In May 2026, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, one of Germany’s oldest political organizations and think tanks, published a predictive map outlining a future American ‘sphere’ under a multipolar world order.

As American presence recedes, other powers will move to fill the void - many of them hostile to Israel. Iran has been a belligerent power since the 1979 Revolution, contending with American influence in the region, yet it remains unclear how it will emerge from the current tensions. Beyond Iran, Turkey is positioning itself as the next regional hegemon, and the removal of American aid could reintroduce Egypt as a meaningful threat.

In such an emerging order, Israel must map and identify its key structural allies. Doing so requires understanding its fundamental economic needs and what it can offer in return. It also demands identifying the inherent structural rivals to these rising powers—states whose geography and economics place them naturally in opposition to Ankara, Cairo, and Tehran States whose economies complement Israel’s and who share its geopolitical rivals are the most promising candidates for long‑term partnership in the coming age.

Complementing Israel’s Strengths and Weaknesses

To find proper allies, Israel need not fear the retreat of American aid or the threat of sanctions should Washington withdraw its political shield at the United Nations. Israel lacks major natural resources, but its human capital remains its core strategic asset. It produces world‑class water and agricultural technologies, medicines, and battle‑tested military systems. What it lacks are raw materials, industrial scale, and physical space. Oil, steel, iron, silicon, lithium, cobalt, and nickel are all critical to the products Israel designs but cannot fully produce at home. Israel’s ideal partners are large industrial states with access to critical raw materials and the capacity to host production linked to Israel’s defence and technology supply chains. If these nations were also to be of need of Israeli ag-tech, medicines, or defensive products, the potential for these nations to become strategic partners would be considerably augmented.

In Samuel P Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations And the Remaking of World Order” he described a multipolar world organized into civilizational blocs—Turks, Arabs, Slavs, Hindus, Sinic, and so on. He also identified singular civilizations – Japan, and Ethiopia - that do not fit into larger blocs and face unique vulnerabilities. The Jewish civilization is such a culture. While the West was borne of the meeting of Athens and Jerusalem, it was Jerusalem which stood long before it, and it is Jerusalem being rebuilt today.

For Israel, this suggests that natural partners may emerge among other structurally isolated or threatened civilizations, especially where they share geopolitical rivals.

The Immediate Adversaries: Turkey, Egypt, and Iran

Iran

For decades Iran has constructed its “Ring of Fire” – a network of proxies enabling the Revolutionary Guard to project power across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. Its ideological projection is not only a threat to Israel but additionally the Sunni world, principle among them, the Gulf states.

Geographically, Iran sits in one of the most mountainous regions of the globe, overlooking the fertile plains of Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. Iran boasts a vast quantity of oil on which its production and sales rest much of its economy. But beyond just oil, Iran also boasts large industrial capabilities. It has an extensive defence industry, and being one of the 15 major mineral rich countries in the world, means that its mines can supply domestically much of its own needs.

It continues to pursue nuclear capabilities to enhance both regime survivability and coercive power.

Now it is believed that Iran had planned the destruction of the state of Israel for years under a “Unity of Arenas” doctrine. Accordingly, Iran and Yemen were to provide ballistic missile and drone cover during a simultaneous barrage from both Hezbollah and Hamas, and simultaneous to all forces firing, Hamas and Hezbollah were to have launched an invasion from both the North and the South. Analysts believe the plan aimed to overwhelm Israeli air defences, confuse ground forces and cut off the country into two fronts. Such an event did not unfold, as infamously on Oct 7, Hamas took the initiative to begin such an assault without the preparation of the other forces.

Iran has already proven itself to be a deadly actor, and the current tensions have not yet ended. It is unclear whether a new regime will emerge soon, or following an arrangement from the United States, Iran will be allowed to lick its wounds and try again at another time.

Egypt

In the past two years, Egypt has adopted an increasingly confrontational posture toward Israel. Suggesting that the peace agreement may be soon nullified and simulating Hamas like infiltrations in a military exercise which it performed on Israel’s border. A significant portion of the population remains sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent group to Hamas and continuously faces great and increasing internal pressure to act against Israel. The peace agreement is heavily underpinned by American aid to both Egypt and Israel, yet Washington and Jerusalem have been broadcasting in the region that soon that aid will cease.

Egypt relies significantly on natural gas, including imports from Israel, to power its grid. However, Cairo has been building, under Russian authority and financing, its own nuclear power plant at El Dabaa, west of Alexandria. The first of four reactors is meant to become operational as soon as 2027. A nuclear‑powered Egypt would enjoy greater autonomy to act against Jerusalem and actualize all her past threats. If pursued, Egypt might be able to appease her own population as well as launch herself back to relevance within the Arab world.

Turkey

As recent as June 6th, 2026, the Turkish Interior Minister, in a sentence referencing the capture of Aleppo and Damascus by Turkish supported Islamist forces as well as the capture of Karabach by Azerbaijan, threatened that Jerusalem too would be returned to Turkish “dominion”. The numerous statements made by Turkish officials, including Erdogan himself and as well as his son are clear signals to the intent and direction of the country in the upcoming years.

But beyond rhetoric alone, Turkey has entrenched itself across the region, extending influence over the peripheries of its former empire. As detailed in a past article Ankara has extended herself across the Eastern Mediterranean into Libya. At the base of the Red Sea, Turkey maintains a substantial military presence in Somalia. And across the Caspian Sea, she is the visionary and maverick leader to the consolidating bloc of Organization of Turkish States.

To the West, Turkey is an integral and inseparable part of NATO, and an increasingly major arms supplier to European states. Ankara has been pursuing official entry into the European Union since 1987. While the application has been significantly delayed, the large Turkish diaspora and workforce in Europe, especially in France and Germany, are believed to be leveraged by Ankara to apply political pressure from within the Union, potentially to achieve this goal. If admitted, Turkey would become the EU’s fourth-largest economy, preceded by Italy, France, and Germany.

Geographically, Turkey controls the thoroughfare from the Black Sea and possesses such economic leverage on the Black Sea states which are dependent on it for trade. As such, if allowed into the halls of the European Union will essentially then inherit its former Ottoman Balkan territories as neo-vassal states. Regarding Israel, currently 40% of Israel’s oil is supplied by Azerbaijan through Turkish routes, and Turkey supplies 70% of Israel’s steel, an acute strategic vulnerability.

The Rivals to Israel’s Rivals

These rising powers- Turkey, Egypt and Iran have their own structural rivals, who are watching their ascent with growing unease.

Regarding Iran, the United Arab Emirates has stood alone as the one true and active participant of the Abraham Accords. The UAE has been the only Arab state to consistently stand alongside Israel—politically and militarily—against Iran. No matter the result of this conflict, Iran and the UAE will still share territorial disputes within the Persian Gulf. Within the Arab world, the UAE continues to become more ostracized following their actions in Somaliland, Sudan, and Yemen and distances itself even more from Saudi Arabia. As it appears, the UAE will emerge from this with hostile forces directed against it from across the sea as well as the desert.

While not entirely synergetic to the Israeli landscape, the UAE, being a major global oil exporter, does offer an ability for Israel to diversify its oil imports away from its strategic rivals. Moreso, the UAE has access to a large degree of capital, is potentially the only Gulf state to diversify its own economy away from oil, and possesses its own battle tested military forces.

Moving to Egypt, there is only one other nation which Cairo has previously threatened with military action. Ethiopia, while not sitting directly on Egypt’s borders, does possess essential control of the near entirety of the Egyptian water supply. The Blue Nile provides roughly 85% of all the Nile’s water, giving Ethiopia enormous leverage. Addis Ababa, in a pursuit to expand the country’s electrical output, has recently finished the construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, which has placed a valve on Egypt’s lifeline. While Egypt has managed to survive the filling period of the Dam, all that remains is one severe drought in Ethiopia to have catastrophic effects in Egypt. A strong Ethiopia inherently threatens Egypt’s strategic position. Amplifying Cairo’s threatening posture towards Addis Abbab, she has reached out noticeably to Eritrea to strengthen connections with the country and ensure that Ethiopia be denied maritime access to the Red Sea. And following Ethiopia and Somaliland’s’ MOU signed in 2024, Egypt has extended its reach as well to Somalia, with an aim to withhold what it calls ‘Ethiopian expansionism’.

Turkish presence, is already in Somalia, and following the same MOU between Ethiopia and Somaliland, Somalia expanded Turkey’s influence bringing the Somali Navy- its training, equipment, and the authority to protect and patrol Somalia’s EEZ into Turkish hands. The arrangement has effectively barred Ethiopia from pursuing stable lease ports in Somaliland. And Ankara’s pursuit of dominion over the Red Sea waterways has also led her to investments into the ports of Eritrea.

Ethiopia does not possess the same energy exports that the UAE does, however unlike the UAE it has a large population and large landmass. Thus, Ethiopia possesses the potential to supplement the production of the Israeli defence industries if factories were to be opened throughout the country. And while not currently an exporter, Ethiopia is known to be sitting on untapped reserves of iron, lithium, nickel, and silicon. The Israeli economy, boasting a large per capita of both investors and engineers, could come to provide the capital and expertise for development and actualization of the necessary mines, refineries, and factories throughout the country if relations deepen. There already exists a framework for cooperation between the countries as Israel is already a provider of ag-tech in the country. To fully realize the potential partnership between Ethiopia and Israel, Ethiopia must gain larger commercial access to the Red Sea, either through Somaliland which is already friendly to Israel, or through Eritrea, which may become turn an ally following the death of the dictator.

Yet regarding Turkey, there are more obvious rivals to its current trajectory. Turkey’s Mavi Vatan doctrine, which seeks to redraw maritime borders at Greece’s and Cyprus’s expense, places both states in direct opposition to Ankara. Cyprus and Greece continually voice diplomatic concern against the threat of Ankara citing Turkey’s continued trade embargo against Cyprus in addition to the recognition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which occupies half of the island.
Turkey has previously opposed the construction of energy pipelines between Israel Cyprus and Greece and the integration of their energy systems, and even dispatched drilling vessels to destroy any infrastructure that had been laid. As Turkey’s position within NATO, and potentially the EU, grow, both Cyprus and Greece will come under greater threat. And while Turkey certainly dwarfs both nations, Greece fields one of the largest navies of Europe (6th) and maintains an air force larger than that of Germany or the UK.

Despite its size, Greece additionally boasts a significant shipyard and drydock industry, where ship repairs as well as the construction for military hulls plays a significant role in the country’s economy. There exist joint economic ventures between Israel, Cyprus, and Greece in the fields of oil and gas explorations and development, desalination technologies and implementations, as well as other fields. And the military relationship between the three states is already considerably deep: Cyprus and Greece are both signatories to a ‘status of forces agreement’ which enable all of the countries to hosting and stationing their military forces in each others’ territory.

The Great Powers of the Multi-Polar World

The powers positioning and agitating for this new world order intend to be integral parts of its future. Iran is now in an on and off hot conflict with the United States, and many analysts are awaiting an incident in China and Taiwan to unravel within the next two decades. Relative to Iran, it must be said that the Persian power and the Jewish state are by no means geographic rivals. The nations share no borders, share no territorial disputes, and do not compete over any resources. Historically, the polities of the Levant had to fear powers from Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Egypt and under such an equation the Persian counterweight was often welcomed. Culturally, the Persian and Jewish peoples share a deep and overlapping history recounting shared chapters in the rise of Cyrus the Great and a potential of Darius II being the son of Queen Esther. Regardless of the validity of any of those claims, Iran is not geographically engineered to be a constant threat to the Levant or its inhabitants.

Hostilities with the country today are clearly of a religious nature, and under a different regime, Iran could very well be a potentially major strategic partner to Israel.

China however is a different story. China is a massive nation with vast industrial capabilities. China possesses near global monopolies over several rare earth metals and therefore possesses key materials necessary for hi-tech and smarter defence systems. China is resource‑hungry and heavily dependent on imported energy. The country is energy poor and requires vast amounts of oil and gas to be imported for its industrialized society to continue to function and grow. Israel cannot meet China’s core needs, and moving forward Jerusalem can assume that Beijing will structurally lean toward the oil producers, whose energy exports it depends on.

However, this reality only increases the synergy between Israel and China’s principal rival – India. China and India in the past have already had border skirmishes over territorial disputes and see each other as rivals in Southeast Asia. China also has supported India’s historic enemy of Pakistan and its alliance to Pakistan has formed its own version of a ‘ring of fire’ around the subcontinent. Chinese investments significantly boost Pakistan’s economic prospects, specifically through the Chinese-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The recent alignment of the major Sunni bloc of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan further pushes India and Israel into each others’ arms. In the most recent conflict of Operation Sindoor, it was discovered that Turkey had sent both servicemen and munitions to aid Pakistan. India has already responded to such developments by sending its own armaments, particularly missiles, to Greece, Cyprus, and Armenia.

India’s economy is highly complementary to Israel’s. India offers a vast workforce, major industrial capacity, and significant production of key metals. While it is an importer of crude oil, it possesses a multitude of refining plants with which it exports surpluses. Beyond just refining oil, India is the world’s second largest steel producer and a significant producer of iron ores. Beyond steel, India is also a significant producer and exporter of aluminium, zinc, and lead – key industrial metals. And New Delhi has used this massive industrial base to likewise become a global exporter of conventional munitions. Relations with India are already strong, as Israel has been highlighted by New Delhi as a supplier of advanced weapon systems as well as agricultural collaboration. As the threats of Turkey-Pakistan or China grow, that relationship is likely to deepen.

Addressing the Bear in the Room

One major power remains unaddressed: Russia. Certainly, the relationship with the country is both controversial as well as complex, yet there exist many reasons that in a multipolar world, its interests would largely align with that of Israel’s.

The nation of Russia has largely been an enabling force to Israel’s regional rivals throughout much of its history. It has been an arms supplier to Israel’s enemies, and even following the October 7th attacks, hosted Hamas leaders in Moscow. However, for Moscow, this alliance with the Arab parties at large was borne of geopolitical realities that are no longer bearing fruit.

Russia is a major exporter of raw materials—oil, gas, coal, grain, nickel, and steel. With the Arab world not nearly possessing the same natural wealth as Russia, and largely only producing oil which Russia does not need, beyond participating in the oil cartel of OPEC, there is not much material gain or offset to any Russian weaknesses to be made form the partnership. Additionally, Russia has historically needed a warm water port outside of the Black Sea and has shown preference for a lease port in the Mediterranean to bypass the Turkish Straits and maintain a force there. Yet following the fall of Assad, and his flight to Moscow, the new regime in Damascus has since removed the Russians from the both the port of Latakia and the port of Tarsus, which has severely cut down the Russian footprint in the state. Moscow has sought out a similar port in the Red Sea at Port Sudan to grant it unfettered commercial access to the Indian Ocean as well, but such developments have been stalled by the instability of Sudan. And while the Arab states have also been importers of Russian grain, grain products, like oil or coal, will always have a buyer. Politically, Russian alignment with Arab powers could be viewed as a countering balance towards American influence in the region, yet with America signalling that it wishes to leave the region, potentially entirely, what political reason remains for the Russians to maintain these relations? At home the prestige of the Russian army has fallen in recent years as a result of its incursion into Ukraine, and its military equipment has proven not as battle worthy as previously thought.

In a multipolar era, Russia may seek a stable partner with Mediterranean and Red Sea access, industrial needs, and internationally sought after advanced military technology.

Beyond the relations with the Arab world, Russia has historically been the geopolitical rival of Turkey, where its control over movement through the Black Sea has been a historic bottleneck and chokehold over the country. Turkey will become more of an obvious rival as Moscow and Ankara compete over influence in the former Soviet and Turkic states of Central Asia, where Turkey is seeking to establish itself as the leader of the Turkic bloc through the OTS.

Furthermore, there already exists a certain harmony between a number of these potential structural allies. Despite global sanctions, Russia has maintained friendly ties with India – which is known to be a principal purchaser of sanctioned Russian goods. Because of these sanctions, these products are purchased in the Indian rupee which are then redirected back into the Indian economy as investments and integration of Moscow into other Indian industries. This relationship has created a symbiotic integration between the Russian and Indian economies. Surely, a Russian-Israeli detente would align neatly with New Delhi’s existing foreign policy. In Ethiopia, Russia enjoys a diplomatic and cultural legacy since the period of the Tsar and Ethiopian Empire. The cultural tie between the country might be most representative by the fact that there exists a statue of Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s national poet, in Addis Ababa. Pushkin, after all, was the grandson of an Ethiopian slave made Russian noble. Relations between the countries have largely been warm, neither Moscow nor Addis Ababa will condemn the other, for either Ukraine or the Tigray War. And today Russia is a principal economic investor, expanding currency exchanges with Ethiopia as well as developing nuclear power in the country.

Russia possesses both the steel output and oil to accommodate Israel’s needs, as well as an existing industrial capacity which might be outfitted with Israeli technologies, increasing both the quality of the Russian army as well as opening the bottleneck on the supply chain of necessary Israeli conventional munitions. Israel can offer stable port access in both the Red Sea as well as the Eastern Mediterranean, providing a lever for Moscow against Turkey. Both Ethiopia and India already enjoy profitable relations with Russia, and so developing relations with Moscow would not harm Israeli positions in either the Horn of Africa or the Asian subcontinent.

In such a world, it is not certain to what degree international organizations will hold power or exist at all. But if the United States should turn so hostile to Israel that it denies Israel the traditional diplomatic shield and veto power it enjoyed at the UN, Russia can just as easily supply it.

Moscow is far from an ideal partner, but the strategic and economic synergies are real. Despite the obvious challenges to such a partnership, in a new multipolar age the benefits may come to the fore. If the multipolar world is realized, and the US begins withdrawing significantly form the region, the practicality of a continued relation between Iran and Russia as well as Russia and the larger Arab world changes dramatically. Regardless of how their relationship develops, Russian and Iranian military interdependence is unlikely to disappear overnight, and unless a fundamental change also occurs in the regime of Tehran, Russia will remain a volatile regional actor that Israel will need to keep close but never fully trust.

Moving Forward

Israel must act proactively to shape this emerging multipolar landscape rather than be shaped by it.

If Ethiopia is to serve as a long‑term counterweight to Egypt, Israel should expand beyond agricultural assistance and begin laying the foundations for Ethiopian industrialization—encouraging Israeli entrepreneurship in the country, investing in its mineral and manufacturing sectors, and supporting its pursuit of reliable Red Sea access. At the same time, Israel must begin engaging Russia with caution and clear‑eyed suspicion. Moscow’s rivalry with Turkey, its abundance of raw materials, and its need for technological modernization create a narrow but meaningful overlap of interests. None of these relationships will replace the United States, but together they can form a structural network of partners—India, Greece, Cyprus, the UAE, Ethiopia, and even Russia—whose own geopolitical trajectories align with Israel’s. In a world no longer anchored by American primacy, Israel must build the alliances that ensure its autonomy and security in the decades ahead.

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Since the end of the Cold War, the world has enjoyed a certain pax-Americana. The United States was the uncontested global power and world policeman, underwriting the authority of international institutions and ensuring the freedom of the high seas. This unipolar order contributed to the growth of material wealth and development throughout the entire world, and in some part enabled its challengers. Since this period, some powers have grown wary of American influence and have actively sought to move this world order to a multipolar system, and to reintroduce regional spheres of influence. China, Russia, and Iran have been the most notable challengers to this system, but they are not alone. Brazil seeks a more dominant role in South America. South Africa and Ethiopia yearn for leadership in sub-Saharan Africa. And India continues to pursue a policy which separates it from the larger global system. The bloc of BRICS has explicitly stated its goal in reducing dollar dominance as the international currency and establishing a multipolar world. While the organization has largely been unsuccessful, the continuing growth of its members is an excellent metric to determine resentment towards this pax-Americana.

In many ways, the recent wars begun by both Russia and Iran are the most aggressive attempts to install this new multipolar order. Even now, all eyes seem to be on Taiwan, expecting a similar upheaval in the Far East. Regional powers have grown significantly in their own economic and military strengths. And the cost of global policing, which has risen incredibly, raises the question whether American supply lines, munition stockpiles, and production capabilities are even capable of maintaining multiple theaters across the globe in active wars. Coupled with a severe domestic political fatigue in the United States, the question of multipolarity is less a question of if but when.

Trump’s foreign policy is often misread as chaotic or isolationist. Understanding that the Trump administration sees this future and understands it to be inevitable, the policies pursued become coherent and create a picture of a United States engineering a controlled descent from unipolarity to ensure relevance, survivability, and a still dominant position in the world to come. Trump is seeing to it that the U.S. is deliberately shedding the burdens of ‘empire’ to preserve its core, shifting from global policeman to a role more familiar for Trump – global landlord.

The Unipolar Order and its Costs

Following the Cold War, the US established its doctrine of ‘freedom of the seas’. By declaring the high seas to be open to all nations equally, the United States encouraged the acceleration and development of the global economy. At the time, it was quite reasonably assumed that, as the United States had the most dominant economy, it would naturally draw the trade and markets of the world, further increasing its own profits. From this system, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam catapulted their economies. A central argument of Kissinger regarding China, was that its integration into the global economy would separate it from the Soviet Union and draw it closer to the West, encouraging its liberalization. The same can be said with the economies of the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia and its use of the petrodollar essentially established the dollar as the universal currency.

For the most part, these American assumptions were correct. Nearly all nations prospered, and all nations of the world drew a little bit closer to the markets of the United States. However, this system was not without cost. The United States absorbed the cost of patrolling the international seas, establishing military bases at key chokepoints across the globe, constantly surveilling and patrolling, and supplying logistical routes to maintain them. Additionally, some of these policies hurt domestic industries of the United States. By financing and developing an industry in another country the United States gained the prize of capturing the near entirety of that country’s exports, but the price sometimes cost the death of a local industry within the United States. All of these costs were borne by the U.S.

Even the international institutions which gave this unipolar system a veneer of legitimacy - the United Nations, the International Maritime Organization, the International Criminal Courts - which granting access to all nations, were largely funded by the United States. As time has moved on, the cost of the system has become increasingly burdensome for Washington. As these foreign governments develop and grow their economies, and gain the capabilities to push back, either militarily or politically against Washington’s interests, Washington has come to question whether such an arrangement is still in its own interests. The compounding cost of maintaining hundreds of military bases far from its soil, two decades of wars in the Middle East, essential NATO subsidization, a dollar used as a global reserve currency with domestic costs, and a web of Asian security guarantees is increasingly viewed with anxiety. The unipolar order which the United States built essentially benefited the United States in an absolute manner, but not in a relative manner – and now the size and rate of growth of the Chinese economy, has outpaced similar American growth during the same period.

Simply put, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

Trump’s Strategic Reorientation – Retrenchment of the Americas

Trump’s foreign policy has largely been seen as incoherent and certainly bombastic, however, if we adopt the assumption that the Trump administration views the unipolar system as essentially unsustainable, all his policies are strung together with a clear and cogent logic.

In his second term, Trump has essentially inherited a U.S. which is militarily overstretched and deindustrialized. Her local industry has been hollowed out by the unipolar system, where industrial capacity has fled largely to China, Vietnam, and Mexico. And its ability to produce military equipment, cheaply, en masse has likewise dropped as it preferred to pursue smaller quantities of much smarter munitions. Demographically, the United States is becoming stagnant, and the strength of regional powers, not even necessarily rivals, are rising. And political agitation against the pax-Americana is growing within the same international institutions with which the US funds and upholds the order.

With such a worldview, it is then natural to assume that Trump’s goal is a soft landing into this multipolarity and to ensure that while, the United States may not still be the global policeman, it will maintain enough of its strength to defend its borders, its sphere of influence, and its economic interests. To this end Trump largely seeks to reduce international commitments, shift regional and local burdens to allies, rebuild domestic industry, and regionalize the power of Washington over the Americas. The alternative might be a relatively rapid retreat of US global presence, a loss of dollar or naval supremacy, and a fragmentation of alliances. Reaching one vision while avoiding the other is, on the international stage with so many moving parts, walking a tightrope. Trump’s most bombastic policy declarations demonstrate this well.

Case Study 1 – Greenland: The Arctic Pivot

The acquisition of Greenland, originally mentioned during his first term, during his second term, the intentions became known to be serious. Greenland sits within the Western Hemisphere, far closer to the United States than Denmark, and supply routes to enable more serious settlement of the territory would be far simpler and possible to maintain for the United States. Additionally, Greenland sits strategically overlooking Arctic trade routes, and it is largely understood that the Arctic is a new global frontier for international conflict. The resources of the Arctic have already been staked out by the Arctic countries, from Canada to Russia, and it is assumed that there are vast quantities of both rare earth metals and oil in the territory. Additionally, with the melting of the Arctic, it is largely considered that the trade routes that exist here will only become more exploited, developed, and frequently trafficked as time goes on. In this regard, Russia stands at a clear advantage. The opening up of these lanes year-round would allow Russia access to global markets outside of the control of Turkey and the Black Sea, or its ports in the Far East far from its large population centers west of the Urals. Compared to the Arctic states, Russia already boasts the largest icebreaker commercial navy (57 ships) – the majority of which are nuclear powered and is already building ‘combat icebreakers’ as well. To date, the Russian icebreaker fleet outnumbers the entirety of the remaining icebreaker fleet within the Arctic States 57:48. Canada owns 18 icebreaker ships, and the United States only possesses 2.

Without Greenland, the U.S. controls no chokepoints over these arctic sea lanes, and very little access to the rare-earth minerals within the Arctic circle. A permanent presence in Greenland would offer Washington a vantage point over these lanes, grant it the ability to detect Russian naval movement and further secure US control over strategic resources. In a multipolar world, the United States sees the European continent in largely 2 cultural, economic, and civilizational blocs. The first is the largely secular, Western, Anglo-Germanic-Franco world of the European Union and is perceived as largely friendly to the United States. The second sphere of influence is the Orthodox and Eastern Slavic world which is perceived as a more belligerent and potential rival. When Trump hinted at military deployment to take Greenland and forced the European to provide a show of force, it demonstrated the current lack of capability of the European powers to properly defend their own interests.

Fundamentally, Washington understands that if the U.S. can no longer dominate and dictate its interests across the world, it must be able to maintain such dominance throughout its hemisphere. The same fortification and engineering of the Western Hemisphere into Washington’s Hemisphere can be seen in the administration’s actions in Venezuela and its posturing towards Cuba as it moves towards removing all foreign influence from the region. For Washington, Greenland would secure its northern flank in a multipolar world against probing forces of the Slavic world.

Case Study 2 – Ukraine: An end to the Forever Proxy Model

In this march towards the multipolar world, Trump’s disdain for Ukraine is less understood as a ‘pro-Russian’ position but largely a disappointment in the Western E.U. sphere. The costs of the international institutions and commitments have become open and bleeding wounds for Washington, and Washington currently perceives that with the combined economic strength of the nations of the European Union, they should essentially be able to defend themselves. As such, they must take responsibility for their own security. By denying and delaying arms to Ukraine, Trump is essentially forcing the states of Europe to rehabilitate their domestic arms industries and to dedicate larger budgetary spending for continued military growth. Trump does not intend for the U.S. to sustain open ended proxy wars indefinitely, and perceives that had the European Union states been paying and supplying appropriately to NATO, the problem of Russia would have remained a non-issue.

In a multipolar world, Europe cannot become a dependent to the United States but rather its own pole within the new system.

American policy to date has had primary and secondary effects of reducing U.S. financial and military burdens, preventing escalation directly with Russia, and forcing Europe to rearm.

Case Study 3 – Hormuz: The End of the “Freedom of the Seas”

The most recent demonstration of Trump’s intent to demolish the unipolar system has been in his negotiations with Tehran over the opening of the Hormuz to trade and ending of the conflict. To stress this point, under the ‘freedom of the seas’ which has been the flagship doctrine of American foreign policy for the last century, ensures that passage of international waterways is to be granted freely. In a complete upheaval to this doctrine, Washington has reportedly considered granting Tehran the right to charge tolls on the passage through the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran has already established a governing body to oversee this. Only 3 waterways in the entire world are currently tolled. The Suez Canal is tolled by Egypt, as the route is manmade and cuts through the territorial waters of Egypt. The Panama Canal is likewise tolled for the same reasons. And the Bosphorus is tolled by Turkey, where the route likewise cuts through the territorial waters of Turkey and is notorious for its dangerous waters which require the support of local navigators to help pilot commercial ships through the straits. The agreement to such an unprecedented clause would additionally turn the countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE into neo-vassal states whose economies would become entirely dependent on Iran. All of Iraq’s maritime trade routes would likewise be forced to pass through Iranian hands. Such an allowance by the United States would essentially sign off those countries to be permanent fixtures within a new Iranian sphere.

If this saga between Iran and the U.S. ends with the recognition of an Iranian toll over the Hormuz, it would essentially end the flagship doctrine of the last century of US foreign policy, acknowledge that the US cannot police every chokepoint, and accept the precedent that the regional powers have a right to their passageways. It would mean the end of free trade, the end of an international maritime understanding, and a return to the maritime regulations similar to the period which predated UNCLOS, where regional powers dictated their own regional seas.

Such an upheaval raises the question of why the United States would even consider such a demand. However, looking forward to a multipolar world, such an arrangement still leaves the US largely advantaged. A surrender of the Hormuz creates the precedent for America to toll and control all the routes in her own sphere. Consider Trump’s desire and efforts to ‘take back’ the Panama Canal and return it to American control. Additionally, the US could exert larger control over the trade routes in the Caribbean. The Straits of Malacca, which is a critical route to China, is bordered by the Philippines and Singapore, where Washington maintains significant influence.
The essence of a ‘soft landing’ into this new world order requires that if the U.S. cannot guarantee freedom of the seas, it will at least monetize the seas it does control, and continue to hold influence over critical chokepoints to its rivals, Greenland in regards to Russia, and Malacca in regards to China.

The New American Strategy

Prior to Trump, the United States had enjoyed the tripartite role of global enforcer, subsidizer, and protector. But the relative dramatic rise of economic strength of some powers in contrast to the continued mild growth of the United States, combined with growing political pressure internationally against Washington, the position of world police officer is no longer advantageous. As such, the United States is shifting and transforming. In this new order, the United States seeks to claim her throne early as the uncontested regional hegemon of the Western Hemisphere, leading both South and North America. Simultaneously, it will seek to maintain control over chokepoints critical to its most pressing future rivals, whether it be Russia or China. And it will abandon the principle of the freedom of the seas to become one of the largest toll collectors of maritime passage.

In such a multipolar world the United States would still be the strongest power in any one-to-one altercation, but it would not be the only power. The US is preparing itself for a world where it is one great power among several. To reach an advantageous position during this turbulent transition, America must preserve its strength while shedding imperial burdens. The administration is acting in a way to force the reawakening and reemergence of a Western European pole to effectively counter Russia in the distant future For Washington, Ukraine is viewed as a peripheral Slavic state within Russia’s natural sphere, which Europe might still choose to save. The feuding over the Gulf States and their belonging to either an Iranian sphere or Arabian sphere is essentially meaningless to the United States, who is not reliant on either oil supply. And in the East, China is the naturally dominant power but also the significant trade partner to the United States. And if Washington feels that a more Western oriented counter is needed in that sphere, Japan and Vietnam are attractive allies with significant appeal.

The United States is adapting itself to the coming multipolar world. The success of each of these policies can certainly be debated, and questioned to what degree have they achieved American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. The Greenland debacle has culminated in ongoing discussion of establishing three sovereign bases in the territory, but much of the soft power influence in Europe has burned away. Regardless, the trait the connects them all is an American willingness to engage with this new multipolar architecture.

For the Middle East, such a period represents a fundamentally chaotic era. Iran is currently being degraded, but depending on how this altercation ends, any capabilities lost now might be restored to it within the coming decades. Beyond Iran, Turkey is the most plausible heir to regional hegemony, but it faces significant contention from Egypt and Israel over the future direction of the Middle East. The lack of clarity — and the degree of rivalry between these powers — suggests that the coming era may see the return of state‑to‑state conflict, especially as the United States retreats from the scene. Organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah who played central roles in this last age will move back to play supporting roles as Cairo and Ankara take center stage.

Israel must look forward to the future regional powers across the globe to begin seeking accommodations for the potential wars to come. Any powers with inherent adverse interests against Turkey, Iran, and Egypt could become consequential and pivotal partners in the coming age.

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Beyond the reaches of the city lay the immediate floodplains, from which all her agricultural goods were produced. The richness of the silt in the soil allowed the citizenry of such a country to produce an assortment of foodstuffs in great abundance. Beyond the flood plains lying to the city’s east was a great river, whose great width provided for a natural border from the foreign raiders, slavers, and all other unthinkable evils that lie amidst the unknown and the chaos. To the south, the river drains into the salty waters of the sea, and her gentle current allowed for a multitude of merchants to travel to her coast, bringing with them jewels, gold, and silver to adorn the city’s royalty as well as her temples and idols. To the west, the city looked into the open desert, where the elements of the unknown stood to threaten this sanctuary of prosperity and peace. By the time of this boy’s youth, an enormous mud wall had been constructed measuring 8 meters high and 25 meters thick to protect this border. From the bird’s vantage, the impressiveness of this massive wall was only dwarfed by the city’s grand temple. It likewise was constructed from a profusion of mud and straw, and measured 30 meters in height. The city and nation of this boy were nothing short of majestic, and everywhere, from its buildings to its residents, it was clad in the regality of mud.

The boy’s father, Terah, worked as an idol maker, carving out images of the gods from the mud to be worshipped in the temples and homes of the citizenry. It may be assumed then, that the boy was well educated in the pantheon of his countrymen. And despite the boy’s own lack of belief in the power of these idols, or the importance of these gods, he understood their stories, their myths. It was these legends and this mythology which shaped his worldview and was the lens through which he perceived all things. This was the world that shaped the boy who would become Abraham, and through him, the world would inherit the moral order, the concepts of right, wrong, and justice.

No neighboring nation worshipped a pantheon similar to theirs. These lesser nations, who had not produced the miracle of a city such as his, quarreled over worshipping principally a deity of fire, or a deity of the sky. This was a common feature amongst all pagan nations, who were awed by the elements of fire and air, and considered them supreme to the others. But this commonality shared amongst pagans the world over, was not shared by the pagans of this city or of this land.

Their thinking was different, their culture was different. The chief of their gods, was neither the sun nor a sky-father. Their chief of gods was a lord of mud, lord of the most primordial of elements; earth and water. It was after battle with the primeval waters of Tiamat, that looking over her body, the lord Marduk tore from her the earth and the heavens. It was this master of earth and water, who took the blood of an elder god and from it, shaped and sculpted man.[1] The supremacy of earth and water, and of the combined product of mud, was self-evident to the residents this land. It was in that primordial slime which their crops took root, from which all of their food was grown. It provided them shelter and livelihood.

G-d did not reveal himself to a cultural product of sun, sky, or fire worshippers. The revelation was made to Abraham, son of Terah, son of Eber, and Abraham’s mind, speech and action, were shaped and forged by the mud clad citizens of Ur who surrounded him. While the peoples of Ur were pagans, they produced the greatest destroyer of idols known to us. Can we so easily dismiss the possibility that the values taught by Terah to his son, or the values instilled within that pagan capital, did not have a hand in leading Abraham towards his destiny? This Mesopotamian creation myth was taught to a young Abraham, without doubt by his father. The young boy might have taken the stories as inspiration for further introspection, or have balked at them. Regardless, this mythos was recounted time and time again through his childhood. Friends of his family believed the myth and reiterated it. His father, his neighbours, his comrades, and friends would participate in the yearly religious rituals and ceremonies. The religious makeup of Abraham’s childhood was the crucible which led him to revelation. Can it be said that the pagans of Ur, while still being fundamentally incorrect, were at least closer to truth than their pagan contemporaries? The Abrahamic tradition echoes his Mesopotamian upbringing, for just as Marduk floated above the salt water abyss before reaching his hands in, and pulling up the earth, when “darkness was on the face of the abyss” “the spirit of G-d hovered over the face of the waters”.[2]

The point of this story is not mythology — it is geography, describing the essential elements which build our world and their essence. Abraham is not introduced here for theological reasons, but because he is the first recorded figure whose consciousness was shaped by a specific geography — and whose descendants would carry that consciousness into new lands. His story is the earliest example of how environment produces worldview, and how worldview produces civilization.

The elements of earth and water may possess a mystical nature which we can choose to ascribe to them. It is not the mysticism surrounding the natures of these elements that is the subject of this book, but rather the practical effects that these elements hold over us today. These elements shape the landscape of every nation, the nature of their agriculture, industry, and commerce. And through these effects, they dictate the policies of every land. There is no coercion in their dictates, or threats, and their directives are only said in whispers, and often in a primordial manner not easily discerned. Yet the degree of success a nation enjoys in its wars and trade, and principally in its survival, are merely functions of the level of conformity between the nation and the commands of earth and water. The purpose of this writing is to reveal the subliminal natures of our land and our sea, to make sense of their primeval dictates, so that we may adapt ourselves in a manner that ensures to us an unending future in these lands that are so dear to us, in such a precarious corner of the world-island.

The Relevance of a Muddy Monotheism

Geography shapes consciousness. The land into which a child is born imprints itself upon his imagination long before he can articulate its influence. The myths he inherits, the materials he touches, the dangers he fears, the gods he is taught to revere — all are reflections of the physical world around him. A riverine civilization produces a riverine mind; a desert civilization produces a desert mind. Abraham’s revelation did not occur in a vacuum. It emerged from the mud‑walled alleys of Ur, from the silt‑rich floodplains, from a society whose cosmology was shaped by earth and water. To understand Abraham’s transformation, we must first understand the geography that shaped him.

Most pagan pantheons had placed either sky deities or fire deities as the central and leading figures. In this sense, the Sumerian civilization which produced Abraham and his revelation to the monotheistic vision that would shape the world was the closest to the cosmology later echoed in Genesis. And this monotheism which has singularly determined the ethical code for the entire world, is rooted in the imagery, not of fire and sky, but of the combination of earth and water. And it is these fundamental elements which serve as the essence for which we interpret and navigate the entirety of our world, in all its conflicts.

Earth and Water as Determinants

Later geopolitical thinkers have noted that much of human history can be reduced down into a near cosmic struggle between earth and water, between the maritime nations and their terrestrial counterparts. The peoples of these nations bind themselves to an element, it is the source of the food, nourishment, economy, shapes their way of life and traditions, and ultimately shapes the political consciousness and direction of the greater whole – of the civilization. As such it can be said that certain states are in fact maritime states and others are terrestrial states.

Earth and water are not mere metaphors, they are determinants, coefficients in the equations which develop civilizations and shape their futures. Modern geopolitics is in many ways the continuation of this ancient geography.

[1] “Enemu Elish” 4-6

[2] Genesis 1:2

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The map of the modern Middle East was largely codified by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which shaped the mandates and modern nations that occupy the geographic space today. Since the birth of this multitude of nation-states, almost all have rallied armies at one point or another against the perceived injustices codified by that agreement.

However, this clandestine document was a greater grievance to the state of Turkey than any other, for the lands that became these modern states were carved out of the Ottoman Empire with its blood as ink. Unlike the other regional powers, Turkey is unique in that it still holds a coherent imperial memory, and possesses a large industrial base, a growing population, and a centralized state. And while Iran had attempted to reinvigorate and modernize her ancient satrapy system through its proxies, the recent conflicts and tensions with Iran have greatly reduced her reach and influence in the immediate.

Yet Turkey has not forgotten and again is seeking to use this moment to to restore Ottoman influence, already reaching across the lands once held by her. Just as in her previous life, the Neo-Ottoman Empire looks both to the East and to the West.

In the Middle East, Ankara seeks to expand itself as a revisionist power leading the Arab street, acting as a major state sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood. Further East, Turkey broadcasts itself as leader of the Turkic world, and seeks to create a civilizational bloc project parallel to the Arab League and the European Union.

In the West, Turkey has gained a political foothold and leverage through its inclusion in NATO and holds the lifeline of the Balkan and Black Sea states through its chokehold over the Bosphorus.

This piece examines the architecture of Turkey’s modern imperial project.

Neo-Ottomanism and the Muslim Brotherhood

Under the leadership of Erdogan, Ankara has taken a great pivot away from the secularism of Ataturk’s legacy. Since Erdogan took power, Turkey has sought relevance in her former lands and over her former subjects throughout the Arab world. If Turkey can successfully sell itself as protector of the faith and legitimate sovereign of the Muslim world, it will gain influence throughout the entirety of the Arab world. Such a position would grant Ankara influence over the holy sites, centralize control over many trade routes, and transform her into the uncontested sovereign in the domain of the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean.

In this pursuit, she has found the Muslim Brotherhood to be a profoundly useful tool. The Brotherhood and its politics already share a network that spans the entirety of the Arab world and beyond it, even hosting chapters among immigrant communities in Europe and the Americas. The Brotherhood and its affiliate parties generally generate huge volumes of popular support, despite the governments of said Arab nations typically taking stances against them. This relationship, common throughout the Arab world, has created a widespread image throughout the Arab street that their leaders are illegitimate, do not pursue Islamic aims, and are ultimately tools of a colonial West. This perception creates a vacuum that Turkey seeks to fill.

Such opinions are popularly held regarding the Kingdoms of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the military junta of Egypt, and even the current regime of Syria. While Turkey provides haven for the leadership of this movement and its chapters, it doubly gains legitimacy throughout the Arab world and the many supporters of the Brotherhood. As state sponsor, Turkey gains through the Brotherhood ideological reach throughout the Sunni world, influence in the local politics of Arab states, and large grassroots mobilization.

Turkey’s Proxy Network – the Ottoman Periphery

As the conflict with Iran continues, it is important to detail how much Turkey has learned from its Persian counterparts. Iran found great use of proxies to grow its influence and extend its authority, but it almost always entrusted this responsibility to non-state actors. Turkey has learned from this past Iranian adventurism but has significantly raised the stakes. Turkey has invested in, and nurtured states as proxies.

Beginning in the Libyan Civil War, Turkey quickly moved to ally itself with the internationally recognized governing body of Libya – the GNA, which was able to consolidate after the war and gain control throughout the country. Through Ankara’s intervention in Tripoli, she gained a government indebted to her, and the first foreign country to validate and recognize her new borders under the Mavi Vatan doctrine – an expansionist doctrine claiming vast Eastern Mediterranean zones. At Ankara’s request, an annual joint naval exercise occurs between Libya and Turkey asserting these new borders.

In Syria, Turkey expanded further, occupying the northern parts of the country. Through this act, Ankara not only gained a buffer against potential Kurdish rebels, but also a direct hand in the evolving Syrian Civil War. Through these newly occupied territories Ankara was able to begin drafting and training a force of Syrian mercenaries, who have since been sent abroad to Libya to gain experience. It is widely believed that Turkey, throughout the Syrian civil war, nurtured the now-president, then-Islamist rebel Ahmed al-Sharaa.

In Somalia, Turkey has constructed the largest overseas Turkish military base. From this point, it is Ankara that gives orders to Somali forces as well as providing for a vanguard of Turkish troops. Recently the African Union, which donated troops to Somalia to aid in the fight against Al-Shabab, has reported that it is being marginalized by the Turkish presence, which is increasingly being integrated into the state’s command structure.

Recently, Turkey hosted a joint military exercise in which Libyan and Syrian forces, sent by Ahmed al Sharaa, are receiving military training, equipment, and drilling under the instruction of Turkish officers.


The Turkic World – Turkey’s Civilizational Hinterland

Beyond the immediate Middle East and Arab World, Turkey is seeking to consolidate itself as the natural hegemon and leader of the Turkish world. The Organization of Turkish States (OTS) was founded in 2009 includes the nations of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. Largely, the organization aims to create an open market between its members, a Turkish market like that which exists in the European Union. The resources of such a bloc are vast as the Central Asian states are notorious for enormous amounts of mineral wealth. Just as the European Union market is largely dictated by the policies of France and Germany, on account of the size of their economies, development, and industrial capabilities, the same can be said of Turkey within the OTS. Turkey already possesses a significant and developed industrial sector, but possibly more important than that is that Turkey is the only member state with direct access to the sea and maritime trade.

The consolidation of such a sphere would formalize and extend Ankara’s influence throughout the Turkic world, stretching from Anatolia to the Central Asian Steppe. Such a civilizational project has cultural implications, and as the organization further consolidates, it is likely to extend its influence outside of the borders of its member states and throughout the Turkish speaking world. Thus, the OTS has a potential to gain traction across a stretch of land from Turkey into Xinjiang.

And with economic and cultural projects which the organization will naturally pursue, it can be expected that military dependencies will also develop between them. Already Turkey has maintained a supply of military equipment, particularly drones, to Azerbaijan in its last engagement with Armenia in 2020. The relationship between the two states is commonly referred to as ‘one nation’ with ‘two states’. Azerbaijan consistently paints itself in the light of ‘little brother’ to Turkey, and the only physical gap that exists between Turkey and the remainder of the Turkish world is a corridor through Armenia – whom Azerbaijan consistently rallies against and claims the entirety of Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan”. The acquisition of such a corridor into Azeri hands would physically connect the entirety of the Turkish world and funnel all of the material wealth, without obstruction, through Ankara.


Turkey in the West

Within Europe, Turkey holds a unique geopolitical position. She rules the waterways of the Black Sea, making Georgia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and even Russia largely dependent on her good graces to allow maritime trade and access to global markets. Historically, this has made her presence in the Caucasus and the Balkans a natural extension of the interests of Istanbul and today Ankara, while also making her an eternal enemy of the Russian polity. During the Cold War, this reality saw the expansion of US bases being constructed in Turkey to further contain the Russian threat, which exist there to this day. Without her, NATO cannot function logistically in the Black Sea or Eastern Mediterranean without Turkish consent or cooperation. Ankara maintains this position to extract political concessions from Europe and the US.

Regarding the Black Sea, the Montreux Convention of 1936 effectively recognized Turkey as the sole authority over the thoroughfare between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Such an authority grants Ankara a natural political presence and weight in all the Black Sea states, as it is by Turkish authority which Georgia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine can maintain maritime trade. Ukraine, which serves the world as a bread basket, is entirely dependent on Turkish graces to allow for her grain exports to reach the wider world.

It is by the authority granted to it in the Montreux Convention that Ankara can restrict warship passage, regulate the tonnage of passing civilian ships, and close the straits entirely if it feels threatened by war. This geographic advantage grants Turkey a de facto veto power over Black Sea geopolitics. For the Black Sea states, the geography forces them to choose largely over time either alignment with Russia and confrontation with Turkey, or recognition of Turkey as the gatekeeper to their economies, and therefore a natural protector as well.

Additionally, Turkey boasts a large industrial sector. Particularly producing a growing variety of military equipment. Turkey, even prior to the Russian-Ukranian War, was already producing drones in masse, tanks, expanding its naval vessels and drydock capabilities, armored vehicles, missiles, and electronic warfare systems. With these weapons systems, Turkey is positioning herself to become a large arms supplier to Europe. The past century has largely seen a pacification of the European continent, who now, seeing the results of the Russian Ukrainian War has begun a general call to rearm. European capabilities to produce arms at scale have largely atrophied and will take time before they can produce domestically the necessary equipment for their rearmament goals. By contrast, Turkey’s production capabilities have not declined but only grown. She similarly shares Russia as a geopolitical rival, and already existing within the NATO framework, and understanding the internal bureaucracy of the organization, Turkey seeks to fill the gap.

Throughout the Balkans, Turkey already holds a degree of soft power. And a growing arms export industry to Europe along with its monopolized control over the Black Sea trade routes grants Turkey a soft protectorate over several Balkan states; Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Romania. Historical Ottoman ties coupled with modern economic dependence will create a new and modern vassal system, all but in name. And Turkey will begin to present itself as a protector of Balkan Muslims while also the guarantor of Black Sea security. In such a scenario, the Balkans again turn into Turkey’s western frontier, just as they were under Ottoman rule.

This dynamic will intensify as Europe confronts its own military decline. Within the next decade, Europe must prepare for confrontation with Russia as it faces the possibility that it cannot rearm fast enough. Germany’s military has become hollow, and France’s military industry is too small – where even Israel is a primary competitor. Eastern Europe will be forced to turn to Turkish suppliers for a multitude of weapon systems. Such an arrangement gives Turkey political leverage throughout NATO, where Western European powers might look the other way to Turkish interests regarding the Balkans, Black Sea States, and the Eastern European powers. While there is great strife within NATO between Turkey and some of its members regarding Greece and Cyprus, the original threat for which NATO was formed was Russia. And with that threat reemerging, Turkey is transforming from a simple NATO member to a kingmaker within the system.

Turkey, Israel, and Mavi Vatan

A quieter aspect of Turkish policy today is Mavi Vatan – the ‘Blue Homeland’. The goal of Mavi Vatan is to turn Turkey into the guarantor of Eastern Mediterranean traffic on par with her inherent authority over the Bosphorus. The policy, adopted by the Turkish government since its agreement with Libya in 2019, effectively seeks the erasure of the maritime borders of Greece and Cyprus for Turkey’s benefit. It redraws the maritime map to gain command of Eastern Mediterranean gas flow, encirclement of Cyprus, sea lanes to the Suez and direct access to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

Mavi Vatan explicitly means that Turkey is seeking to direct the Israel-Cyprus-Greece energy corridors, making the connection of Cyprus, Greece, and Israel through communications and energy infrastructure effectively impossible, and ensuring that Israel and Cyprus remain isolated ‘energy islands’. The policy seeks to block Israeli-Greek cooperation and Ankara’s 2019 deal with Libya cuts across Israel’s planned energy pipelines to connect Israel to the Hellenic bloc.

It is dually through the Mavi Vatan and Ankara’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood that Ankara is positioning itself as the true ‘protector of Jerusalem’, hosting Hamas leadership as well as supporting the rebuilding of Gaza, to ensure a foothold and leverage against Israel. Additionally, Turkey sought to place its own troops and multiply its influence within the Gaza Strip recently under the auspices of President Trump’s peace initiative.

And just as Iran sought out patronage of the Houthis and their control over the Bab el Mandeb strait and therefore rule over the Red Sea, Turkey has gained the same influence through its presence in Somalia and Sudan. Turkish forces in the Red Sea along with her cooperation with Libya in seeing the ratification of the Mavi Vatan framework threaten Israel’s maritime access to both Asia and Europe.

Israel’s existing relations in the Muslim world are noticeably strongest in the Turkish sphere, where while the state religion is Islam, there exists a noticeably high level of secularism. Israel maintains strong ties with Azerbaijan, as well as Kazakhstan. However, if the OTS moves to centralize in a manner like the European Union, Turkish influence within the organization might sever the existing relations. Notably, to date, Israel receives roughly 40% of its oil from Azerbaijan.

Ultimately, the two states are on a collision course. Israel seeks to maintain open sea lanes and energy independence while Turkey seeks the dominion of the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel’s relations with Cyprus and Greece will be forced to consolidate as they are likely to be tested, either politically or militarily, soon.

The Return of Empire

In conclusion, Turkey is the only Muslim power with a coherent imperial project. The proxies of Ankara stretch from Libya to Somalia, and from Syria to Azerbaijan, boasting influence over a large degree over the entirety of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus to Central Asia, and down through the Red Sea. Its NATO status, control of the Black Sea, domestic arms industry, and hosting of American military bases grant the Turks unprecedented leverage not yet seen in Istanbul since the time of the Sultans. Understanding Turkey is essential to understanding the next century, its dangers as well as its opportunities.

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Prior to the Abraham Accords, Israel was celebrating the stabilization of her largest and most volatile borders. The Camp David Accords with Egypt saw Israel’s southern border pacified with the first of Arab nations to recognize Israeli borders and forego the pretext of continuing a forever war against the state. The following Wadi Araba Treaty was the next diplomatic treatise to pacify Israel’s longest border along the east. However, both treaties are explicitly transactional.

The territorial secession of Israel and the loss of her strategic depth, the internal strife of recognizing Israel within Egypt and the loss of her prestige in the Arab world were both bought and conditioned upon with the American dollar; roughly for every $3 of military aid Israel received, Egypt would receive $2 annually. Likewise, the Wadi Araba treaty was pinned to the Hashemite Kingdom receiving immediate debt relief of $698.4 million as well as a continued annual support, today worth billions.

Since the peace, Egypt has received billions annually in weaponry, training, and support at a ratio of 2:3 to Israel. However, unlike Israel, Egypt has invested a large portion of its aid in its co-production capabilities, creating domestic military factories run jointly with the US, France, Germany, Russia, and others. Aid is the mechanism by which the regime in Cairo maintains control while also restraining Egypt from confrontation.

The Jordanian economy is collapsing and structurally dependent on foreign assistance. Aid is the price of maintaining a border with Israel.

During this most recent conflict, it has become apparent that Israel must remove the American aid which, in the eyes of Jerusalem, has proven to constrain her more than enable her. Netanyahu recently stated explicitly the goal of removing all American aid within a decade. On the other side of the Atlantic, the growing hostility towards Israel within the American youth is now a bipartisan issue, and it is apparent that both future Democrat and Republican parties will likely seek to end the aid.

Yet the current map of the Middle East is bound together by the American dollar. The peace treaties are anchored in U.S. financial aid more so than mutual trust or love between nations. And once U.S. aid is removed from the region, whether through political shifts or strategic retrenchment, the entire regional balance will shift again.

Once removed, so too is the financial, political, or deterrent incentive to continue to enforce them. Borders once considered politically ‘quiet’ will once again become active.

Egypt Today

Domestically, Egypt has been in a severe economic crisis for the past decade. Economic life in Egypt is marked by large degrees of inflation of the currency and high rates of poverty. The country is run by a military junta, which is largely unpopular amongst its own citizens who consistently show strong support and sympathies with the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite her economic woes, she remains a strong military power, possessing a well-kept and modern army. And with an economy constantly in free fall, and a strong military, the regime in Cairo is much more an army with a country rather than a country with an army.

With the consistent threat of popular revolt, as happened in the Arab Spring, and the loss of the country to the Muslim Brotherhood, the regime is desperate for internal legitimacy.

All her previous attempts to solve Egypt’s economic crises have failed, and so, the only tool left for Cairo to gain local support is her military.

And Cairo has already signaled that it views the peace as one of conditional compliance and not true commitment. Since Oct 7^th, Cairo has overseen a massive buildup of troops in the Sinai, far beyond permitted levels according to the clauses of the Camp David Accords. Area C of the Sinai, along Israel’s border, according to the treaty can only host a police force but today hosts complete divisions of armored tanks, artillery, and aircraft.

During the height of the war with Gaza, Egypt proceeded with a military exercise only meters from the Israeli border, in which Egyptian soldiers practiced air raids in a direct homage to the Hamas infiltration of Oct 7^th. Additionally, Sisi himself has used the threat of war and the breaking of the peace to dissuade Israel’s pursuit of moving the Gazan population.

Following Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, Egypt sought closer ties with Somalia — widely interpreted as an attempt to counter Israeli influence at the mouth of the Red Sea and assert control over the Bab el‑Mandeb corridor.

The State of Jordan

The Jordanian economy is likely collapsing. The Jordanian water supply is effectively controlled by Israel, and her agricultural output is not enough to supply her own population. The country boasts no natural resources to exploit or develop to boost local industry, and in the past years she has become regional hub for refugees. Coupled with high unemployment, Jordan has essentially become entirely dependent on a combination of remittances and foreign aid.

Domestically, the population is overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. Prior to its ban, the largest party in the Jordanian Parliament, was the party of the Muslim Brotherhood. Parliament members regularly curse Israel, and former Parliament members have even been caught smuggling weapons into Judea and Samaria. The overwhelming majority of the population is nominally Palestinian, and since the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood party, the Islamist mobilization and broadcasting within the country has only grown.

At the outset of the Oct 7^th war, there were mass border demonstrations in Jordan where its citizens were calling for confrontation with Israel. The nature of these protests required the Jordanian army being deployed to the border, albeit facing its own citizens. Yet still, the King reiterated that if the Palestinians were to be expelled from Gaza, then Jordan would be forced to go to war, regardless of the standing peace.

The Emerging Sunni Bloc – And Why Egypt and Jordan Are Excluded

Since the attacks on Iran, the perceived threat from Tehran have significantly diminished throughout the Sunni world. No longer viewing Iran as the immediate threat to their interests in the region, the Sunni powers now look towards Israel. Most notably a new military alliance was signed between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Possessing a nuclear umbrella from Pakistan, Saudi financials, and the Turkish military forces and industrial capabilities, such an alliance is a formidable foe.

As noted, each party has something with which it can offer to the alliance. Beyond the pragmatic realism with which it offers each nation, there are other non-quantitative but ultimately more influential goals of this alliance.

Such an alliance launches Pakistan’s political presence and prestige and grants her much more economic and political leverage against her historic foe of India. For Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the alliance bolsters both as the apparent leaders of the Muslim world. The uncontested position of such has been long sought after from Saudi Arabia, as ward of the holy sites, and from Turkey in her position of establishing a neo-Ottoman realm.

Previously, such a position has also been sought by Egypt. And Cairo actively competes with Turkish influence in Libya as well as the Horn of Africa. And while she possesses the military to be a relevant asset to such a bloc, her economy would demand her entrance into the establishment as only a junior partner, an inherent forfeit to her claim of leader in the Arab and Muslim world. Likewise, Jordan too offers no economic leverage to the bloc and as such is excluded.

Another reason for Jordan’s exclusion lies in the proposed IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Corridor). Currently, the proposal consists of a freight line emerging from the UAE through Saudi Arabia, then Jordan, and finally Israel, yet Ankara has recently proposed an alternative route, which runs from Iraq into Turkey, excluding Israel and Jordan from the procedure and monopolizing the east-west trade routes through Turkey.

In the face of all these issues, confrontation with Israel begins to appear as an increasingly inviting proposition.

Alignment of Interests

The economies of both countries have been largely reliant on the aid with which they receive, and it has been the unspoken rule that such aid would be pulled from them if they ever attacked Israel. However, with the changing political order, in both Israel and the United States, Jordan and Egypt are both receiving signals now that aid will be pulled from Israel. Such a scenario begs the question, if there is no American economic interest in Israel, would an attack against it merit the withdrawal of American aid from their own economies? And if not, then attacking Israel does not pose the inherent economic collapse that it meant previously. Both Egypt and Jordan possess militaries with Western technologies and capabilities. And Egypt, who has spent much of its time investing in the capability of local production of military equipment and munitions, has developed a stockpile and production capability that even if such aid were immediately withdrawn, its effect would not be felt during wartime.

Both countries face increasing Islamist pressure internally, and gaining legitimacy through confrontation with Israel first, would garner support from the vast majorities in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and their goals. Considering the economic instability of these countries and the potential coup or revolt that might happen in either, an inexperienced leadership would likely join the larger Sunni bloc as junior partners. Attempting to save themselves from either fate, the regimes might attempt to confront Israel before the Turkey-Saudi-Pakistani bloc becomes openly hostile. As such, confrontation would re-establish both as central actors within the Arab and Muslim world and have a stabilizing effect upon their regimes.

Geographically, their shared position against Israel, relative to the larger Sunni bloc, is advantageous. Both countries exist along Israel’s immediate borders. Egypt has preemptively militarized the Sinai. And Jordan controls Israel’s longest border. Together they form a natural pincer around Israel – with the potential to strike at Israel’s high ground in Judea and Samaria, and her underbelly, through the Negev, simultaneously.

Both regimes face internal crises, economically and politically, and both have already signaled a willingness to break current treaties. When US aid disappears from the Israeli budgets, the stick and carrot nature of aid to the Arab states fundamentally changes simply to a carrot.

Israel Moving Forward

The peace Israel enjoys today with Egypt and Jordan is not ideological, but financial. Once US aid collapses, so goes with it the incentives for peace. The internal crises that both Egypt and Jordan face make both volatile and unpredictable and increase the attractiveness of a confrontation with Israel. Both have already signaled a willingness to challenge Israel. And a new regional alignment, driven by exclusion, desperation, and ambition, could emerge.

Within these next 10 years, Israel must seek, as Egypt has done, to increase its own domestic production capabilities of munitions and other military equipment. Simultaneously, Israel must strengthen her position in Somaliland to thwart any future closing of the Red Sea from either the orders of Cairo or Ankara.

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Since its inception in 1948, Israel has learned to rely on no one. Under arms embargo, the nascent state defeated six Arab armies largely with smuggled World War II–era weapons. This desperation created a doctrine of rapid, decisive wars that had to end in absolute victory — because no other option existed.

Only following the 1967 War did the relationship with the United States turn into an alliance, which offered the battered country certain security guarantees. This political advantage was attractive: wars might still come, but not every war would be existential.

Yet this guarantee has also been a constraint and has forced Israel to kowtow to American global interests beyond the region, strategic priorities within the region, and even to the American domestic politics and the discourse around it.

The result has been a maintenance of the status quo – Israel is forever forbidden to reach again another absolute victory, to expand her territory, or increase her own security on her own terms while the Arab powers around her are economically strengthened and politically driven to unify against the Jewish state. As Jerusalem has become increasingly dependent on the American supply stream of munitions, it has meant that Jerusalem has been forced to subordinate its own security needs to decisions made in Washington.

It was under American auspices that Israel was forced to withdraw from the Sinai in 1956. And after once again turning the Sinai into a launching pad for an invasion, it was America who pressured Israel to accept the infamous land for peace following the 1967 war and returning the Sinai to Egypt.

It meant that Israel was forced to not respond to the defense and cries of her citizens when Iraq launched scud missiles at her major cities – at American insistence.

Recently, it has meant Jerusalem cannot respond to Egyptian violations in the Sinai, despite Cairo breaking multiple articles of the peace agreement. It has meant that Jerusalem must leave its citizens in the north abandoned without protection from Hezbollah rocket fire under the auspices of a ceasefire that exists only on paper.

And it means now that Israel must allow Iran to lick its wounds, give it time to rearm, rebuild, and forge new alliances rather than finish the job, all the while new enemies rise in preparation for a new age.

Fundamentally, we must ask ourselves at what cost? Does this relationship with the U.S. hinder us more than it helps us? And if at all, can Israel remain secure while dependent on a superpower whose interests are global and never herself faces the same existential threats?



The Cost of Alignment

The United States is a global power, and naturally she has a finger in nearly every country and every continent on the globe. Where she does not hold influence - as in China, Russia, or Iran - she holds interests in bordering countries explicitly for the purpose of projecting her own strength. She has interests in the Indo-Pacific region, in maintaining the value of her own petrodollar as the quintessential universal currency, in general low prices and availability regarding the global energy markets and more.

Whatever her interests may be, Israel will be expected to align with these priorities even be coerced into accepting them, and Israeli border or internal security is rarely a priority for lawmakers on Capitol Hill or their electorate.

It was American desire to avoid escalation with Russia that long held back Israeli action against Assad. And regarding global energy markets, while Iran has shot freely at Arab pipelines and facilities in the Gulf, it has been the U.S. who has restrained Israel from taking equitable strikes against Iranian facilities.

After October 7th, Israel discovered that some Gazan laborers had served as intelligence assets for Hamas, mapping communities and identifying armed households. Fearing similar risks from workers entering from Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem halted their entry and sought to replace them with workers from India and Thailand. Washington opposed this shift, arguing it would destabilize Palestinian economic conditions and alter the political balance. Through diplomatic pressure, the U.S. ensured that Israel could not restructure its labor system — even when the issue directly affected Israeli civilian security. The Biden administration ultimately ensured that Israel would once again admit this vulnerable and risky labor pool.

Every government has a responsibility to its own citizens first and foremost – and it is from this principle that all governments ultimately rest their legitimacy to their people. The question laid bare; Are the benefits to Jerusalem in serving Washington greater than her own responsibility to her citizenry? And if those in the Knesset believe this to be the case, are they the legitimate rulers of this land, or puppets of other interests. A state founded on Jewish self determination cannot outsource its security to a foreign electorate.

Historical Contrast – Israel Before and After the American Alliance

Prior to the dependence on the United States munitions, simply put, Israel fought to win. In 1948 Israel survived its War of Independence with smuggled and recycled weapons systems. Her victory won her authority over contiguous lands without question. In 1956, the second Arab-Israeli war was fought and won within a week and two days. Israel gained France and England, major powers, as allies in the war – not through Jerusalem’s volunteering of herself to be a pawn for these powers but as an equal partner and the main actor in the conflict. And it was during the 6 Day War, alone against the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq, that Israel captured the entirety of the Sinai and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, wrested Judea and Samaria from Jordanian hands, and breached into the overlooking Golan Heights against Syria. All of these accomplishments Israel achieved by her own hands, through both military and political capabilities. Israel survived alone, forged alliances according to her own interests and at her own terms and created strategic depth to protect her citizens.

However, since 1967 and the official recognition of the US-Israeli alliance, a notable difference can be ascertained from the method by which Israel fights her wars. She no longer fights to win, but fights to stalemate. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and despite the nature of the surprise attack against the state, it was Washington that pressured and prevented Israel from further advancing against either Syria or Egypt to consolidate their victory. And it was again America that during the 1982 Lebanon War pressured Israel into abandoning her Christian-Maronite allies, whose lack of international support resulted in the fracturing of Lebanon today and being ruled by proxy through Hezbollah. It was under U.S. diplomatic pressure and oversight that Gaza was relinquished to be turned into the Hamas stronghold it is today. And now it is American pressure keeping the “ceasefire” in Lebanon despite the daily drone strikes on IDF troops and border communities from Lebanese territory.

It must be said: the shield offered by the world’s superpower has proven porous. It has neither deterred state actors or non-state actors alike in their quest to destroy the Jewish state. What is the worth of an arrangement which offers no real deterrence to our enemies, and has transformed Israel from the unconstrained, decisive, and victorious state to a reactive, militarily chained and diplomatically constrained one?

The Democratic Constraint – Israel’s Security Tied to the U.S. Voter

Any citizen or political observer of the United States knows that the country operates in pendulum swings. The White House turns red to blue and blue to red with almost every election cycle, and at most every two election cycles. Only once has a party won the White House in more than two consecutive terms. As such, U.S. foreign policy is remarkably inconsistent and changes nearly every 4 years.

The partisan divide strongly shapes the nature of Washington’s relations with Jerusalem. Obama ensured that the Palestinian Authority had ample funds and access to American finances to bolster their security forces and signed the infamous nuclear deal with Iran, while Trump recognized the Golan Heights as official Israel territory. The dichotomy between the two political parties and their respective relations with Israel has only intensified as the years have gone by.

Specific to policies regarding Israel, Jerusalem is dealing with two separate and opposing blocs, analogous to the relations of a non-aligned country forced to deal with both Western and Soviet blocs during the Cold War. And as in nearly all matters of American foreign policy, the American electorate has very little understanding of Israel’s geography, threats, constraints, or its history, and is notably increasingly hostile to the state.

As such, Israelis and decision makers in Jerusalem live in a strategic absurdity. A nation, surrounded entirely by hostile actors, must now calibrate its survival to the preferences of foreign voters of another country thousands of miles away. Such an arrangement is not sustainable for a state whose threats are existential.

Cost of Dependence

The cost of this dependence has been most noticeable in territorial concessions. The withdrawal from Sinai. The withdrawal from Gaza. The abandonment of the Maronites in Lebanon. And the incessant pressure to withdraw from Judea and Samaria. Each concession has only reduced Israel’s strategic depth and opened the gateway for new enemies to threaten the Israeli civil front.

When the supply chain of munitions is left under control of foreign powers, Israel is forced to concede to the wishes of said power. During the Oct 7^th war, the Biden administration held back the transport of munitions designated for Israel to dictate the manner in which Israel conducts its wars.

Rather than applying pressure on these non-state actors, or state sponsors it has always been far easier to restrain Israel and kept her from decisive action out of American fears of escalation. The American public and its policy makers simply ignore that Israel’s enemies are very much intent on escalation, and as such since the initiation of this American control over Israeli policy, wars increasingly begin on terms chosen by Israel’s enemies. And before any war is truly begun, for the daily lives of Israeli civilians living in the North or South of the country, it means that they must be forced to live under constant threat of rocket fire knowing their government is chained to inaction.

The cost cannot only be measured in land and lives, although that should be enough. Additionally, this dependence has noticeably impeded the growth and development of the Israeli arms industry. Regarding small arms, the Israeli made Galil was replaced by the cheapness and availability of the American M-16. And when the Israelis developed the Tavor, it was eventually replaced largely by the M-4.

But the hollowing out of Israeli military development extends far past small arms development. The Israeli development of its own fighter jets was largely scrapped due to American protests. It was the US that blocked the sale of the domestically produced Kfir throughout Latin America. And it was the US that torpedoed the development of the Lavi program, an Israeli fourth generation jet which was feared to rival the American F-16 and F-18. Despite these setbacks, Israel is already beginning to realistically compete with American made systems abroad in other fields. Israel was already in the top 10 weapons exporters in the world, however in the last decade she has risen to surpass even Great Britain and now holds title of 7^th largest arms exporter. Historically Israel has largely exported to India but is increasingly become a central supplier to European powers, being the second largest supplier of weapons to the UK, and a rapidly increasing partner to Germany. In 2024, the Ministry of Defense revealed that over half of all total sales were designated to Europe, driven by the purchase of the Arrow 3 missiles.

In almost all these cases, Israel has become a critical supplier in the fields of air defense, surveillance, and missile technologies. Given Israel’s engineering capacity and battlefield experience, it is reasonable to ask whether — absent American interference — Israel might today be exporting not only air-defense systems but also small arms, armored vehicles, helicopters, and fighter jets.

The Case for Strategic Autonomy – Not Anti-American, Simply Pro-Israeli

This dependence has proven costly to Israel, in coin, in land, and in lives.

The state that was founded on the principle of self-reliance has been made reliant. That is not to say that the alliance is not valuable, but rather it cannot replace the foundational doctrine of the self-reliance of the Jewish people. Nor is autonomy a rejection inherently of U.S. interests. Strategic autonomy is not the abandonment of the U.S.-Israeli alliance, it simply means that Jerusalem cannot be paralyzed, to have the capacity to act even when Washington hesitates.

In a world of shifting powers and diverging interests, Israel must prepare for a future where it can act decisively and independently.

Strategic autonomy requires expanding domestic weapons production and restoring the doctrine of self‑reliance that defined Israel’s early decades.

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Analysts increasingly predict renewed U.S. strikes against Iran, and nearly all converge on the same target: Kharg Island. The logic is obvious. Kharg is the logistical lynchpin of Iran’s oil economy. Because the Persian Gulf is too shallow for oil tankers, Kharg is the only viable point where Iranian oil can be loaded onto deep‑draft vessels. It is the node upon which Iran’s export economy rests.

But Kharg is not Iran’s only vulnerability — nor is it the most strategically meaningful one. It is heavily defended, geographically difficult to reach, and attacking it would be costly. Meanwhile, Baluchistan, on Iran’s southeastern coast, is economically neglected, ethnically distinct, politically volatile, and has been Tehran’s deepest internal fault line since the Islamic Revolution.

Why Kharg Island Dominates Western Thought

Kharg Island is a clean, discrete, easily conceptualized target. It handles the overwhelming majority of Iran’s oil exports, and Western militaries are accustomed to thinking in terms of infrastructure nodes and systematic weaknesses. It is an attractive target to either destroy or control.

During the Iran- Iraq War, waged during the infancy of the Ayatollah’s rule, Saddam Hussein repeatedly targeted Kharg, cementing its place in Western strategic imagination. Since then, Kharg has been treated as Iran’s Achilles’ heel.

But Tehran is not blind to this vulnerability. For decades it has fortified the island and developed redundancy plans. The geography also favors the defender. Any U.S. amphibious force approaching from Qatar would face a narrow landing zone under constant fire from drones, missiles, and artillery positioned along Iran’s mountainous coastline. Approaching from the Strait of Hormuz would require navigating potentially mined waters while still under fire from the same mountain range.

Kharg is a tempting target — but a costly one.

Baluchistan – Iran’s Internal Fault Line

Baluchistan presents a very different picture.

Geographically, it is far more accessible. It lies directly across from where U.S. naval forces currently operate near the Strait of Hormuz, but unlike the northern Gulf coast, it lacks the imposing mountain range that shelters Iranian positions. As Iran’s southernmost province, it sits beyond the Strait and opens directly onto the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea — the route every Iranian ship must take to reach global markets.

Demographically, the majority of the residents here are neither ethnically Persian nor Shiite. The population is overwhelmingly Baloch and Sunni (60-70%). Under Tehran’s system, where non-Shiites face structural discrimination, Baluchistan has hosted insurgencies, separatist movements, and smuggling networks since 1979. Its militants, who have long sought independence, hold longstanding grievances against the Ayatollah. And the state’s presence – IRGC units, officials, infrastructure – is thin and politically sensitive.

During the most recent conflict with Israel, Baluchi separatists increased their activity, sensing a moment of opportunity. Iranian loyalists, aware of these weaknesses, have accused Israel of supporting the Baluchs.

Economically, Baluchistan is one of Iran’s poorest and least integrated regions. Many residents argue that Tehran intentionally withholds investment to keep the population impoverished and dependent.

The combination of weak state presence, active insurgency, and accessible coastline makes Baluchistan a fundamentally different kind of vulnerability than Kharg.

Why Baluchistan Matters More Than Kharg

Oil infrastructure can be rebuilt. Ports can be repaired. Even if Kharg were destroyed, a future Iranian government could eventually restore its export capacity. Once repaired, any government in Tehran might once again challenge the U.S.

But internal fractures are far harder to mend. An empowered or autonomous Baluchistan would permanently reshape Iran’s strategic geography. It would sit astride Iran’s only maritime access to global markets. It would force Tehran to divert forces away from the Persian Gulf and toward its southeastern periphery.

Analysts already speak in terms of massive U.S. troop deployments for any attempt to seize Kharg Island. Unlike Kharg, where U.S. forces would face entrenched defenses, Baluchistan, by contrast, contains networks of militants already opposed to Tehran, who might view external intervention very differently from the defenders of Kharg.

The ripple effects of instability in Baluchistan would be national, not regional.

The Kurds have, at various points, received U.S. support and hold similar longstanding grievances against the regime. Likewise, Azeris make up roughly a quarter of the entire Iranian population, and the concept of a Greater Azerbaijan and its expansionist policies was made popular by the previous President of Azerbaijan in the 1990s. Any serious destabilization in Baluchistan would likely encourage parallel movements among Kurds and potentially Azeri communities, giving outside powers de facto ground partners without large deployments of their own.

Conclusion — Rethinking Iran’s Vulnerabilities

If Baluchistan were to gain autonomy or independence, Iran’s only maritime lifeline would be bordered by Sunni‑majority territory on both sides of the Gulf of Oman. And Tehran’s reach would be permanently constrained.

Kharg Island is a symbol of Iran’s economic vulnerability. But their economy is already severely degraded.

Baluchistan is the symbol of Iran’s political vulnerability, and that remains to be shattered.

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Most readers have never heard of the Aga’azian movement — and that strategic blind spot may cost Israel dearly. The Aga’azian movement represents a unique intersection of identity, geopolitics, and a naturally pro‑Israel sentiment — a rarity in our region — and is currently an overlooked asset for Israel’s long‑term strategy in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.

Who are the Aga’azians?

The Aga’azian movement has emerged primarily among diaspora Eritreans, centered around the shared heritage of Ge’ez, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Church.

The movement’s leader, Tesfazion Berhe Gerhelase, articulates this identity as a “strategic brotherhood between the Tigrinya and the Jews”, rooted in the Ge’ez language, the Aksumite inheritance, and an Orit‑based civilization — Torah‑rooted, priestly, and Semitic — oriented towards Jerusalem rather than Rome.

Within Eritrea, their appeal is strongest among Tigrinya‑speaking communities, whose personal names often reflect an affinity with the Jewish story. To those familiar with Hebrew, common names like Tesfazion and Tesfamariam — “expecting Zion” and “expecting Miriam” — signal a potentially deep cultural bond between the peoples.

The movement identifies the Ge’ez speaking communities as the core of an indigenous Semitic peoples of the Horn of Africa, who have rejected pan‑Arabism and the spread of Islam into the continent, while emphasizing cultural and historical ties to ancient Israel. They readily embrace the tale of the Queen of Sheba’s political union with King Solomon, a lineage claimed both by Aga’azian ideologues and the former Ethiopian royal family. Such a movement is not merely sympathetic to Zionism — it sees itself as part of the same civilizational story.

Where are they today — and why does it matter?

Eritrea is currently ruled by a dictatorship with near‑total control over politics, press, and public life, forcing political reformers and dissidents to flee. In the early 2000s, Israel opened its doors to Eritrean refugees, and many of these political exiles found a natural synergy with the Jewish people and the Israeli story. As a result, the Aga’azian movement found its ideological home in Israel, and today it is strongest within the Eritrean diaspora community here.

In Israel, Aga’azian identity allows its adherents to distinguish themselves from other African and Muslim migrant communities, while connecting them culturally and spiritually to their host country. For the Aga’azians, Zionism is not a foreign ideology — it is a mirror. They see in Zionism a model of indigenous revival — a native people restoring its sovereignty in its ancestral land. The Aga’azians seek a parallel revival of an Aksumite, Semitic identity in the Horn of Africa.

The Aga’azian Movement and Eritrea’s Future

Understanding Eritrea’s political trajectory is essential to understanding the Aga’azian opportunity.

Eritrea is often described as the “North Korea of Africa.” President Isaias Afwerki has ruled for decades, hollowing out political institutions and concentrating power in his own hands. Under his leadership, Eritrea has drawn closer to Iran, Egypt, and Turkey. Even if certain U.S. sanctions are lifted, few analysts believe this will fundamentally change the direction in which Afwerki is taking the country.

Afwerki is now nearly 80 years old, with no clear heir. Some insiders believe he is positioning his son to succeed him, but this is far from certain. Afwerki’s succession could take many forms — dynastic inheritance, military rule, democratic revolt, or fragmentation. With institutions weakened and authority heavily personalized, Eritrea’s future after Afwerki is highly uncertain.

The Eritrean diaspora broadly favors democratization, but it lacks coherent political organization and a clear plan for transforming the country from abroad.

The Aga’azian movement, however, while small, is highly organized and explicitly political. Like the early Zionists, it is positioning itself globally as a government‑in‑waiting with potential international support. The leader of the movement resides in London and is known to be gathering political backing there, while others have embedded themselves in media, academic, and policy circles in Israel. Whatever form Eritrea’s post‑Afwerki transition takes, the question will not only be who holds power in Asmara, but which organized forces are ready to step into the vacuum. The Aga’azian movement intends to be one of them.

And Israel has a narrow window to shape the post-Afwerki landscape.

The Aga’azian Movement and Ethiopia

But Eritrea is only half the equation. Ethiopia’s future is equally tied to the Aga’azian question. Because Aga’azian identity is built around Ge’ez and the shared Christian‑Semitic heritage of the Horn, it naturally resonates with Tigrinya‑speaking communities on both sides of the Eritrea–Ethiopia border. In Eritrea, those to whom this identity appeals seek a rapprochement with both the Tigray region and Addis Ababa at large. They wish to remain independent from Ethiopia, but they are not inherently hostile to it, as Afwerki has been.

Ethiopia’s MoU with Somailiand should have eased tensions by reducing pressure to retake Eritrean ports, yet Afwerki’s simultaneous alignment with Egypt signals a preference for confrontation over cooperation.

In this context, an Aga’azian‑influenced Eritrea is not just a stabilizing alternative — it may be Ethiopia’s only path to a peaceful northern frontier. A government in Asmara that is culturally close to Ethiopia, yet politically independent and non‑hostile, would be far preferable to a regime aligned with Egypt and Iran. If the Aga’azian movement were granted entry into the halls of power, it could become a welcome partner to Ethiopia and a stabilizing factor in the Horn of Africa.

Strategic Value for Israel

For Israel, the strategic value of the Aga’azian movement is not merely clear — it is unmatched by any other actor in the Horn of Africa.

Eritrea sits on the western shore of the Red Sea, near the Bab el‑Mandeb strait — a critical chokepoint for global trade and for Israel’s maritime access to the Indian Ocean. Control of this corridor will define Israel’s maritime security for the next century.

As Gerhelase notes, Eritrea and Israel are the only two states along the Red Sea not aligned with the Arab League or the Islamic Cooperation bloc — two indigenous nations surrounded by larger powers. Both face common threats from Iranian‑backed militias and regional destabilization efforts.

No other movement in the Horn of Africa is as openly pro-Israel, and no other group offers Israel both a cultural affinity and strategic depth.

While the Aga’azian movement is still small and politically sensitive, Israel is uniquely positioned as its primary host country and as the state that most closely embodies the kind of indigenous revival the Aga’azians admire. Jerusalem must maintain a certain degree of distance from overtly backing any specific faction in Eritrea’s internal politics. But by advancing Aga’azian figures, giving them platforms, and integrating them into media, academic, and policy spaces, Israel can help shape a future political force that is:

• pro‑Israel

• open to rapprochement with Ethiopia

• resistant to Iranian and Islamist influence

• rooted in a Semitic, indigenous identity

Regardless of what the immediate future holds for Eritrea, Jerusalem’s hand in readying the Aga’azian movement for potential political power and state control may pay great dividends. If the movement were to succeed in Asmara, Israel would gain not only an additional coastal ally along the Red Sea, but also potential access to the deep‑water port of Assab and its existing rail line into Ethiopia’s heartland — granting Israel a more direct connection to Ethiopian markets and a stronger logistical foothold in the Horn of Africa.

Risks and Limitations

Despite its promise, the Agazian movement remains small and largely powerless within Eritrea, driven by its diaspora and not yet embraced by the wider population. Open Israeli support could risk delegitimizing it domestically, and regional dynamics remain volatile.

Yet historical precedent suggests that even small identity movements can become strategic multipliers when aligned with major powers. The movement’s political organization and activity, international engagement, and ideologically driven narrative predispose it to be a natural ally to the Jewish people and a potential successor to Afwerki’s rule.

It is already broadcasting its interest in future relations and alliance with the State of Israel, seeking comradery and rapprochement with Ethiopia, and preparing for the “day after” in Eritrea. In a region defined by identity and civilizational narratives, Israel cannot afford to ignore the Aga’azian movement. In the Horn of Africa, the Aga’azian movement may be the only ally that sees Israel not as a foreign power, but as kin.

You can read here to review Israel’s inherent interest in Eritrea.

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This essay explains why.

In the previous parts of this series, the geographic borders of the Levant and its internal provinces were defined. But geography alone does not create political borders. The human element allows political boundaries to contract within a region or expand beyond it — even across deserts, mountains, or seas.

Political borders are created by people — by identity, cohesion, and collective will. When a people consolidate authority over a geographic basin, their political frontier expands outward until it meets another organized power.

Applied to the Southern Levant, this principle reveals something striking: the political reach of a consolidated Levantine power extends beyond its populated core — and aligns precisely with the biblical borders of the Promised Land - just not popular one conjured in modern imagination.

The Merging of Politic and Geography – the Geo-Political

Political borders are not lines on a map — they are the outer limit of where organized human power can be projected without contest.

Borders are not created by states; they emerge from individuals. Every person has a personal boundary — a zone of authority he instinctively defends. When individuals share identity, norms, and purpose, these boundaries merge and magnify. This collective becomes a polity — a sphere where one group’s authority is recognized — and it is not confined by geography.

A nomadic tribe crossing steppe or desert carries its laws with it. If they encounter a settled people along a river, they still retain the ability to wage war, enforce justice, and engage in trade. Likewise, mafia territories, gang zones, and “no‑go” districts — where state authority is absent — are human‑defined political spaces in contest with the state. Polities exist wherever its people enforce its norms.

Polities expand outward until they meet resistance from another organized power. This is true for criminal enterprises, clans and tribes, kingdoms, empires, and modern states.

Geography establishes the core of any polity. It alone determines which tracts of land are arable, have access to water, strategic resources, and are ultimately habitable. But the human element expands it — unopposed where geography offers no barrier and no rival polity imposes one. The Southern Levant’s three provinces form a coherent geographic basin along the spine of the Jordan Valley. The habitable highland axis progression is stopped in the north only by the combined elements of the Litani River, the Anti-Lebanon and Ruwaq Mountain ranges. And to its south and east lie the Sinai, Arabian, and Syrian Deserts. These provinces naturally conflict so long as they remain independent and lack a shared cultural identity, and any power that consolidates these provinces would gain structural control over the region.

The Geo-Political Reality of the Biblical Borders

Any people controlling Aram‑Damascus naturally extend their political frontier to the heights of the Ruwaq and Anti-Lebanon Mountains where they are met by the political forces of the Northern Levant. Yet eastward there is no immediate polity, and their political reach continues under the shadow of the mountains and across the Syrian Desert. When finally met by a Mesopotamian regime, their frontier stabilizes at the Euphrates, matching the biblical description of Israel’s north-eastern border.

The Southern Judean Hills dominate the approaches to the Sinai. A people residing in these lands effectively control the Negev Desert and extend their political reach far into the Sinai before encountering the political force emanating from the civilization of the Nile. Historically, one could argue that Egypt’s political boundaries stretch into the Sinai For ancient Egypt to muster its forces into the Levant, it needed only to cross the Nile before advancing unimpeded. Yet today, since the digging of a canal that serves as an international waterway daily traversed, any armed force moving eastwards would require an additional crossing. As such, the Suez Canal has limited the extent of Egypt’s natural political borders.

Consolidating this point, it is not evident that the biblical southern border refers to the Nile or Wadi Arish as others have suggested, but simply a waterway within Egypt. The ‘river of Egypt’, in the Hebrew is referred to as both a nahal and a nahar – one meaning a perennial stream and the other a permanent river respectively – which suggests a fundamental confusion in its classification. And while the river of Egypt was fundamentally understood as the quintessential Nile - today the Nile is no longer the source of Egypt. The Nile can no longer provide economically or agriculturally for the country - Egypt is now an overall food importer. In contrast, it is the Suez Canal which is the economic lifeline to the country. If one accepts the omnipresent nature of the Author, then we must also consider the possibility that this border waterway might be one that did not presently exist at the time of its writing.

The biblical borders are not maximalist fantasies and do not describe a sweeping empire encompassing the Nile and Euphrates, but a natural political frontier of a unified Southern Levantine polity. They describe the natural political horizon of a people who have unified the only habitable basin between the deserts.

The Biblical Reiteration Across Time

The match between scripture and geography is too precise to be accidental. It is difficult to imagine that a small Iron Age kingdom surrounded by enemies could have invented such expansive borders from imagination alone. The borders reflect inherent geopolitical logic, not mythic exaggeration. Nor is it coincidence that the Neolithic Natufian culture reached these same frontiers in terms of cultural influence and settlement patterns.

The physical geography of the region has provided the stage, and it is us, its inhabitants which will decide the reach of our state. When the Southern Levant is unified under one polity, its natural political borders extend beyond the populated zones and reach both the Suez in the southwest, the Euphrates in the northeast, and the Arabian Desert directly east This is the true image of a biblical “Greater Israel” — not the cartoonish version stretching to Iraq, but the real geopolitical frontier of a unified Southern Levant.

The biblical borders are not a dream. They are the natural political expression of a unified Southern Levant. Their fulfillment is not ideology — it is geography.

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The Horn’s Instability

The source of the Horn’s instability is in its terrain. The Great Rift Valley cuts through Djibouti and Ethiopia, creating two isolated highland ridges. These mountains trap rainfall, producing pockets of arable land at high altitudes, while the lowlands – especially in Somalia – remain dry and relatively food-scarce. These enclaves have limited contact with one another, encouraging the development of numerous ethnic groups with strong local identities. Infrastructure is difficult and costly; in many areas, air travel is the primary means of intra-regional transport.

This geography has produced separatist movements, civil wars, and chronically weak central governments. Only two cultural groups have ever unified the region: the Amharas under the Abyssinian Empire and the Tigray-Tigrinya under the Aksumite Kingdom.

While Ethiopia’s size, economy, and shared distrust of Egypt make it an attractive partner for Israel, it is ultimately a landlocked nation. Lacking maritime access to move wares into or out of Ethiopia freely renders such a partnership strategically limited. Somalia holds no real authority over its territory, hosting jihadist groups and splinter states. Djibouti is too small and hosts China’s first overseas military base. Eritrea is the only viable coastal partner.

Why Eritrea

Contrary to the other actors along the Red Sea, Eritrea is remarkably cohesive. Like Ethiopia, Eritrea hosts multiple ethnic groups; however, the Tigrinya people constitute a clear majority, representing roughly 55% of the population. Additionally, the Tigrinya are almost exclusively Christian, with over 90% adhering to the Eritrean Orthodox Church. The Tigrinya people inhabit the centrally located highlands of the country, perched over the Red Sea coastline. Here they enjoy the largest share of rainfall and the most productive agricultural regions. In total, the country boasts a Christian majority at roughly 63% of the population, where the remaining ethnic groups are considerably smaller and not religiously unified. These factors grant Eritrea a large degree of internal cohesion that her neighbors on the Horn do not share.

Eritrea’s Christian heritage and its legacy as part of the Aksumite world give it cultural resilience against Islamist influence. If Eritrea embraced this heritage and rebranded itself as a neo‑Aksumite power, it could even justify territorial claims over the Red Sea coastlines now dominated by the Houthis. Eritrea’s control over the Afar Triangle gives it the Horn’s gateway to the sea, and its nearly 1,000 km of Red Sea coastline places it directly adjacent to the Bab el‑Mandeb. It controls two deep‑water ports — Massawa and Assab — which are the only viable Red Sea naval anchors between Suez and Aden not dominated by China or Islamist militias. They have proven themselves to be militarily capable, in their fight for independence against the larger Ethiopia. As such, Eritrea is the logical next ally in the Horn.

Eritrea Internationally

Today, Eritrea is recognized as being a node within the axis of influence of both China and Russia. But this was not always the case. From the time of her independence Eritrea courted the Western axis. During the 1990’s the country’s foreign policy aligned with that of the U.S. in attempting to contain the Islamist threat from Omar- al Bashir’s Sudan, and then began moving away from a Marxist controlled market to a free market. Immediately upon its independence, it established diplomatic ties with Israel – a rarity in the region – and has since refused to recognize Palestine – a diplomatic signal.

Only after the 1998 Border War with Ethiopia, and the subsequent Western sanctions, did President Afwerki turn toward anti‑Western powers for support. Since then, Afwerki has continued to entrench the country diplomatically in this anti-Western alliance, supporting groups like Al-Shabaab and separatist factions in Ethiopia.

Such a pivot might suggest that Eritrea might naturally turn Westward for support and only chose to turn elsewhere not for ideological reasons but economic one. And the West has always sought to use the promise of material wealth and prosperity as a way of breaking rival axes. It has been rumored that the U.S. is considering lifting sanctions on the country, with the goal of ripping Eritrea away from the Iranian sphere and into the American camp. The Houthi’s have exposed American weaknesses in the Red Sea, and not following suit with the recognition of Somaliland only further suggests that Washington is seeking a stake in Red Sea coasts elsewhere to provide ‘launchpad’ potential.

Israel and Eritrea

While it seems that such reciprocity is unlikely at this time from the Eritrean dictator Afwerki, the reasons, both cultural and geographic, for why Eritrea would make for a true regional partner remain and will remain unchanged. Israel could stand to play a pivotal role in Eritrea and the Horn of Africa at large. Israel could leverage its relationships with Somaliland and Ethiopia to broker a stable arrangement for Eritrea’s port access, as the UAE previously attempted. Leveraging her relationship with the United States, Israel might broker a deal to help turn Eritrea into the conduit for African trade, potentially even adding her into the IMEC route. And if, after sustained diplomatic engagement, Israel secured rights to build a naval base in Eritrea, the Red Sea would effectively become Israel’s backyard.

Towards a more Sovereign Future

The international stage is shifting; old powers are falling, new powers are rising, and contenders against the current world order are making their plays to shape a new world order in their image. Israel cannot afford to act reactively to all new threats but must plot a goal and course to reach it. A new multi-polar world could be a very threatening place for our country, and Israel must act now in such a manner as to secure a position for herself in the new world order to come. For “if a man does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable”. In these contemptuous times, Israel must act to secure its interests and seek new partnerships where it can. The Red Sea is a lifeline for Israel, and together with Eritrea might we make it into an Israeli lake.

Read more about the internal politics of Eritreans here.

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The Southern Levant:

The Southern Levant consists of three provinces; the Canaanite, Ammonite, and Aram-Damascus. Although Aram‑Damascus is often considered part of the Northern Levant, its geography tells a different story. Its natural borders force it into closer interaction with the Ammonite and Canaanite provinces than with the regions to its north. Although Aram‑Damascus has ample rainfall and fertile land, it is geographically cut off from all neighbouring regions except those of the Southern Levant. To its east lies the Syrian Desert, and beyond it the Euphrates, which anchors its own cultural world in Mesopotamia. To its north and west are large mountain ranges. And while the province may be resource rich, it is ultimately cut off and landlocked. The only route of expansion towards the sea is southwest through the Canaanite province. This geographic reality is reflected clearly in the historical record. Between the polities of Aram-Damascus and the polities of the Canaanite province there existed multiple rivalries, battles and wars.

Even before the ancient and classical eras, Aram‑Damascus was connected to the lands to its south. The Natufian culture, the most successful Neolithic culture in the region, expanded along the Levantine Corridor — settling the Jordanian and Judean highlands as well as the Aram‑Damascus basin, while remaining south of the Bishri and Rujmayn ranges.

For these reasons, the Aram-Damascus province is an essential part of the Southern Levant.

The southernmost provinces of the Levant are the Canaanite and Ammonite provinces. While they are separated only by the Jordan Rift Valley, they are not equal in any way. The natural resources allotted to the Ammonite province place it at a permanent disadvantage. Its clean water sources are located outside of its borders, either relying on the source waters of the Jordan River in the Canaanite province or the source waters of the Yarmouk in the Aram-Damascus Province. Likewise, it receives the lowest amount of rain between all three of the above-mentioned provinces. It only has access to the sea at its southern point, in one of its hottest and least arable locations, so while trade can be commenced through this access point it is invariably bottlenecked and constrained in the carrying capacity for the local population. To its east lies only desert, but just across the river either to its north or its west are lands much more arable and suitable for a population. As such, any polity in the Ammonite province is structurally pressured towards hostility against either her northern or western neighbour. This resource scarcity forces upon the governing regime a constant expansionist pressure, which is laid out in the historical record. Every polity that existed here – the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Nabateans- was at one point or another hostile to its neighbours across the river.

Within the Canaanite province, the expansive hill country makes centralization difficult and encourages the political fragmentation of the countryside. Furthermore, there is a constant threat among her borders by opportunistic powers. Across the Jordan River lies the polities of Aram-Damascus or Ammon, and across the Sinai Desert lies Egypt. As such, the united polity of Israel experienced a constant cycle of defensive wars, the United Monarchy under Saul, David, and Solomon was remarkably short-lived, and political fragmentation returned to the country soon after Solomon’s death.

Thus, the geography of the Southern Levant naturally produces internal struggle among its provinces for regional supremacy.

The Central Levant:

Unlike the conflict‑prone Southern Levant, the Central Levant is relatively calm. It solely consists of the Phoenician Province. The polity that it hosts lives in a natural fortress, with rivers serving as natural borders to its north, south, and east. And its eastern border is doubly fortified by the Lebanon Mountain Range. It receives some of the highest rainfall levels in the Levant, the Bekka Valley is notoriously fertile and has a plethora of internal rivers and streams that support its agricultural industry. The land is easily connected to the sea, and its maritime orientation encourages a cosmopolitan and mercantile culture to develop. Its Phoenician inhabitants were famous for their seamanship and trade networks.

The region lacks no essential resources and possesses strong natural borders, and as such polities that exist here have no geographic casus belli against their neighbours and the biblical record recounts these diplomatic tendencies between Hiram and Solomon.

The conflict today with Israel stems from two geographic reasons. The mountain isolation afforded by the Lebanon Mountains also limits the reach of Beirut’s authority, and encourages sectarian fragmentation. The residents of the Lebanon province are more than capable of defending their lands yet extending their authority beyond these natural borders is met with difficulty. Beirut holds little sway over Hezbollah in the Bekka Valley or in South Lebanon. The conflict with Israel is additionally rooted in geography: the Phoenician province ends at the Litani. Modern Lebanon extends past her natural geographic borders, and Southern Lebanon represents a breach into the Canaanite province. For Lebanon to hold territory which belongs fundamentally to a different cultural basin creates a natural instability and conflict with the residing polity of the south, Israel. In such ‘frontier’ and ‘borderland’ zone, Hezbollah thrives.

The Northern Levant:

The Northern Levant consists of the Ugarit and Aleppo provinces. Enclosed by mountains to its north and south, the Northern Levant is a crossroads region, where multiple foreign powers have sought to enter the Levant. Its eastern limit is the Euphrates from which multiple forces throughout history have crossed to conquer the Levant. From the Taurus Mountains descended numerous forces from Anatolia. Its internal regions are connected through the Homs Gap, and control over the Gap has allowed local polities historically some degree of control and authority over the region. As such, the Northern Levant has never truly been able to produce its own stable political entity. The fields of Aleppo have always been pulled between the cultural forces from beyond the Euphrates or above the Anatolian highlands.

Today, the polity that occupies the Northern Levant — Syria — is split between multiple cultural basins. It claims political authority over lands that are de facto parts of the Southern Levant as well as Mesopotamia. And its coastal Ugarit province is sufficiently populated with the Alawite religious minority that there is no cultural union with the Sunni populace of Aleppo. The geographic divisions of the country mean that no single capital can control all regions equally. The capital Damascus is kept apart from the rest of the modern country by mountain ranges and lifeless desert. It is for these reasons that the Kurds have largely succeeded in their goals in Syria. They, a coherent and united cultural group, occupy the coherent geographic basin of Upper Mesopotamia. Their borders are defensible along the Euphrates River. Thus, Kurdish autonomy is structurally stable, and Syrian central authority faces difficulty in asserting its own control.

There is also a geographic basis for Syria’s conflict with Israel. The region of Aram-Damascus belongs de facto to the Southern Levant, and Syria’s previous aggression towards Israel has resulted in Israel occupying the Golan Heights. Thus, the conflict between Syria and Israel is one for hegemony over the Southern Levant.

Conclusion:

The modern borders of the Levant ignore its inherent geography. The region is, in reality, three distinct spheres.

In the History of Rome, Livy, the Roman patriot, always fashioned the expansion of Rome as a consistent defensive conquest. He describes a Rome that, upon defeating one enemy and pacifying their lands, secured its heartland but inherited new borders — and with them, new enemies. That is to say, lack of hegemonic control of a geographic region invites conflict. When the Romans conquered the Illyrians, they secured their Adriatic coastline. But their holdings in Illyria were now threatened by other forces and cultural groups. Illyria was only one part of a whole, forming the larger geographic region of Pannonia. Rather than simply gaining new lands, the Romans inherited contested territories and new conflicts. Different cultures can certainly live next to each other, but not necessarily within each other. The struggle of resources and the proximity of the other will be too great and conflict unavoidable. When borders overlap, conflict becomes structural. The constant trend throughout human history is the attempt by all competing cultural groups within a geographic region to compete for hegemony and consolidation of the region. Examples of this are found throughout the world. Only then, can the region stabilize and begin to know peace. The pattern for such is seen throughout the world and time.

The Levant is not broken. It is simply behaving exactly as its geography demands.

Part IV can be found here.

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In Part I, I argued that the Levant is defined not by politics but by natural borders — deserts, seas, mountains, and rift valleys. In Part II, we zoom in. The Levant is not a single region, but a mosaic of geographic provinces shaped by the Jordan Rift, the Lebanon ranges, and the deserts that hem the region in.

The Levant lies between the Sinai Peninsula and the Taurus Mountains, bounded on the east by the Arabian and Syrian Deserts. The Jordan Valley Rift is one of its most noticeable features, a fissure cleaved through the landscape running from the Taurus Mountains to the Red Sea. The Syrian Coastal Mountains, the Bekaa Valley, and the Jordan Valley are all expressions of this rift. Together, these features define both the Levant’s external borders and its internal divisions. Using them as our guide, the Levant naturally divides into a set of geographic provinces.

The Levantine Coast:

The Phoenician Province:

The Phoenician Province is the most easily defined: centrally located and anchored by the highest mountains in the Levant.It was the heartland from which Phoenician civilization emerged, home to the famous Lebanese cedars recalled in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the construction of Solomon’s Temple.

The province is built around the Lebanon Mountains which form its eastern spine. From these heights, the land descends into the Bekka Valley before rising again into the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. This valley is the northern extension of the Jordan Rift. Two rivers run along it - the Orontes from the north, and the Litani from the mountain streams of the Lebanon and Anti‑Lebanon ranges - dividing the land between east and west.

This eastern frontier is a remarkably defensible border: a high mountain wall, a deep valley, and two rivers running along the same axis. The province’s northern border follows the Kebir River, which today forms the modern boundary between Lebanon and Syria. The Litani also forms the province’s southern boundary, flowing southward before turning west toward the Mediterranean. This geography explains why the Phoenicians turned seaward rather than inland.

The Ugarit Province:

North of the Kebir River lies another narrow coastal corridor. This region, centered on the ancient city-state of Ugarit and was culturally tied to the Phoenicians but geographically distinct. Running parallel to the Lebanon Mountain Range, the Syrian Coastal Mountains -or Nusayriyah Mountains – form its eastern border. Here the influence of the Jordan Rift ends; the Nusayriyah Mountains are its northernmost expression.

The province’s northern boundary is the east-west running Nur Mountains, a subsidiary to the larger Taurus range. The only easy passage inland lies between the Lebanon and Nusayriyah Mountains: the Homs Gap, long known as the ‘gateway to Syria’. This narrow coastal corridor explains how Ugarit became a cultural bridge between Anatolia and the Levant throughout the ancient world.

The Canaanite Province:

South of the Litani lies a land of continuous rolling hills and smaller valleys. The climate grows hotter as one moves south, but the topography of the land largely remains unchanged. Apart from several valleys, the hills of Galilee flow into those of Samaria and then Judea, forming a continuous spine of highland.

The province’s dominant heartland is this hill country. A narrow coastal plain hugs the Mediterranean, but no major river or mountain range provides a clear southern boundary. The only geographic border that exists with significant stopping power to human movement is the desert, either the Negev or Sinai desert, which thus forms its southern border

To the east lies the continuation of the Jordan Rift. Here the Rift creates the Jordan River, which flows from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. South of the Dead Sea, the Arabah Valley continues the rift between the Jordanian Highlands to the east and the Eilat Mountains to the west.

This geography explains why ancient Canaan was a mosaic of competing city‑states.


The Levantine Highlands:

The Ammonite Province:

Directly east of this rift lies the Jordanian Highlands – a narrow strip of mountains running parallel to the Jordan River from the Yarmouk in the north to the Red Sea in the south. This strip receives just enough precipitation to be habitable; beyond it begins the Arabian Desert, stretching eastward toward the Euphrates.

The Yarmouk River, the largest tributary of the Jordan, forms the province’s northern boundary. Like the Jordan, Litani, and Orontes, it sits in a steep valley that historically separated the Ammonites from their northern neighbours. It was this highland strip that allowed the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and later the Nabateans to develop distinct identities.

The Aram-Damascus Province:

North of the Yarmouk lies the next inland province. Bordering the Canaanite province to its west, it shares the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee along its western border. From there, the land sharply rises to the Golan Heights and continues westward to the Jabal al Druze.

These highlands extend north past Mount Hermon before meeting the Anti-Lebanon and Ruwaq ranges, which run east-west. This fertile, rain‑fed highland lies beneath their southern slopes and stretches across the Golan Heights before dropping abruptly towards the Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers. With the mountains to its north, and the rivers to its west and south, its eastern boundary ends at the entrance to the Syrian Desert. It was in this rain-fed plateau that the city-state of Damascus became a perennial seat of power.

The Levantine Interior:

The Aleppo Province:

The final province lies inland, beyond the Anti-Lebanon and Ruwaq ranges.It is contiguous to the Aram-Damascus Province to the south and connected to the Ugarit Province through the Homs Gap – its only easy access to the Mediterranean.

To the west lie the Nusayriyah Mountains; to the north, the Taurus range. The Euphrates cuts through the northern mountains before flowing south into the Euphrates Lake and then onward into Mesopotamia. Along its western bank rise the Bishri Mountains, which connect to the Abu Rujmayn and Ruwaq ranges. The corridors between them lead only into the Syrian Desert.

Between the Euphrates to the east and the Nusayriyah, Taurus, Rujmayn, and Bishri ranges lies the fertile Aleppo plain. It was here, in this crossroads basin, that Aleppo emerged as a bridge between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.

In Part III, I’ll show how these provinces combine into the Northern, Central, and Southern Levant — and why those divisions still shape the region’s politics today.

Part III can be found here.

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The term “Levant” has been broadly adopted to describe our small corner of the world. It attempts to capture and describe a strictly geographic region without the political overtones of recalling the Roman province of Syria-Palestina. The term itself finds its origins in the medieval French levant, referencing the rising of the sun in the East. Still, the exact location and boundaries of the Levant are elusive. Even a simple search on Wikipedia reveals that the rest of the world is equally as confused as to what and where is this region.

I live in the Levant, but I would never have assumed Cyprus was a core feature of the region. And beyond the core regions and geographic identity of the Levant, where are its true borders? Does the Levant extend into Anatolia? Across the Sinai? Over the Arabian Desert into Iraq? To define where the geographic Levant is, and consequently where it is not, a definition of natural borders is required.

The problem with natural geographic borders is that they are often subjective and relative to the human and political borders that surround them. It is often assumed that a large river is typical of a good natural border. Often it is along rivers that geography reinforces a political border. The Danube has long reinforced political boundaries in Europe. Rivers of this magnitude have played the role of hindering and stopping human movement. By presenting an extra challenge – exertion in its crossing, building of bridges or manning of ships - the river has encouraged the cultural and political consolidation of different peoples on its banks. The Nile is just as great as the Danube if not greater, yet from the ancient age until now the Nile has never served as a border with two separate nations on either of its banks. However, unlike the Danube, the Nile is surrounded by desert extending to both its West and East. And when a river is surrounded by inhospitable terrain, it becomes the spine of a civilization rather than a frontier. Deserts serve as another natural border, presenting the same stopping effect upon human movement and forcing the concentration of human life where crossing is possible. The stopping effect of the surrounding deserts acted as the region’s borders that encouraged the development of a consolidated Egyptian identity and nation. As such, they shape the political map accordingly.

Understanding this, it might even be said that the natural geo-political borders of this Nilotic civilization only extend over the inhabitable land of the banks of the Nile, before halting at the unforgiving desert both East and West. The modern political boundaries of Egypt are essentially an expression of its capability to project force and influence from its Nilotic source across the desert before it reaches the influence and force of another polity. Ultimately this is the question at stake. Geographic borders can often be subject to opinion, but geo-political borders, while still difficult to outline, are much more relevant to our lives.

So we return to the question; where is the Levant? We have demonstrated that rivers can be a natural border, but dependent on the relationship to the residing humans, they might serve more as a source and consolidating point of their nation than a border. Deserts prove to be an effective natural border. And contrary to rivers, no desert can serve as a source for a civilization. Likewise, oceans and seas are natural borders possessing the same stopping power as deserts. Mountain ranges are akin to rivers, which can serve either as a stopping and separating force between two cultures as well as serving as a core environment for a culture to develop in. As such deserts, seas, and oceans are hard borders for a region and any polity within it, rivers and mountains serve as effective secondary borders where there is not the former.

Accepting the hard border rule regarding deserts and seas, Greece and Cyprus can be removed from the Levant. Moving by land from West Asia into Africa would demand crossing the Sinai, which is largely desert. And in addition to this challenge, there exists in the modern age the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal functionally acts as a boundary river, so we can then exclude Egypt as well as Libya from the Levant. Iraq is separated by the Arabian Desert and additionally belongs to the region of Mesopotamia; its civilization formed around the Euphrates and Tigris, source rivers for a different cultural basin. The Euphrates then is akin to the Nile in Egypt, the Thames in England, the Indus in India, and the Yellow River in China. Civilizations form around their source rivers; the Euphrates shaped Mesopotamia, not the Levant. And a topographic map of the region demonstrates how distinct Anatolia is from Levantine lands.

Thus, the remaining lands of the Levant consist of the Sinai, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria as the geographic core. But even this is only the beginning.

If the Sinai, today a part of Egypt, is considered a part of the Levant, we must consider the possibility that regions of these remaining countries are also not integrally connected to the Levant. Political borders obscure deeper geographic divisions. If we strip away the political borders and look only at physical geography, the Levant resolves itself into three distinct micro-regions: a Northern Levant, a Central Levant, and the region’s behemoth - the Southern Levant.

In Part II, I will map these three Levants in detail – the mountains, valleys, and rivers that define them – and show how geography explains the region far better than politics ever has.

Part II can be read here

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Israel’s decision to recognize Somaliland has generated predictable controversy, but the strategic implications extend far beyond the headlines. As regional powers maneuver for access, leverage, and security, Somaliland has emerged as a focal point where multiple strategic interests converge. The recognition places Israel inside a long‑running competition for influence in the Horn of Africa and along one of the world’s most critical maritime corridors. However, this strategic opportunity and advantage in Somaliland may already be slipping away.

A Region Defined by Proxy Influence

The Red Sea typically carries roughly 30% of global container trade, and 15% of all global trade, making it one of the most vital waterways on Earth. For the countries of Central and East Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent access to its waters and the international market is a critical issue. Naturally, this invites the interest of foreign powers who either look to secure their economic interests or expand their own spheres of influence. The Northern Gate of the Red Sea, i.e. the Suez is undisputedly in the hands of Cairo, however the unresolved Houthi threat has highlighted the need for a more stable southern counterpart near the Bab el-Mandeb. And while the Houthi threat remains unanswered, the world waits for a de facto Southern Gate to emerge.

Yemen has invited the interest of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to each support a separate faction in the splintered country.

Sudan is now found in a state of civil war between two factions, one supported by the UAE while the other enjoys support from Egypt, Turkey, and Iran.

Eritrea, fearful of Ethiopian territorial interests, has invited and grown closer to the powers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Djibouti hosts a plethora of foreign powers: France, Italy, the US, Japan, and China, alongside their military contingencies.

Somalia already hosts the largest Turkish foreign force outside of Turkey, and considering recent developments has grown closer to Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Israel’s engagement with Somaliland places it squarely within this established pattern of influence-building. But unlike other regional actors, Israel enters the Horn of Africa with limited historical baggage and a clear maritime imperative.

Why Somaliland Matters

Unlike the other actors along the Red Sea detailed above, Somaliland is remarkably unique. In contrast to Somalia, Yemen, or Sudan, the people of Somaliland have proven a capability in maintaining their own borders and sovereignty. In contrast to Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen the Somalilanders have created public institutions which remain effective and trustworthy. In contrast to the entirety of the Red Sea states, Somaliland has effectively run a democratic and civil government, demonstrating a capability and willingness of its leaders to peacefully hand over power. And in contrast to Djibouti, Somaliland has proven that it can achieve such feats without foreign intervention.

For Israel, Somaliland offers new markets and expanding the Israeli trade networks. The President of Somaliland explicitly expressed his hopes that Israeli investment and entrepreneurship would help develop the country, noting the agricultural, mineral, and energy resources which would serve Israel’s interests. Of note, is the nation’s apparent wealth of lithium, a critical mineral to high tech development across sectors. Beyond material wealth, some reports and analysts suggest that Israel may build its first foreign military facility in the country, potentially expanding Israel’s reach to the Bab-el Mandeb, which would enable Israel in the future to more effectively deal with the Houthis. Furthermore, it must be remembered that geopolitically, Israel is effectively an island-nation. No significant trade is brought to Israel by land, and while nearly all of her imports and exports are overseen by her Mediterranean ports at Ashdod and Haifa, Israel cannot allow any of its waterways to be cutoff. Israel’s access to the sea is its lifeline.

Nor does Israel enter this partnership truly alone. Somaliland’s relative stability, strategic coastline, and political aspirations have drawn the attention of several major players:

• India views Somaliland as a potential anchor at the mouth of the Red Sea, a future node in emerging trade routes such as IMEC.

• Ethiopia, the Horn’s dominant landlocked power, sees Somaliland’s ports as a long‑sought alternative to dependence on Djibouti.

• The UAE, having lost ground along the Yemeni coast, seeks to reestablish influence on the African side of the Gulf of Aden and is a principal investor of Somaliland’s ports.

These interests converge around the port of Berbera, forming an emerging alignment — Israel, the UAE, Ethiopia, and India — with the potential to shape Red Sea trade flows linking the Indian Ocean to Europe. From Berbera’s vantage point across the Bab el Mandeb, and in coordination with regional and international partners, Somaliland may soon emerge as the Southern Gate of the Red Sea - a development with profound implications for Israel’s maritime security.

The Overlooked Strategic Risk

Much of the debate has focused on proxy conflict, but a deeper structural risk deserves attention: Israel’s influence in Somaliland is inherently time‑limited.

Whereas the inherent strategic interest for Israel in Somaliland is obvious, it is less so on Somaliland’s interest in Israel. What Somaliland desires most is international recognition. And as it gains recognition – whether through diplomacy or as the outcome of a future conflict – its strategic reliance on Israel will diminish. Somaliland’s trade and resources will be directed towards other actors. And technologies that otherwise would have provided solely by Israel will be provided by others, and investments will flood in. As recognition expands, Somaliland’s economic gravity will naturally shift towards larger markets and wealthier patrons.

If major Arab League states eventually decide that a stable, friendly Somaliland better serves their Red Sea interests than a perpetually fractured Somalia, recognition could follow. Somalia’s chronic instability and inability to secure its coastline may eventually make Somaliland a more attractive partner for states seeking reliable Red Sea access. In such a scenario, Israel’s early engagement would be easily outmatched by the scale of Gulf capital and Arab political patronage. While it appears that Somaliland and Somalilanders have genuinely reached out to Israel in a gesture of comradery and peace, it cannot be ignored that public sentiment in much of the Arab world has historically been hostile toward Israel and that political culture will inevitably shape how Somaliland is perceived if and when it is embraced by Arab states. Any Arab recognition of Somaliland, followed by their patronage and development of the state, might exacerbate and degrade the nation’s relationship and perspective of Israel.

What Israel Must Do Next

To compensate for this inherent flaw, Israel must acknowledge that the actionable prize gained from Somaliland’s recognition is a first-mover advantage. Currently Israel is the sole nation with official diplomatic relations with the country - a fact that grants Israel a large degree of influence. If Israel intends to preserve long-term influence in the Red Sea and secure this maritime route as a national lifeline, two parallel strategies are essential:

1. Consolidate Economic Influence in Somaliland

Israel should move quickly to embed itself in Somaliland’s economic landscape. Investment, infrastructure development, and entrepreneurial activity can create durable ties that survive future political shifts. Israel, whose civilian population has a comparatively high per capita share of entrepreneurs and engineers, possesses the human capital to move quickly. Somaliland has already passed laws offering 5 year tax exemptions and and allowing complete foreign ownership. If Jerusalem were to establish government backed business loans, explicitly for industries and companies in Somaliland and to stipulate the export of their products to the shores of Israel, such a first-mover advantage would be greatly accelerated. A locally rooted middle class with economic links to Israel would help maintain influence even after broader international recognition.

2. Develop an Additional Coastal Partnership

Israel must diversify its Red Sea access by cultivating another coastal ally in the Horn of Africa — ideally one less likely to align with regional hostility toward Israel in the future. Somaliland alone cannot anchor Israel’s long‑term maritime strategy.

Conclusion

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland was strategically sound, but it is not a permanent solution. The Horn of Africa is entering a period of accelerated geopolitical competition, and the Red Sea’s importance will only grow. Israel’s challenge now is to act quickly — deepening its foothold in Somaliland while securing additional partnerships — before larger regional powers reshape the landscape.

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