Weaponizing Aid

Following the infamous Trump-Zelenskyy press conference at the end of February this year (1), the U.S. government notably, publicly, intentionally withheld military aid from Ukraine. Opinions about the wisdom of this step continue to vary, as do opinions about the outcomes — for example, renewed Russian operations in Kursk Oblast.(2) In time, the Ukrainian diplomatic position shifted remarkably, posturing ever more as the party of peace in the conflict.

In recent days, Israel and Iran seem to have approached a similar tipping point, with U.S. military assets again — and even more — a decisive factor.

• President Trump's recent advice to "evacuate Tehran" seems a bit over the top, but with the ordinance that U.S. assets in the region could bring to bear on Iran, perhaps only a bit over the top. At the time of writing, this is apparently the most visible option under consideration. (3)
• And yet, key figures in the U.S. government, Trump not least among them, have also taken pains to say that the U.S. is more neutral than might first appear toward Tehran. As one official said of Prime Minister Netanyahu's ambitions for regime change, "It's the Ayatollah you know versus the Ayatollah you don't know." (4)
• And let it be said, too, that provisions between the U.S. and Israel — known as WRSA-I (5) — do, in principle, allow for a drawdown of Israeli access to U.S. munitions by executive order. Both executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government also have scope to revise packages of U.S. foreign aid to Israel — already a fairly significant talking point during Israel's operations in Gaza since October 2023. (6, 7)

Let's also look at a deep historical precedent for the third point here, from Cardinal André Hercule de Fleury.(8) The leading French minister some 300 years ago seems an odd choice for seeking historical parallels, but…

I am drawing here from my chapter in The New Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, 2023) (9), part of which notes specifically how Fleury reduced or refused foreign aid to his own allies in the 1720s and 30s, to good diplomatic effect.

I'll dig into this a bit more, with, I think some useful applications in the present historical moment.

Episode 1: The Anglo-Spanish War of 1727 (10)

Trade disputes between Britain and Spain escalated into an undeclared war in 1727. Britain sent one of its largest naval and marine forces up to that date to the Caribbean, while Spain embarked on a siege of Gibraltar. Britain and France were formally allied at the time, and British Prime Minister Robert Walpole called on France — under Fleury's functional leadership — to attack Spanish interests on land in Europe. Fleury flatly refused to get involved, very publicly withheld the French army, convened the long but ineffectual Congress of Soissons, and eventually brokered an Anglo-French-Spanish alliance with the Convention of El Pardo in 1729.

Episode 2: The War of the Polish Succession (11)

Disputes over the succession to the crown of Poland informed a rather unusual conflict between France, Spain, and Sardinia on one side, and Austria and Russia on the other. The highest-profile fighting took place up and down the Italian peninsula, and more modestly along the Rhine. This conflict would seem to have enabled British turnabout — refusing the services of their fleet to the French, for example, but Walpole remained neutral, with one key exception. A diplomatic flare-up in 1735 threatened a Spanish-Portuguese expansion to the ongoing war, and Walpole duly fulfilled British treaty obligations to Portugal, sending 28 warships and 9,000 troops. Spain called for French aid in its own right, and Fleury again refused. France, in turn, was soon able to play a leading role in peace negotiations that culminated in the Treaty of Vienna (1738).

With further detail and elucidation in my chapter, these two examples demonstrate how Fleury used the vital card of French military power to advantage, not by playing it, but rather by withholding it very visibly — and of course, keeping it in reserve. In both cases, France emerged as an honest broker in European diplomacy, while Walpole, by repute a fair pacifist in his own right, ruined the British position by resorting too visibly to the practice of gunboat diplomacy.

Channeling Fleury's wisdom for the present moment, President Trump's strongest geopolitical play may be to continue withholding U.S. assets, and perhaps even doing a bit more with this.

Could Trump by executive order, for example, simply (and loudly, visibly, publicly) omit ground attack assets from military aid to Israel for a short time?

With plenty of U.S. assets still in the region to accommodate the changing strategic situation, and storehouses still full or re-filling with American munitions, Israel need not worry too much about abandonment, certainly not from the perspective of self-defense, even as the U.S. postures more clearly as a disinterested broker with Iran — or rather, a broker properly interested in a nuclear deal and nothing more.

In the 1720s and 30s, France under Fleury's guidance gained a towering reputation for honest brokering and peacemaking, preferable in these roles to almost any other actor on the European stage, large or small. President Trump seems to want a similar role for the U.S. in the present day — not even so much isolated from the world, but more aloof if that were possible. In this respect, and in others that I will continue to tag as Cardinal Directions, perhaps there are a few pages he might borrow from Fleury's book.