From Decisive Defeat to Restraint

Note

A Hebrew-language version of the op-ed appeared in Haaretz on December 24, 2014. The translation was provided by the author.

Israel's national security strategy has always been based on three strategic pillars — early warning, deterrence and decisive defeat. In recent years, however, the changes that have taken place in Israel's strategic environment, the nature of the military threats it faces, and Israeli society, have made it increasingly difficult to realize the three pillars, and a fourth one, defense, has been added.

In reality, the primary difficulty lies with the third pillar, decisive defeat. The painful truth is that Israel has not achieved a decisive defeat in any of the military operations that it has waged since 1967, certainly not in the various rounds with Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel ends up losing thrice — its international standing is severely damaged by the repeated operations, justified as they may be, it is unable to achieve a long-term change in the situation in any event, and the damage to its deterrence encourages a relatively rapid return to renewed hostilities.

A number of factors explain why Israel has encountered such difficulty in achieving decisive defeat, and they have serious ramifications.

Unlike other conflicts in history, in which the winning side was able to dictate the terms of peace, Israel's enemies simply refuse to admit defeat and to conduct negotiations and even deny its very right to exist. In circumstances such as these, achieving decisive defeat is very difficult.

In asymmetric conflicts it is difficult to define what the term decisive defeat even means. Hezbollah's and Hamas' military capabilities are hard to find and destroy, military defeat does not affect their goals or public stature, and as mass ideological movements, their ideas cannot be destroyed. In wars between conventional armies, conversely, defeat is far more easily defined in terms of the destruction of weapons and military formations.

The threats posed by Hezbollah and Hamas have not been viewed either by the Israeli public, or the national leaders, as being so severe that they justify the heavy price that would be required in order to achieve decisive defeat, whether in casualties, or the cost to the economy and Israel's international standing. The wars of the past, against Arab armies, in contrast, were viewed as "wars of no choice" in which Israel had to achieve victory at all costs.

Ground maneuver to conquer territory, the primary means of achieving decisive defeat in the past, is no longer effective when large and hostile populations, which Israel has no interest in annexing, are located along all of the potential military fronts. Aerial strikes have not yielded decisive defeats against Hezbollah and Hamas either, and limited ground operations are not effective given their long-range rockets.

International norms and laws make it difficult to conduct warfare at all today, certainly the kind needed to achieve decisive defeat. The fundamental expectation, even from a state that has been attacked, is that it exercise restraint and avoid civilian casualties on the other side. As the number of casualties grows, the international distinction between the party that was to blame for the outbreak of hostilities and the defending side blurs, and the latter comes to be viewed as the aggressor to be stopped.

Conflict resolution mechanisms are weaker than they were in the past. The superpowers and Security Council are less able to intervene, and U.S. stature has diminished. Moreover, Hezbollah and Hamas consider their ability to prolong the fighting to be a foremost strategic objective and an important achievement in the battle for public opinion.

For both diplomatic and operational reasons states cannot bring their full power to bear in contemporary asymmetric warfare. In the recent operations in Lebanon and Gaza, for example, only a small part of the IDF's strength was actually deployed.

Israel has a hard time achieving escalation dominance vis-à-vis Hezbollah and Hamas, both of whom insist on firing until the last minute and getting in the last word. In the conflicts with them, in which the home-front was exposed and international pressure was heavy, Israel was the side that had to exercise the restraint necessary to reach a cease-fire, even at a cost to its deterrence.

Hezbollah's, Hamas', and Syria's enormous rocket arsenals have created a balance of terror with Israel and turned the wars into battles over the home-front. Each side has the ability to continue fighting even after absorbing painful strikes and, in the future, the growing number of precise rockets in their arsenals may disrupt Israeli mobilization processes and operations.

Finally, the very concept of decisive defeat is irrelevant in regard to threats such as a nuclear Iran. Israel may be able to attack Iran, but it cannot achieve decisive defeat. In a nuclear conflict, the concept of decisive defeat has no meaning in any event.

In these circumstances, in which Israel's ability to achieve decisive defeats in future conflicts has diminished, it should be more selective in its uses of force and do so primarily when the prospects of achieving decisive defeat are high, not just out of a desire to preserve some vague concept of deterrence. Admittedly, it is difficult to pursue such an approach when the home-front is under attack, the public is clamoring for a rapid restoration of calm, and restraint may undermine Israel's deterrence. Nevertheless, the damage to Israel's deterrence caused by its repeated inability to achieve decisive defeats, is far greater than that which can be expected from a policy of restraint.

Israel should thus place far greater emphasis on the new strategic pillar of defense, in terms of budgets, military doctrine, and decision-making. The IDF has yet to fully internalize the need for change, defense contravenes its fundamental ethos, and it will do so only if given clear instructions by the political echelon. In a way, this is beneficial, because it is true, as critics claim, that wars are only won through offense, and it is important that the IDF remain an initiating and aggressive military in its essence. This, however, is precisely where decision-makers' can make a difference, by recognizing the need to adopt new strategic thinking. Offense will still remain at the forefront, but defense must gain far greater priority.

The author was a deputy national security adviser.

Statements and views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Harvard University, the Harvard Kennedy School, or the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.