It is commonly assumed that wars are decided by military power. Throughout history, military strength has undoubtedly been essential to the survival of nations. Yet history also suggests that not every victory is achieved on the battlefield. Sometimes the most effective way to weaken a nation is not by defeating its army, but by undermining its identity, values and confidence in the justice of its cause.
This idea is not unique to the modern world. It appears in one of the Bible’s earliest strategic narratives.
In Parshat Balak, after Bilam fails to curse the people of Israel, the Torah reveals that he advised followers to lead the people into moral and spiritual decline through the daughters of Moab (Numbers 31:16). The sages explain that this was a deliberate strategy: to accomplish through the erosion of Israel’s identity what could not be achieved by military force (Sanhedrin 106a; Rashi on Numbers 31:16).
The episode represents an early form of what we would today call cognitive warfare. Its strategic principle is strikingly familiar: When a nation cannot be defeated from the outside, an attempt is made to weaken it from within.
Modern political science recognizes a related phenomenon. In Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, Joseph Nye famously described the term “soft power” as the ability of states to influence others through culture, ideas and institutions rather than through military or economic coercion. While Nye developed the concept primarily to explain legitimate international influence, recent decades have demonstrated that these same instruments can also become tools in strategic competition between democratic and authoritarian states.
The first border every nation must defend is its system of values.
One example is Qatar’s long-term investment in American higher education.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, American universities reported more than $1.1 billion in gifts and contracts from Qatar in 2025 alone—the highest amount from any foreign country. Foreign funding is not inherently problematic. Universities thrive through international cooperation. Yet when unprecedented levels of funding originate from a non-democratic state and flow into institutions responsible for educating future political, academic and cultural elites, legitimate questions arise regarding transparency and potential influence.
China has pursued a complementary strategy. Through the Confucius Institutes, it has sought to expand Chinese language and culture worldwide. At the same time, a U.S. Senate investigation in 2019 raised concerns regarding transparency, contractual arrangements and possible effects on academic freedom.
More recently, digital platforms have become an arena of influence. According to the Pew Research Center, a growing proportion of young Americans now receive news regularly through TikTok, transforming the platform into far more than a source of entertainment. It has become one of the places where public opinion is increasingly formed.
None of this proves a direct causal relationship between foreign influence and political outcomes. Complex political developments never have a single cause. Economic conditions, demographic change, domestic politics and cultural trends all play significant roles. Yet it is difficult to ignore a broader question: if universities, media platforms and cultural institutions shape how future generations understand their society, why wouldn’t authoritarian regimes invest strategically in those very institutions?
Recent developments in American politics have intensified this debate. Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, together with the growing visibility of the Democratic Socialists of America, has prompted discussion about how ideas once considered politically marginal gradually enter the mainstream.
Conservative political commentators such as Ben Shapiro interpret these developments as evidence of a broader ideological transformation. Whether one accepts that interpretation or not, it is true that ideas rarely reshape societies overnight. They spread gradually through educational, cultural and intellectual institutions before eventually finding expression in politics.
This brings us back to the biblical narrative. Balak doesn’t end with Bilam. It is immediately followed by the Torah portion Pinchas.
If Bilam represents the attempt to weaken a nation by eroding its identity, Pinchas represents the opposite. The Torah praises him because he “turned back My wrath from the children of Israel” (Numbers 25:11), not because he defeated a foreign army, but because he halted a process of internal disintegration. In this context, the enduring significance of his act lies not primarily in the use of force, but in the recognition that the future of a nation may ultimately be decided by the strength of its identity.
This may be one of the central challenges facing Israel and, increasingly, the democratic West in general. Investment in military power, intelligence and national defense remains indispensable. But if today’s strategic competition is also being waged through education, culture and public discourse, then those arenas must also be recognized as pillars of national security. The first border every nation must defend is its system of values.
The movement from Balak to Pinchas reminds us that the defense of a nation often begins long before the battlefield, in the way it educates the next generation to understand who they are, why they are here and what is worth defending.
