Israel expands the war to Yemen as European allies discuss home-grown defense
(Originally published July 22 in “What in the World“) The West has been scrambling to keep Israel from slipping into war with Iran’s proxies in Lebanon. Over the weekend Israel appears to have slipped into war with Iran’s proxies in Yemen.
After a drone attack in Tel Aviv claimed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, Israel F-15s on Saturday conducted an air strike against the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida. The Houthis retaliated Sunday by launching missiles against Israel, all of which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses.
The attacks came just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to arrive in Washington this week for talks with now-outgoing U.S. Pres. Joe Biden. Biden has been pressuring Netanyahu for a cease-fire in the war against Hamas in Gaza and to avoid expanding the war with Hezbollah. But analysts have surmised that Netanyahu was already betting on former Pres. Donald J. Trump to win reelection and usher in a more hawkish, pro-Israel policy in the Middle East.
Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been hedging his bets, on Friday holding a telephone call with Trump urging continued U.S. support. Trump posted after the call that he would end the war and that both sides should negotiate an end to the conflict. Zelensky on Sunday renewed his calls for the White House to lift its restriction on Ukraine using U.S.-supplied long-range Atacm missiles on targets inside Russia after Russia launched a 39 Iranian-designed Shahed drones against Ukraine.
Win or lose, the West is going to face a serious threat from Russia once the war in Ukraine is over. That was the analysis making the rounds at the Aspen Security Forum underway in the famed Colorado ski resort last week. “But we can’t be under any illusions,” said Gen. Christopher Cavoli, who heads the U.S. European Command and is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s supreme allied commander. “At the end of a conflict in Ukraine, however it concludes, we are going to have a very, very big Russia problem…”
Following their NATO summit in Washington with now lame-duck Pres. Biden, European leaders convened last week with their non-NATO counterparts in London to discuss the situation amid fears that Trump may win re-election and pull the U.S. out of NATO. The European Political Community’s 48 members include every one of NATO’s 32 members but Canada and the United States, with the addition of 16 nations that arguably have as much to worry about, including not just Austria, Georgia, and Switzerland, but also Moldova and Ukraine.
Ursula von der Leyen, who was elected last week to a second, five-year term as president of the European Commission, said she hopes to establish a European Defense Union that would include a European air-defense shield now provided largely by the U.S. military.
Ukraine’s nearly year-long effort to get F-16s to help drive out Russian invaders hasn’t gone unnoticed by other countries: now everyone wants F-16s.
Admittedly, some of those jets will replace the 80 F-16s already promised by the U.S. and its allies to Ukraine. But the fighter jets’ maker, Lockheed Martin, is already working to fill orders from Bulgaria, Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan, Slovakia and Taiwan, while Argentina is buying 24 pre-loved F-16s from Denmark, which will undoubtedly want to replace them with something newer. Pres. Biden has already cleared a deal to sell 40 F-16s to Turkey, and Lockheed Martin is also negotiating sales to the Washington’s new BFF against China, the Philippines, and to Thailand.