A strategy for Israel in a post-Trump World

Exploring the geopolitical implications of the trends exposed by the Trump-Zelenskyy summit

Depending on your media sources, the Trump-Zelenskyy summit at the White House on February 28, 2025, was either an ambush by an aggressive Vice President JD Vance or a blowup caused by an ungrateful and agitated President Volodymyr O. Zelensky. While I recommend watching it, I think it would be a mistake to focus on the press conference rather than the larger geopolitical shift it represents. A shift that Israel must adapt to if it is to survive the post-Trump world.

Because it is not clear that Zelensky didn’t intend for the summit to blow up. Pre-Trump thinking would fit the meeting into the Vassal to Lord paradigm: Ukraine, besieged, beseeching the mighty US president for favor to hold off the barbarians at the gates. This paradigm reflects much of the world’s relationship to America since the Second World War and was at the core of what has been an American almost-century.

But Donald J. Trump’s return to power has caused global leaders, especially in Europe, to question that paradigm’s usefulness. Not necessarily because of what Trump is doing, policy by policy. Yes, Trump has spent more time declaring tariffs on allies than presenting a shared vision for the 21st century. Yes, Trump has spoken more with Russia’s President Putin than he has with European leaders. And yes, Trump quickly pulled the US out of several central international agencies.

But those are the trees, not worth focusing on. The forest, as the world sees it, is that America is undependable and highly transactional. It shifts radically, and its leaders are no longer committed to continuing the policies of their predecessors to ensure global stability. As former US president George W. Bush once said, “Fool me once, shame on you.” Fool me twice, the saying continues, shame on me. The world is not willing to be fooled a third time.

This is why the soon-to-be chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, declared in his victory speech nearly a week before the Trump-Zelensky summit that his “absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.” That is why immediately afterward the summit at the White House, Zelensky flew to London to a summit with Europe’s leaders who declared full support for Ukraine, exploring an extension of France’s nuclear umbrella.

But more importantly, it is also why European leaders have started asking why they’ve been so quick to toe the American line on China when it, unlike the US, provides them not only stability, but economic opportunity and an interest to go sans tariffs. Given Russia’s economic dependency on China – leading some to say that Russia has become a vassal state of China’s – it would be realpolitik for Europe to thank the US for its help and strike a deal with China instead: if China forces Russia to end the war and retreat, China, not America, will own Ukraine’s rare earth materials.

And then there is Israel, a small country caught in the middle of these momentous changes. For most of its existence, Israel benefited from a values-based foreign policy that motivated the United States to remain the guardian of the West, of liberal and democratic values. Israel knew how to play to that stance, first as an outpost of the Free World during the Cold War, then as the frontline of the West against the threat of Islamic imperialism. During the brief period where war seemed a thing of the past, Israel sought to embody the promise of a new, digital world as Startup Nation.

The implication of these policies is that since 1967, and especially after 1973, Israel grew nearly dependent on the United States. As seen during the war, Israel cannot fight without constant rearmament by America. Israel cannot trade without America’s support clearing the seas. Israel cannot survive international sanctions without American intervention. Israel, in other words, is locked into an embrace with a power that may be on the decline.

Even if America pulls out of this realignment and returns to prominence – convincing the world it can be depended on for leadership and should not be crossed – Israelis listening to JD Vance or a potential rival from the Democratic side, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, should be worried. The values of this emerging America are not the values that drove it to sacrifice for the Free World and defeat the Evil Empire. If support for the West has wavered, support for the Jews and their state can no longer be taken for granted.

Israel should not, in my opinion, follow Europe’s lead, however. In past periods of sovereignty, during the Ancient Age of Empires and the Kingdom of Israel and Judea, we too often switched allegiances only to be crushed in the process. Instead, Israel’s strategy in this post-Trump world should be to learn from the Swiss and seek out a position of neutrality. Become a player that adds value to all players, a nation with no natural resources to fight over yet tremendous intellectual and social capital that benefits all who find ways to work with it.

To do so, I continue to believe the best grand strategy for Israel is to transform it into the World’s Campus, a country dedicated to applied research and development that will attract the world’s best and brightest unto neutral territory to collaborate on solving the challenges facing humanity. With the West fractured, and the coalition against Islamic Imperialism shifting eastward, Israel should expand upon its Startup Nation brand to become the vanguard of purpose-driven innovation to benefit all of humanity. To become valued for the only natural resource we’ve consistently been able to rely on: our ideas.

All of this depends on our ability to resolve our own conflicts, local and regional. And that road runs through Riyadh, and requires us to solve the Palestinian conflict to their satisfaction.