Wir gewinnen, sie verlieren, mit Matthew Kroenig

Matthew Kroenig, Vice President and Senior Director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and coauthor of the book [*We Win They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy and the New Cold War*](https://www.republicbookpublishers.com/product/we-win-they-lose-republican-foreign-policy-and-the-new-cold-war/), joins Hoover senior fellows John Cochrane and H.R. McMaster to discuss lessons from deterrence (or a lack thereof) past, present, and future. 

Assessing the current situation in the Middle East, Kroenig says:

“Yeah, well, my fear is that we can expect a big attack from Iran against Israel. And if you think back to the last round of exchanges, several months ago, Iran launched this unprecedented attack against Israel, hundreds of drones and missiles.

Fortunately, the United States and its allies were able to shoot and Israel were able to shoot almost all of them down. But then the Biden administration restrained Israel from responding, and I think that was a mistake. And I think the lesson that Iran might take from this is that now it can get away with large scale attacks on Israel without a response.

And so that’s my fear. Well, we’ll see if I’m right. And then I think the solution is to recognize that Iran is the head of the snake behind all of this. We have to end the fiction that Hezbollah somehow acting on its own and to make that clear in our policy that the United States and Israel will hold Iran responsible for these Hezbollah and other attacks on Israel.

And I think essentially we have a deterrence failure problem that needs to be addressed.”

Later he continues, “I have a different theory of what’s driving the conflict. I think it’s a deterrence failure that Iran has learned that it can get away with this aggression without suffering serious consequences. And so I think the way to stop it is to communicate very clearly to Tehran that if they cross certain lines, including proxy attacks on Israel or international shipping, that there will be severe consequences. That could be things like sinking their navy or killing Soleimani…”

Do you think that Israel and the United States are likely to reestablish deterrence with Iran and its proxies in 2024? If not, what do you think it would take to achieve that aim, and when might you expect it to happen?