Geostrategy: Time To Conduct A Strategic Retreat?

I want to draw attention to a fine, thoughtful article by Big Serge. It’s been a while since his last big picture article, and this one lives up to expectations:

The Age of Zugzwang

The Merciless Grip of Geostrategic Logic

Zugzwang, of course, is a term from chess. It simply describes the situation in which a player is forced to choose between two bad alternatives. In other words, the player is in a strategically unsustainable position that inexorably leads to defeat. Obviously, Big Serge is talking about the position the American Empire finds itself currently. The article is long but worth your time, as it’s rich in historical parallels as well as detailed strategic analysis of the position we’re in with regard to Russia, Iran—and the Greater Middle East—Israel, and (peripherally) China. Here, I’ll pluck out a few of what I consider especially insightful points, for my own purposes.

To begin with, one strategy that Big Serge discusses in detail is the “tripwire” strategy. This is the strategy of placing small, unsustainable, forces in vulnerable positions to convey the message to opponents: If you attack us in these places, you will set off a tripwire effect, and that means we will respond in a completely destructive way that you’ll be unable to tolerate. He provides the example of our Cold War presence in West Berlin and the Russian presence in Cuba. The catch is, for the tripwire strategy to work, the threatened response has to be credible and deterring. That threat is no longer credible, as we see throughout the Middle East—the attacks on our bases, the Houthi blockade, etc. Big Serge will go on to argue that in all of the cases mentioned above, in which the tripwire strategy no longer functions as intended, the American Empire is being forced to choose between multiple unpalatable alternatives. In other words, we find ourselves in a Zugzwang position.

Another basic matter Big Serge discusses is the unique situation and self conception of Israel. And here I’ll quote:

I would like to argue that, despite these many powerful emotional-religious currents, much of the Israeli-Arab conflict can be understood in fairly mundane geopolitical terms. Despite the enormous psychological stakes that billions of people have in the subject matter, it still unfolds itself to a relatively dispassionate analysis.

The root of the problems lay in the peculiar nature of the Israeli state. Israel is not a normal country. ...

First, Israel is an Eschatological Garrison State. This is a particular form of state which perceives itself as a sort of redoubt against the end of all things, and accordingly becomes highly militarized and highly willing to dispense military force. ...

...

However, the Eschatological-Garrison nature of the state is not the only way in which Israel is abnormal. It is also quite unusual in that it is a Settler-Colonial State in the 21st century. Israel maintains hundreds of settlements in soft-annexed territories like the West Bank, ... These settlements constitute an effort to demographically strangulate and assimilate Palestinian lands, and cannot be described as anything other than settler-colonialism. ... this is not normal. [Normal nations in the 21st century don’t do this.] But Israel does.

Israel is now totally dependent on the United States for its existence. That’s why it must maintain a tight grip over the US government—through the Israel Lobby’s leveraged control over political campaign funding and media—because it must be able to pressure the American Empire into supporting Israel’s deterrence strategy of massively disproportionate and unlawful military responses—both with regard to state actors as well as to irregular actors. We can see that this is simply a variation on the tripwire strategy, the difference being that the tripwire is the state of Israel itself, which has placed itself in opposition to the entire region if exists within. We also see that this strategy is no longer functioning.

All of these considerations are to be viewed within the total geostrategy of the American Empire. That strategy is simply to prevent the rise of regional powers that could exclude US force protection into the regions controlled by those powers. Another way of putting it is, the strategy of the American Empire is to prevent the rise of a multi-polar world. The goal is world domination. Here’s how Big Serge puts it:

On the whole, the tripwire force is a useful and well established tool in strategic deterrence, ...

Today, the United States adopts a similar strategy in the middle east, in relation to Iran. ...

... This, in turn, is an extension of the broader American grand strategy, which is to prevent the preeminent or potential regional hegemons from consolidating positions of domination in their regions: Russia and Germany in Europe, China in East Asia, Iran in the Middle East. The geopolitical story of the modern world is one of triple containment by the United States, using an array of regional satellites, proxies, and forward deployments. ...

Now, unlike a true Zugzwang in chess, the American Empire has a perfectly reasonable exit strategy to get out of the strategic dead end it finds itself in: pull back. Accept a multi polar world. The difficulty with this is that our strategy, while it may once have made arguably rational sense in the wake of WW2—is no longer defensible as a policy. The levers of power that the American Empire could formerly rely upon—dominant military power projection and, above all, the financial leverage of the Petrodollar—are no longer as reliable as they previously were. Rationally, we should pull back, because our tripwire forces are now merely targets.

But the Neocons who now control our foreign policy are not totally rational actors working on behalf of the United States. They resist pulling back, strategic regrouping, because they are emotionally invested in both a continued campaign of revenge against Russia and in an open ended and unconditional support for Israeli policies—up to and including genocide. This emotional involvement places the American Empire in the position of defending policies that are opposed by the civilized world, and are of no benefit to the US. Pulling back in the face of Iran’s emerging regional influence is unacceptable not to US security interests, but to those of Israel.

But here’s how Big Serge summarizes the current geostrategic position the American Empire finds itself in. I quote from his conclusion. Note that Big Serge maintains that, rationally speaking, the American Empire remains in a position to pursue its interests without much threat of harm. It simply has to commit to doing so. That, of course, is the threat that Trump’s concept of MAGA presents to the ruling class, and above all to the Israel Lobby:

The basic geostrategic problem facing the United States (and its ectopic paramour, Israel) is that the ability to conduct asymmetrically inexpensive countermeasures has become exhausted. The US can no longer prop up Ukraine with surplus shells and MRAPs, nor can it deter the Iranian axis with reprimands and air strikes. Israel can no longer maintain the image of its impenetrable preclusive defenses, upon which its peculiar identity depends.

That leaves the difficult choice between strategic retreat and strategic commitment. Half measures no longer suffice, but is there will for a full measure? For Israel, which has no strategic depth and a unique world-historic self conception, it was inevitable that commitment would be chosen over strategic withdrawal (which in their case is much more metaphysical than purely strategic, and amounts to the deconstruction of the Israeli self conception). …

America, however, has a great degree of strategic depth - the same strategic depth which allowed it to withdraw from Vietnam or Afghanistan with few meaningful ill effects on the American homeland. The possibility most certainly remains for a prosperous and secure America long after withdrawing from Syria and Ukraine. Indeed, the famously chaotic scenes of frantic evacuation from Saigon and Kabul represent remarkably clearsighted moments in American foreign policy, where realism prevailed and losing chess pieces were left to their fates. This is cynical, of course, but that is the way of the world.

This is a standard motif of world history. The most critical moments in geopolitics are generally those where a country faces the choice between strategic retreat or full commitment. In 1940, Britain faced the choice between accepting Germany hegemony on the continent or committing to a long war which would cost them their empire and lead to their final eclipse by the United States. Neither is a good choice, but they chose the latter. In 1914, Russia had to choose between abandoning its Serbian ally or fighting a war with the Germanic powers. Neither seemed good, and they chose the latter. Strategic retreat is hard, but strategic defeat is worse. Sometimes, there are no good choices. That’s Zugzwang.

I will quibble here, although this is actually an important quibble. Classically, a zugzwang in chess is where a player—forced to move by the rules—can only move in such a way that his position is worsened. I would argue that strategic withdrawal, renouncing America’s imperial project, could actually benefit the America that most Americans love. Strategic withdrawal could lead to stripping the stranglehold the Deep State and foreign entanglements have gained over the constitutional order that is embodied in our founding documents. Nothing in life is guaranteed, but strategic withdrawal would more likely than not prove to be a step in the right direction.

Now, I’d like to highly recommend a video featuring Danny Davis and Matt Hoh. It’s 45 minutes long, but you won’t regret the time. The title doesn’t remotely do justice to the content:

Israeli-Hamas War Drags On, What About the Hostages? w/Matt Hoh fmr State Dept

Among other compelling topics, the two discuss the reports of some sort of major strategic situation confronting the US. Both conclude that this is most likely a ploy to push the big spending bill through the House, against the wishes of the American people. They get into the politics of it, including Dem guarantees that they’ll protect Speaker Mike this time around—unlike what happened to Speaker Kevin. Matt Hoh also goes into an extended commentary on what’s going on in Palestine, and about the charade that the US exercises any restraint whatsoever over Israeli actions. In the course of that discussion, the two draw comparisons to US military actions over the years. Very stimulating.