Israel is not US President Donald Trump’s exception. Jerusalem and the Golan are historic proof of his preference, not of Israel’s immunity. Israel can credit both without confusing gratitude with jurisdiction.
On August 16, Trump ordered the Pentagon to substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea. He cited their cost, his relationship with Kim Jong Un and Seoul’s refusal to support American action against Iran. South Korean officials later said the directive surprised both Seoul and parts of the American government.
Iran and the Korean Peninsula belong to different theaters. Trump put them on the same invoice.
The leverage came from within an intact alliance.
Trump commands finite inventories, ranks theaters and reallocates power. American interest sets the bargain; chemistry, prestige and the transaction at hand reprice it. No alliance escapes that arithmetic.
When Trump was asked this year whether weapons destined for Ukraine could be diverted elsewhere, his answer dispensed with euphemism: “We do that all the time.”
The weapon may defend Kyiv. The inventory remains American.
Ukrainian money, commitments and battlefield need do not determine American allocation. Kyiv can secure weapons and still lose priority to another theatre. A military dependency becomes leverage the moment another capital controls its priority.
Denmark is a founding NATO ally, and the US already enjoys extensive military access to Greenland. None of that prevented Trump from repeatedly demanding American control of the territory.
A NATO border entered an American transaction.
Jerusalem has issued no formal position on Greenland, but at working levels Israel has aligned with Copenhagen and Europe. The Israeli interest is direct: normalizing coercion against one Western ally sets a precedent for coercing another. American protection confers no title over allied territory; strategic dependence none over allied decisions.
Ankara maintained relations with Moscow and Tehran, obstructed allied decisions and sustained coercion against Greece and Cyprus. Trump nevertheless moved to rehabilitate Erdogan politically and signaled sanctions relief.
Turkey did not become more reliable. It made itself expensive to lose.
Ankara manufactures relevance by preserving the problems it later offers to mediate. Erdogan can defy Washington in one theatre and sell access in another, as he did again this week on Iran.
India is the larger power, economy and democratic counterweight to China, yet autonomous from Washington. Pakistan offers narrower utility: military authority, access and channels to actors Washington needs to reach. When Washington needs immediate access, it has repeatedly preferred Pakistani usability to Indian autonomy.
Trump revived the bargain. Pakistan maintained access to Washington, Iran, China and the Gulf; when Iran became the priority, those contradictions restored Islamabad’s value.
Pakistan’s contradiction became its product.
Trump turns that reflex into an alliance incentive by rewarding behavior alliances were built to suppress. His most loyal allies are often the safest to squeeze because Washington expects the relationship to survive; difficult partners manufacture scarcity and raise the cost of bypassing them.
Loyalty without optionality is exposure.
Trump can be pro-Israel and pro-Erdogan simultaneously. Strategic support for Israel does not erase Turkish utility in another American calculation.
The relevant evidence is not what Trump says about Israel. It is what he gives Turkey when Turkey becomes useful.
Israel has acted on that principle in Syria: American objections raise the diplomatic cost of an Israeli redline; they confer no vote over it.
For Athens and Nicosia, Turkish power is the threat; for Washington, it remains an instrument in Syria, Iran, the Black Sea and NATO. The United States can recognize an ally’s threat and preserve the actor producing it.
Israel's dependency on the US
Israel is not South Korea or Ukraine. It commands its own military, intelligence and defense industry and can initiate major operations independently. Yet critical capabilities depend on American replenishment, munitions and production capacity.
Accumulated dependencies need no formal veto; they can create an authorization regime without a treaty ever granting one. Dependency also habituates: assistance becomes assumption, consultation becomes procedure, and Washington acquires standing in decisions that remain Israeli.
Trump’s admiration for Israel remains subordinate to American interest. The Strait of Hormuz, oil prices, American casualties, China, Turkey and domestic politics reorder American priorities. Access to Trump shapes outcomes; it does not control that calculation.
A steadier White House would change the operator, not the dependency.
Washington is larger than Trump. Ankara’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defense system removed Turkey from the F-35 program. Trump can rehabilitate Erdogan faster than Washington can arm him: he can reopen the aircraft question, but while the S-400 remains, American law, Congress, the Pentagon, program security and export controls stand between presidential preference and delivery.
Israel’s advantage is its institutional depth in Washington: Jerusalem must use it to hedge Trump, and Israeli capacity to hedge Washington. The same institutions that can block a Turkish F-35 cannot manufacture an interceptor after an Israeli stockpile is empty.
Every critical capability requires four answers: who owns it, who replenishes it, who can withhold it, and how long Israel can operate without it. If one foreign decision can disable it, Israel requires an alternative.
Israel still reads Europe politically and America strategically. That hierarchy is obsolete. American power is greater; European interests are anchored in geography. Washington can pivot. Europe cannot move the Mediterranean.
Crete and Cyprus anchor Israel’s corridor into Europe for energy, cables, shipping and military access. Turkish coercion there strikes Israeli access, not merely Greek or Cypriot interests.
The European Union is Israel’s largest goods trading partner, accounting for nearly one third of its trade. Israeli capabilities now support German and Finnish air and missile defense, Czech air defense and radar, Dutch long-range fires, and Greek cooperation across air defense, drones, missiles, maritime security and production.
Iran and Turkey give that architecture its threat logic: Iranian missiles, drones and proliferation beyond the Middle East; Turkish forward power from Syria to occupied northern Cyprus, directly across Israel’s Mediterranean corridor.
Israeli capability is becoming European defense capacity; European geography, industry and markets extend Israeli depth.
A pro-Israel president is an asset. A security doctrine that requires one is a national vulnerability.
The writer is Founder and Principal of Line of State, a strategic practice working with governments, institutions and decision-makers on strategy, risk, access and security decisions in high-stakes environments.