Gaza war: A foreboding glimpse of the future

The Gaza war may lead to a shift in “the global balance of power,” said Yaroslav Trofimov in

The Wall Street Journal. Having “long sought to undermine the U.S.-backed international system,” Russia, China, and Iran see the conflict between Israel and Hamas as a major opportunity to drive a wedge between America and the rest of the world. Both China and Russia have pointedly failed to condemn Hamas or extend support to Israel; instead, they have “embraced the Palestinian cause.” Russia in particular welcomes a conflict that could divert U.S. attention—and military aid—from Ukraine. To solidify their alliance, Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to Beijing this week to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Robyn Dixon in The Washington Post. Their deepening bond points to “hardening global fault lines,” with an emerging axis of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea on one side and the U.S. and its allies on the other.

Let’s face it: “The Pax Americana of the post– Cold War period is over,” said Hal Brands in Bloomberg. For a generation, America’s role as sole superpower and global policeman helped preserve relative geopolitical calm. But now China, Russia, and Iran are challenging American power and creating “their own spheres of influence.” China is bullying its neighbors in Asia, with “a showdown” over Taiwan coming. Putin’s “barbaric war in Ukraine” has alarmed and destabilized Europe. North Korea and Iran are providing arms to Russia, while Pyongyang perfects its longrange nuclear missiles and Iran seeks nukes of its own. With conquest, ethnic cleansing, and mass migration spreading from the Balkans to Latin America to the Western Pacific, “the international order is under more stress than at any time since the chaotic aftermath of World War II.”

In Israel and Ukraine, we are getting “horrific glimpses of what a post-American world would look like,” said Noah Rothman in National Review. The deliberate torture, rape, and slaughter of civilians suggests we are sliding back to “a Hobbesian world” in which human rights are irrelevant. America must marshal its resources to “shore up the geopolitical order we long took for granted.” Instead, we’re mired in bitter division, “political dysfunction,” and growing isolationism that emboldens our enemies, said former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in Foreign Affairs. “The peril is real,” and the U.S. “needs to up its game” before it’s too late.