The article argues that recent executive overreach and politicization have severely undermined established norms of U.S. civil-military relations. To restore professional standards, the incoming Congress must actively exercise its oversight powers, moving beyond mere criticism to demanding transparency in defense policy and personnel decisions. Key reforms include enforcing meritocratic promotion processes, requiring documented justification for senior officer removals, and preventing the partisan use of the military. These actions are crucial for bolstering public trust and ensuring the military remains a nonpartisan instrument of civilian control.
Israel and Palestine
English Summary
Chatham House argues that the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent Gaza campaign exposed a fundamental failure in long-running international policy on the Israel–Palestine conflict. The core finding is that regional normalization and economic engagement with Israel were pursued while the Palestine question was sidelined, making the overall approach unstable. The article reasons that international actors, including major donors and the United States, deprioritized peace-process work, settlement expansion, Palestinian governance and accountability, and societal bridge-building, which deepened structural drivers of conflict. For policy strategy, it implies that durable stability requires re-centering these root issues rather than relying on crisis management or normalization alone.
中文摘要
研究所指出，2023年10月7日哈瑪斯襲擊與其後以色列在加薩的軍事行動，暴露出國際社會長期處理以巴衝突政策的根本失靈。核心發現是：各方在推動區域正常化與對以色列的經濟往來時，將巴勒斯坦問題邊緣化，導致整體策略缺乏穩定性。文章認為，包括主要捐助方與美國在內的國際行為者，降低了對和平進程工作的優先度，也未有效處理定居點擴張、巴勒斯坦治理與問責、以及社會層面的橋接工作，因而加深衝突的結構性驅動因素。就政策策略而言，若要達成可持續穩定，必須重新聚焦這些根本議題，而非僅依賴危機管理或正常化進程。
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