comes to an end. In a June address in Helsinki, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that the United States “is not [the Russian people’s] enemy.” At the end of the Cold War, “we shared the hope that Russia would emerge to a brighter future, free and open, fully integrated with the world,” he said. “For more than 30 years, we worked to pursue stable and cooperative relations with Moscow, because we believed that a peaceful, secure, and prosperous Russia is in America’s interests—indeed, in the interests of the world. We still believe that today.” The West can help Russians stop fearing democratization and an end to the war in Ukraine. To help activists create that peaceful, secure, and prosperous Russia, the West can do more than make encouraging statements. Western officials should offer specific promises and, when possible, act now to support Russians trying to flee the regime. They should offer ways out to accomplices of Putin who are willing to atone. Putin’s propaganda machine will try to hide Western overtures, but a coordinated anti-Putin, antiwar, pro-Russian policy will inevitably seep through. It should reach establishment figures quickly, given that they are both less influenced by propaganda and have easier access to outside information. Taking these measures, of course, will not by itself change Russia. Foreign states ultimately have little power over my country’s domestic politics. At the end of the day, only Russians can bring democracy and peace to Russia. But these measures would remove some of the roadblocks that make the job of Russian activists—including mine—harder than is needed. It can help us show other Russians that our country can have a future free of isolation, one where they will have more opportunities to prosper than they do right now. It can help us persuade Russians that, if Moscow abandons its aggression, their children will not have to go to the frontline to earn $2,000 per month. The West can, in other words, help Russians stop fearing democratization and an end to the war in Ukraine. This, in turn, will increase the chances that Russia will start addressing the evils it has inflicted. Ukraine would then hopefully get peace and reparations. Russians would get a better life. And the United States and Europe would get a predictable and constructive partner instead of a hostile dictatorship. ALEKSEI MINIAILO is a Moscow-based Russian opposition activist and Co-Founder of Chronicles research project. The Rebirth of Russian Spycraft How the Ukraine War Has Changed the Game for the Kremlin’s Operatives—and Their Western Rivals By Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan December 27, 2023 A partial solar eclipse and the Russian coat of arms in Moscow, October 2022 A partial solar eclipse and the Russian coat of arms in Moscow, October 2022 Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters In April 2023, a prominent Russian national with suspected ties to Russian intelligence pulled off an impressive escape from Italian authorities. Artem Uss, a Russian businessman and the son of a former Russian governor, had been detained in Milan a few months earlier on charges of smuggling sensitive U.S. military technology to Russia. According to an indictment issued by a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, in October 2022, Uss had illegally trafficked in the semiconductors needed to build ballistic missiles and a variety of other weapons, some of which were being used in the war in Ukraine. But while Uss was awaiting extradition to the United States, he was exfiltrated from Italy with the help of a Serbian criminal gang and returned to Russia. The escape, which was reported in The Wall Street Journal last spring, was only one of a series of recent incidents suggesting how much Russia’s intelligence forces have regrouped since the start of the war in Ukraine. Back in the spring of 2022, in the months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion, the Russian intelligence agencies had seemed disoriented and confused. One by one, European countries had kicked out Russia’s diplomats; according to one British estimate, some 600 Russian officials were expelled from Europe, of which perhaps 400 were believed to be spies. The FSB, Russia’s internal security service, had also badly misjudged the kind of resistance that Russian forces would face in Ukraine, assuming that Russia could quickly take Kyiv. This contributed to Russia’s humiliating performance. Now, Russia’s foreign intelligence network appears to be back with a vengeance. And it is becoming more inventive, increasingly relying on foreign nationals—such as the Serbian gang that assisted Uss, for instance—to help it get around restrictions on Russians. Before the war, Western intelligence agencies mostly dealt with Russian operations being carried out by Russian nationals. That is no longer the case. Today, Russian intelligence activities draw on a range of foreign nationals, and that includes not only spying on the West and tracking arms shipments to Ukraine but also applying growing pressure on Russian exiles and opponents of the Putin regime who have fled abroad since the war started. Evidence of such activity is turning up everywhere from Georgia and Serbia to NATO countries such as Bulgaria and Poland. In early 2023, for example, British officials arrested five Bulgarians who were accused of spying for Russia, including in an effort to keep tabs on Russian exiles in London. At the same time, Russia’s spy agencies also appear to have shifted their orientation. Before the war, there was a division of labor among the three principal intelligence services—the SVR (foreign intelligence), the GRU (military intelligence), and the FSB (domestic security). In the past, it was generally understood that the SVR mostly focused on political and industrial espionage and the GRU on military issues, while the FSB was primarily focused on Russia itself, using its foreign branch mainly to conduct operations against Russians abroad and to keep friendly regimes in neighboring countries in power. Now, these distinctions are no longer so clear: all three agencies are deeply involved in the war in Ukraine, and all three have been actively recruiting new assets among Russia’s most recent exiles abroad. The return of Moscow’s spying apparatus has significant implications for the West in its efforts to counter Russian meddling and Russian intelligence operations. If recent indications are correct, Russian intelligence activities in Europe and elsewhere may pose a significantly greater threat than had been assumed in the early stages of the war. At the same time, these changes offer insight into Putin’s own wartime regime and the extent to which it is increasingly rebuilding Russia’s spy agencies according to earlier models from the Soviet decades. Putin is not only attempting to make up for the Soviet KGB’s failure in its confrontation with the West in the late twentieth century. He is also trying to restore the glory of Stalin’s formidable secret service, which had considerable success against the West in the decades from the Bolshevik Revolution to World War II. THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR Before Russia began its full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022, the country’s intelligence services looked fairly weak. They had long suffered from interagency infighting and turf wars, as well as from a breakdown in trust between the generals and the rank and file, which led to significant delays and failures in getting information from the ground to the top level. Russian intelligence operations, meanwhile, increasingly became known chiefly for their sloppiness, as in the cases of the botched poisonings of the former Russian military officer Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom in 2018 and the opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020. In short, the Russian spy services seemed to have lost much of their former luster, a problem that burst into the open with the embarrassing misreading of Ukraine in the planning for Russia’s invasion. But as the war in Ukraine entered its second year, the Russian intelligence agencies regrouped and found a new sense of purpose. Instead of dwelling on their mistakes and questioning why they had so utterly failed to anticipate Ukrainian resistance in the initial invasion, the agencies moved on, taking new strength from the fact that they were withstanding a confrontation with the entire West. They have not only increased their activities in Europe and in neighboring countries; the FSB has also stepped up its efforts to fight back Ukrainian ops on Russian soil. That Putin did not make any radical changes in the security services despite the catastrophe of 2022 has been seen as a virtue: since the tumultuous 1990s, there has been a widely shared view both among the intelligence leadership and the rank and file that any attempt to overhaul the agencies will weaken their capabilities. Underlying this new activity, however, has also been a larger goal: revitalizing Russia’s overall intelligence war against the West. This is a war that for the main Russian agencies goes back to the earliest years of the Soviet era. As Russian intelligence officials see it, the war in Ukraine has launched the third round of a great spy war that has been playing out since 1917. Putin is trying to restore the glory of Stalin’s formidable secret service. The first round of this struggle, in which early Soviet operatives faced off primarily against their British counterparts, started soon after the Bolshevik Revolution. In that original conflict, Soviet agents successfully compromised any chance of fomenting resistance to the Bolshevik regime from abroad. They did this by conducting a massive and very successful false-flag operation, code-named Trust, in which they lured politically active Russian émigrés, as well as British spies, to the Soviet Union to help a fake anti-Bolshevik organization. These anti-Soviet activists were in this way identified and killed. The conflict reached its peak during World War II, when Russian spies successfully penetrated British intelligence and, in the United States, got access to the Manhattan Project and stole the secrets of the atomic bomb. Overall, Soviet officials believed they won this first round with the West. The second round of the intelligence war, however, did not end so well for Moscow. During the Cold War, the KGB failed to save the Soviet regime it swore to protect. Then, in the early 1990s, the agency was nearly destroyed after being split apart and dismembered. The collapse left lasting scars on Putin, who witnessed it firsthand, and his security elite, as they struggled to rebuild a Russian state that had lost its former power. (Putin ultimately built the FSB on the KGB’s former foundations.) Now, with the onset of a new grand conflict with the West, Russia’s intelligence agencies are seeking to reverse the setbacks that unfolded at the end of the Cold War. And they sense a new opportunity, seeing the war in Ukraine as the opening salvo in the third round of the intelligence war. The sense of continuity with their Soviet predecessors has even taken visible form in Russia: in September, Sergei Naryshkin, Russia’s head of foreign intelligence, inaugurated a new statue to the founder of the Soviet secret police in the courtyard of the SVR’s Moscow headquarters. And in November, the FSB reinforced that message by celebrating the 100th anniversary of the OGPU, the Soviet secret police, and stressing the role of the OGPU in crushing political émigré organizations. But the continuity goes well beyond celebrating early Soviet exploits. In the run-up to the war and since, Putin has made notable use of former KGB generals who share his eagerness to avenge the humiliation of the Soviet collapse. Nikolai Gribin, who in the 1980s served as deputy head of foreign disinformation operations at the KGB’s foreign intelligence branch, has a lead role in a new Russian think tank launched in 2021, the National Research Institute for the Development of Communications, which seeks to shape pro-Kremlin opinion in countries near Russia, with a particular focus on Belarus. (Gribin himself has written several research reports on public opinion in Belarus.) In the 1980s, Alexander Mikhailov served in the KGB’s infamous Fifth Directorate—the branch given the task of rooting out ideological subversion, including dissidents, musicians, and church leaders—and ran disinformation operations for the FSB in the 1990s. Since the fall of 2021, a few months before the invasion, Mikhailov has been the FSB’s unofficial mouthpiece for the Russian media, promoting the agency’s view of events in Ukraine. As Russian intelligence portrays it, the war pits the United States and Europe against Russia, with the Ukrainians serving merely as the puppets of their Western spymasters. Putin giving a speech near the FSB's headquarters in Moscow, June 2022 Aleksey Nikolskyi / Sputnik / Kremlin / Reuters Along with Putin, Russia’s spy agencies have also drawn some important lessons from the earlier Soviet intelligence wars. Because it pitted Russia directly against the West, the war in Ukraine has prompted the Kremlin and its spy agencies to rethink several major national security questions that had not been closely studied since 1991. For example, there was the question of Russia’s borders and whether to close them. The Kremlin decided against doing so, and that has benefited the intelligence services, which can use the new exodus of Russian nationals to Europe and other neighboring countries to help make up for the expulsions of Russian diplomats from European capitals. Putin has clearly set out to avoid the mistakes made during the Cold War, when the Soviets significantly restrained the cross-border movement of people, hampering Soviet intelligence. But there was another pressing problem for the Kremlin: how to enforce discipline within the ranks. Putin could have followed Stalin’s approach, embarking on large-scale purges and mass repressions. But he seems to have learned that those measures ultimately backfired for the Soviets. Putin understands that instilling fear is a useful tool but that outright purges would hurt the agencies—as they did in the 1930s when the Soviets’ foreign intelligence lost its most talented agents. Thus, the head of the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch, Sergei Beseda, was initially detained and held incommunicado after the first disastrous days of the Ukraine invasion. But after several weeks, he was reinstated, and the broader purges in military intelligence and the FSB that many expected after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner paramilitary company, led a mutiny in June 2023 never materialized. Overall, Putin has taken a flexible, pragmatic approach to his intelligence services, playing between the ever-present fear of purges and encouraging the agencies to be more innovative at regaining ground in the West. One result seems to have been a noticeable rise in more ambitious foreign operations over the past year, including alleged sabotage operations, as well as the exfiltration of the Russian operative in Italy and stepped up recruitment efforts in several NATO countries, as is apparent in the case of a member of Germany’s BND intelligence agency who was arrested in December 2022 on charges of allegedly transferring highly classified information to the Russian government, and is now on trial for treason. SPIES LIKE US In staging their comeback, Russia’s spy agencies have also internalized another important lesson from the Soviet years: the strategic use of ideology. In the 1930s, Moscow was able to win over many Westerners to the Soviet cause by aiming its arguments at Western deficiencies rather than promoting Marxist doctrine. At the time, Soviet agents learned that they did not really need to sell a full-fledged communist ideology; instead, they could portray the Soviet Union as an alternative to Western imperialism, emphasizing the West’s double standards and hypocrisy and offering in contrast a leader who stood up against global powers. These ideas are exactly what Russian agencies can now pedal to potential allies and recruits in Russia’s new intelligence war with the West. As Russia prepares to enter a third year of war, its intelligence agencies know that the Kremlin supports them and shares their paranoia and prejudices. This reality suggests that the spy services can count on the Kremlin’s protection. But it does not mean that Putin himself is more secure in power. For much of the past 20 years, Putin has struggled with the challenge of how to control his vast security and intelligence community, spread over an enormous country and abroad. In the early 2000s, he destroyed former President Boris Yeltsin’s concept of competing spy services, making the FSB the top agency. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Putin tried to bring his intelligence forces to heel by sending several middle-rank officers to jail on corruption charges. But this did not result in tighter Kremlin control of the agencies. Now, with the war in Ukraine, Putin has tried to avoid the mistakes of the past and keep his intelligence forces loyal. He has also succeeded in making them stronger, for the time being, than at any previous point in the war. But it is unclear if any of this has improved his control over them. And so far, Putin has done nothing to fix the problem: he is unwilling to repeat Stalin’s mistakes of purging his agencies on an industrial scale, but he also understands that unlike during the Soviet years, when the Communist Party controlled the KGB, he has few other ways to rein them in. If things began to go badly for Russia in the war, this one-sided dynamic could mean that Putin’s spies might be in no rush to save him. ANDREI SOLDATOV is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and Co-Founder and Editor of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of the Russian secret services’ activities. IRINA BOROGAN is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and Co-Founder and Deputy Editor of Agentura.ru. They are the co-authors of The Compatriots: The Russian Exiles Who Fought Against the Kremlin. In Dealing With the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, America Has No Easy Way Out Biden Must Take Risks, Talk Straight, and Act Boldly By Aaron David Miller and Daniel C. Kurtzer December 22, 2023 Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border, southern Israel, December 2023 Ronen Zvulun / Reuters Wars in the Middle East rarely end cleanly. Some observers, however, have expressed the hope that the Israel-Hamas war could upend a dangerous status quo and eventually lead to more stability in the region. The war is often compared to the October 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and the combined forces of Egypt and Syria, largely because of the magnitude of Israel’s intelligence failures, the Israeli public’s loss of faith in their government, and the national trauma that followed. But the truth is that any meaningful comparison ends there. More than 2,800 Israelis were killed in the Yom Kippur War. Yet that conflict never incorporated the kind of sadistic, indiscriminate torture, killing, and hostage-taking that Hamas perpetrated in October 2023—nor the subsequent large-scale airstrikes by Israeli forces that have already resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. The 1973 war lasted merely three weeks and quickly entered a relatively well-structured disengagement agreement brokered by the United States, launching a process that led to a landmark Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed by two strong leaders: the charismatic, heroic Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat and the tough Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. By contrast, the two traumatized societies that emerge from the current war will face a level of anguish, casualties, and devastation that will demand a herculean task of physical reconstruction and psychological healing. As many as 1,400 Israelis and 18,000 Palestinians have died so far. Some 150,000 Israelis and more than 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced from their homes. In the West Bank, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raids and extremist settler vigilantism have already led to the deaths of over 260 Palestinians, the arrests of nearly 2,000, and the displacement of almost 1,000 from their lands. The ideas that Israel, after completing its military operations to disable Hamas, will make a full exit from Gaza and that the Palestinian Authority (PA) can quickly and authoritatively take over are not realistic. And this war does not have heroic leaders: both sides suffer from profoundly ineffectual governance. There is no realistic prospect in the near term of a dramatic, uplifting denouement to the conflict that validates each side’s sacrifices and provides relief and hope for the future. In late October, U.S. President Joe Biden declared that the region must not return to its pre–October 7 status quo. If Biden wants change, however, his administration must undertake bolder policy moves—ones that firmly guide the region toward a two-state solution. Policymakers may wish to avoid bold moves in a fast-changing situation: such moves will be practically difficult and politically risky. But the facts on the ground suggest that the region cannot return to its unstable prewar status quo. Instead, without careful guidance, a new status quo is likely to emerge that will be even more problematic. Only bold American leadership now will support a good outcome in the aftermath of this war. UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM In waging war in Gaza, Israeli officials have stated that their goals are to destroy Hamas and then demilitarize and deradicalize Gaza. What these leaders mean by “deradicalize” remains unclear. But even if the Israelis succeed in destroying Hamas’s military capabilities, they will not simply declare mission accomplished in Gaza and depart. Israel’s leaders have ruled out both Hamas and the PA as governing authorities, and Israel will thus likely remain in Gaza for an extended period. Israel already controls Gaza’s land, sea, and air access, as well as its electromagnetic spectrum. Even if Israel succeeds in ending Hamas’s rule in Gaza, it will undoubtedly want to retain some authority, ensuring at a minimum that all imports with dual-use military purposes are carefully monitored and controlled. Continued friction with the United Nations and other international aid organizations—already high thanks to Israel’s military operations and the deaths of thousands of Gazans, including UN aid workers—is inevitable. If Israel tries to remain in Gaza for an extended time, it will face residual attacks from Hamas and other terrorist organizations and enormous challenges in maintaining law and order. Even as some Israeli officials speak of exiting Gaza, they also talk openly about the necessity of creating long-term “buffer zones” and about Israel’s overall responsibility for security. But the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and those in the Arab states will surely refuse to be subcontractors for Israel’s security operations. Simply put, no bright line will separate war from peace in this conflict. Instead, Israel’s military actions in Gaza will likely transition from an intensive air and ground campaign to more targeted operations, and Israel will be part of the Gazan landscape for some time. Try as Israel might to avoid former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s “Pottery Barn” rule—you break it, you own it—an extended Israeli presence in Gaza will inevitably involve taking on more, not less, responsibility for and involvement in the territory’s affairs. And that is likely to inflame tensions with whoever comes to formally govern Gaza. A LIMITED PARTNER On paper, the best option for Gaza’s future over the long term is Palestinian governance led by a revitalized and legitimized PA. The PA already helps cover Gaza’s public-sector employees’ salaries and assists in paying for the area’s electricity. The international community sees it as the legitimate authority in Gaza as well as in the West Bank. Earlier this month, in a meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan talked about the role a revitalized PA might play in governing Gaza. But because of its own dysfunction—and, in no small measure, Israeli policies—the PA has become weak and ineffectual. Palestinians perceive it to be corrupt, nepotistic, and authoritarian: in an Arab Barometer survey of Gazans conducted just before October 7, a majority of respondents considered the PA to be a burden on the Palestinian people. Abbas is 87 and in the 19th year of what was supposed to be a four-year term. He refused to hold new elections in 2021 and has increasingly lost touch with young Palestinians. When respondents in the same Arab Barometer poll were asked whom they would vote for if presidential elections were held in Gaza, 32 percent chose the imprisoned Fatah activist Marwan Barghouti and 24 percent chose the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Only 12 percent chose Abbas. During this war, the PA has been unable to protect Palestinians in the West Bank from IDF raids and attacks by settler vigilantes, let alone influence the course of Israel’s operations in Gaza. Hamas’s stock, meanwhile, has risen in the West Bank since its October 7 terror attack and its negotiated release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. For many Palestinians who distrust Abbas and revile Israel’s recent actions, Hamas is becoming the only game in town. Restoring the Palestinians’ faith in the PA will take a great deal of effort and time. It would require the PA to run fair and free elections in the West Bank and Gaza and to convince voters that it really will aim to end Israel’s occupation and create an independent Palestinian state. Should it succeed, Israel would also need to demonstrate its commitment—in words and actions on the ground—to advancing a two-state outcome. And with the current Israeli government, this scenario is impossible. POWER GRAB In one sense, it is not a surprise that the Israel-Hamas war broke out in Gaza rather than in the West Bank. Gaza has often been at the center of tensions between the Israelis and the Palestinians: the first intifada began in Gaza in 1987, and in the twenty-first century, Gaza has been the focal point of at least six significant Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition has focused on the West Bank, attempting to create the conditions for annexation. In the first half of 2023, Netanyahu’s government pushed any possibility of a two-state solution further away by advancing or approving permits for 13,000 new housing units in West Bank settlements, the highest number recorded since 2012. The fact that Netanyahu presided over the worst terror attack and the worst intelligence failure in Israel’s history, as well as the bloodiest single day for Jews since the Holocaust, has discredited his leadership. Many observers have reasonably presumed that his political career will soon reach its end, as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s did after the Yom Kippur War. But Netanyahu will fight to hang on to power. Facing indictments for breach of trust, bribery, and fraud, Netanyahu desperately wants to avoid jail. Already, he has broken with tradition by suggesting that he will organize the inquiry into the government failures that preceded Hamas’s attack; the resulting inquiry will lack the legal authority of a state commission. For now, Netanyahu retains a comfortable 74-seat majority in the Knesset, and he has shown he is willing to pay any price to extremist and haredi partners to keep his ruling coalition intact. In May 2023, the Knesset passed Netanyahu’s budget, cementing the coalition’s grip on power until 2025. The terms of the emergency government Israel created days after the war broke out foreclosed taking up any legislation unrelated to the prosecution of the war. Netanyahu’s government is likely to survive for some time to come. Netanyahu will continue to come under public pressure to step down. Some well-respected former leaders of Israel’s security establishment have already called on him to resign. If he refuses to do so, however, there is no clear mechanism to remove him from office—even though his trial has now resumed. Should Netanyahu remain in power, the situation in the West Bank is likely to deteriorate. In the meantime, Netanyahu is moving to shore up support among his right-wing partners. In fact, his administration appears to be taking advantage of the attention Gaza is drawing away from the West Bank to pursue more settlement expansion and repress the Palestinians. Since October 7, extremist settlers in the West Bank have been involved in scores of incidents of aggression and intimidation against Palestinians, forcing at least a thousand—including entire shepherding communities—off their land. A third of these episodes involved settlers drawing firearms on Palestinians. In almost half the total incidents, the IDF accompanied or actively supported the settlers. If the IDF succeeds in its war aims by killing Hamas’s top leaders, Netanyahu could even regain some support. Israel’s electorate had shifted to the right well before this war. Hamas’s terrorism may well encourage a further radicalization of the Israeli population. Should Netanyahu remain in power for any extended period, the situation in the West Bank is likely to continue to deteriorate, possibly leading to a Palestinian uprising stimulated in part by extremist settlers. He will also exploit for his own benefit whatever the United States decides to do or not do. If Biden tries to revive the peace process, Netanyahu will likely emphasize what he has already told his Likud Party: that only he can stop the creation of an independent Palestinian state. If, on the other hand, Biden assesses that the chances of a two-state peace process are nonexistent in the near term, Netanyahu will trumpet his ability to convince the Americans to stay out of his way. BINARY OPTIONS For the United States, the policy dilemmas appear terribly complex. But after 56 years of Israeli occupation with no end in sight, these dilemmas need to be settled sooner rather than later. The United States’ choice is binary—either try to help create the conditions for a two-state solution or adjust to a postconflict situation that is worse than the status quo ante, resolves no underlying issues, and probably sets up the conditions for another war. Pushing hard for a two-state solution would be complicated. The United States would have to help orchestrate several critical processes simultaneously: setting in place Gaza reconstruction mechanisms to be ready to operate the day the IDF leaves, bringing reluctant Arab parties on board to help maintain law and order and set up interim governance in Gaza, keeping the remnants of Hamas at bay, compelling the PA to restructure itself so it can regain the confidence of the Palestinian public, and addressing legitimate Israeli security concerns. This course of action by the United States would also be politically risky: it could have the unintended effect of giving Netanyahu a campaign tool to remain in power. Success is far from assured. The United States will be dealing with traumatized leaders who may be unwilling or unable to make big decisions. And the Israelis and the Palestinians have failed many times to create a pathway to peace when the external context was far less fraught than it is today. Even if Netanyahu leaves office, no other top politician in Israel appears eager to embark down a path of peace. As a potential peace broker, the United States also lacks credibility. To move toward a two-state solution, Arabs and Europeans would need to have faith in the United States’ intentions and follow-through. The United States’ vetoes and no votes in the UN Security Council and the General Assembly on resolutions for humanitarian cease-fires have not inspired confidence. And even those allies that trust Washington to implement its plans will wonder what will happen if Biden loses his upcoming reelection bid. But the alternative approach—hoping for a return to the pre–October 7 status quo without a serious effort by the United States to advance the prospects for a lasting peace—could be worse. Even if Netanyahu leaves office, no other current top politician in Israel appears eager to embark down a path of peace. And there are no Palestinian leaders with the gravitas and political weight to engage seriously with Israel in the aftermath of the conflict. Some speak of Barghouti as a potential Palestinian leader, but he is serving five life sentences for murdering Israelis and has no track record in political life that suggests he would be a peacemaker. Stimulating the PA to reform itself is a task beyond the capability of the United States alone. Washington will need to act in concert with others to get the PA to do what it has resisted doing for decades: become less authoritarian, fight corruption, and agree to hold new elections for its presidency and its Legislative Council. Pressuring the PA to reestablish its legitimacy among Palestinians will require significant efforts by Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—the so-called Arab Quartet—as well as the EU, which has always played an important role in Palestinian institution building. To bring about this multilateral effort, however, Arab actors will need to see a clear American policy that goes beyond Gaza and focuses on ending the decades-long conflict. CALCULATED RISK But the risks of advocating for a two-state approach are worth taking. Other actors will take the measure of U.S. credibility from what Washington is prepared to do to confront the inconvenient realities that will almost certainly define the postconflict landscape. The Biden administration has the smarts and the backbone to follow through even when the going gets tough. And the going will get tough. A bold effort to push a two-state solution, however, could attract support from Arab states to help ensure basic law and order, interim governance, and reconstruction in Gaza, as well as a safety net for the PA as it embarks on the necessary efforts to reform itself. The question facing the Biden administration is what can it realistically do in the year before the upcoming U.S. presidential elections given the constraints posed by American politics and those it is likely to encounter in Israel, among the Palestinians, and throughout the Arab world. In the near term, the United States can take actions that would help overcome some early obstacles to a two-state solution. First, Biden should continue to press Israel to quickly end its intense ground and air campaign—which is certain to keep causing substantial civilian casualties—in favor of more focused and targeted operations. His administration must also push hard for an increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance that enters Gaza, including by ensuring that the recently opened Kerem Shalom border crossing remains open and pressing for the resumption of negotiations to release Hamas’s remaining Israeli hostages. And the administration must press Israel and the PA to clamp down on violence by extremist settlers and Palestinian militants in the West Bank. The risks of advocating for a two-state approach are worth taking, and the Biden administration has the smarts to follow through. Third, the United States needs to ensure that Israel respects U.S. guidelines on Gaza, including no reduction of Gaza’s territory, no forced relocations of Gazans, and Palestinian governance. U.S. officials should make clear, both in their public statements and in their private contacts with Israelis and others, that Gaza and the West Bank must remain one integral unit and that the PA will eventually resume its governance of Gaza. The United States will also need to be proactive in trying to ensure that conflict along the Israeli-Lebanese border does not erupt into a full-scale war. At least 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes in the north of Israel. If the 2006 UN Security Council resolution mandating Hezbollah’s withdrawal north of the Litani River is not enforced, Israel may deploy its military to contain Hezbollah, which could prompt a full-blown war with a terrorist organization far more potent than Hamas. To blunt this risk, the United States will need to maintain the deterrent military forces it dispatched to the region in October 2023. Finally, the Biden administration must make sure that all regional players understand that a two-state solution is the United States’ preferred outcome. It must define a pathway toward that outcome that clarifies what steps each side must take to create the right environment for eventual negotiations. U.S. leaders should tell the Israeli people that it is time for them to face the fundamental choice the country has avoided since 1967: Will Israel occupy Palestinian territory indefinitely, or can it live alongside a Palestinian state? The United States must send the message to the Palestinians that the time has come for them, too, to make a choice: Will they remain under occupation or reform their governance? U.S. leaders must work closely with key Arab countries such as Egypt, the Gulf states, and Jordan to support these shifts. Saudi Arabia, given its interest in normalization with Israel, will have an especially important role to play. THE ONLY GOOD BET Can any of this succeed with the current Israeli and Palestinian leadership at the helm? Not a chance. Netanyahu must go. And Abbas, too. But even if they stay in power in the near term, the United States has stronger options. Biden must not threaten to withhold necessary military assistance from Israel. But he can make it clearer to the Israelis that the continued strength of their relationship with Washington rests on Israel understanding that it cannot reoccupy Gaza, and that their ultimate security guarantee will be a peace agreement with a similarly peace-minded Palestinian state. By framing his rhetoric as the kind of straight talk that Netanyahu avoids, Biden may be able to influence Israeli attitudes without diminishing his chances of reelection in 2024. Most government policy memos, including many we wrote during our service in the U.S. State Department, propose three options: a bold one that suggests moves the policymaker will find difficult to swallow, a status quo option that allows the policymaker to believe that not much needs to be done, and a “Goldilocks” option that proposes just enough action to show muscle but not enough to ruffle feathers. Often, the Goldilocks option is chosen: it affords a sense of movement while incurring minimal risks. Yet there will be no Goldilocks option available in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war. Biden should adopt a determined stance—in words and deeds—that seriously advances the prospect of a two-state solution. Should he gain a second presidential term, the groundwork he lays in 2024 toward a more lasting resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will position him well to engage more intensively: the situation cannot be allowed to deteriorate until after the U.S. election season passes. Great political and practical pressures weigh on Biden, should he should choose to be bold. But far greater risks may emerge if he doesn’t. AARON DAVID MILLER is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and a former State Department Middle East analyst and has served as a negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. DANIEL C. KURTZER is former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel. He is S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. MORE BY AARON DAVID MILLER MORE BY DANIEL C. 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