International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES[1]) from Ljubljana, Slovenia, regularly conducts analyses of political developments in the Middle East, the Balkans, and globally. Dr. Masahiro Matsumura is Professor of International Politics and National Security at the Faculty of Law, St. Andrew’s University (Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku) and a member of the IFIMES Council. The article titled “A Self-Explication on “Jewish Intelligence Power as a Critical Intervening Factor in Hegemonic Transference“: Reconsidering Epistemic Power in Hegemonic Transition.” is a review of the essay by Dr. Matsumura, published by IFIMES in October 2025, titled “Jewish Intelligence Power as a Critical Intervening Factor in Hegemonic Transference”. This review situates the essay within the broader landscape of IR scholarship on hegemony, power transition, and epistemic structures. The goal is to assess both its intellectual merits and its limitations as a model for rethinking how non-material, transnational factors shape hegemonic transformation. The review is published in full.
In October 2025, the International Institute for the Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) in Ljubljana published “Jewish Intelligence Power as a Critical Intervening Factor in Hegemonic Transference,”[2] an analytical essay by the author of this review article. The essay immediately attracted both academic curiosity and controversy. It proposed that a historically evolving constellation of transnational networks — associated with Jewish finance, information, and intelligence institutions — has functioned as a critical intervening variable in the succession of world hegemonies from the early modern era to the present.
The author’s argument positions “Jewish intelligence power” not as an autonomous determinant of global politics but as an intermediate mechanism that mediates interactions between dominant powers and the international order. Through this conceptual innovation, the essay seeks to integrate intelligence studies and epistemic power into the analytical framework of hegemonic stability theory, thereby broadening the ontological scope of International Relations (IR) beyond its conventional state-centrism.
This review article makes a self-explication of the essay, with a major focus on its contribution in terms of theoretical originality, analytical architecture, methodological rigor, and normative sensitivity. This is because the relatively short essay of some 3,300 words is not fully sufficient in these regards. This article situates the essay within the broader landscape of IR scholarship on hegemony, power transition, and epistemic structures. The goal is to assess both its intellectual merits and its limitations as a model for rethinking how non-material, transnational factors shape hegemonic transformation.
The author’s principal theoretical contribution lies in introducing the concept of Jewish intelligence power as an intervening variable in hegemonic transition. Traditional hegemonic stability theory (HST), developed by Charles P. Kindleberger and later refined by Robert Gilpin, explains global order primarily through the rise and decline of material capabilities — economic, military, and technological.[3] The author of the essay departs from these paradigms by emphasizing the epistemic dimension of power: the organization, circulation, and strategic deployment of knowledge.
The author argues that Jewish networks — historically dispersed yet functionally cohesive in finance, intelligence, and media — constitute a transnational epistemic structure that has repeatedly facilitated the stabilization or transformation of hegemonic orders. By designating this structure as an intervening variable, he avoids deterministic causal reductionism. The Jewish factor, in this formulation, does not independently determine the rise or fall of empires; rather, it mediates the efficacy with which emerging or declining hegemonic powers manage the information, finance, and legitimacy necessary for systemic leadership.
In conceptual terms, the author’s framework is an ambitious attempt to synthesize classical realism’s focus on power with constructivism’s emphasis on knowledge and identity. His model posits that the capacity to gather, process, and operationalize information — “intelligence power” — is crucial in the reproduction of hegemony, and that Jewish networks, shaped by historical conditions of diaspora and exclusion, developed comparative advantages in precisely those functions.
This theoretical reconfiguration — treating intelligence as a macro-structural mediator — represents the essay’s most original and potentially valuable contribution. It invites IR scholars to re-examine the hidden infrastructures of global power, particularly how epistemic communities and transnational networks interact with states in shaping world order.
Another notable strength of Matsumura’s essay lies in its macro-historical scope. Spanning from the early modern period to the present, the analysis traces a longue durée trajectory of hegemonic succession: from the Dutch Republic to the British Empire, to the United States, and finally to what the author terms the “Israeli-American nexus.” This panoramic view situates Jewish intelligence power within a centuries-long continuum of global political economy.
In the author’s account, Jewish diasporic communities in Europe developed dense financial and informational networks as adaptive mechanisms for survival and mobility under exclusionary conditions. These networks, he argues, later became embedded in and indispensable to successive hegemonic powers. The Dutch relied on Jewish financial intermediaries during their maritime ascendancy; the British incorporated Jewish capital and advisory influence in imperial expansion; and the United States, in turn, became intertwined with Jewish intellectual, financial, and strategic elites, especially in the twentieth century. In the post–Cold War era, the author observes the growing centrality of Israeli intelligence, technological innovation, and the U.S.–Israel strategic partnership as indicators of a shifting hegemonic configuration.
This historical narrative exhibits two analytical merits. First, it aligns the micro-processes of intelligence and finance with the macro-cycles of global order, bridging micro-meso-macro levels of analysis. Second, it challenges the temporal parochialism of most IR theories by embedding contemporary power shifts in a longer civilizational evolution of epistemic systems.
Yet, the breadth of the narrative also generates potential pitfalls. The longue durée framework, while illuminating, can slide into teleological continuity — an implicit suggestion of a trans-historical agency that transcends contextual differentiation. Without careful empirical demarcation between periods, the narrative risks appearing to attribute unbroken intentionality to a diverse set of actors. The historical reach, therefore, both enriches and complicates the argument.
The integration of intelligence studies into IR theory by the author of the essay is particularly noteworthy. Intelligence — defined broadly as the acquisition and strategic use of information — has traditionally been treated as a subfield of security studies or history rather than as a theoretical variable in systemic analysis. By foregrounding “intelligence power,” the author positions informational control as a decisive factor in both the maintenance and transfer of hegemony.
In this respect, the author’s work complements the insights of epistemic power theorists such as Michael Barnett, Peter Haas, and Stefano Guzzini, who explore how knowledge‐producing communities shapes international order.[4] However, while those scholars generally analyze technocratic epistemic communities (e.g., economists, scientists, policy experts), Matsumura’s focus on ethnically linked intelligence-financial networks introduces a sociological dimension often excluded from such accounts.
His conceptualization of “intelligence power” is expansive, encompassing three interrelated layers:
This tripartite model enhances IR’s analytical repertoire by linking hard intelligence, soft epistemic authority, and financial acumen into a single matrix of power. In the author’s schema, these capacities collectively explain how certain transnational actors sustain hegemonic orders even amid state decline.
Nevertheless, this conceptual breadth introduces ambiguity. The term “intelligence power” oscillates between concrete institutional meaning (intelligence agencies) and abstract epistemic sense (knowledge control). Without a consistent operational definition, the concept risks losing analytical precision. For theoretical robustness, future work would need to delineate subtypes — perhaps distinguishing between strategic intelligence power (operational espionage and analysis) and epistemic intelligence power (control over ideational narratives and legitimacy production).
Structurally, Matsumura’s essay demonstrates clarity and coherence. It proceeds in a chronological sequence, each period illustrating how Jewish networks mediated hegemonic power. The organization into historical stages — early modern finance, British imperial consolidation, Anglo-American transition, and the contemporary U.S.–Israel symbiosis — allows the reader to follow a consistent analytical thread.
Conceptually, the essay differentiates between Jewish internationalism (associated with cosmopolitan finance and globalism) and Jewish nationalism (associated with Zionism and the U.S.–Israel alliance). This distinction is both novel and politically perceptive, capturing the internal dialectic within Jewish political identity between globalist and nationalist orientations. It also resonates with broader debates in IR between liberal cosmopolitanism and realist nationalism.
However, while the structure is lucid, it occasionally privileges narrative continuity over causal depth. The transitions between stages are asserted rather than demonstrated through explicit mechanisms or empirical verification, due to the space assigned to a short essay with some 3,300 words. The framework would benefit from schematic causal diagrams or tabular summaries specifying the mediating processes at each stage: what kind of intelligence activity linked the Dutch to the British, or the British to the Americans? Was the mediation financial, technological, or ideational? These clarifications would elevate the work from interpretive history to causal theory.
The most significant weaknesses of Matsumura’s essay lie in its empirical and methodological foundations, largely due to the space assigned to it. While its theoretical architecture is ambitious, the supporting evidence remains largely interpretive and narrative. The essay cites historical examples but does not systematically test its propositions through archival data, quantitative analysis, or comparative case studies. Obviously, the author intends to present this central analytical ideas and approach in a relatively short essay, rather than to produce a book with full conceptual elucidation and empirical evidence.[5]
Three methodological shortcomings stand out:
Insufficient operationalization of variables
The intervening variable — Jewish intelligence power — is conceptually rich but empirically elusive. The author does not define clear indicators by which it could be measured or observed. For instance, what empirical markers would demonstrate the activation of this variable? Intelligence cooperation agreements? Financial flows? Elite interlocks? Without operational indicators, the argument remains at the level of informed conjecture.
Lack of comparative control cases
Demonstrating causal mediation requires showing both presence and absence effects. The essay does not present counterfactual or negative cases where similar diasporic or epistemic networks existed but did not produce comparable hegemonic influence. Comparative analysis (e.g., Chinese merchant diasporas, Armenian banking houses) would have strengthened causal inference.
Reliance on secondary narratives
The historical discussion draws on well-known episodes but lacks citation of primary sources or specialized intelligence literature. For example, discussions of Anglo-American intelligence cooperation or Israeli strategic innovation could have drawn from declassified archives or scholarly studies, lending empirical rigor.
Methodologically, then, the essay’s value lies more in its conceptual provocation than in its evidentiary demonstration. It opens a new line of inquiry rather than conclusively establishing its thesis.
A major concern among readers has been the potential for misinterpretation of Matsumura’s thesis as ethnically essentialist or conspiratorial. The author repeatedly clarifies that “Jewish intelligence power” is an intervening — not independent — variable and that the essay’s intent is analytical, not normative. Nonetheless, the repeated ethnic signifier “Jewish” risks being read as implying a cohesive, collective agency operating across centuries.
This problem is not unique to Matsumura’s work. Any analysis that attributes systemic influence to ethnically identified networks faces the challenge of distinguishing between cultural continuity and collective intentionality. In scholarly discourse, such attributions must be handled with exceptional care to avoid reproducing stereotypes or feeding politicized misreadings.
From a sociological standpoint, Jewish communities have always been internally diverse, politically heterogeneous, and geographically dispersed. Their participation in global finance and intelligence structures has varied by context, shaped by state policy, opportunity structures, and individual agency. Without this differentiation, analytical models risk collapsing complexity into essentialism. The author not only denies the monolithic nature of Diaspora communities, as emphasizing at least the bifurcation of Jewish internationalists vs. nationalists across Britain, the United States, Isreal, and the rest of the world, but also emphasizes its central analytical importance in his essay.
A possible resolution, already suggested in subsequent revisions, is to re-frame the variable in terms of transnational epistemic networks historically involving Jewish actors. This formulation retains the analytical insight — that certain diasporic knowledge systems have mediated hegemonic transitions — while avoiding the impression of an ethnicized collective will. Such reframing would align the concept with contemporary IR’s emphasis on networked agency rather than ethnic agency.
While Matsumura’s essay introduces novel variables, its engagement with established IR theories remains limited. A stronger dialogue with existing frameworks would enhance its academic traction.
1) Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST)
Robert Gilpin and Charles Kindleberger conceptualized hegemonic order as dependent on a single power’s capacity and willingness to provide public goods. Matsumura’s model supplements this with a cognitive infrastructure that enables the hegemon to coordinate global systems. Jewish intelligence power, in this context, could be interpreted as part of the “knowledge infrastructure” facilitating global governance. The author could further elaborate how such epistemic networks help hegemonic powers overcome information asymmetry and transaction costs, reinforcing leadership.
2) World-Systems Analysis
Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory identifies core–periphery relations and cyclical hegemonic transitions.[6] Matsumura’s narrative parallels this cyclicality but adds a mediating layer of epistemic capital. By integrating world-systems’ structural temporalities with epistemic mediation, the model could evolve into a hybrid framework — one that acknowledges both material and ideational mechanisms in global cycles.
3) Realism and Neo-Realism
Matsumura’s approach shares realism’s concern with power but extends it beyond military and economic assets. In the realist lexicon, “intelligence power” could be considered a sub-dimension of informational capability, affecting state behavior under uncertainty. Explicitly connecting his argument to offensive realism (e.g., John Mearsheimer[7]) or neoclassical realism would clarify where epistemic intermediaries fit within the distribution of power.
4) Critical and Constructivist Approaches
Robert Cox’s critical theory and Alexander Wendt’s constructivism both highlight the constitutive role of ideas and social structures.[8] Matsumura’s model could be read as a realist–constructivist synthesis: material hegemony depends on cognitive mediation. Articulating this linkage would situate the essay more firmly within mainstream theoretical debates, transforming a provocative thesis into a theoretically integrated proposition.
The essay by this author concludes with an interpretive projection that the emerging U.S.–Israel partnership may evolve into a “Greater Israel”–centered hegemonic system in the Middle East, replacing or succeeding the declining American global order. While intriguing, this section drifts from analytical argumentation toward speculative geopolitics. It extrapolates trends in technology, military cooperation, and ideological realignment but lacks empirical grounding.[9]
From an IR-theoretical standpoint, such projections require scenario modelling or trend analysis. Without these tools, they risk being perceived as normative or conjectural. Moreover, the term “Greater Israel,” laden with political connotations, may obscure rather than clarify the structural argument about epistemic convergence. A more neutral framing — such as “U.S.–Israel epistemic symbiosis” or “Judeo-American strategic complex” — would retain analytical substance while avoiding politicization.
Nonetheless, the speculative finale does underscore a provocative insight: that hegemony in the 21st century may depend less on territorial or industrial dominance and more on control of intelligence, surveillance, and epistemic infrastructures. In that sense, Matsumura’s projection gestures toward the emerging reality of information-age geopolitics.
Despite—or because of—its controversial framing, the essay of this author exemplifies intellectual courage. It confronts taboo subjects, refusing the boundaries of political correctness that often constrain academic inquiry into sensitive ethnic or cultural dimensions of power. By doing so, it reopens questions about how transnational identities interact with global order—questions that mainstream IR has often neglected for fear of moral misinterpretation.
At the same time, the essay illustrates the peril of such engagement: bold hypotheses without sufficient empirical armor invite accusations of bias or essentialism. The challenge for scholars pursuing similar inquiries is to couple analytical bravery with methodological precision and ethical transparency. Controversy, in itself, does not invalidate scholarship; it compels deeper scrutiny. Matsumura’s work thus functions as both a substantive contribution and a case study in the politics of academic discourse.
One constructive way to build on Matsumura’s thesis is to abstract from its specific ethnocultural focus and articulate a general model of transnational epistemic mediation. In such a framework, any enduring hegemonic system would rely on intermediary networks that manage flows of information, finance, and legitimacy across borders. These networks could take diverse forms — religious, commercial, technological, or ideological — and their composition would vary historically.
Within this generalized model, the historical role of Jewish diasporic networks would constitute one prominent case among many. Other examples might include the medieval Italian banking families, the Chinese mercantile diaspora, or contemporary Silicon Valley–based transnational tech elites. All represent instances where non-state epistemic actors facilitated hegemonic expansion or transition by providing informational infrastructure.
Reframing the argument in this comparative and theoretical manner would universalize its relevance and mitigate the problem of ethnic particularization. It would also align Matsumura’s insight with broader debates about the post-Westphalian diffusion of power and the rise of knowledge-based hegemony.
The following summary table synthesizes the evaluation dimensions:
Dimension | Evaluation | Comments |
Originality | ★★★★★ | Introduces a novel intervening variable integrating intelligence, finance, and epistemic power into hegemonic theory. |
Analytical Structure | ★★★★☆ | Clear historical logic and structured argument; would benefit from explicit causal modelling. |
Empirical Support | ★★☆☆☆ | Primarily interpretive; lacks systematic evidence or case comparison. |
Academic Rigor | ★★★☆☆ | Conceptually rich but methodologically underdeveloped. |
Political Sensitivity Handling | ★★☆☆☆ | Needs refined terminology and ethical disclaimers to avoid essentialist readings. |
Contribution to IR Discourse | ★★★★☆ | Stimulates theoretical debate on non-material dimensions of power; expands IR’s ontological scope. |
This assessment indicates that the essay by this author ranks high in conceptual innovation but moderate to low in empirical robustness. Its significance lies in opening intellectual terrain rather than providing definitive explanation.
The author’s conceptual provocation invites several research trajectories:
Scholars could conduct archival or network-analytic research on how specific transnational information and finance networks facilitated hegemonic functions in different eras. For instance, the Rothschild banking network’s role in nineteenth-century British finance or Israeli cybersecurity firms’ integration into U.S. defense ecosystems could be studied empirically.
2) Comparative Diaspora Networks
A comparative study of diasporic epistemic powers — Jewish, Chinese, Indian, Armenian, or Lebanese — would test whether similar patterns of mediation obtain across different historical and cultural contexts.
3) Operationalizing Intelligence Power
Future work should define measurable indicators of epistemic/financial/intelligence power, perhaps including elite network mapping, capital mobility flows, strategic intelligence cooperation agreements, media-knowledge production indices, or institutional placements.
4) Scenario Modelling for Knowledge-based Hegemony
Building on the speculative projection of a knowledge-based hegemon (e.g., U.S.–Israel nexus), scholars could develop formal scenario models exploring what conditions would enable an epistemic hegemon to succeed in the 21st century.
Normative and Ethical Critique
Given the risks of ethnic essentialism, future research must include reflexive methodological sections on how to study diasporic intelligence/knowledge networks without reinforcing conspiracy or group-agency tropes.
Matsumura’s essay makes a potentially valuable theoretical contribution by proposing a non-state, transnationally embedded intervening factor in hegemonic change. Yet, largely due to the space assigned to it, the argument currently suffers from definitional ambiguity, under-developed empirical testing, and significant ethical risks because of the way collective identity is invoked. Careful re-definition, stronger empirical work (including negative cases), explicit engagement with alternative explanations, and an ethical framing will turn a provocative thesis into a robust scholarly contribution without reinforcing harmful stereotypes.
About the author:
Prof. Dr. Masahiro Matsumura is Professor of International Politics and National Security at St. Andrew’s University in Osaka, and currently a 2024 ROC-MOFA Taiwan Fellow-in-Residence at NCCU-IIR Taiwan Centre for Security Studies in Taipei. He is Member of IFIMES Council.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect IFIMES official position.
Ljubljana/Osaka, 3 November 2025
[1] IFIMES – International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has Special Consultative status at ECOSOC/UN since 2018. and it’s publisher of the international scientific journal “European Perspectives”.
[2] Jewish Intelligence Power as a Critical Intervening Factor in Hegemonic Transference, at aviable: https://www.ifimes.org/en/researches/jewish-intelligence-power-as-a-critical-intervening-factor-in-hegemonic-transference/5628?.
[3] Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929-1939, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
[4] Michael Barnett, Legitimacy, and the Use of Force, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010; Peter M. Haas, “Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1, 1992: 1–35.
[5] The essay by Matsumura cites John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
[6] Immanuel Wallersten, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction, Duke University Press, 2004.
[7] John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, W. W. Norton & Co Inc; 2014.
[8] Robert W. Cox with Timothy J. Sinclair, Approaches to World Order, Cambridge University Press , 1996. Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge University Press , 1999.
[9] Another essay by Matsumura covers this empirical question: Masahiro Matsumura, “Isreal-Iran Confrontation: A Calculated Struggle Toward a Cold Peace?” World Geostrategic Insights, June 21, 2025, https://www.wgi.world/the-israel-iran-confrontation-a-calculated-struggle-toward-a-cold-peace/.
