The Doctrine of Usefulness: Wingate, IMEC, and the Alliance’s Future

The American political environment has grown less predictable, and public rhetoric now more often frames American alliances as relationships in which continued support may depend on deference to specific American leaders. Because the US–Israel relationship remains essential, this development calls for a measured assessment of its future and careful consideration of how Israel can reinforce the alliance while preserving its capacity for independent judgment.

Vice President Vance’s recent remarks illustrate this trend. He stated that Israel depends on President Trump and his administration, and that Israeli officials should refrain from public criticism and express gratitude even when they believe US policy may place Israelis at risk. These comments appear to serve an immediate electoral purpose, positioning his party for the 2026 congressional midterm elections and himself for the 2028 Republican presidential primaries.

The immediate political context does not diminish the longer-term significance of these remarks. Vance’s tone may reflect a substantive view of the alliance’s future, in which American support is seen as conditional on political deference. Whether or not he intended to suggest that President Trump, or a future president, might condition support is less important than Israel’s responsibility to anticipate such a possibility. It is less risky to plan for a plausible adverse development than to rely on reassuring assumptions.

Such planning does not require Israel to distance itself from the United States. Rather, it requires Israel to be more deliberate in how it communicates disagreement, demonstrates strategic value, and develops relationships that reinforce shared objectives. The appropriate response is not indignation, but greater discipline in communication with Washington, together with a sustained effort to translate Israeli concerns and capabilities into proposals that American decision-makers can recognize as advancing their own interests.

The same approach should inform Israel’s participation in the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor. As Israel expands the network of relationships supporting its economic and strategic objectives, it can also support an explicit American aim: building durable economic and strategic ties among the United States, India, the Gulf, Israel, and Europe. IMEC should not be seen as an attempt to distance Israel from Washington or to create an alternative to the American alliance. Rather, it is a framework through which Israel can strengthen the alliance while building functional relationships capable of withstanding changes in American political rhetoric.

Practical Guidelines for Disciplined Communication 

In the immediate controversy, Vance’s criticism appears directed less at Israeli policy itself than at the manner in which Israeli officials have publicly expressed disagreement. His remarks, therefore, raise a practical question: how should Israel organize its communications to preserve independent judgment without allowing public rhetoric to inflict unnecessary strategic harm?

Three practices can provide that discipline. First, we should identify coercive or hierarchical language used by American leaders and treat such statements as possible indicators of future policy rather than as background noise. Second, we should examine the speaker’s perspective by identifying the political audience being addressed, the underlying concerns being mobilized, and the purpose served by any sharp remark, applying the same fairness of interpretation that we would expect in return. Third, we should respond only when doing so is likely to improve the substantive outcome, rather than from a desire for emotional satisfaction or direct refutation. Taken together, these practices guard against both naivete and impulsiveness.

These practices are necessary because the present dispute concerns more than the tone of a single exchange. Vance’s criticism reflects a changing conception of Pax Americana and of the obligations it imposes upon allied states. In his framing, the American-led order becomes a domestic grievance: Americans protect, pay, and assume risk, and are therefore entitled to dictate the terms of the relationship. Allied states, by contrast, appear as beneficiaries of charity provided at the expense of American households. Most governments within that order understand the arrangement differently—as a coalition grounded in common interests, shared burdens, and reciprocal risks, within which each government retains judgment over matters affecting its own citizens. Israel understands its alliance with the United States in precisely these terms.

The difference between these conceptions becomes clearer in the broader Trump–Vance rhetoric surrounding American power. That rhetoric often describes the American-led order as one whose boundaries and obligations are announced by the United States and, increasingly, by the president personally. Allied governments are consequently expected to accommodate American decisions with limited regard for their own domestic constraints, political sensitivities, or physical exposure. This is an incomplete account of how American power operates in practice. The American-led order depends upon networks of governments, businesses, institutions, and operational relationships that no president can fully control or direct toward a single purpose. The rhetoric nevertheless remains consequential because it shapes expectations in Washington and allied capitals. It influences how American officials understand the obligations of partnership and how other governments assess the durability, conditions, and character of American support.

Once that conception of power is made explicit, a central paradox within the America First doctrine comes into view. The doctrine calls upon allied governments to assume greater responsibility for their own defense and to bear more of the risks involved in securing their regions. Yet the demeaning rhetoric accompanying that demand can diminish the autonomy and standing required for responsible partnership.

Israel exercises initiative, accepts substantial military and civilian risks, provides valuable intelligence and technology, and acts against shared adversaries. It is nevertheless sometimes addressed as a dependent whose principal obligation is deference. A society cannot be expected to act courageously while its government adopts an operational mentality of dependency. If Washington seeks partners capable of initiative, it must expect them to retain and act upon their own judgments and interests within their domestic constraints. Greater allied responsibility necessarily entails a corresponding measure of allied autonomy.

This paradox defines, for Israel, the practical significance of Vance’s criticism. It presents Israel with two related but distinct tasks. The first is strategic: to assess whether his rhetoric foreshadows a more conditional conception of American support and to prepare accordingly. The second is communicative: to improve the discipline of Israeli public statements without surrendering independent judgment. Whatever Vance’s broader political purpose, his criticism points to a genuine need for less public recrimination and greater precision in Israeli communications with Washington. Israel can acknowledge the political sensitivity Vance invokes, calibrate how we express our disagreement, and continue to offer candid judgment as an ally.

Wingate and the Utility of “Usefulness”

A useful historical analogy appears in Major-General Derek Tulloch’s 1972 account of Orde Wingate’s service in Mandate Palestine, Abyssinia, India, and Burma. Wingate repeatedly confronted a problem familiar to smaller forces and junior partners operating within larger systems: how to advance a legitimate objective when the dominant power does not regard it as central. His answer was “usefulness.” Rather than merely insisting upon the justice of his concerns, Wingate converted local knowledge and operational imagination into proposals that London or Washington could incorporate into their own strategy. He translated the smaller actor’s interests into solutions to problems that mattered to those with greater power.

That method was evident after Wingate’s first long-range raid in Burma, when Churchill brought him to the 1943 Quebec Conference. Britain had become the junior partner in an American-led alliance. While Burma remained important to London because of India, it mattered to Washington chiefly as part of its strategy toward China. Churchill and Wingate did not address this imbalance by lecturing Roosevelt about British dignity or complaining that neglect of Burma would imperil British India. Wingate instead presented an operational concept—long-range forces operating behind Japanese lines to disrupt supply chains and support the wider Allied campaign—that connected British concerns in Burma with American objectives in China.

The relevant analogy is not an equivalence between the wars of 1939-1945 and 2023-2026, but a similarity of strategic position: as Israel confronts an expansionist Iranian regime and its regional network, Wingate’s example shows how a junior partner can preserve initiative by translating its own exposure, knowledge, and objectives into proposals that the dominant power can recognize and employ.

The historical lesson is not that Britain surrendered its interests or regarded American judgment as inherently superior, but that British leaders understood that a concern peripheral to Washington would receive serious attention only when connected to an American strategic problem. The same principle applies to Israel. We should communicate our knowledge and concerns in forms that permit constructive calculation by American decision-makers: identifying likely adversary behavior, the immediate and longer-term consequences of proposed policies, second- and third-order risks to American interests, and workable alternatives.

Whether the issue is Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, the Red Sea, or the Eastern Mediterranean, our recommendations should demonstrate how Israeli knowledge, capabilities, and proposed actions contribute to American objectives. This is not an exercise in flattery or submission. It is the intellectual work required to convert the smaller partner’s distinct knowledge and exposure into strategic value for the more powerful partner. Usefulness, properly understood in Wingate’s sense, is one of the principal means by which a smaller power preserves influence within an unequal relationship.

Translating Concerns into Strategy

Israel can recognize the disparity of power while continuing to offer Washington independent and expert judgment as a capable partner. The practical course is to minimize public grievance, which can obscure Israel’s operational value, and to recognize the limits of public advocacy. Israeli officials should register disagreement publicly without entering the American campaign arena or producing commentary that circulates through social media in ways that damage Israel’s standing or reinforce charges of ingratitude. Privately, they should provide candid counsel through established channels, supported by evidence, scenarios, and workable proposals. Strategic disagreements should be assessed on their merits, not transformed into public contests over self-respect.

There will be circumstances in which open disagreement is necessary, particularly when a proposed policy creates immediate danger or when the government must explain its position to Israeli citizens. Even then, the purpose of public speech should be to clarify policy, protect substantive interests, and improve judgment, not to respond to perceived humiliation or seek approval on social media. Restraint is not silence for its own sake; it is a discipline intended to preserve Israel’s professional stature, operational credibility, and capacity to engage American decisionmakers.

Placing oneself in the other’s position is especially important in moments of anger. Before responding to a sharp American statement, we should ask whom it addresses, what grievance it mobilizes, and what political purpose it serves. Reciprocity does not erase inequalities of power, but it establishes a standard of serious political communication: neither party should seek to overcome the other’s position before first demonstrating that it understands it.

IMEC as a Community of the Similarly Situated

Wingate’s example also provides a natural bridge from the bilateral alliance to the wider regional setting in which Israel now operates. His service in Mandate Palestine, Abyssinia, India, and Burma was not distributed randomly across the map. It placed him in several of the theaters, maritime littorals, and strategic locations that remain relevant to the relationships among India, the Gulf, Israel, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Europe. The significance of the analogy, therefore, extends beyond his method of dealing with a more powerful ally. The same discipline—understanding the purposes of others, preserving independent judgment, and translating local knowledge into practical usefulness—should shape Israel’s approach to the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor.

IMEC is developing within a regional order still substantially influenced by American power. We should therefore treat it neither as an alternative to the Israel–America alliance nor merely as an infrastructure project running alongside it. For Israel, the corridor can reinforce the alliance by advancing an established American objective: creating stronger economic and strategic relationships among the United States, India, the Gulf, Israel, and Europe. At the same time, it can give Israel’s regional relationships greater institutional depth by embedding them in sustained cooperation among governments, businesses, universities, ports, and technical bodies.

This dual purpose requires IMEC participants to plan for two conditions at once: continued American involvement and continuing American political volatility. The prudent response is neither estrangement from Washington nor dependence upon perfect clarity from it. It is disciplined communication with the United States, combined with functional cooperation among the corridor’s governments, businesses, and institutions. Such cooperation should complement American leadership while ensuring that the corridor’s practical development does not rise and fall with the rhetoric or attention of any single administration.

The value of functional cooperation is that much of it can continue even when political language becomes unsettled. Ports, customs authorities, universities, firms, logistics providers, technical experts, and ministries can develop shared procedures, solve specific problems, and maintain working relationships despite political disagreements. Yet technical continuity alone will not be sufficient. Because cooperation depends upon decisions made by governments with different interests and vulnerabilities, it must be accompanied by a discipline of reciprocal explanation.

Governments from New Delhi to Rome should therefore develop the habit of accurately articulating one another’s national interests, domestic constraints, political sensitivities, and security concerns before attempting to resolve disagreements or impose a common vocabulary. This discipline is necessary because each participant will interpret the corridor through a distinct strategic lens. India will emphasize strategic autonomy, commercial access, Gulf relationships, and competition with China. The Gulf states will weigh economic diversification, governmental legitimacy, regional security, and their relationships with both Washington and Beijing. European participants will bring their own regulatory systems, domestic politics, infrastructure priorities, and concerns about supply-chain resilience. Israel will approach IMEC through the combined imperatives of security, regional integration, commercial access, and diplomatic normalization.

These differences need not obstruct cooperation, but they make disciplined communication indispensable to it. IMEC should not rest upon the fiction that all participants share identical strategic purposes. It can instead operate through a method that permits governments to preserve their own judgments while identifying areas of practical overlap. The institutions and working arrangements developed around the corridor should absorb political ambiguity rather than transmit every fluctuation in Washington across the entire system. They should provide sufficient continuity to allow practical work to proceed even when the participating governments disagree on broader strategic questions.

Within this framework, Israel should communicate reliability not merely through declarations of support for IMEC, but through sustained demonstrations of usefulness. It should frame its knowledge, capabilities, and proposals in terms of the practical problems it can solve throughout the corridor. The discipline that should govern Israel’s relationship with the United States should therefore also govern its dealings with India, the Gulf states, and Europe: understanding each partner’s concerns, retaining independent judgment, and presenting proposals that advance shared objectives without disregarding the distinct interests and constraints of the other participants.

Usefulness across the corridor can, in turn, reinforce Israel’s position in Washington. The more effectively Israel and the other participants solve logistical, commercial, technological, and security problems, the easier it becomes for the United States to regard IMEC’s success as an accomplishment of its own regional strategy. In this sense, the Wingate analogy extends beyond bilateral communication. Just as Wingate translated a concern arising from one theater into an operational proposal relevant to a larger American purpose, IMEC participants can translate regional requirements into initiatives that also serve broader American economic and strategic interests while serving their own.

That principle, however, should not reduce IMEC to an instrument for obtaining American approval. The corridor’s deeper value lies in the durable functional relationships it can create among participating governments and institutions. Those relationships should be capable of surviving policy disagreements, changes of administration, and fluctuations in American attention. IMEC can reinforce American strategy while also giving its participants greater capacity to cooperate with one another during periods when Washington’s priorities, language, or level of engagement becomes less predictable.

Israel is not alone in confronting this condition. India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, and Sri Lanka all operate, in different ways, within an order substantially influenced by the United States while retaining their own strategic outlooks, domestic constraints, and conceptions of autonomy. Each, therefore, faces a version of the same problem: how to disagree constructively without destroying goodwill, and how to preserve dignity without allowing wounded pride to govern policy.

The discipline we want to develop in relation to Washington, thus, has wider application. It requires distinguishing rhetoric from policy without assuming that the distinction will always hold, understanding the political purposes served by a sharp statement, and responding only in forms likely to improve substantive conditions. Applied to IMEC, that discipline means sober communication with every participant, reciprocal explanation among differently situated states, and the steady construction of functional relationships capable of enduring disagreement. In this way, the corridor can become not merely a route for goods and infrastructure, but a durable framework through which governments preserve their own judgment while learning to cooperate across differences in power, interest, and political outlook.

Conclusions 

In this way, a smaller power preserves its autonomy within an unequal but indispensable alliance: not by reacting to every sharp remark, submitting its judgment, or withdrawing from cooperation, but by interpreting political language carefully and translating its interests into proposals useful to the larger partner. Wingate’s doctrine of usefulness offers a constructive model for that task. It recognizes the scale of American power without treating Israeli independence as an obstacle to partnership; instead, it converts Israel’s capabilities into contributions to shared objectives.

IMEC extends the same principle across the wider regional system. By creating durable relationships among governments, firms, ports, universities, and public institutions, the corridor can reinforce American regional strategy while providing Israel and its neighbors with the institutional continuity needed to sustain practical cooperation amid disagreements, changes in administration, and fluctuations in American attention. It allows participating states to retain their distinct judgments while identifying common interests and building habits of reciprocal explanation and functional work.

Israel should proceed with confidence and discipline: take consequential rhetoric seriously, but do not allow it to prompt impulsive responses; speak candidly, but avoid turning disagreement into a contest over self-respect; demonstrate usefulness while maintaining autonomy; and build IMEC patiently as a network of relationships capable of enduring political volatility. The task is not to choose between independence and alliance. It is to exercise independence in a way that strengthens the alliance and the wider regional order, making both more capable, durable, and useful to all participants.