The Weight of a Broken Boundary

I am told by the Washington Examiner that Egypt has massed roughly 40,000 troops across the Sinai Peninsula — nearly double the 22,000 soldiers permitted by the security annex of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The bulk of that force, as the report has it, is concentrated in Zone C, the strip that borders both Gaza and Israel. A violation of treaty terms, if confirmed, is not a minor administrative matter. It is a signal — and signals, once sent, accumulate meaning whether or not the sender intends them to.

I have long held that the Republic must avoid permanent entanglements with foreign powers. But I was equally clear that this counsel was not an invitation to ignorance or passivity. Observing developments with honest eyes, and consulting national interest in every season, is not the same as rushing to the embrace of every new alliance that presents itself as a remedy.

The Washington Examiner's opinion piece recommends constructing what it calls an 'Abrahamic NATO' — a formal defensive compact among Israel, Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf states, and the United States. I would counsel the citizenry to think carefully before that enthusiasm runs too far ahead of deliberation. A military alliance is a solemn promise. Once extended, such commitments are not easily retracted without damage to the public credit of one's word. History — even that portion of it I did not live to see — I am told has repeatedly shown that alliances formed in the heat of a regional crisis can bind a republic to conflicts far beyond the scope of the original concern.

None of this is to say that treaty violations should be overlooked, or that a genuine shift in regional military posture warrants no response. If Egypt has departed from the terms of a compact that has preserved a measure of regional order for nearly half a century, that departure deserves direct diplomatic address — clearly, firmly, and through legitimate channels. The rule of law among nations, imperfect as that law may be, is still preferable to the rule of force.

My deeper counsel on the proposal for a new multilateral military structure is this: examine its obligations before signing them. Ask which commitments are automatic and which are discretionary. Ask whether the Republic's legislature has been brought into the deliberation, or whether the architecture is being assembled by executive enthusiasm alone. The power to bind the nation to war is one the Founders specifically refused to lodge in a single hand — and for reasons that do not expire with any one generation.

Let the reports be verified. Let diplomacy speak first, plainly and without theater. And if a new architecture of regional security is truly warranted, let it be built in daylight, with the full engagement of the people's representatives, and with a sober accounting of what it will cost — in treasure, in obligation, and in the sovereignty that free nations must always guard with the greatest jealousy.