Time for Israel to reassess its trump strategy

written by Prof. Zaki Shalom | 10.12.2025

In a speech delivered at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Decem­ber 6, US Sec­ret­ary of Defense Pete Heg­seth expan­ded on the need for the United States to adopt a real­ist approach in shap­ing its global strategy.

The first prin­ciple of such an approach, he argued, is a dra­matic enhance­ment of Amer­ican mil­it­ary cap­ab­il­it­ies. No polit­ical achieve­ments, he main­tained, are pos­sible without robust power. Equally import­ant, however, is a clear under­stand­ing of how – and for what pur­poses – Amer­ican power should be employed.

Heg­seth out­lined four prin­ciples gov­ern­ing the legit­im­ate use of US force:

• Force is used only to defend vital interests.

• Force is used only with the inten­tion of

achiev­ing vic­tory.

• Force is used only when goals are clear,

lim­ited, and attain­able.

• Force is used only as a last resort.

Accord­ing to Heg­seth, many past pres­id­ents aban­doned the real­ist doc­trine cham­pioned by Ron­ald Reagan. They weakened Amer­ica’s mil­it­ary pos­ture, and turned the United States into “the police­man of the world.” These admin­is­tra­tions, he argued, ini­ti­ated mil­it­ary mis­sions that were either uncon­nec­ted to core national secur­ity interests or were fun­da­ment­ally unachiev­able – such as efforts to export demo­cracy across the globe.

In the name of hol­low ideo­lo­gies, they embroiled the United States in futile wars around the world. Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump, Heg­seth asser­ted, is now revers­ing this course and restor­ing a stra­tegic approach rooted in national interest and mil­it­ary strength.

Accord­ing to the sec­ret­ary of defense, the prin­cipal object­ives guid­ing Amer­ican policy today include:

a. Defend­ing the home­land, includ­ing secur­ing US bor­ders and devel­op­ing advanced defens­ive sys­tems against mis­siles and drones.

b. Deter­ring China through strength – main­tain­ing mil­it­ary superi­or­ity to avoid dir­ect con­front­a­tion.

c. Rebal­an­cing the divi­sion of defense bur­dens with allies, thereby redu­cing strain on the US defense budget.

d. Accel­er­at­ing the devel­op­ment of the Amer­ican defense industry, ensur­ing that the United States remains the world’s premier mil­it­ary power.

Heg­seth’s remarks, and the broader stra­tegic world­view they reflect, require Israel to under­take a fun­da­mental rethink­ing in its approach towards the Trump admin­is­tra­tion.

Israel must recog­nize that repeated ref­er­ences to its unique status – phrases such as “We are the only demo­cracy in the Middle East,” “We alone pro­tect human rights in the region,” or “We are a nation emer­ging from the Holo­caust” – carry far less weight in the eyes of a US admin­is­tra­tion guided primar­ily by real­ist prin­ciples. Moral argu­ments, his­tor­ical nar­rat­ives, and appeals to shared val­ues play a more lim­ited role in this stra­tegic envir­on­ment.

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion seeks to see Israel as a strong, cap­able, and self-reli­ant ally. Unlike pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tions, it is will­ing – even eager – to reduce Israel’s depend­ence on the United States. Its expect­a­tion is that Israel will act as a part­ner cap­able of con­trib­ut­ing to Amer­ican secur­ity interests, not merely bene­fit­ing from them.

There­fore, the gov­ern­ment of Israel will need to work dili­gently to per­suade the Trump admin­is­tra­tion that its pro­posed policy frame­works regard­ing Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and the West Bank advance not only Israel’s national interests but also those of the United States.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, December 14, 2025.

The opinions expressed in Misgav publications are the speakers’ alone.