Publications

This article applies Paul Kennedy’s thesis of imperial overstretch as a structural lens through which to examine Israel’s strategic trajectory in 2026. It does not contend that Israel is an empire, nor that decline is foreordained. Rather, it argues that the mechanism Kennedy identified, namely the tendency for strategic commitments to outgrow the productive base that must finance them, combined with the political incapacity of governing coalitions to redistribute burdens before the corrective window closes, operates at any scale; and that its early structural signatures are now visible in Israeli data. The analysis examines three historical cases: Habsburg Spain, apartheid South Africa, and the late Soviet Union, compared across seven structural dimensions, with each yielding a distinct implication for Israel. It then reviews the Israeli indicators in detail, with particular attention to the simultaneous narrowing of the productive base, the erosion of allied political capital documented in contemporary polling, and the transfer of the strategic burden from the foreign balance sheet to the domestic one. The argument is that the analytically and morally decisive variable is not strength itself, but the sustainability of strength; and that the central question for Israeli strategy is whether recalibration is undertaken voluntarily, from a position of strength, or imposed by crisis on terms one no longer controls.

The current U.S. administration is advancing a major deal, valued at over $700 million, to sell F110 engines to Turkey for its KAAN aircraft project. Despite the administration’s attempts to bypass congressional barriers, this move is not an isolated event; rather, it is a strategic accelerator intended to pave the way for Ankara’s full return to the F-35 program. While Washington’s rationale seeks to preserve Turkey as an anchor within NATO, in practice, it creates a serious dilemma and presents a weighty, threefold strategic risk: Undermining NATO from within: Empowering an actor that is engaged in aggressive competition against Western allies (such as Greece) and is entrenching a defiant military presence in Cyprus. Fueling Regional Friction: Granting legitimacy to a competitive power that provides a safe haven for Hamas and supports the al-Sharaa regime in Syria. Creating a Systemic Risk to the Global F-35 Network: Deploying 5th-generation capabilities in proximity to Russian S-400 systems risks compromising and cracking the information security of the platform as a whole. This threat is not limited to the erosion of Israel’s qualitative edge or the exposure of its defense industries; it constitutes a direct threat to every country in the world equipped with the F-35, alongside concerns over the possible proliferation of KAAN aircraft to additional militaries across the Sunni sphere.

Israel finds itself in a continuous stagnation, wherein impressive tactical military achievements are not translating into political and strategic victory. How can this 'limbo' be resolved across the various fronts?