No, this isn't 'world war III¶

No, this isn't "world war III."

That's kind of the main point of Israel and why it's been so valuable to the US. It allows the empire to contract out its military ventures and avoid the liability of open war.

Incidentally, this is also the reason for US meddling in Ukraine. WWIII would take the form of open war between NATO and a military alliance of its enemies. NATO is explicitly a "world war-level" arrangement; its purpose is to set out, in clear terms, the fact that all member states would be engaged in any conflict involving any of them. That goes both ways. It is primarily meant as an overwhelming deterrent to prevent shattering the illusion of invulnerability held by the imperial core. But the pretense would be destroyed if a member state engaged in active war and didn't drag the alliance along with it. There's a reason NATO was never officially invoked during the cold war, but in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, it quickly mobilized to mop up "geopolitical messes." Fighting an enemy on equal footing would mean WWIII. Flexing military hegemony is no issue. NATO is not just a shield, but a wall, past which its members can't easily launch an assault. Volleys of arrows, sure, but not full-scale movement.

For that, the empire needs military outposts. Enter Israel. Enter Ukraine. Enter Taiwan. The greatest challenges to NATO's hegemony are Russia in Eastern Europe, China in East Asia, and Iran in West Asia. They are considered untouchable under the NATO paradigm -- direct war between any of them and NATO would be catastrophic, especially because of nuclear weapons. But war could still be fought by funneling weaponry through a loyal "third party," such as Israel or Ukraine, without needing to drag the entire alliance into a destabilizing conflict. The imperial playbook of browbeating to secure routes and resources could still be followed. This is the context for the US's unflinching support for the genocide in Gaza. A bottomless supply of aid, entirely predicated on sustaining the security of a vital military base. Al Aqsa Flood represented a legitimate threat that needed to be stamped out with overwhelming force. This is also why Ukraine, even after the 2014 coup put it solidly in NATO's camp, was strung along for years and continuously denied membership: it would be useless to the empire if conflict with Russia meant the entire alliance would need to involve itself against a Real Enemy. And now that Israel has found itself up against another Real Enemy -- a move that was determined to also be necessary to prevent its collapse -- the empire finds itself at a crossroads. Israel's usefulness is certainly wearing thin, and the cost of its maintenance is rising. It's extremely unlikely that the US would actively involve itself in this stage of the conflict. If it ever had to, it would all but confirm that its occupation of Palestine is more liability than asset. But ceding that outpost would be a tremendous blow to its hegemony. Instead, we are more likely to see a reprise of the Ukraine strategy: a constant influx of military support toward an intractable stalemate, while the empire hopes for some opportunity to undermine the enemy on another battlefront. Meanwhile, the occupation remains under assault from the rest of the axis of resistance. There is a limit to how wide it can be stretched, even with unlimited US support. And the current US administration seems less and less interested in maintaining the NATO model of hegemony. If this stage of conflict expands, Iran draws more of Israel's fire and causes more damage to its vital infrastructure, and the Palestinian resistance is able to rally and relaunch its assault, we may soon see the US decide to cut its losses, bringing the end of the occupation.