The strategic fallout from the Biden administration’s policy of "ironclad" support for Benjamin Netanyahu’s unrelenting military campaign in Gaza is likely to be much more substantial than many in Washington currently imagine.
If there is one thing that seems to unite many United States politicians across an otherwise divided society, it is the conviction that China is a "systemic threat" to American primacy on the international stage.
However, the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s unrelenting ground and air assault in Gaza after the horrendous Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023 that killed 1200 has severely undermined the US’ global reputation at a time when its international competition with China has intensified.
It should be recalled that in September 2021, the governments of Australia, the US and the United Kingdom announced the formation of Aukus, an enhanced security partnership intended to bolster the international rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific and promote stability and prosperity in a region with about 60% of the world’s population.
China was not explicitly identified as a threat at the outset, but the formation of Aukus has clearly been a response to the perceived challenge of China’s growing assertiveness in the region and beyond.
The Aukus security pact consists of two pillars. Pillar 1 involves Aukus partners helping Australia acquire eight nuclear-powered submarines over the next three decades.
Pillar 2 is about sharing information on cutting-edge defence technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum capabilities and cybersecurity.
Moreover, since the first quarter of 2023, the Biden administration has indicated it was open to extending Aukus Pillar 2 membership to possibly include countries such as New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Canada.
However, the Biden administration’s official rationale for Aukus — to protect the international rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific — has been gravely undermined by its complicity in the Netanyahu government’s systematic and possibly genocidal violations of international law in Gaza.
During the last 11 months, the Biden administration has generously supplied the Israeli coalition government with weapons that were used to bombard Palestinians with impunity.
The results have been truly catastrophic. According to the United Nations, most of the 40,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza were women and children.
Moreover, about 85% of Gazans have been displaced, Gaza’s health system has collapsed, with the territory now facing a polio epidemic, up to 65% of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged, and about 280 aid workers have been killed.
Much of the Palestinian population experiences extreme shortages of food.
At the same time, the Biden administration has continued to provide diplomatic cover and support for the Netanyahu government as international calls for a Gaza ceasefire intensified.
The US exercised its veto power as a UN Security Council member on October 18, December 8 and February 20 to block resolutions calling for humanitarian pauses or immediate ceasefires.
On June 10 — eight months into the Gaza conflict — a ceasefire proposal drafted by the Biden administration was finally adopted by the Security Council, but Washington has done little except exhort the Netanyahu government to comply with this binding resolution.
In recent months, the Biden administration insisted that the "time is now" for a ceasefire in Gaza and that it was working "around the clock" to make this happen, before floating a modified version of the ceasefire proposal via a mediation effort involving Egypt and Qatar.
But such rhetoric counts for little when the rest of the world can see how the Biden administration refuses to halt the supply of US weapons to the Netanyahu government that has enabled the Gaza catastrophe to unfold.
It is no exaggeration to say Biden’s Gaza stance has dealt a body blow to the US’ global leadership, and the damage will be felt in key regions like the Indo-Pacific where strategic initiatives like Aukus are likely to be affected.
For one thing, the claim that Aukus is all about safeguarding international law in the Indo-Pacific against Chinese assertiveness sounds hypocritical after Gaza.
Instead, the perception that the security pact is really a smokescreen for maintaining US primacy appears to be gaining currency in places like Australia.
In addition, and not unrelated, the Biden administration’s inability to act decisively to protect innocent Palestinians in Gaza constitutes a moral crisis for a superpower whose foreign policy is said to be driven by universal values and raises questions about the legitimacy of Aukus.
Furthermore, the US, under Biden, has not acted like the world’s most powerful state during the Gaza crisis and finds itself in a situation where it is arming an Israeli government that does not share the US vision of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This apparent lack of political will raises doubts about American commitment to Aukus.
Finally, the Biden administration’s support for Netanyahu’s Gaza war has proven to be a strategic windfall for America’s adversaries.
Authoritarian states like China, Iran and Russia, backed by many in the Global South, have been able to embarrass the US at the UN by demanding an end to the carnage in Gaza.
This cannot but raise concerns about the US’ strategic judgement and whether the Aukus alliance is really the most effective way of countering a rising power like China in the Indo-Pacific region.
• Robert Patman is a professor of international relations at the University of Otago. This article appeared earlier in the South China Morning Post.
