A Breakout Political-Security Grand-Strategy For Israel (Dror, 2006)

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A Breakout Political–Security Grand-Strategy for Israel

Yehezkel Dror
Published online: 28 Nov 2006.
To cite this article: Yehezkel Dror (2006) A Breakout Political–Security Grand-Strategy for Israel, Israel Affairs, 12:4, 843-879,
DOI: 10.1080/13537120600947486
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A Breakout Political – Security
Grand-Strategy for Israel
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YEHEZKEL DROR
It will take a long time for the consequences of the 2006 war against
Hezbollah to become clear. But, whatever the results and their
interpretations, this war makes obvious what should have been evident
long ago: Israel urgently needs a radically new political –security grand-
strategy, much more innovative, comprehensive and long-term in nature
than the important but still too limited steps that have been taken over the
years to update and upgrade Israeli political– security doctrines.
The deep reason necessitating the crafting of a radically novel1 breakout
political– security2 grand-strategy for Israel, of which the 2006 war is but a
manifestation, is the new geo-strategic epoch in the making. Major powers
and the global system as a whole fail to comprehend emerging geo-strategic
realities and are sure to pay a high price for their mental blindness.
However, for Israel the price of clinging to obsolete political – security
strategies is unbearable, putting the country’s very existence at stake. To
assure its long-term existence and development, Israel must pioneer a
largely novel grand-strategy anticipating and matching unprecedented
threats and opportunities.
However, many of the features of the required grand-strategy contradict
norms, perceptions, doctrines and behaviour that, however outdated, are
still widely accepted by other countries.3 They will therefore be resisted and
in part condemned, until the main global actors understand what is
happening before their eyes and adjust to the new geo-strategic epoch.4
But Israel cannot wait. It has no choice but to assure its survival, if
necessary at the cost of sacrificing some of its image-based ‘soft power’,5
until the world learns to cope with the new epoch—hopefully, before the
price humanity pays for clinging to obsolete images and action doctrines
becomes too high.
Yehezkel Dror is professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Founding
President of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. Professor Dror is a scholar and
international advisor on statecraft, global issues, security affairs and policy planning. In 2005 he
received the Israel Prize for his work on strategic planning.
Israel Affairs, Vol.12, No.4, October 2006, pp.843– 879

ISSN 1353-7121 print/ISSN 1743-9086 online
DOI: 10.1080/13537120600947486 q 2006 Taylor & Francis
844 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
RADICALLY NEW GLOBAL GEO-STRATEGIC EPOCH WITH

INVARIANCES
To evaluate correctly the radical shift in Israel’s geo-strategic realities it

must be put into the context of the overall epoch-mutation into which
humanity is cascading. At the core of the epoch-mutation are the quantum
leaps in the power of humanity to shape its future by deliberate action and
non-action. However, the ethical and cognitive capacities of humanity are
increasing only incrementally at best, resulting in a rapidly growing abyss
between the degree of impacting on the future and the quality of those
impacts.6
Particularly critical for Israel are ten ‘deep’ features of emerging geo-
strategic realities within the epoch shift as a whole:
1) Most important, and radically new, is the growing ability of fewer and
fewer persons to kill more and more human beings with increasing
ease, thanks to science and technology in combination with
globalization and liberal Western values, including the spectre of
doomsday devices in the hands of suicidal fanatics.
2) Related is the approaching turning point in nuclear proliferation and,
in the foreseeable future, diffusion of other weapons of mass killing
(WMK).7 Either, and this option seems more likely, nuclear
proliferation will take place, led by North Korea and Iran and
followed by countries feeling endangered by them, such as Japan and
Egypt. Or a strict non-proliferation regime will be imposed. Each one
of these alternatives and their various combinations pose critical issues
for Israel, namely confronting enemies with nuclear weapons or
having to give up its stance of ambiguous nuclear capabilities.
3) Value shifts, such as increasing fundamentalism as a reaction to
Western-dominated globalization8 and cultural clashes,9 in part
stimulating insurgence, destabilization of regimes and global terror
networks.10
4) Shifts in global power maps. The United States will continue to be the
most powerful state for at least the first part of the twenty-first century.
But China is becoming a superpower,11 India and the European Union,
despite ups and downs, are developing into main actors, and some
Islamic states are likely to play an increasingly important role, partly
equipped with nuclear weapons and perhaps engaging in their
proliferation.
5) America’s global role is under debate in the country itself12 and may
change radically, with far-reaching repercussions.
6) Growing dependence on Middle Eastern oil by main global powers.
7) Overlapping some of the features mentioned above, but adding up to
much more, transformations in Islam as a religion and value system
A POLITICAL – SECURITY STRATEGY FOR ISRAEL 845
and in Islamic states and non-state actors, as well as in the

demographic distribution of Muslims, making them once more a
major global force13—in part with destabilizing and also aggressive
propensities and capacities.
8) New forms of aggression, such as information attacks, many of them
with potentially paralyzing effects and global reach, including attacks
‘out of the blue’ with low signatures.

9) Growing importance of global governance bodies and collective
action, but in part beyond the United Nations framework,14 including
the possibility of a global power oligopoly of ‘the willing’, combined
with possible leaps in the impacts of new types of ‘public opinions’
based on cyberspace.
10) All these and other shifts will be accompanied by invariance15 in basic
features of individual and collective human security-relevant
behaviour,16 such as radical disagreements, hostility and envy,
widespread readiness to use violence, large disparities in human
development and so on. Contrary expectations that ‘progress’ is sure
to make the world much more peaceful have no basis in all that we
know from history, the social sciences and genetics,17 with increasing
scientific and technological knowledge, longer life expectancy,
improving standards of living and so on being unlikely to bring
about consensual global tranquillity in the foreseeable future.
The partly ambiguous mix between radical and deep change on the one
hand and invariance on the other raises difficult issues of learning and
mislearning from history,18 which undermine many of the knowledge bases
on which grand-strategies can be founded. Thus, in respect of Israel (and
other countries) the history of major land battles is largely irrelevant and
also misleading while the history of fanaticism with significant killing
capacity, dating back to the Anarchists together with the invention of
dynamite, and the resilience of armed forces and populations under
vigorous attack, such as in Stalingrad and London, are very relevant.
Discernment of what can be learned from history and what had better be
unlearned is a must for crafting an innovative grand-strategy, with
unlearning being the harder part.
FUNDAMENTAL POLITICAL – SECURITY CHALLENGES FACING

ISRAEL
The fundamental political –security challenges facing Israel are partly a

product of global trends, partly a result of regional processes and in part
stem from Israeli domestic dynamics.
One basic long-term challenge is dialectic in nature. Israel is culturally,
politically and security-wise a frontier zone. Not only is it located in the
846 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
Arab Middle East while being culturally part of the West, but its security
depends on Western and especially US support. Also, the vast majority of
the Jewish Diaspora communities, for which Israel serves as the core state,
are situated in the West. At the same time, Israel’s ability to thrive in the
long term and perhaps also its very survival, depend on reaching a modus
vivendi with Islam and Islamic actors.
Achieving a viable long-term relationship with Islam and Islamic actors

is a very difficult endeavour, all the more so as the latter will remain divided
and unstable in the foreseeable future. In Islam Jews are traditionally
regarded as inferior, so Israel’s successes are hard to accept. Israel’s
territory as a whole is regarded as part of the ‘Land of Islam’. Israeli control
over holy Muslim sites in Jerusalem is anathema to Islam. And Israel is seen
as being closely associated with the US and the West as a whole, and thus a
target for anti-Western feelings and actions, which are likely to continue
and may well escalate.
A settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians will ease this problem
but not eliminate it, while further ‘Islamization’ of that conflict may have
grave consequences. However, the Israeli confrontation with Islam has
much deeper roots than the Palestinian issue and is quite likely to persist, in
changing forms and intensities, for at least most of the twenty-first century.
Related to this is the inherent instability of Arab and also other Islamic
countries. Various mixtures of Islamic orthodoxy and modernity are to be
expected, accompanied by both deep cleavages in the world of Islam and
waves of intense anti-Western and anti-Israeli feeling and policies.
The implications for Israel are grave. No peace treaty can be taken as an
assurance of a stable peace.19 At the same time, instability may provide
Israel with opportunities to improve its strategic position, such as building
alliances with Arab states that need Israeli support, or helping the West to
maintain access to critical oil resources.
Possible changes in Western policies add to the challenges. Thus, US
involvement in the Middle East and overall support of Israel may diminish,
together with changes in America’s global standing. Despite basically
positive attitudes to the Jewish people, including Israel,20 China and India
may adopt anti-Israeli postures because of dependence on Middle Eastern
oil, and so on.
Such instabilities are all the more critical to Israel because of its
vulnerabilities. However strong militarily, Israel is a small country and
most of its population is concentrated in parts of the coastal area. It has a
large minority that may in part become actively anti-Israeli. And its
economic base, however successful, is limited. Support from the Jewish
people worldwide improves its political– security situation, but if Western
backing should diminish, Arab countries modernize technologically,
weapons of mass killing proliferate and global terror groups upgrade their
capabilities while focusing on Israel, then the very existence of Israel may
well be endangered.
All these, and additional fundamental political – security challenges,
take on a radically novel form because of the multiplication of fanatical
non-state actors combined in various loose global networks, together with
the proliferation of weapons of mass killing, including nuclear and, in the
foreseeable future, biological ones. As a result, Israel is likely to face

fanatical states and non-state actors willing and capable of causing the
country grievous harm and possibly endangering its viability. Even if the
probability of catastrophic attacks is low, the very possibility poses
the single most important existential political – security challenge to Israel.
This threat by itself makes a novel political– security grand-strategy,
which should base itself on the rather dark view of geo-political challenges
presented here, essential. ‘Preparing for the worst’ is logically and
realistically impossible and also futile, but it will be easier to adjust Israeli
grand-policies to more favourable developments than depicted here if the
main working assumptions are relatively pessimistic, while adjusting a
grand-strategy based on optimistic hopes to dismal realities is much more
difficult.
At the same time ‘self-fulfilling’ dark prophesies and policies based only
on dark outlooks are incorrect and must be avoided. As will be
demonstrated throughout this essay, threats should always be considered in
tandem with opportunities and peace-seeking policies should have a high
priority.
Different in nature but very important are basic issues stemming from
Israel’s ideology and perception of itself as part of the Jewish people,
constituting its core state and bearing responsibility, wherever necessary,
for the security of Jews all over the world. The Jewish Diaspora, especially
in the US, is a major strategic asset of Israel. But Jewish communities
abroad also add to the political– security challenges of Israel. Not only may
Israel in some situations have to engage in actively protecting endangered
Jewish communities, but Israel has to take into account possible terrorist
attacks and other forms of aggression against Jewish communities,
especially in weak states, as a result of Israeli actions, as has already
happened in the past. Thus, in some respects dispersed Jewish communities
serve as kinds of ‘hostages’, limiting Israeli freedom of action or increasing
its costs.
A fundamental statecraft dilemma is posed by the need to balance
values and aspirations with realpolitik considerations. This is true for all
countries, as statecraft always involves compromises between values and
goals (often hidden behind the term ‘national interests’) on the one hand
and capacities on the other. However, because of the special nature of Israel
as a Jewish-Zionist ideological country and the widespread myth,
supported by the early history of Zionism, that ‘will’ and ‘commitment’
848 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
can change fundamental features of reality, there is an augmented danger

of ‘motivated irrationality’.21 At the same time, increasing ‘pragmatism’,
while necessary, may endanger values that constitute the very raison d’être
of Israel.
Oscillations between too much ‘ideology’ and too much ‘pragmatism’,
associated with sharp collisions of opinions and domestic political
instability pose all the more serious difficulties to the crafting of a balanced
grand-strategy because deep value dilemmas are crucial in shaping some of
Israel’s most important policies, such as territorial ones. For example, large
numbers of Israeli Jews and Jewish people worldwide regard Jerusalem as
belonging to them. However, this contradicts other values, such as the
rights of Palestinians and of Islam as a whole and the quest for peace. And,
in the view of a majority of Israeli Jews and leaders, realpolitik, including
demographic, considerations make it advisable for Israel to give up
significant parts of the occupied territories. However, this undermines
some of the Jewish values in which Israel is grounded and is regarded as a
‘betrayal’ of the ‘Commandments of the Almighty’ by parts of the Jewish
people in Israel and abroad.
To be added to this is a security contradiction. Giving up more
territories and compromising with Palestine and Syria on other difficult
issues may make peace more likely. But such compromises may also make
possible future conflicts more dangerous for Israel, given that no agreement
can assure stable peace in the foreseeable future because of the unstable
dynamics of the Middle East as a whole, and of Palestine in particular.
Another fundamental dilemma involves the limits and uses of force.
Israel has a clear military superiority over other Middle Eastern countries.
This is an essential though expensive asset, which has assured the existence
of Israel and provided a basis both for some peace agreements and for the
country’s ability to thrive. However, the utility of the Israeli instruments of
force is diminishing, for three main reasons:
1) Israel has always been sensitive to the moral and human costs of using
force. This sensitivity is increasing with the mass media coverage of the
human costs of the use of force; a decrease in public feeling that the
very existence of Israel is at stake; and increasing acceptance of
Western humanitarian values by large segments of the Israeli
population. The Israeli Supreme Court occasionally adds to these
internal constraints by imposing legal restrictions based on
humanitarian values.
2) The external realpolitik costs of the uses of force by Israel are
increasing because of Western legal and humanitarian values, mass
media coverage as mentioned above, and anti-Israeli (as well as anti-
Semitic) agitation, hurting the soft power of Israel and its legitimacy
and influencing the policies of powers important to Israel. Global
governance bodies and international or national courts claiming

global jurisdiction add to the external constraints.
3) Most important of all, the nature of the threats and opportunities
facing Israel make many of Israel’s military capacities irrelevant.
Insurgence and terror, guerrillas, global fanatic networks, low
intensity missile strikes and threats posed by weapons of mass killing
cannot be coped with by many of the Israeli instruments of force

currently available and politically useable. Thus, as demonstrated by
the 2006 war against Hezbollah, high-technology weapon systems
very effective against states and regular forces are of low utility against
determined guerrilla forces and low-technology missile attacks.
All this raises the question of how to make Israeli military superiority
useful again for assuring its security and advancing its political aims, with a
priority on achieving a maximally stable peace without paying too high a
price.
Finally, one should mention the changing domestic scenery of Israel,
including changes in values, images of reality and readiness to kill and be
killed. In part, these changes are radical, such as growing willingness to
give up significant parts of the Promised Land in order to separate from the
Palestinians. In part, changes in values are accompanied by deepening
cleavages with dogmatism among extreme groups. And, all in all, the
volatility of Israeli public opinion, as shaped by internal and external
events, adds to the uncertainties with which an Israeli grand-strategy must
cope. At the same time, in the face of clear security threats, the resilience
and staying power of Israel’s population is very high, as demonstrated once
more in public reactions to intensive Hezbollah missile attacks on
population centres.
THREAT AND OPPORTUNITY SCENARIOS
It is beneficial to clarify more concretely the threats and opportunities

likely to confront Israel in the new security epoch with the help of eighteen
outline scenarios:
1) Israel is hit by a coordinated series of missile attacks with conventional

warheads, from northern Lebanon, from the Palestinian state and with
long-range missiles originating from the border area between Iran and
Iraq.
2) Israel is hit within three days by three mega-terror attacks using
chemical and biological substances. About a thousand persons are
killed and the population is in shock. It seems that these attacks are
perpetuated by European supporters of terror against Israel, aided by
global Islamic terror groups.
850 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
3) In retaliation against renewed attacks by guerrilla forces from

Lebanon and the West Bank, despite agreements and United Nations
‘separation forces’, Israel strikes Palestine and north Lebanon causing
many civilian casualties including a number of European soldiers in
the UN force. Anti-Israeli mass media coverage, impressive Arab
propaganda and global condemnation follow with growing anti-
Israeli feelings in the US as well. Israel is increasingly regarded as a

‘pariah state’.
4) A Palestinian state is established and maintains an uneasy modus
vivendi with Israel, but it becomes destabilized, violence between
leading factions breaks out and a large-scale humanitarian cata-
strophe, with the breakdown of public services and mass starvation,
ensues. Timely humanitarian intervention by international actors is
impossible, Arab countries are unwilling or unable to take effective
action and the moral and realpolitik onus falls on Israel.
5) Israel is subjected to large-scale non-violent aggression, such as ships
carrying refugees approaching its coast, similar in form and image to
Jewish refugees coming illegally to Palestine during the mandatory
period.
6) Following the establishment of a Palestinian state, Jordan is
destabilized by internal insurgence led by Palestinians and supported
by Iran and global Islamic groups.
7) Saudi Arabia is destabilized. This is followed by unrest in the main oil-
producing Gulf states. The price of oil reaches US$220 per barrel and
oil supplies are disrupted. A coalition of the European Union, the US
and China agree to send forces to protect the oil fields and assure
essential supplies. Unwillingly, but compelled by necessity to do so,
this coalition asks for Israeli ‘logistic support’.
8) Hard data becomes available proving that Iran has three nuclear
bombs and a variety of delivery vehicles in its possession. The
president of Iran declares that the bombs are for defensive purposes
only, but tapes of Iranian high-level discussions provided by reliable
intelligence sources discuss the elimination of Israel with a devastating
strike ‘whatever the cost’.
9) Following increasing Western and Asian dependence on Middle Eastern
oil, threats combined with promises by global Islamic terror groups
suspected of having weapons of mass killing, and Iranian declarations
that it is willing to submit all its nuclear facilities to international
control if its demands in respect to Israel are met, the European Union,
China and Russia demand that Israel completely withdraws to the pre-
1968 borders, accepts half a million Palestinian refugees, joins the NPT
and submits its nuclear facilities to supervision. The US, following shifts
in internal politics and public opinion, does not support these demands
but does not reject them and advises Israel ‘not to be stubborn’.
10) The Palestinian state becomes increasingly radical and builds up

military forces despite undertaking not to do so.
11) The Arab minority in Israel becomes partly radicalized, with increasing
participation in terrorist activities and signs of preparing for an uprising
using non-violent, but very effective, tactics.
12) After the US and other foreign troops leave, Iraq becomes radicalized,
builds up its military forces and reaches agreements with Iran and Syria
to form a ‘defensive bloc’. Egypt becomes radicalized with increasing
talk about abrogating the ‘shameful’ peace agreement with Israel.
Israeli intelligence warns of a possible ‘combined surprise attack’
including both invasion by conventional forces, large-scale mega-terror
attacks and a declaration by Iran that its nuclear forces have been put on
high alert.
13) Israel is subjected to a devastating information attack paralyzing its
main network systems. It seems to originate from Muslims residing in
East European and Russian territories as well as extreme anti-Israel
groups of citizens in England and Germany.
14) Aggressive anti-Jewish violence takes place in a number of countries,
including mass terror attacks in Latin American countries and state-
sponsored anti-Jewish action in former Soviet Islamic states.
15) Following a change in government, Syria declares that it wants to
negotiate a peace agreement with Israel ‘without prior conditions’.
Informally, Syria clarifies that it is willing to sign a full peace agreement
and normalize relations, while also appealing to Iran to accept facts and
soften its anti-Israeli stance. In return it demands all of the Golan
Heights but is ready for a ‘shared suzerainty’ compromise on the eastern
shore of the Kinneret.
16) Following serious domestic disturbances, terror attacks and threats
from Iraq and Iran, Jordan wants to sign a mutual defence treaty with
Israel.
17) NATO is willing to extend its security umbrella to cover Israel and move
towards Israeli membership, on condition that Israel undertakes not to
engage in substantive military action without prior consultation with
NATO and to provide NATO with full information on its non-
conventional weapons.
18) The demographic balance in Israel worsens, with the Arab minority
growing to 30 percent because of differences in reproduction rates,
significant Jewish migration from Israel, the inclusion of large numbers
of Arab citizen within the borders of Israel and the infiltration of many
Palestinians.
852 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
GRAND-STRATEGY PRINCIPLES
The political– security dilemmas, threats and opportunities, as illustrated

above, provide the setting and challenges for the required breakout grand-
strategy developed here. First, there will be a discussion of its principles
and then, in the following section, some of its main dimensions will be
analyzed.
The term ‘grand-strategy’ can be defined in many ways, both
historically and prescriptively.22 For our purposes it is enough to
understand grand-strategies as a coherent set of long-term principles that
serve as a main guide and framework for more detailed and specific
strategies, policies and decisions. However, the meaning of ‘breakout’
requires some explanation.
The term ‘breakout’ in this context refers to efforts to escape from
historic situations in which one is in a ‘box’, cul-de-sac or aporia, where
‘more of the same’ and incremental improvements are inadequate for
coping with serious and rapidly changing threats and utilizing significant
but rapidly disappearing opportunities. All major powers are facing some
such situations, such as coping with fanatical global terrorism, nuclear
proliferation, China becoming a superpower and clashes of culture. But
Israel’s situation is more serious because its long-term existence may be at
stake. True, some significant strategy innovations have taken place and the
new breakout grand-strategy will include a number of existing dimensions,
but an overall radically novel configuration with many new principles and
dimensions is required to permit ‘breakout’ into a new and much improved
political– security space.
To take up some of the principles of the proposed grand-strategy, let me
start with the moral imperative of protecting Jewish lives. A people, a third
of which was murdered without the world making any effort to prevent its
slaughter, has a moral right and duty to be very determined in safeguarding
the lives of its members, also at significant costs to atrocious enemies and, if
unavoidable, innocent bystanders. Killing, and being killed, when there is
no other viable alternative, and the imposition and acceptance of other
high costs are morally permissible when essential to the realization of this
moral imperative. The same applies to assuring the security and thriving of
Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and the core state of the Jewish
people, as both a fundamental value and as vital for assuring the future of
the Jewish people.
To be added is self-reliance in assuring realization of fundamental
values. While Israel and the Jewish people need allies and partners, trusting
others to be willing to pay a high price to save Jews and Israel in situations
of existential danger is too risky, taking into account both history and geo-
strategic realities.23
The fundamental values in which the grand-strategy is grounded

include seeking peace and minimizing harm to others if fundamental values
are not put at high risk. But ‘being loved’ is not morally important. And
condemnation for steps that are essential for survival is morally acceptable,
though ethical and realpolitik costs have to be taken into account.
The search for peace and harmony is to be emphasized, not only to
assure that Israel thrives, though Israel can, and should, be able to thrive
also in the absence of peace, but as a fundamental value. This involves a
readiness to sacrifice substantive parts of other values for the sake of peace,
as long as Israel’s existence and success are not imperilled.
The basic value of thriving as a Jewish state is increasingly ‘abnormal’
according to European thinking, and readiness to kill and be killed more
and more contradicts Western modern and post-modern cultures. This
leads to another main principle already hinted at, namely readiness to ‘go
against the current’ and adopt policies and measures essential for the long-
term security of Israel even when they deviate significantly from widely
accepted norms. The reason for this unpleasant and hostility-evoking
principle is the uniqueness of Israel as the only democratic country faced by
security threats, which not only may cause grievous damage but also
endanger its long-term existence. A grand-strategy has to match dangers
and threats (as well as opportunities). These being much more extreme in
the case of Israel than those faced by all other democratic, and the vast
majority of non-democratic, countries, the grand-strategy too must be
‘severe’ and in part ‘exceptional’.
Another principle relates to attitudes to risk (so-called ‘lottery
values’).24 Prudence should be preferred over avoidable risks together
with a readiness to take risks when this is clearly justified in terms of long-
range considerations.
It is very important to avoid the tendency, caused by intensity of values,
some political theologies and the heroic historic successes of Zionism and
Israel, to lose touch with reality.25 Oscillation between ‘gigantism’, that is,
a much exaggerated image of one’s capacities, and ‘dwarfism’, in the sense
of a much too diminutive image of Israeli capacities to influence its future,
did, and does, cause some of the more serious mistakes in Israeli policies, in
association with the discussed oscillation between extreme adherence to
absolute values and excessive pragmatism. Balancing these four and
applying ‘cold thinking’ and ‘clinical concern’ to very emotionally heated
issues is a must in crafting and implementing an appropriate grand-
strategy.
It is not impossible that during the twenty-first century a global tipping
point will be reached, with an eruption of consensus or the establishment
of a kind of ‘Global Leviathan’ putting an end to security threats.26 If, or
when, this happens, Israel, along with other countries, will have to
reconsider its worldview and radically change its policies. However,
854 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
pending this or some other mutation for the better, Israel needs a prudent
grand-strategy based on mixed pessimistic and optimistic assumptions,
seeking robustness, building in learning curves and assuring periodic re-
evaluation and revision.
The two most important principles of the grand-strategy itself are its
integrated political – security nature and its long-range perspective.
Integrated political and security strategy crafting is not part of Israeli

tradition, with the military often having a preponderance of influence,
though fully subordinated to civilian authorities. Recent efforts somewhat
redress what is an increasingly dangerous imbalance, though the problem
remains. Much more of a truly holistic perspective is essential,
encompassing more substantive involvement of well-informed civilian
policy staffs in security planning and decisions, including direction of
military operations in real time. The allocation of resources between
security and political instruments also requires reconsideration.
Related is the need for a much wider interdisciplinary basis for the
grand-strategy, including strong grounding in psychology, cultural studies,
political sociology, history and more. If this requirement had been
adequately met, some major Israeli failures in intelligence and deterrence
as well as in image shaping would have been avoided.
The second principle of long-term perspective contradicts the tendency
of Israeli governmental culture to think ahead one or two steps at the most
(in strange combination with ultimate visions and deep worries about the
future). There are important exceptions, such as in some military R&D
projects. Occupation with an overload of current issues and deep
uncertainty concerning the future partly explain the preponderance of
short time perspectives. Other countries too devote much more attention to
planning the starting phases of conflict than the end-games.27 But Israel
cannot permit itself such foolhardiness, and must instead consider long-
term interaction chains with periodic direction-changing ‘knots’,28 such as
‘Dimona’, the Six Day War, peace with Egypt, the start of disengagement
and the 2006 war against Hezbollah. Thinking in terms of ‘end-game’ is a
delusion, while thinking only in terms of the first one or two steps is a grave
error. Decision-making in ‘middle game’ terms is what is required by the
grand-strategy.
The required multi-step interaction analysis has to be located within a
broad systems perspective with special attention paid to interactions
between political and security aspects29 and careful attention given to
actual institutional, social and human behaviour patterns (instead of
‘rational choice’ models, simplistic ‘economic men’ theories, unitary views
of complex entities such as ‘the Palestinians’, or ‘Western mind set’
assumptions). This is all the more difficult, but all the more crucial, when
interaction involves different cultures, when both stereotypes and ‘what
would I do if I were in his shoes’ speculations have to be strictly avoided.
Political –security policies aim at the behaviour of others, which is in

turn a function of intentions and capacities. However, these must not be
treated separately when longer time spans are under consideration, because
intentions can build up or reduce capacities, as illustrated by arms races. In
addition, images of capacities influence operational intentions. Such
interactions must be understood within dynamic processes. Thus,
deterrence in operation over time may in the longer run stimulate

counter-measures eroding its effectiveness.
The overall time perspective proposed for the grand-policy requires a
compromise between concerns for the long-term future, life cycles of main
processes and foresight possibilities. Taking into account the unstable
dynamics and disruptions characterizing epoch transitions, which reduce
foresight, a concentration on five to ten years and consideration of a
maximum of twenty to thirty years delimit the time horizons of the grand-
strategy, together with some exploration of longer-term outlook on multi-
generational processes such as cultural change and demographic trends.30
Electoral cycles cause politicians to pay much attention to shorter time
spans, but given appropriate institutional structures this should not
interfere with the long-term perspectives of the grand-strategy however
important domestic political considerations may be for decisions on
particular policies and actions.
Given the uncertainties and inconceivabilities of dealing with complex
long-term interactions, sophisticated use of multiple assumptions,
manifold perspectives and advanced uncertainty-coping methods are a
must,31 together with sophisticated planning methods32 and strategy-
crafting approaches.33
In addition to rapid learning and adjustability to changing situations,
the grand-strategy should serve as a cognitive basis for unavoidable
improvisations, including crisis management. Indeed, paradoxically, a
main function of a well-crafted grand-strategy in a period of epoch
transformation is to upgrade improvisations, which unavoidably constitute
a main modality of choice. This is all the more so in the case of Israel, given
its volatile environment.
The close involvement of senior politicians is essential in crafting the
grand-strategy and some involvement of the middle levels in charge of
implementation. Otherwise, the grand-strategy may be a high-quality
intellectual exercise, but will have little impact on actual decisions and
operations. However, all in all, grand-strategy crafting is a top-down
process in which top echelon professionals and select politicians take the
leading role.
In respect to the grand-strategy and all its dimensions, qualitative and,
as far as possible, quantitative costing and cost–benefit thinking, at least
on the level of guesstimates, are a must. Israel is a small country with
limited resources, even when imported ones are taken into account. At the
856 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
same time Israel is nearly unique in being a small country for which most of
the world is the political –security arena. Therefore, a careful allocation of
available resources together with strenuous efforts to increase them is
obligatory.
The avoidance of a priori decisions on increasing or decreasing the
defence budget is crucial. Decisions on what part of the totality of Israeli
resources to allocate to political – security matters require, first and

foremost, development of a grand-strategy based on high quality and
sophisticated long-term assessments of threats and opportunities. Only on
such a basis can responsible decisions be taken regarding allocation of
resources for political –security investments and actions as compared to
other Israeli needs,34 together with adjustment to the grand-strategy and its
implementation according of annual and multi-year budgetary constraints
and overall long-term economic and budgetary forecasts.
Because of US financial assistance and its stipulations, the economics of
defence in Israel is very complicated. Further factors add to the
complexity, such as the interdependence between security R&D
investments and export outlooks as often shaped by political consider-
ations. The economics of defence issues are outside the scope of this
article, but their often critical implications for most of the grand-strategy
dimensions in terms of feasible and cost-effective scales and magnitudes
should be emphasized. This is all the more necessary because the handling
of the economics and budgeting of defence in Israel requires much
improvement.
Pervading uncertainty and inconceivability make every grand-strategy
and its components into ‘fuzzy gambling’, often for high stakes.35
Therefore, multiple assumptions, hedging and elasticity, spare capacity,
back-up options and maximum utilization of uncertainty-coping methods
are, as mentioned, a must. But, whatever is done, in an epoch of radical
transformation some high risks and missed opportunities cannot be
avoided. This has to be accepted and understood by the main political–
security staffs and decision-makers.
High-quality outlook, taking full account of uncertainty and
inconceivability, is a critical basis for crafting and applying the grand-
strategy. As demonstrated by false assessments again and again, current
strategic intelligence does not meet this requirement either among main
global powers or in Israel. Radical revamping of strategic intelligence is
therefore essential for developing the required grand-strategy and applying
it correctly, but this is a separate complex subject, which also must be left
for future treatment in another publication.
In many respects most crucial of all, creativity is vital because
available options are inadequate and coping with radically innovative
dangers and opportunities require radically new ideas. This is all the more
difficult because of the past-based and dogmatic thinking of many
political– security bodies and staffs, requiring their transformation into

‘very creative organizations’.36 This will necessarily involve iconoclastic
changes, for instance in respect to mental attachment to outdated concepts,
such as ‘victory’, and classical images of large-scale land ‘war’, which
unavoidably, and despite explicit declarations to the contrary, rivet
thinking to obsolete cognitive maps, never mind additions of ‘low

intensity’ and ‘high intensity’ adjectives.37
Not less misleading is exaggerated trust in hypothetical images of future
‘high-technology’ conflicts, with air power, stand-off weapons, real-time
intelligence, devastating precision-guided munitions and similar ‘military
revolutions’ expected to assure overwhelming, rapid and relatively easy
victory. Never mind how impressive in staff exercises and simulations,
when facing ‘asymmetric conflict’, fanatic enemies with other value
systems and complex combinations of military, cultural, religious,
psychological and political factors, reliance on high-technology must be
tempered by a good understanding of reality. Lack of such understanding
explains Western failures in Afghanistan and Iraq and partly disappointed
Israeli expectations in the 2006 war against Hezbollah.
An interesting question is whether, and how, to formalize the grand-
strategy. It may be a good idea for Israel to prepare some public document,
along the lines of Defence White Papers published in a number of
countries, or the US Quadrennial Defence Review and National Security
Strategy Report,38 but combining political with security dimensions,
however sensitive because of disagreements on trend assessments and value
priorities. However, in Israel, much more so than in other countries, a
public document cannot deal with many of the critical issues. Therefore, a
highly classified and partly compartmentalized Political– Security Grand-
Strategy Directive should be prepared and approved by a small group of
senior ministers, with distribution limited to a group of select officials and
with parts passed on to additional staffs on a need-to-know basis and
diluted versions widely distributed so as to be translated into action. This
document should be revised periodically every four to five years, or when
unexpected developments require changing significant parts of the
Directive, or when domestic political changes necessitate adjusting the
grand-strategy to changing reality interpretations and value priorities.
To the best of my knowledge, no such integrative political – security
grand-strategy directive has ever been prepared in Israel, though there are a
number of important documents on some issues. This is a serious omission.
While the process of preparing the grand-strategy is in some respects more
important than the document itself, having such a document is essential.
858 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
GRAND-STRATEGY DIMENSIONS
Moving on to some substantive dimensions let me start with three caveats.

Firstly, crafting a grand-strategy for a country with such complex and
dynamic external and internal environments as those of Israel requires
teams of highly experienced practitioners, multi-disciplinary thinkers and
top-quality planners. Therefore, the proposed dimensions do not claim to

be more than prescriptive conjectures in need of ‘think-tank’-type in-depth
consideration and development.
Secondly, it is misleading to regard relative and in part fuzzy concepts
constituting points on a continuum as if they represent disparate ideas.
Thus, coercion, persuasion, payments and compromises on one extreme
merge with dissuasion, threats and deterrence on the other, to be used in
combinations—in contrast to simplistic ‘stick-and-carrot’-type thinking.
Thirdly, the various dimensions are but different aspects of the grand-
strategy as a whole, overlapping and interacting in ways producing, if
correctly applied, systems effects above a simple arithmetic sum of the
separate outputs of the different dimensions. This raises crucial issues of
packaging different dimensions into combinations fitting changing
situations, which cannot be programmed in advance. Therefore, no
grand-strategy can serve as a substitute for statecraft as an ‘art’. But, in the
absence of a carefully crafted and explicated open-ended grand-strategy,
high-quality decision-makers unavoidably lose perspective and are often
doomed to failure, as illustrated throughout history, including Israeli
policies following the Six Day War.
Subject to these reservations and further to the principles presented
above, let me present thirteen proposed dimensions of such a grand-strategy.
1. Seeking Peace with Readiness to Pay a Proportional Price

Despite the potential instability of peace agreements in the volatile Middle
East, peace is both a central Jewish and humanitarian value and a crucial,
though not fully reliable, basis for long-term security and prosperity.
Strengthening societal robustness and democratic consensus in Israel, as
well as the country’s global standing also require serious efforts to bring
about peace.
Therefore, strenuous efforts to achieve peace are a main dimension of
the proposed grand-strategy. This involves both offering payment for peace
and making non-peace costly to adversaries who refuse serious peace
offers. The payments that Israel should offer include giving up significant
assets and compromising important values, as long as security and what
the majority of Israelis regard as absolute values are not significantly
impaired. The costs imposed on those unwilling to make peace may include
threats, the use of force and the undermining of hostile regimes, as well as
clarification that the longer peace is delayed the less prepared Israel will be
to pay high prices.
This leaves open the question of whether peace should be achieved in
phases of different degrees of ‘non-war’ and ‘peace’ and modularly with
different countries, or whether a ‘comprehensive full peace’ with all
countries adjacent to Israel should be advanced simultaneously.
The answer depends largely on external events, such as leadership and

regimes in Arab countries, and also on domestic politics in Israel. Still, the
following recommendations illustrate lines of thinking proposed for the
grand-strategy:
1) Comprehensive stable peace combined with normal relations with all

Arab and Islamic countries is a major ultimate aim of Israel. But Israel
must realize that achieving this aim will involve painful sacrifices,
likely to include withdrawal from the Golan or recognition of Syrian
sovereignty with some lease arrangement, some division of Jerusalem
and putting places in Jerusalem which are holy to Islam under partly
Islamic suzerainty. Accordingly, Israel should minimize steps that will
make such compromises domestically impossible, never mind how
long achieving comprehensive peace may take.
2) Linkages should be made between various modules of peace. Thus,
when a peace agreement with Palestine is achieved, efforts on their
part to aid in the establishment of normal relations between Israel and
other Arab and Islamic countries should be one of the conditions.
3) Fixation on any a priori order of priority of peace modules should be
avoided. Thus, the question of whether to proceed first towards peace
with Palestine and then Syria or first with Syria and later with Palestine
should be left open and decided ad hoc, depending on opportunities.
4) The Israeli view that moving in tandem towards peace with more than
one country overloads our capacities, in terms of governmental action
and domestic politics alike, may be correct given governmental and
political weaknesses. But it is a limitation that should be overcome by
building up governmental and political capacities, instead of being
accepted as a rigid and permanent ‘fact’.
5) The idea of advancing towards peace in phases so as to permit trust
building, as attempted in the first Oslo accord, is often a chimera,
especially when fanatic elements are active which are sure to make a
supreme effort to undermine any agreement.
6) Basing hope for peace on democratization of Arab countries is a
serious mistake, as educated and realpolitik leaders with authority are
more likely to make peace than multitudes imbued with deep hostility
towards Israel. True, in the long run Western-type democracy in Arab
countries can fortify peace, but this is a doubtful prospect probably
unachievable in the twenty-first century, if at all.
860 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
7) To move towards peace and stabilize it, Israel and the Jewish people as
a whole must keep out of any ‘conflict of cultures’, demonstrate
respect towards Islam and minimize hate-perpetuating action unless
absolutely necessary.
8) With time, peace can be strengthened by economic cooperation, civic
society interaction and so on. But, first and foremost, peace-making is
a matter for the governing elites and rulers, sometimes aided by

informal diplomacy and non-governmental channels.
9) The importance of the overall image of Israel for achieving and
maintaining peace should be recognized, including the demonstrated
capacity to thrive also under conditions of non-peace.
Rewards for making peace with Israel and penalties for refusing to do so
under reasonable conditions should be proportional to the degrees of non-
war and peace under consideration, their probable stability and their
significance for Israel. Springing surprises on history, in the form of
generous peace offers and the imposition of heavy costs for refusing to
make peace in opportune situations is part of this cluster of options.
However, peace agreements are of limited utility and sometimes
dangerous unless compliance can be relied upon with high probability.
Therefore, insistence on strict adherence to agreements is essential.
Agreements can be amended by mutual consent, but any act contradicting
an agreement, however ‘minor’, should lead to strict sanctions by Israel,
including unilateral enforcement. At the same time, as long as the other
parties keep peace agreements, Israel too should do so strictly.
Whatever progress towards peace is achieved, the fragility of
agreements, given the unstable dynamics in the Middle East, requires
strengthening peace by way of positive incentives and negative penalties in
addition to a demonstrated Israeli capacity to withstand any breakdowns
of peace and to maintain security in its absence.
Therefore, peace arrangements possible within optimistic – realistic
scenarios during the twenty-first century in no way abrogate the other
dimensions of the proposed grand-strategy, including the following very
tough ones, though adjustments to the degrees and extent of peace, no-war,
threats and active hostilities are required.
2. Readiness to Kill and be Killed
Societal, political and military readiness to kill and be killed, as already
mentioned, is of crucial importance to the security of Israel. And a
demonstrated readiness to kill and be killed if necessary is paradoxically a
main requirement of avoiding the need to do so by deterring and
demotivating attacks and reinforcing peace. However, not only is this
dimension troubled by high-voltage tensions with the search for peace, but
it also deviates from current Western values and lifestyles. Thus, this
dimension well illustrates the grand-strategic principle of uniqueness and

moving against the current, as required by the special situation of Israel as
the only democratic country whose very existence may be at stake in the
foreseeable future.
3. Strategic Initiative
The difficulties of balancing reactive with proactive measures on the
strategic (in contrast to the tactical) levels are brought out by the following
paradigmatic thought experiment: assuming Israel has the choice of
initiating a relatively easy war in military terms or waiting for a much more
difficult war very likely to be forced on it in a number of years—what
should it do? The answer depends on complex moral reasoning, domestic
and external political considerations, long-term impacts on the image of
Israel, implications for the chances of peace, and more—all of which are
shrouded in deep uncertainty. However, an a priori rule never to consider
initiating a war is certainly wrong, both morally and in terms of realpolitik.
On strategic initiatives in general, five interrelated guidelines can be
offered:
1) Taking into account that no stable status quo exists in an epoch of

transformations and that the progress of time does not necessarily
operate in favour of Israel, taking more of an initiative and engaging
more in proactive action than has been the case is a must.
2) As Israel is caught in quite a number of historic catches, cul-de-sacs
and aporia, initiatives taking the extreme form of ‘throwing surprises
at history’ are necessary. Indeed, this constitutes an essential feature of
the breakout nature of the proposed grand-strategy.
3) In particular, taking initiatives, including surprise moves, to advance
peace should be a main political –security principle.
4) Windows of opportunity to improve Israel’s political and security
situation should be sought and fully utilized.
5) To reiterate an important principle, war initiation should not be
excluded a priori from Israel’s strategic repertoire if advisable in terms
of long-range considerations, if positive end results are very likely, and
if maximum damage is limited. Still, initiating a war is a serious
decision in terms of morality and realpolitik, to be decided upon only
with much prudence, for compelling reasons and after much soul-
searching.
To illustrate neglect of this principle and its high costs, the build-up of
Hezbollah’s missile systems should have produced Israeli counter-action
years ago. In contrast, ‘Dimona’ illustrates a successful case of throwing
surprises at history.
862 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
4. Harsh Deterrence
In the absence of stable peace, successful deterrence is optimal for
facilitating and maintaining peace and preserving security without
bloodshed. But, effective deterrence requires understanding adversaries’
psychological, cultural and social bases rather than seeing them with
‘military’ eyes.
Given such understanding and a credible image of dire punishment to
follow aggression, deterrence against states within the reach of Israel has a
very good chance of working. The situation is different with respect to
fanatic non-state actors, where deterrence is of limited effect at best.
Against such adversaries, deterrence has to be directed against supporters
of the fanatic actor, together with persuasion and coercion of those who
can act against them but do not do so, in addition to threats to what may be
valuable to the fanatics and proactive and reactive seek-and-destroy action
against the fanatics, all in co-operation with other countries.
‘Playing by the rules’ with so-called ‘proportional counter-action’,
which does not deter an adversary ready to pay a price that is unacceptable
by Israeli and Western standards, is ineffective. Another serious limitation
is counter-deterrence exercised against Israel, as put into effect by
Hezbollah with a large arsenal of low-technology missiles. Prevention or at
least reduction of such counter-deterrence is an important principle if
feasible.
The situation is different and immeasurably more dangerous when
facing an adversary who may have weapons of mass killing, such as nuclear
ones. This is all the more the case because delivery capacities in one way or
another should be taken for granted and anti-delivery measures, however
helpful, cannot be fully relied upon. This raises question marks with regard
to large Israeli investments in anti-missile systems designed to protect the
population (as distinct from limited use to protect critical facilities), when
those resources might provide more security if used differently.
Preventing fanatic or potentially fanatic enemies from acquiring
weapons of mass killing that might be used against Israel is imperative,
both for Israel and the world as a whole. This requires, first and foremost,
intelligence gathering and diplomatic action; secondly, convincing others
able to do so to take preventive action, including selective military strikes;
and, thirdly and lastly, pre-emptive strikes by Israel if feasible and likely to
achieve long-term success.
However, prudence is required, the danger being that pre-emptive
strikes may fail, may provoke a strike against Israel which would otherwise
be unlikely, or may lead to increased efforts to acquire and produce mass
killing weapons in ways invulnerable to counter-action.
If efforts to prevent fanatic enemies from acquiring weapons of mass
killing fail, total (not ‘proportional’) deterrence may often be the only
effective counter-stance. Against non-suicidal enemies a posture of

rationality of irrationality39 based on a credible image of a devastating
second-strike capacity is the answer. This requires an image of unshakeable
will and assured capacity to annihilate any country that causes grievous
harm to Israel, even after Israel is devastated.
To further strengthen efforts to prevent fanatical countries from
acquiring weapons of mass killing, a credible but non-provocative image of

determination to cause serious damage to countries that directly or
indirectly aided a nuclear attack on Israel and countries that could have
prevented the attack but did not do so, may also be necessary.
If a fanatical leadership determined to destroy Israel even at the cost of
its own existence and that of all that is dear to it does acquire weapons of
mass killing,40 the only remaining options are either the sudden elimination
of that leadership or a total pre-emptive strike against all nuclear facilities.
However this is a very extreme case, prevention of which is in the interest
of all, including countries hostile to Israel.
For all types of deterrence, periodic demonstrations of Israeli
determination and capacities may be essential, in ways tailored to fit the
psychological and cultural features of the adversaries at which it is
directed.
While some ‘red lines’ clarifying hostile acts which are sure to result in
heavy Israeli counter-action are needed to strengthen deterrence by
reducing misreading of Israeli determination, some ambiguity is often
preferable so as to create apprehension about possible Israeli counter-
action while preserving Israeli freedom of action without undermining
future deterrence. Still, deterrence as a whole should be strengthened by
clarifying that no act of direct or indirect aggression, including for instance
failure to abide by a peace agreement, will go without a painful reaction at
a time and in a form chosen by Israel.
It is also essential to avoid discrediting deterrence and ‘inviting’ hostile
actions by giving in to threats and violence. Thus, when it is in Israel’s
interest to make withdrawals and offer concessions, care has to be taken to
accompany them with steps clarifying that they are not the result of
violence against Israel. On a smaller but still very significant scale,
rewarding hostage takers with high payments in exchange for the release of
the hostages, however honourable in terms of human values and social
solidarity, is an incentive for escalating hostage taking in the future.
The proposed harsh deterrence dimension has costs and carries some
significant risks. Still, it is a mainstay of the proposed grand-strategy which
in the longer run is sure to save lives and reduce dangers and also to help in
bringing about peace and maintaining it.
To once again use the 2006 war against Hezbollah as an illustration, it
constitutes an overdue step necessary to re-establish deterrence, as opposed
to encouraging further guerrilla attacks through limited counter-action and
864 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
an exchange of prisoners. While the results of the war will be presented and
understood differently by various actors, the very ferocity of Israeli action
demonstrates willingness to kill and be killed beyond any ‘proportionality’
and thus strengthens deterrence as essential for reducing large-scale loss of
lives on both sides in the longer run.
5. Coercion
Coercion too is directed at behaviour and operates by influencing will and
intentions. As mentioned, it is part of a continuum starting with motivation
and persuasion. It uses the threat of force, actual force, and other
instruments such as economic ones, to compel an adversary, or its
supporters, to act in ways conducive to Israeli security and political
standing (in contrast to deterrence, which aims at preventing acts, but the
two often overlap logically and behaviourally and should often be used in
combination). An example is pressure on a country to take active measures
against terrorist or other hostile activities originating from its territory.
A more complex example is the threat of coercive measures, including
political and economic ones, combined with positive incentives, to
motivate an adversary to tone down anti-Israeli mass media in non-
democratic countries.
A main challenge to Israel is how to use its military superiority as a
means of coercion. Here one rapidly runs into the limits of force, Israel
being unable to force Arab states to make peace, though measured pressure
may help. However, Israeli military superiority prevents enemies from
coercing Israel into doing what it is determined not to do, this being a case
of ‘counter-coercion’ in the sense of coercing others not to coerce Israel.
Indirect coercion by using force to acquire bargaining assets, which the
other side can only get by reaching an agreement with Israel, has also been,
and will continue to be, an important factor leading to peace.
Thus, coercion is a critical dimension of the grand-strategy, requiring
Israel to strengthen appropriate instruments while using them with much
care.
6. Destruction
Destruction can be directed at human beings and materials. It aims at
changing the behaviour of an adversary by influencing his will and
intensions, as discussed, or at reducing his capacity for action by destroying
instruments of force. It is also a main instrument of coercion and its threat
is central to deterrence.
All that has been said on the limits and uses of force applies here, but
five points should be added:
1) Israel needs a range of destructive capacities, ranging from pinpointed

hits to annihilation of states.
2) Destruction capacities should be as finely tuned as possible, to reduce

collateral damage with all of its moral and realpolitik costs, though the
maximum that can be achieved is limited given dispersed or fortified
targets.
3) Israel needs long-reach destruction capacities.
4) Israeli instruments of destruction need a high degree of survivability as
well as invulnerability, including especially high levels of protection of

soldiers, of main means of strategic deterrence and of command, and
of control centres and channels.
5) Surprises in the nature and use of instruments of destruction are
essential in order to maintain and strengthen Israel’s qualitative
advantage on multiple levels of conflict.
Clearly, given its limited means, it is impossible for Israel to possess

instruments that fully meet all these requirements. However, as the main
potential targets of destruction can be known given the limits of the arena
and assuming good intelligence (which is not always available), and as
suitable force and doctrine mixes, as will soon be discussed, provide much
elasticity, more than adequate destruction capacities against hostile Middle
Eastern states are within Israel’s reach. However, achievement of adequate
destructive capacities against distant enemies, such as Iran, is problematic;
and it is largely impossible against dispersed networks of enemies, such as
global terrorist groups. In facing such enemies, Israel needs cooperation
with other, much more powerful actors, as will be discussed later.
7. Occupation of Territories
In the past, a main strategy was to move wars into enemy territories and to
occupy them, for incorporation into Israel or use as bargaining assets. The
time of incorporation of territories is over, with disengagement and the
returning of territory in order to achieve separation and advance peace
taking its place. Occupation of territory as a bargaining card, or as a
penalty for breaking peace agreements, may be necessary but is a
temporary act of much less importance than in the past. And carrying wars
into enemy territory, in line with classical large-scale conflicts between
armies, is of low probability, with temporary occupation of territory in
order to destroy enemies and enforce disarmament.
This sharply reduced and changing significance of occupation of
territories is one of the major shifts in foreseeable conflicts, serving as one
of the main drivers that make a novel grand-strategy necessary.
8. Defending the Homeland
Another major shift relates to defending the home land, after a long period
of full Israeli control over the sky. The first phase, which was accomplished
quite successfully, was protection against terrorist attacks, though
866 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
instances of successful terrorism perhaps including mega-terror cannot be

fully prevented. The second and more radical shift, which started with
some missile attacks during the first Iraq war but assumed dramatic form
during the 2006 war against Hezbollah, is from a sense of full security of
the homeland with a sharp differentiation from the front, to large parts of
Israel being targeted by massive though low-technology missile attacks.
The next phase may include high-technology missile attacks with the
spectre of mass killing warheads as well as various forms of clandestine
delivery and other types of attacks on the homeland, such as large-scale
information attacks.
Without going into technical details, despite their importance, this new
type of threat raises a number of strategic issues to which I propose the
following responses within the grand-strategy:
1) Well-equipped shelters covering all of the population against various

attack scenarios are not cost-effective in comparison with other home
defence modalities. Safe locations supplying medium protection
against low intensity attacks and equipped to permit people to stay in
them with a minimum level of comfort for long periods should be
provided, but this can be done on the basis of existing facilities without
very large investments.
2) Building and maintaining a large-scale anti-missile system covering
most of Israel, while very expensive, is of doubtful feasibility and
limited effectiveness. Anti-missile defence should therefore be limited
to cover highly critical facilities.
3) Overall management of the homeland in the case of emergencies
should be perfected, including unified command, maintenance of
essential services and a maximum of economic activities, large-scale
evacuation procedures, damage limitations, rapid recuperation, post-
trauma treatment and so on.
4) Selective hardening and redundancy of critical facilities is a must.
5) However, the main recommended strategy for protecting the home-
land is a mix of harsh deterrence and pre-emptive destruction of attack
capacities. Build-ups of attack capacities of the type possessed by the
Hezbollah in 2006 should never be permitted, the initiation of war
constituting a preferable alternative. Similarly, no Palestinian group
should be allowed to build up substantive attack capacities and to
engage in sporadic missile strikes, such a situation justifying much
harsher countermeasures than those employed by Israel after the
separation from Gaza.
6) Extensive preparations against information attacks are a must, but this
subject requires a separate and more technical discussion.
9. Novel Superior Force and Conflict Doctrine Mix

Whatever the situation may be, in the foreseeable future Israel must
maintain a force and conflict doctrine superiority against all possible
combinations of hostile or hostility-supporting actors. But, to be able to
implement the various dimensions of the proposed grand-strategy, new
force structures and conflict doctrines are necessary. These can be based in
part on the working assumption that a multi-front ‘classical’ land war with
massive forces is very improbable within the next ten years, thus freeing
resources for new force mixes with emphasis on absolute deterrence of
hostile states acquiring mass killing weapons on the one hand and effective
capabilities against guerrillas, terrorist organizations and insurgency on the
other, together with various instruments of destruction and coercion.
Multi-use forces should receive priority; large-scale highly qualified
forces for land operations in cities and other hostile environments should
be prepared; non-killing weapons should become more advanced; both
fine-tuned and massive long-range capacities need augmentation; abilities
for sustained operations in distant areas have to be significantly upgraded;
and preparations must be made for cooperation with forces from other
countries. All this must be accomplished in ways permitting significant and
very visible achievements within limited time frames as may be dictated by
political circumstances. Minimizing civilian casualties is also an important
desideratum, but hesitation to inflict them should be put aside if this is the
only way to ‘win’.
One should emphasize the need for significant remote action capacities.
Israel has demonstrated such capacities, but the global spread of hostile
actors and the possibilities to cooperate with others in de-capacitating
groups dangerous to many countries require significant expansion of such
capacities, their demonstration and their selective preventive and punitive
use. No person, leadership, group or country planning or supporting
serious aggression against Israeli and Jewish targets should feel safe.
Expanding on the term ‘force mixture’, new types of forces directed at
novel forms of threats have to be developed, such as against hi-tech
information attacks. Other examples illustrating the need for novel forces
and doctrines include various types of ‘civilian attacks’ like those
illustrated in the above scenarios. All these require radically novel force
components, mixes and doctrines; fully integrated operational capacities
involving diverse types of forces together with political and image
influencing instruments; and integrated command and control modes
capable of considering long-term political and security goals and
repercussions even in the heat of action.
868 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
10. Image Shaping and Attitude Influencing

Deterrence and coercion involve image shaping. But image shaping is much
broader in scope and closely related to attitude influencing. Both have been
neglected and mishandled in Israeli political – security policies, despite their
growing importance because of mass media, the internet and the growing
influence of civil society bodies. Therefore, much improved and largely

new forms of image shaping and attitude influencing constitute a crucial
dimension in the proposed grand-strategy. Reality images and orientations
of actors significant to Israel have to be influenced to be more
understanding of Israeli values and political– security needs and measures.
At the same time, as indicated, to strengthen deterrence while trying to
move towards peace, Israel has to build up a two-sided image of seeking
peace and cooperation with all who wish to live with it in harmony on the
one hand, and being prone to react strongly and erupt in violent action
against all who act or prepare to harm Israel, on the other.
Image shaping and attitude influencing require intervention with
psychological, social and cultural processes and have to be fitted to
differences in audiences. They overlap, including various means impacting
on attitudes, mindsets, perceptions, feelings and intentions, and, as such,
they critically shape behaviour towards Israel. Both involve influencing
minds, made all the more important but also more complex and difficult
because of the importance of the opinions of diverse publics as shaped by
mass media and the internet within relatively rigid but not immutable
mental sets and cultural worldviews.
The importance of influencing minds requires all the more emphasis as
Israel is very ineffective at doing so, as evidenced by the neglect of
psychological warfare, an over-reliance on so-called ‘explanation’ after
action, adoption of inappropriate methods from commercial marketing,
and other grievous errors, including stereotypical views of adversaries,
such as the dogmatic belief that they can only be influenced by ‘force’.
Thus, appealing directly to populations in hostile countries and public
notes to gatherings of heads of states of Islamic and Arab countries seem
never to have been seriously considered. In addition, relevant profession-
alism is very scarce in Israeli political– security organizations, though
application of available knowledge41 could do a great deal to make Israeli
mind influencing more effective with much potential for long-term
beneficial results.
11. Bounded Cooperation with Others

Israel needs to cooperate with other powers. It largely depends on the US
and must give much weight to US interests and wishes, as well as
intensifying joint cooperation. However, a formal security treaty and
similar commitments should be avoided as they will dangerously limit
Israel’s freedom of action, all the more so as the future policies of the US
are, in part, unpredictable.
Beyond the ‘special relationship’ with the US, which should be deepened
short of a formal treaty, cooperation in confronting global terror, strategic
alliances on security research and development projects, strengthened
relations with NATO and other forms of cooperation with multiple
partners are essential to the security and external relations of Israel, as well
as for economic reasons, while also strengthening Israel’s global standing
as a whole. Improved relations with global institutions are also a must,
with much more to be done.
A difficult dilemma is posed by the increasing pressure and need to rely
on international forces for maintaining peace and supervising agreements.
Historically, the performance of such forces and their relations with Israel
have been problematic. But changing situations may make reliance on such
forces essential. Three principles should be followed as far as possible to
increase the utility of such forces and reduce their dangers for Israel:
1) The composition of such forces should not include countries that do

not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.
2) The forces must be able to fulfil their declared missions, in terms of size
and equipment.
3) Israeli reliance on such forces should be bounded by the principle of
self-reliance, with Israel maintaining legal rights and actual capacities
not to allow such forces to prevent it from taking measures essential
for its security.
In the international arena, Israel should adopt a more active stance on

global issues, such as climate policies, United Nations reforms and in
building up a global civil society. Active participation in humanitarian
activities, including select humanitarian enforcement operations, is also
included in this dimension, being justified both in cost-effective realpolitik
terms, and in terms of meeting fundamental Jewish values.
12. Focused Strategies on Main Geo-political Actors with Appropriate
Priorities
The grand-strategy, in its emphasis on a comprehensive political– security
frame, also encompasses strategies focusing on main geo-political actors,
with priority to the US and a high priority to Islam, Asia and the European
Union. For instance, a strategy towards Islam and Islamic actors should
include readiness to give them some say in controlling the places holy to
Islam in Jerusalem; support for Islamic demands to respect their beliefs,
such as the wearing of distinctive clothing in schools and the prohibition of
offensive cartoons; strict protection of Islamic religious facilities in Israel;
lack of participation in attempts to impose Western values on Islamic
870 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
countries; the quest for closer contact with Islamic states; cooperation with
moderate Islamic movements and so on. At the same time, Israel must
make it clear that Israel as a Jewish state is a fact that will be defended with
whatever means necessary. Another strategy should be applied to the
European Union.42 And much more priority should be given to
strengthening relations with China and India, while taking care not to
ruin critical relations with the US

These strategies should be worked out within the crafting of the grand-
strategy, but this is a task beyond the scope of this paper.
13. Vigorous Minority Policy

The large and slowly increasing Arab minority in Israel poses significant
challenges to Israel as a democratic country, but, concomitantly, also has
security aspects that may escalate and assume very serious proportions.
Despite sporadic efforts, Israel has not faced up to this challenge. This is a
serious lacuna which a high-quality political– security grand-policy must
fill, finding ways that lead rapidly to much better accommodation and
more integration of the minority into Israel, which is simultaneously a
Jewish state and the core state of the Jewish people, and the democratic
state of all its citizens and legal residents. The potential role of the Arab
minority as a bridge to the Arab world and to Islamic actors makes a
vigorous minority policy all the more important.
Eight principles present the proposed contour of this dimension of the
grand-strategy:
1) Rapid progress towards fully equal economic opportunities, land

allocation and social services.
2) Increasing the proportion of minority members in Israeli govern-
mental and public institutions.
3) Measured movement towards recognition as a Palestinian national
minority and cultural and educational autonomy, in correlation with a
deepening of the self-image of the minority as an integral part of a
predominantly Jewish Israel.
4) Harsh measures against illegal activities directed against the state.
5) Intensive action to preserve a demographic balance with a Jewish
population of at least 80 percent.
6) Options for minority members who wish to become citizens of Palestine
and participate in national elections there to do so, while preserving all
social and personal rights in Israel, including participation in local
elections, but without the right to an active or passive vote for the Knesset.
7) Reservation of Jewish people’s properties and activities for facilitating the
Jewish nature of the state with protection against court interventions, in
tandem with full equality in state allocations and activities, as mentioned
above.
8) Strict enforcement of laws against discrimination, encouragement of

social voluntary interaction, prohibition of hate activities against the
minority, support of Jewish-Arab schools and an attitude of under-
standing and sympathy towards the problems of being an Arab in Israel.
STRATEGIES TOWARDS PALESTINE
The test of a grand-strategy is in the guidance it provides for dealing with

specific political– security spaces and in its translation into principles for
peace initiatives, intelligence gathering, force structure, security R&D
projects, war plans and so on. Working out such and additional
operationalizations of the proposed grand-strategy requires a hefty book,
at the least.43 Still, to somewhat illustrate the proposed grand-strategy
dimensions in action within the limited scope of this paper, I will do so in
respect of the Palestinians.44
Achieving a relatively stable peace with a Palestinian state should be a
main goal of Israel, with intermediate unilateral steps and partial de facto
agreements if necessary. However, the grand-strategy requires satisfaction
of eleven conditions in all forms of relations with the Palestinians:
1) Agreements or realistic roadmaps holding forth the hope of leading,

through temporary arrangements, towards agreements satisfying a
critical mass of Palestinian demands that may with time be acceptable
to most of their population, while assuring Israeli security and
satisfaction of basic Israeli values.
2) Pending agreements, partial disengagement including significant civil
withdrawals from the West Bank, but maintenance of security controls
as long as necessary to prevent hostile actions.
3) A ‘strong’ and relatively stable Palestinian state or quasi-state having a
monopoly on armed force, which can prevent terrorist acts against
Israel and can be subjected to effective deterrence and, if necessary,
coercion by Israel.
4) Facilitation of social and economic development making Palestine into
a viable state and reducing irredentist motivations.
5) Total prevention of possession of weapon systems and armed forces
that can endanger Israeli security and prevention of Palestinian
cooperation with hostile states that may result in it becoming a basis
for anti-Israeli action.
6) Absence of ‘hate education’ against Israel and strict control of groups
refusing to accept peace with Israel.
7) Israeli political, economic and military capacities to take whatever
actions may be necessary to enforce the stipulations above and deter
and prevent Palestinian actions which may endanger the security of
Israel, such as the destabilization of Jordan.
872 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
8) Prevention of an international presence that may inhibit necessary

Israeli action, unless such a presence clearly and adequately serves the
needs of Israel’s long-term security.
9) Protection of Israel against illegal migration from and via Palestine.
10) Declared credible readiness to re-occupy Palestine if it should develop
into a fanatic anti-Israeli state and its re-occupation is necessary.
11) However, all of the above should be accompanied by a good neighbour

policy and sincere efforts to help the Palestinian state to thrive on the
condition of it being peaceful towards Israel.
INSTITUTIONAL AND STAFF REQUIREMENTS

Israel lacks the institutional structures essential for crafting and
implementing an innovative political –security long-range and compre-
hensive grand-strategy as proposed. While some elements of the necessary
machinery are nominally in place, especially the National Security Council,
these lack essential resources and authority, while other critical
institutional components are missing.
Minimal institutional innovations essential for developing and
implementing a suitable grand-strategy include the following:
1) Only the prime minister, in cooperation with the ministers of defence

and foreign affairs, can serve as the focal point for developing a long-
term comprehensive political –security grand-strategy and assuring its
implementation. This requires building up the Prime Minister’s Office
as a kind of ‘central brain’ of governance, with staff units as suggested
below, as well as a crisis management authority and facilities and other
integrative units such as a unit responsible for handling the Palestinian
issue. The required personal qualities of top decision-makers are
beyond the scope of this essay,45 but augmented democratic decision
power at the centre of government is clearly necessary. Given the
Israeli political system and culture, this requires changing the regime in
the direction of a strong prime ministerial governance regime, as is
already happening to some degree, and may require movement
towards some type of presidential regime.46
2) Revamping the National Security Council,47 providing it with a critical
mass of high-quality multi-disciplinary and diverse background
professionals and assuring that it focuses on long-range political–
security strategy crafting, in addition to helping with current
decisions. Needless to say, the council must be assured access to
all information and the main decision-making forums. At the same
time, it should stop dealing with issues unrelated to the main
political– security matters once the domestic policy staff proposed
below is established. Thus revamped, the National Security Council
will serve as the central agency for crafting the grand-strategy, in close
cooperation with all relevant bodies but not bound by them. The
council should be subordinated to the prime minister or a senior
official appointed by him (such as a chief of staff), serving the prime
minister and the cabinet through him.
3) The quality of the grand-strategy, its revision and its implementation
depend on the excellence of the estimates and outlooks on which it is

based. The present situation, in which the Intelligence Branch of the
Israeli Defence Forces is responsible for the ‘National Estimate’, thus
being pushed beyond its expertise and institutional limits as part of the
military General Staff, is unsatisfactory. Therefore, in addition to an
overall revamping of strategic intelligence, the establishment of a
National Assessment Staff close to the prime minister to be in charge
of long-term comprehensive outlooks is essential for crafting and
updating the grand-strategy. This staff must not become a barrier to
the main intelligence heads’ direct access to the prime minister, but
should have access to all information, be entitled to issue demands for
estimates, and serve the prime minister directly and through him the
cabinet, in coordination with the National Security Council but
independently.
4) Augmenting the prime minister’s role in real-time crisis management is
also essential, all the more so as what appear to be minor crises can
have major significance. Political aspects are increasingly important in
all security crises and efforts to utilize crises as opportunities depend
on prime ministerial involvement in real time with full decision-
making authority and equipment. Therefore the Prime Minister’s
Office needs crisis management facilities with full access to all real-
time data, professionals to help the prime minister in crisis decisions
(based mainly but not exclusively on the National Security Council
and the National Assessment Staff), and preparation of the prime
minister and his personal staff for crisis decision-making.48
5) To redress present imbalances between military and political
perspectives, the Foreign Ministry should be equipped to produce
more and higher quality political intelligence and policy advice for the
prime minister and his staffs and participate as a main partner in the
crafting and application of the grand-strategy.
6) The role of think-tanks needs to be augmented by involving the few
existing ones more in grand-strategy crafting and setting up a new
think-tank to work on a classified basis.
7) While some important beginnings exist, the utilization of university
researchers for deepening some aspects of grand-strategy crafting
should be expanded, in part by involvement in think-tank work.
8) To strengthen multiple perspectives, the prime minister should never
serve as minister of defence, and there should be an interval of a
874 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
number of years before an IDF chief of staff can become minister of

defence.
9) In order to adjust military structures and doctrines to a new grand-
strategy with all the involved time lags and frictions, the chief of staff
should be appointed for a five-year period which can be prolonged by
another three years, so as to give him time to enforce painful changes.
But his term of office should be subject to termination at the joint

discretion of the prime minister and the minister of defence, subject to
approval by the cabinet.
10) Parliamentary, and public, discourse on political – security matters
should be encouraged, including on the basis of White Papers and
Grand-Strategic Directives, as proposed. Access to additional
classified material should be granted to sub-committees of the Foreign
Affairs and Security Committee of the Knesset, subject to heavy
penalties for leaks. However, ambiguity and secrecy on key issues
should be maintained. Thus, demands by some intellectuals to put
Israel’s nuclear policy up for public debate should be rejected.
11) Intervention by the Supreme Court in political– security decisions
should be restructured so as to assure that judges handling such issues
are suitably qualified and leave value judgements and policy issues to
political bodies. One way to assure appropriate legal oversight is to set
up a constitutional court or a constitutional section in the Supreme
Court, which in part is composed differently, but is highly professional
and enjoys complete independence.
12) All such institutional reforms are inadequate if not accompanied by an
upgrading of assessment, policy planning and strategy crafting
professionals. It is up to the defence and foreign policy establishment
to develop advanced training in these areas, while Israeli universities
should improve their defence, external affairs and public policy
teaching. This may require programmes shared by a number of
universities so as to achieve a critical mass of qualified teachers
combining academic knowledge and policy-making experience.
13) Furthermore, the mindsets and backgrounds of political – security
staffs should be diversified, so as to provide more pluralistic
perspectives and stimulate creativity. Increasing the proportion of
women in senior political –security positions is an important step in
this direction. Also essential for achieving better comprehension of the
new epoch and augmenting innovativeness is reducing the average age
of senior political– security staffs.
14) Improving the economics of defence and the budgeting of political–
security activities, which is critical, requires additional structural
improvements, such as having a budgeting staff advising the minister
of defence completely separate from budgeting officers serving the
chief of staff; making defence budgeting more transparent to the
Budget Office in the Ministry of Finance while making the latter more
knowledgeable about political – security issues; and having the
National Security Council play an active role in budget analysis and
option preparation.
AN INTEGRATED MULTI-DIMENSIONAL PARADIGM
To conclude this preliminary and conjectural exploration of a radically

innovative political– security grand-strategy for Israel fitting an emerging
new epoch, let me emphasize that what is involved is not a collection of
ideas, dimensions and components, but an integrated multi-dimensional,
partly new, holistic paradigm. As mentioned, the grand-strategy is a system
with close synergetic interactions, with emergent effects surpassing the
outputs of the algebraic sum total of the various dimensions.
However, the grand-strategy is not a closed system, nor is it an
integrated set of contingency plans, which would necessarily make it rigid.
It is open-ended and surprise-oriented, as well as being both proactive and
reactive, providing interrelated principles to be creatively applied to
concrete situations and revised when they begin to become obsolete. In
essence, it is a cognitive basis, frame and compass guiding the building of
capacities, facilitating long-term coherence of policies and supporting
mutually supportive actions. But, as such, it is essential for coping, as well
as humanly possible, with epochal change posing radically novel dangers
and opportunities.
This sounds complex and is indeed so. However, there is no hope of
thriving in the face of radical mutations by simplistic thinking and past-
bound mindsets. Viewing crafting of the grand-strategy as preparation for
performing well in the face of what otherwise would be overburdening,
and regarding the grand-strategy itself as an instrument to help with
making critical choices so that they add up to an effective decision chain,
may well be an apt way of understanding what is proposed in this essay.
EMBEDMENT WITHIN DOMESTIC GRAND-POLICIES

A political–security grand-strategy does not stand by itself. Long-term
security depends on many other facets of Israeli society, such as science
and technology, the economy, social welfare and knowledge intensity,
demography, minorities, relations with the Jewish people outside of Israel and
more. Furthermore, as emphasized in this paper, the overriding value at which
the proposed grand-strategy is directed is not ‘survival’ as such, but the
thriving of Israel as a Jewish-Zionist and democratic state which is the core
state of the Jewish people. Therefore, the political–security grand-strategy
has to be embedded within a broader set of national grand-policies. This, in
turn, requires additional institutional innovations, including a Domestic
876 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
Policy Staff in the Prime Minister’s Office working in tandem with the
National Security Staff, together with a small staff dealing with the Jewish
People Policy of the government.49
However, beginning by crafting a new political –strategic grand-
strategy may be most important of all, because of the serious threats and
significant opportunities increasingly facing Israel. Doing so will also give a
much-needed impetus to developing sets of grand-policies on domestic

issues and the Jewish people, without any illusionary and dangerous
presumption of arriving at an overall national comprehensive ‘grand-
design’, which does not fit a period of epoch mutation, the complexity of
issues and the democratic nature of Israel.
NOTES
1. On the concept of ‘radically’ novel, as compared to non-radical innovations, see Carl

R. Hausman, A Discourse on Novelty and Creation, 2nd edn, Albany, NY, 1984.
2. The usual term ‘political–military’ is too narrow, as security issues and instruments are much
broader than indicated by the term ‘military’. Therefore, I use the term ‘political–security’,
based on the Hebrew term Medini-Bitchoni.
3. This is illustrated by the obsolescence of parts of the literature on ‘just war’. This applies both
to classical and modern thinkers, as presented by Gregory M. Reichberg, Henrik Syse and
Endre Begby (eds.), The Ethics of War, Oxford, 2006; Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars:
A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations, 3rd edn, New York, 2000; and Michael
Walzer, Arguing About War, New Haven, 2004. Similarly, contemporary war law, while
beginning to change, also demonstrates dangerous lags behind reality. See, for instance,
Michael Byers, War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict, New York,
2005; and Yoram Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed
Conflict, Cambridge, 2004.
4. For an example of efforts by American strategists to adjust policies to new realities see
Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the
Present, Ithaca, NY, 2006.
5. As discussed in Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Succeed in World Politics, New
York, 2004. For an example of erosion of US soft power, partly applicable, with adjustments,
to Israel, see Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes, America Against the World, New York, 2006.
6. This applies to capacities to govern, which are crucial for security issues and, indeed, for the
future of humanity as a whole. See Yehezkel Dror, The Capacity to Govern: A Report to the
Club of Rome, London, 2002.
7. I prefer this term to ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (WMD).
8. See S.N. Eisenstadt, Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution: The Jacobin Dimension
of Modernity, Cambridge, 1999.
9. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New
York, 1996, however important in posing a critical issue, is both too extreme in predicting a
nearly unavoidable large-scale violent clash and too conservative in not realizing the full
impact of such a clash should it take place.
The analysis should be refined and differentiated to deal with clashes between ‘backward’,
‘barbaric’, ‘fanatic’, ‘fundamentalist’, etc. sub-cultures of Islam and the liberal– humanistic
parts of the Western world. This is all the more important because of differences of opinion
and clashes within Islam which may serve in the longer run as the basis for reducing West –
Islamic and Israel-Jewish–Islam confrontations.
10. A good illustration of the speed of ongoing change is the evolution of global terrorism from
hierarchical structures into loose networks and local initiators. See Marc Sageman,
Understanding Terror Networks, Philadelphia, PA, 2004. Innovative countermeasures fitting
such evolving threats, such as ‘dummy’ cells disrupting networks, are very late in being
put to use.
11. For example, see Avery Goldstein, Rising to the Challenge: China’s Grand Strategy and
International Security, Stanford, CA, 2005.
12. For example, see Richard N. Haass, The Opportunity: America’s Moment to Alter History’s
Course, New York, 2005, in contrast to Michael Mandelbaum, The Case for Goliath: How
America Acts as the World’s Government in the 21st Century, New York, 2005.
13. A overdue book redressing neglect and misinterpretations of the Ottoman Empire is Caroline
Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire, New York, 2005.
14. Very relevant is Paul Kennedy, The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the
United Nations, New York, 2006.
15. I am using this term to refer to relatively stable features of history rooted in basic features of
humans as individuals and collectives. This is a weaker meaning than proposed in Robert
Nozick, Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World, Cambridge, MA, 2001.
16. In some opinions, such as that of Vernon Vince, a ‘singularity’ caused by creation of super-
human entities should be expected within thirty years and would change nearly everything.
See http://mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html. However, this prediction is clearly wrong,
ignoring the main insights in the philosophy of the mind, assuming knowledge and technology
that are far from becoming available and overlooking moral and political barriers to using
them if, and when, they emerge.
17. To apply evolutionary psychology, many features at present ‘wired’ into human beings which
were very useful in the past, such as the ‘flight or fight’ response, are becoming increasingly
dysfunctional and may become self-destructive.
18. Worth rereading is Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for
Life (first published in German in 1874; a good translation into English is by Peter Preuss,
Indianapolis, 1980). A modern classis is Ernest R. May, ‘Lessons’ of the Past: The Use and
Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy, new edn, New York, 1975. A good illustration
of efforts at what can be called ‘macro-learning’ from history is Charles S. Maier, Among
Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors, Cambridge, MA, 2006.
19. It should be borne in mind that most wars break out from situations of peace often based on
treaties regarded as stable. See Laurence W. Beilenson, The Treaty Trap: A History of the
Performance of Political Treaties by the United States and European Nations, New York,
1969. However the new epoch may change this history, first of all by conflicts, including
massive use of different kinds of force, taking place without any formal ‘war’. Secondly,
perhaps international pressures may make breaking a formal peace treaty less likely.
20. See Shalom Salomon Wald, China and the Jewish People: Old Civilizations in a New Era,
Jerusalem, 2004, available at www.jpppi.org.il/main_projects/project.asp?fid ¼ 395&
ord ¼ 5.
21. For this apt concept, based on well-established knowledge, see David Pears, Motivated
Irrationality, Oxford, 1984.
22. See, for instance, Edward N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the
First Century A.D. to the Third, Baltimore, 1976; Paul Kennedy (ed.), Grand Strategies in War
and Peace, New Haven, CT, 1992; and Robert J. Art, A Grand Strategy for America, Ithaca,
NY, 2003. Also relevant is the ‘Grand Strategy’ seminar at Yale University, as discussed in part
in Molly Worthen, The Man on Whom Nothing was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill,
New York, 2005.
23. However different the future may be from the past, the abandonment of the Jews to the Shoah
is relevant. See Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies: A Devastating Account of How the
Allies Responded to the News of Hitler’s Mass Murder, reissue edn, New York, 1990; and
David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945,
new edn, New York, 1998.
24. The classical text is Howard Raiffa, Decision Analysis, Columbus, OH, 1997, first published
1968.
25. For historic illustrations of succumbing to providentialism with dire consequences versus
overcoming it, compare Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II, New Haven, CT,
1998, with William Farr Church, Richelieu and Reason of State, Princeton, NJ, 1973.
26. Yehezkel Dror, ‘From My Perspective: Lucifer Smiles’, Technological Forecasting and Social
Change (2002), pp. 69, 4, 431 –435.
878 ISRAEL AFFAIRS
27. Also discussed in Fred Ikle, Every Was Must End, reissued rev. edn, New York, 2005.
28. I am borrowing this term from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Red Wheel series on the history
of the Soviet revolution.
29. This point is well made in Richard Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social
Life, Princeton, NJ, 1997.
30. Longer term outlook methods should be tried out, such as suggested in Robert J. Lempert,
Steven W. Popper and Steven C. Banes, Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods
for Quantitative Long-Term Policy Analysis, Santa Monica, CA, 2003. However, the failures
of strategic intelligence twenty-year outlooks supported by the best available methods call for
caution and also scepticism. See National Intelligence Council, Mapping the Global Future:
Report of the National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project, Washington, DC, GPO, 2004,
available at www.cia.gov.
31. For a good introduction, see James A. Dewar, Assumption-Based Planning: A Tool for
Reducing Avoidable Surprises, Cambridge, 2002.
32. Very relevant though requiring much adjustment to situations of conflict are the methods used
by the British Strategy Unit working for the prime minister, available at www.strategy.go-
v.uk/survivalguide/index.asp. See also Yehezkel Dror, ‘“Training for Policy Makers”‘, Michael
Moran et al., The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy, Oxford, 2006, chapter 4.
33. See, for instance, Stephen Cummings and David Wilson (eds.), Images of Strategy, Malden,
MA., 2003.
34. Prior to the Hezbollah attack and the massive Israeli reaction, the accepted wisdom in Israeli
governmental and public thinking, with the obvious exception of the defence establishment,
was that the defence budget could be cut significantly with the freed resources being allocated
to social policies. Such thinking unsupported by serious analysis is a grave mistake under
Israeli conditions, as painfully brought home by real-world events.
35. See Dror, The Capacity to Govern, chapter 15; and, for a concrete application, Yehezkel Dror,
‘Israeli Gambles with History: The Lavi Combat Airplane and the Peace Process with the PLO’,
in H.J. Miser (ed.), Handbook of Systems Analysis: Cases, London, 1995, pp. 239–268.
36. With creativity not being really understood, most of the growing literature on ‘creative
organizations’ is not very helpful. More promising is application of deeper approaches, as
illustrated by R. Keith Sawyer, Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation,
Oxford, 2006. Think-tanks, sorely underdeveloped in Israel, illustrate institutions that can
help radically innovative thinking on political–security issues, though in the US they usually
do not take up to the grand-strategy level—in part because there are no clients asking for such
work.
37. This is but one illustration of many for the need for a ‘conceptual revolution’, as discussed in
part in Paul Thagard, Conceptual Revolutions, Princeton, NJ, 1992. I could also present my
main thesis in terms of a required paradigm change.
38. For an interesting analysis of some such documents see Jeffrey V. Gardner, Evolving US Grand
Strategy: How Administrations Have Approached the National Security Strategy Report, Fort
Leavenworth, KS, 2004. For the 2006 USA Quadrennial Defence Review, see www.defense-
link.mil/ qdr/report/Report20060203.pdf, and for the 2006 National Security Strategy report
see www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/.
39. I use this concept as developed in Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge,
MA, 1963, 2006 reprint.
40. See Yehezkel Dror, Crazy States: A Counterconventional Strategic Issue, enlarged edn,
Milwood, NY, 1980, first published 1971.
41. For example, see Howard Gardner, Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our
Own and Other People’s Minds, Cambridge, MA, 2004; and David O. Sears, Leonie Huddy,
Robert Jervis, Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, Oxford, 2003. Neglect of such
knowledge is but one illustration out of many of the lack of adequate inter-disciplinary bases
in much of Israeli political–security thinking.
42. As elaborated in Yehezkel Dror and Sharon Pardo, ‘Approaches and Principles for an Israeli
Grand-Strategy towards the European Union’, European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol. 11
(2006), pp. 17–44.
43. See Yehezkel Dror, A Grand Strategy for Israel, Jerusalem, 1989 (in Hebrew). A new version is
in preparation.
44. From the very extensive body of literature presuming to deal with this subject, large parts of
which are more misleading than enlightening, let me recommend two works which provide
important insights both from a Palestinian and an Israeli perspective: Hussein Agha and
Ahmad S. Khalidi, A Framework for a Palestinian National Security Doctrine, London, 2006;
and Mark A. Heller and Rosemary Hollis, Israel and the Palestinians: Israeli Policy Options,
London, 2005.
45. But see Yehezkel Dror, Epistle to an Israeli Jewish-Zionist Leader, Jerusalem, 2005 (Hebrew).
46. This is in line with general trends in Western democratic regimes, as discussed in Thomas
Poguntke and Paul Webb, The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of
Modern Democracies, Oxford, 2005. The results of the March 2006 Israeli elections reinforce
the need for a regime change, as expectations that a strong party diminishing the costs of
complex coalition governments would emerge were disappointed.
47. The name ‘National Security Council’ was borrowed from the US without paying adequate
attention to the radical differences between the American body, which includes cabinet
members, and the Israeli body, which is in essence a professional staff unit. Still, despite the
many cardinal differences, Israel has a lot to learn from the US National Security Council, as
most recently and fully discussed in David Rothkopf, Running the World: The Inside Story of
the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power, New York, 2004. For a
different, but important, treatment from which much can be learned as well, see William
W. Newmann, Managing National Security Policy: The President and the Process, Pittsburgh,
PA, 2003. Regretfully I did not find comprehensive treatments of political–security staffs in
other countries, which may in some respects be more relevant to Israel.
I do not discuss here many detailed but very important issues regarding revamping the Israeli
National Security Council, such as the name itself, whether to base its operations on law, how
to assure that immediate concerns do not displace long-term strategic thinking and so on.
48. Very relevant is Arjen Boin et al., The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership Under
Pressure, Cambridge, 2005.
49. This staff can be small because its work can be based on an existing independent think-tank,
namely the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (established in 2002 by the Jewish Agency
for Israel), see www.jpppi.org.il., of which the author serves as founding president.

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A Breakout Political–Security Grand-Strategy for Israel

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Israel Affairs, Vol.12, No.4, October 2006, pp.843– 879

RADICALLY NEW GLOBAL GEO-STRATEGIC EPOCH WITH

To evaluate correctly the radical shift in Israel’s geo-strategic realities it

and in Islamic states and non-state actors, as well as in the

‘out of the blue’ with low signatures.

FUNDAMENTAL POLITICAL – SECURITY CHALLENGES FACING

The fundamental political –security challenges facing Israel are partly a

Achieving a viable long-term relationship with Islam and Islamic actors

foreseeable future, biological ones. As a result, Israel is likely to face

can change fundamental features of reality, there is an augmented danger

governance bodies and international or national courts claiming

cannot be coped with by many of the Israeli instruments of force

THREAT AND OPPORTUNITY SCENARIOS

It is beneficial to clarify more concretely the threats and opportunities

1) Israel is hit by a coordinated series of missile attacks with conventional

3) In retaliation against renewed attacks by guerrilla forces from

Israeli feelings in the US as well. Israel is increasingly regarded as a

10) The Palestinian state becomes increasingly radical and builds up

The political– security dilemmas, threats and opportunities, as illustrated

The fundamental values in which the grand-strategy is grounded

Integrated political and security strategy crafting is not part of Israeli

Political –security policies aim at the behaviour of others, which is in

deterrence in operation over time may in the longer run stimulate

resources to allocate to political – security matters require, first and

political– security bodies and staffs, requiring their transformation into

thinking to obsolete cognitive maps, never mind additions of ‘low

Moving on to some substantive dimensions let me start with three caveats.

top-quality planners. Therefore, the proposed dimensions do not claim to

1. Seeking Peace with Readiness to Pay a Proportional Price

The answer depends largely on external events, such as leadership and

1) Comprehensive stable peace combined with normal relations with all

a matter for the governing elites and rulers, sometimes aided by

dimension well illustrates the grand-strategic principle of uniqueness and

1) Taking into account that no stable status quo exists in an epoch of

effective counter-stance. Against non-suicidal enemies a posture of

acquiring weapons of mass killing, a credible but non-provocative image of

1) Israel needs a range of destructive capacities, ranging from pinpointed

2) Destruction capacities should be as finely tuned as possible, to reduce

well as invulnerability, including especially high levels of protection of

Clearly, given its limited means, it is impossible for Israel to possess

instances of successful terrorism perhaps including mega-terror cannot be

1) Well-equipped shelters covering all of the population against various

9. Novel Superior Force and Conflict Doctrine Mix

10. Image Shaping and Attitude Influencing

influence of civil society bodies. Therefore, much improved and largely

11. Bounded Cooperation with Others

1) The composition of such forces should not include countries that do

In the international arena, Israel should adopt a more active stance on

ruin critical relations with the US

13. Vigorous Minority Policy

1) Rapid progress towards fully equal economic opportunities, land

8) Strict enforcement of laws against discrimination, encouragement of