WarSclerotic

During the Cold War era, particularly during severe crises, the United States and the Soviet Union still managed to conduct the tense and charged conflicts between them in a fairly controlled and balanced manner. They did this by making an effort to establish new and reliable communication channels and patterns between them, even before the establishment of the Moscow-Washington hotline, also known as the “red telephone,” in 1963.

These efforts enabled Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. President John F. Kennedy, in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, to draw the red lines that, if crossed, would bring the entire international community to the brink. This demarcation helped neutralize the possibility that a distorted perception or misunderstanding would set things off.

But unlike the clear lines drawn in a world with two superpowers, the current crisis with North Korea faces the world’s only superpower with a new, unchartered challenge. The challenge stems from the fact that the motivation behind North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s decision to test-fire intercontinental ballistic missiles, in flagrant disregard of clear American warnings, remains unclear. Is this nothing more than saber-rattling — Kim’s rational effort to terrorize the international arena by projecting an image of an irrational leader — or is it a reflection of delusions of grandeur and a dangerous predilection for unexpected moves?

It seems that the rules that enabled the international community to survive the Cold War era, anchored in the shared desire of the White House and the Kremlin to avoid mutual destruction, are now invalid, faced with the brazen challenge by the tyrant of North Korea. Moreover, the Trump administration’s working assumption — that the key to restraining North Korea is China — has not yet proved itself. This is not only because China is categorically opposed to a policy of brinkmanship or conducting economic warfare against North Korea, but also because it is unclear if it really has the ability to force Kim (despite his great dependence on trade with China) onto a less provocative path.

And so Kim continues to be defiant. The latest example could be heard in his threatening remarks last weekend: In response to a recent aerial show of power by the U.S. and its allies South Korea and Japan, which held war games not far from the North Korean border, the leader warned against “playing with fire,” which would increase the chances of a nuclear war. Indeed, in light of the difficulty in enlisting Chinese (and Russian) support for expanded sanctions against North Korea, the range of non-violent options available to U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be shrinking.

The problem is that even the most surgical strike against North Korea’s nuclear facilities is likely to have the opposite of the desired effect, exacerbating an already tense situation on the Korean peninsula even further. North Korea has significant conventional military power, and it could easily shed South Korean blood within range of its murderous artillery and missile barrages in immediate response to any military move by the U.S.

In summary, the current crisis proves the inherent difficulty in deterring rivals who behave like pyromaniacs at a gas station displaying an insatiable urge to light a fire, regardless of the consequences. In recent days, a new, complex challenge has cropped up right before the eyes of the American administration and the question is how willing Trump will be to incorporate aspects of former President Bill Clinton’s plan from 20 years ago into his own efforts to curb these nuclear aspirations.

But the Clinton policy, based on the carrot and stick method — humanitarian aid and sanctions — ultimately failed in the face of North Korea’s strategy of deception. At this time, it would be unwise to rule out a resumption of aggressive diplomacy that also incorporates incentives and rewards. After all, even a policy of economic strangulation may not topple the merciless North Korean tyrant, because his people, hungry and helpless, don’t factor into his considerations in any way.

The recently concluded G-20 summit in Hamburg once again poses the question of who will lead the Western world. At every point since the end of World War II, the answer to that question was obvious: the United States. But since the beginning of the Obama administration with its isolationist tendencies, and through the election of President Donald Trump and his declarations — which were interpreted as an attempt to shake off U.S. obligations to NATO and other international commitments — the answer now is not as clear-cut.

If not America, then who? Many people would answer: Germany under Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is seen as a balanced, level-headed leader who has successfully handled the euro crisis and other internal and foreign issues. But it’s not obvious that Merkel herself desires to be the official or even unofficial leader of the free world. One possible reason is that she knows that such a status would require a major build-up of Germany’s military capabilities, and she understands all that would entail in terms of economics and her worldview.

This weekend’s G-20 summit brought to light not only the conflict of interests between the West and China and Russia, but also the different approaches and friction within the Western camp itself, a situation that China and Russia are doing their utmost to exploit. The summation highlighted the very general agreements reached on global trade and the war on terrorism (although not on climate change), and Merkel issued a conciliatory statement of her own in which she said that America had not been isolated at the summit.

But her words carried no answer to the question of who will lead, or which principles and values will lead the Western world forward in the critical years ahead. After the fall of the Soviet Union, some believed that the “end of history” had arrived and the world would sail forward on clear moral waters in the spirit of philosopher Immanuel Kant. But the rise of the Islamist threat and waves of global terrorism, Iran’s and North Korea’s races to a nuclear bomb, Russia’s diplomatic gambits, and, in particular, China’s astonishing growing strength in all fields, including the military, are showing the West that this is not a Kantian world.

Whether it wants to or not, only the U.S. can lead the free world in the face of the current dangers, the ones that Trump himself mentioned in Warsaw last week when he spoke about “dire threats” to Western security and way of life.

In the end, it is not only a question of values, but of who will control the world. Various European leaders can kick around ideas of a “European answer” to current and future threats, resting on Britain’s and France’s nuclear capabilities, but they also know that nothing can replace American power as a main element of deterrence against any potential aggression.

Israel is also an integral part of the Western world. If Israel had its way, there would be no doubt that the U.S. should be at the helm. Not only because no other player can objectively match up to the U.S., and not only because of the alliance of practicalities and values between the two nations, but because the European alternative, even Merkel’s generally supportive and positive image, seems very disheartening given Europe’s well-known official positions on various matters having to do with Israel boycotts, Jerusalem, and the whole Palestinian issue. French President Emmanuel Macron’s negative announcement last week about Israeli settlements and a Palestinian state should be all the proof anyone needs.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi rushed to Mosul on Sunday to congratulate his armed forces for their great victory over Islamic State. But considering the balance of power on the ground, that should have happened a long time ago.

For nine months, tens of thousands of Islamic State combatants in Mosul managed to survive a massive ground assault carried out by hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and special forces units, fighting alongside Kurdish regiments and Shiite militias, as well as devastating aerial bombardments launched by coalition aircraft. American military advisers supervised this offensive while Washington delivered a steady stream of weapons, equipment, intelligence and considerable funds to the Iraqi army.

Islamic State fighters put up a fight almost to the end with car bombs and suicide attacks. Women and children were strapped with suicide vests and sent out to greet the advancing Iraqi forces. Fighters’ corpses are still strewn in the alleyways of the Old City of Mosul.

The cost of defeating Islamic State in Mosul was unfathomable. Cautious estimates indicate a 40% casualty rate among the Iraqi army’s counterterrorism units, which spearheaded the campaign. Alongside Islamic State fighters, thousands of civilians also perished in the battle for Mosul, some of them in their homes in airstrikes and others while attempting to flee the besieged city.

But the war against Islamic State in Iraq is not over yet. There are still several active pockets of resistance in Mosul, as well as in other areas in the country’s west. The main concern now pertains to suicide bombers embedded in groups of fleeing civilians who will continue trying to inflict damage on Iraqi forces.

On the other hand, the fall of Mosul is undoubtedly a severe morale blow for the jihadi group. In the summer of 2014, in the Old City’s ancient al-Nuri mosque, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in territory seized by the group in Iraq and Syria. The mosque no longer exists, and apparently neither does Baghdadi.

In many respects, this is the beginning of the end for Islamic State in its current form. After Mosul, Raqqa, the group’s “capital” in Syria, will fall too. While the infrastructure will crumble, its extremist, murderous ideology will continue to fuel jihadists in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Israel, of course, should welcome the defeat of Islamic State in Mosul, but it should also bear in mind that the Jewish state was never one of its primary targets. The main threat to Israel is still posed by Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and the Shiite militias beholden to Tehran. These groups continue to operate in Syria, Lebanon, and to some degree could potentially grow stronger in Iraq in the post-Islamic State era.