Nothing—not money, technology or high falutin words—can replace solid leadership.
Over a decade ago, there were reports in the local press that very soon one could enter web addresses in Hebrew. So if one wanted Angel Bakery here in Jerusalem, he could type it in Hebrew with “dot com” also in Hebrew. Those who set protocols over the Internet claimed that soon one would be able to do the same in any language. Years later, here we are and all of the websites still make use of English web addresses. Whether it be El-Al, Bank Leumi or the Israeli Knesset, when you get to the bottom of the Hebrew-language landing page, contact emails and website links are in English. Sure, there might be a .co.il or .gov.il to show that the concern is Israeli. But the websites remained in English. Why?
One cannot overstate the outsized influence the United States has in the world. When a person lives in the U.S., he rarely thinks how U.S. behavior or economics affect people far and wide. Israeli real estate deals are often made in dollars. The Bank of Israel bought billions of U.S. dollars in order to keep the dollar/shekel ratio in a very tight window. While Israel is planning to make all of its gravity bombs locally, for the foreseeable future, they will be dropped by American F-15’s, F-16’s, and F-35’s, in addition to locally-made drones. When the Fed makes a rate change, stock markets throughout the world respond.
Because of the enormous influence of the U.S., countries look to U.S. leadership from both sides of the equation. Friends seek U.S. support and aid in order to confront enemies. Those opposed to the U.S. and its role in the world often see how far they can go before they provoke the U.S. into a response. When the U.S. shows strong leadership, its enemies generally recalibrate their plans on the expectations that going too far will lead to a violent backlash. General Sulemeini directed Iran’s terror actors outside of her borders and received a free Hellfire Missile. He instantly became a 24 piece human puzzle. The U.S. clobbered a Wagner Force of Russian mercenaries in Syria. They didn’t know what hit them.
For nearly 80 years, it has been the U.S. Navy that has quietly allowed for free trade to flourish by protecting international shipping lanes. I stood outside of a natural food store near the open market in Jerusalem. I looked at the discarded shipping boxes. While the garlic was Israeli, the pecans came from the U.S., the organic ginger from China and almonds from Europe. We are unaware as we walk through a Walmart or large supermarket as to the location of origin of the thousands of products that are offered. And while there are geographically larger countries and places with far more citizens, none can replace the U.S. in its role in the world. The BRICS countries threaten to replace the dollar as the currency of the world. How often have we heard this song—that the Chinese renminbi or the pound or the euro will replace the dollar as the world benchmark currency. No other people have either the will or the moral drive to lead the world. Most of what China does is to guarantee its food and natural resources. We can see what happens when American leadership vanishes. Power truly does not like a vacuum.
Joe Biden and his extreme left ideologues stumbled off of the world stage. Many have pointed to the botched exit from Afghanistan as an indicator to America’s enemies that the U.S. is temporarily out of business. China has been grabbing up and fortifying disputed islands in the major sea lanes in the far east. Iran distributed the billions given to it by Biden and Obama to prepare Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, and the terror brigades in Iraq for the destruction of Israel. Vladimir Putin went into Ukraine, which has become a meat grinder for both sides. Biden has sent over $100 billion to Ukraine, though it does not look like the Ukrainians can eject the Russians from their territory. When the U.S. is not leading, the bad guys realize that it is their time to act. When the U.S. is engaged and can offer credible deterrence, their plans are put back in the vault. Saying, “Don’t” has not yet deterred anybody.
The same failure of leadership is now on full display in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom and his ideological pals in the nearly monolithically blue state are facing fires of biblical proportions. As many have pointed out, better water and forest management could have ameliorated much of the destruction. But one has to always recall that those who are ideologically driven do not care about facts or data. Even if the gals on The View see the value of their stock portfolios double under Donald Trump, do you think that they will say one good word about him during the upcoming four years? Of course not. Leadership requires example and practicality, and oftentimes it involves hearing things that one does not want to hear. General Leslie Groves could have written off Robert Oppenheimer as another communist: his brother was a commie, as was his wife, and he had given money to leftwing causes. But he knew that Oppenheimer was the one guy who could play quarterback for a project that would require the cutting edge in physics, chemistry, ordnance, and weapons design. If Groves had been a right-wing ideologue, he would not have taken Oppenheimer and many other key scientists because of their suspect political beliefs. But Groves understood that success meant having an atomic bomb ready before the war ended. He used that as his driving principle for every decision he made. If Newsom’s guiding principle was not destroying the dams and reservoirs gifted by previous generations so as to go back to “nature,” then maybe he would have had enough water to fight the fire. And if he had heeded warnings to remove dead trees and leaves and make fire breaks—instead of leaving the forest “as is”—the fire would have been over in a day with minimal damage. Poison ivy is natural but we avoid it. Chicago winters of minus 30 degrees are natural, but we heat our homes so as to survive it. Leadership, both local and international, means throwing the ideology out of the window and defining success as per mission requirements. Newsom kept California more “natural” and now entire neighborhoods are gone.
The world follows American leadership. Whether it be the currency of trade or the language of the internet, the U.S. sets the standards for almost everything. Elon Musk opening up X to a full range of opinions may have been one of the drivers for Facebook dropping its anti-conservative “fact checkers.” Musk has shown exceptional leadership with Tesla and SpaceX. Like the U.S., he sets the standards and everybody runs to copy him.
Donald Trump is a leader. While three presidents before him promised to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he actually did it. I expect him to make arrangements with Panama to remove the large Chinese presence in the canal zone. Israelis are relieved that Trump is returning to the White House, and one can see Iranian backpedaling on the nuclear topic as a direct product of their fear of Trump making more jigsaw puzzles of their leadership.
We need strong leaders, from the home to the halls of power. Many of the problems of our day are the result of failures in leadership. Let us hope that far better days are ahead of us.