The Institute for Economics and Peace found rising levels of conflict in 13 of the last 15 years, and the number of countries engaged in conflicts outside their borders rose from 58 in 2008 to 91 in 2022.

The US Administration may lack concrete alternatives or advice to provide Israel for reducing Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza beyond calling for adjusted ordinance and better intelligence, making it difficult for the administration to exercise leverage.

Abbas (Palestinian Authority President) is in the 18th year of a four-year term and canceled elections in 2021, and can barely administer 40% of the West Bank he controls, making him an implausible candidate to govern Gaza.

Plato's quote that 'Only the Dead will see the end of War' suggests conflict will remain part and parcel of the world humans live in for the foreseeable future.

The US defense spending levels are at their lowest as a share of GDP in more than two decades, yet Michelle Floro questions whether current spending levels are sufficient to simultaneously support Ukraine, Israel, and border security.

The media's coverage cycles are so short (15 minutes) that the Ukraine war has essentially disappeared from American media frames after being dominated for a year, immediately replaced by focus on the Israel-Gaza war.

The US has not faced direct fundamental security threats to the homeland since the late 18th century when great powers were in the US backyard, or arguably during the War of 1812 when the British burned the capital.

238,000 humans died in global conflicts in 2023, representing a 96% increase year-over-year, with Ukraine and Ethiopia accounting for the majority of deaths (82,000 in Ukraine and 104,000 in Ethiopia in 2022), making 2022 the deadliest year since the Rwanda genocide in 1994.

The average length of a military conflict since 1816 is 100 days according to research from the University of Chicago and Uppsala University, and if a conflict lasts more than a year, it is likely to enter a multi-year phase lasting as long as 10 years.

Madeline Albright, with President Clinton's help, coined the term 'indispensable power' to describe the US role in the world, though there is a risk that term is becoming politically polarizing.

Israel faces a unique geographic disadvantage compared to the US relationship with al-Qaeda: Hamas is located on Israel's border (analogous to eastern Afghanistan for the US), making the proximity problem far more acute and preventing extended over-the-horizon counterterrorism.

The trauma from October 7 attacks on both Israeli and Palestinian societies will likely produce a period of political reckoning and introspection that could lead to different administrations in Israel and the US, making immediate 'day after' planning artificial and unrealistic.

The US has a unique geographic advantage due to friendly non-predatory neighbors (Canada and Mexico) to the north and south and ocean 'liquid assets' to the east and west, which is historically unique in the annals of modern history.

George Wellstone's observation that the American public wants as little foreign policy as possible unless it directly impacts them (terrorism, oil embargo) is still generally accurate as a rule of thumb.