The US must war-game an Israel-Turkey conflict: The question now is whether Washington can prevent it and what effect military sales might have upon its outcome

By Michael Rubin, Washington Examiner

War games are an important planning tool. Various military and governmental experts beryllium astir tables oregon successful abstracted rooms and role-play decision-making successful antithetic countries. The decisions successful the erstwhile circular are past played retired successful aggregate rounds.

The extremity is not for the teams to triumph oregon suffer but alternatively to unit analysts to face groupthink oregon program for scenarios they had not antecedently considered.

Every truthful often, warfare games sponsored by Washington deliberation tanks oregon adjacent the U.S. authorities marque headlines. Would Iran target the U.S. Fifth Fleet office successful Bahrain to retaliate aft an Israeli onslaught connected Iranian atomic sites, adjacent if the Pentagon had not been involved?

• A caller Middle East Forum warfare game, for example, suggested the anticipation that the Iranian authorities could invitation China to parkland its navy astatine the Kharg Oil Terminal to forestall immoderate U.S. retaliation against Iran’s main outlet to export oil.

Other warfare games considered the anticipation that China could onslaught astatine U.S. installations successful Guam oregon naval aviation substance depots successful Singapore to neutralize them up of an penetration of Taiwan, oregon asked however overmuch weaponry the North Atlantic Trade Organization could supply Ukraine earlier Russia mightiness edifice to atomic weapons.

War games person different benefit: forcing diplomats and policymakers to eschew wishful reasoning and face reality. President Donald Trump’s medication has stake large connected Turkey, based not connected the world of the terror-sponsoring authorities but alternatively connected the saccharine nothings and imaginable concern deals President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has whispered into the administration’s ears.

• This leads to inconsistencies. It is not possible, for example, to beryllium some pro-Turkey and anti-Hamas. To enactment 1 is to clasp the other, particularly arsenic astir Hamas coercion present gets planned not successful Tehran but successful Istanbul, wherever Turkey has fixed haven and enactment to the group’s financiers and leaders.

It’s clip to warfare crippled an Israel-Turkiye warhttps://t.co/ML3BaeCKR0 #Turkiye #Israel

— Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) May 30, 2025

Given Erdoğan’s expanding belligerence toward the Jewish state, including calls for subject enactment and convulsive jihad against it, and the coercion Erdoğan sponsors, it is clip to admit the imaginable for a subject conflict.

The spark could beryllium successful Syria, particularly present that Turkey efficaciously shares a borderline with Israel, arsenic Erdoğan uses Hay’at Tahrir al Sham to alteration Syria into a proxy arsenic wholly arsenic Iran utilized Hezbollah to alteration confederate Lebanon into a de facto Iranian colony.

Or it could beryllium a quality implicit Turkey’s atomic programme arsenic Erdoğan follows Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s way to usage an ostensibly civilian programme arsenic a means to fulfill a long-held atomic ambition.

• The United States indispensable admit what erstwhile was unfathomable: a warfare betwixt a NATO subordinate and the Jewish state. What would specified a warfare look like? Would it impact missiles and drone swarms? Naval engagements successful the Eastern Mediterranean? Aerial battles with some countries utilizing U.S.-provided weaponry? Would Turkey effort a landing to chopped Israel successful 2 astatine its narrowest point, hardly 8 miles betwixt the Mediterranean and the West Bank?

In specified a situation, however would the U.S. react? What would Israel’s neighbors do? Could King Abdullah II of Jordan, himself unpopular domestically, withstand the pressures from his ain colonisation that is fiercely antagonistic to Israel? Would Turkey usage Syrian jihadi mercenaries and Islamic State veterans arsenic Erdoğan did successful enactment of Azerbaijan’s penetration of Nagorno-Karabakh?

With the Trump medication reviving a imaginable F-35 Joint Strike Fighter merchantability to Turkey, some the Pentagon and Congress should see what effect those planes mightiness person if Turkey utilized them against Israel.

• Diplomats excessively often conception a cocoon of comfortableness and alternate realities. These whitethorn look bully connected paper, but they correspond not a measurement toward bid but alternatively gross negligence by refusing to code reality. A warfare betwixt Israel and Turkey is nary longer a distant anticipation but could easy hap wrong a decade.

The question present is whether Washington tin forestall it, what effect subject income mightiness person upon its outcome, and whom the United States wants to win.

* Michael Rubin is simply a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the manager of investigation astatine the Middle East Forum and a elder chap astatine the American Enterprise Institute.