America is committed to 50 allies. What if they all come knocking at once?

This is the sort of moment that could ensnare America in another disastrous war.

The provocation: Iran’s puppets and proxies have launched some 180 attacks on US forces in the Middle East since October 7, but now one penetrates American defences and succeeds in killing troops on a US base in Jordan on the weekend. Three American soldiers are dead and more than two dozen injured.

Joe Biden said “we shall respond”, but without any detail. Credit: AP

The reaction: President Joe Biden says “we shall respond”, without any detail. Donald Trump says the attack is a result of Biden’s “weakness and surrender”. He calls for “immediate return to peace through strength”, without any detail.

Some key Republicans demand that Biden strike not only the terrorists of Axis of Resistance who carried out the attack but also their sponsor, Iran, the most militarily powerful nation in the Middle East, according to Global Firepower’s ranking.

Iran is also the force behind Hamas and its terrorist attack on Israel, Hezbollah and its shelling of Israel, and the Houthis and their strikes on Red Sea shipping.

The senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee of the US Senate, Roger Wicker, says: “We must respond to these repeated attacks by Iran and its proxies by striking directly against Iranian targets and its leadership.”

“Hit Iran now. Hit them hard,” urged the senior Republican on the Senate judiciary committee and Trump loyalist, noted hawk Lindsey Graham.

The temptation: To demonstrate “strength” in an election year, Biden takes their advice.

To date, a characteristic of Biden’s presidency is restraint in matters of war. He pulled the US out of Afghanistan. He has been forthright in supporting US allies in need, notably Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, but has not committed American forces to engage directly against any nation state.

Biden had positioned two US aircraft carrier battle groups off the Israeli coast, implicitly deterring Iran from any thoughts of a direct attack on Israel. But he has been scrupulous about avoiding direct US conflict with any nation.

Why?

Partly because war is no longer popular in America. Ever since George W. Bush’s disastrous and dishonest invasion of Iraq – aided and abetted by Tony Blair and John Howard – war has been a dirty word in the US. Barack Obama liked to boast that “I am the president who ends wars”, and Donald Trump started none.

Partly because no aggressor nation has given Biden sufficient cause. Neither the US nor its treaty allies have been subject to kinetic attack by a nation state during the Biden presidency. There’s been cyberattack, economic attack, “grey zone” jostling aplenty, but no kinetic attack.

Partly because Biden is acutely conscious that the greatest danger lies ahead – a revisionist People’s Republic of China. Biden describes the “growing rivalry with China” as “the contest for the 21st century”.

Biden describes the “growing rivalry with China” as “the contest for the 21st century”.Credit: AP

China, according to the US national security strategy document, “is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system”.

The US is hedging against China’s expansionist ambitions – working towards the best outcome while preparing for the worst.

It was Britain’s Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, who this month stated publicly the nightmare scenario that Western defence planners are contemplating privately. The postwar world was over, he said, and the “prewar” world had arrived. He said: “In five years’ time, we could be looking at multiple theatres involving Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.”

Each of these autocracies has been ratcheting up military pressure on its neighbours in recent times: Russia invades Ukraine; Iran lights its “ring of fire” of proxy forces surrounding Israel; nuclear-armed North Korea tears up its bedrock policy of “reunification” with South Korea and replaces it with one of “conquest” as it unleashes a staccato of ballistic missiles around its neighbour; and China incrementally increases territorial and political pressure against a wide circuit of nations.

Illustration: Dionne Gain. Credit:

British analyst James Crabtree worries that the demands on US power could become overwhelming. The former head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies-Asia writes: “Washington’s alliance network – it has more than 50 formal such relationships – is a formidable asset in its tussle with China. It has a number of quasi-allies, too, such as Taiwan, as well as close partners like India, Singapore and Vietnam. All of these come with commitments, either explicit or implied.

“Yet Washington’s credibility to deliver on them is under growing pressure in the eyes of adversaries and allies alike. It is likely to have to demonstrate its capabilities more often – in effect making its guarantees less ambiguous – putting further strain on an already overstretched US military.”

Crabtree argues in the journal Foreign Policy that confidence in the US is indispensable to global stability: “Self-evidently, the United States cannot meet its obligations to 50 allies at once, much in the same way that a bank cannot return all its deposits in one go. Its ability to do so depends crucially on ensuring sufficient confidence to avoid the geopolitical equivalent of a bank run.”

While Crabtree says the prospects of this are remote now, he raises the prospect of a second Trump presidency as a potential shock to confidence in the US. Another would be an act of American impetuousness, like launching a war against Iran unnecessarily.

Biden, so far, has been determined to avoid avoidable entanglements, to husband US resources, and brace for the biggest of these potential crises – war against China. It would be a radical departure for him to now strike the first direct blow and launch a major war against a powerful enemy. Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang would be thrilled.

Besides, America’s professional military thinks it’s a bad idea: ”We don’t want to go down a path of greater escalation that drives to a much broader conflict within the region,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles Brown, said on the weekend.

The temptation to escalate is a trap. Australia, like all US allies except Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, will hope and trust that Biden doesn’t fall into it.

Peter Hartcher is international editor.