Deterrence by Default? Israel's Military Strategy in the 2006 War against Hizballah

Abstract

This article explores the question: What was Israel's military strategy when it went to war against Hizballah and Lebanon in 2006? It argues that Israel's decision to go to war was not based on a thorough in-depth analysis of the specific situation at hand, but rather rooted in its strategic outlook cultivated in the decades preceding the war. This thinking has largely focused on the concept of deterrence, and should deterrence fail, to restore deterrence and ensure that the opponent would refrain from similar actions in the future. The need to have a clear political component – which the military effort should support – appears to have been significantly less in focus. Thus an almost pre-destined recipe of responding militarily ‘dramatically beyond the expectations of the enemy’ was put in action from the outset. The perception that a more specifically tailored military strategy was not needed was a miscalculation.

Key Words:

• Israel
• Second Lebanon War
• Military Strategy

Notes

¹On 12 July 2006, a patrol of two Hummers with seven IDF soldiers were attacked by Hizballah on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were abducted by Hizballah, while three other soldiers were killed during the abduction. Two soldiers were wounded during the attack, but managed to escape. Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, 34 Days. Israel, and the War in Lebanon (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2008), Ch.1, 1–15.

²After the war, the Israeli government appointed a commission to investigate and draw lessons from the Israel–Hizballah War: ‘The commission of inquiry into the events of military engagement in Lebanon 2006’. The commission was chaired by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd, and has since often been referred to as the Winograd Commission. The final conclusions of the ‘Winograd Report’ were put forward in Jan. 2008.

³ The Independent (ed.), ‘Lebanon: The Winograd Report in full’, 31 Jan. 2008, point 11, <www.independent.co.uk>.

⁴A highly recommended article on strategy was provided by Professor Hew Strachan in Survival in 2005: ‘The Lost Meaning of Strategy’. I will use Professor Strachan's view of the term: ‘strategy is about war and its conduct, and if we abandon it we surrender the tool that helps us to define war, to shape it and to understand it ( … ) [Strategy] is not policy; it is not politics; it is not diplomacy. It exists in relation to all three, but it does not replace them.’ Thus, the use of the term ‘strategy’ in this article refers to the overarching thoughts on the use of military force. Hew Strachan, ‘The Lost Meaning of Strategy’, Survival 47/3 (2005), 48–9.

⁵Gen. Dan Halutz, interview with the author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 24 June 2010. Gen. Halutz was IDF Chief of Staff, 2005–07.

⁶ The Independent (ed.), ‘Lebanon: The Winograd Report in full’, 31 Jan. 2008, point 12, <www.independent.co.uk>.

⁷Ibid., point 19.

⁸The Preliminary Winograd Report was released 30 April 2007. The Jerusalem Post (ed.) ‘Summary of the Winograd Committee interim report’, 30 April 2007, <www.israel.jpost.com>.

⁹Ibid., point 10.

¹⁰Ibid., point 11.

¹¹Harel and Issacharoff, 34 Days, Ch.13, 241–6.

¹²Gen. Dan Halutz, interview with the author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 24 June 2010.

¹³Telephone interview with Gen. Giora Eiland, 22 Dec. 2009. Gen. Giora Eiland was Head of Israel's National Security Council 2004–06, ending his tour on 1 June 2006 – a few weeks before the war.

¹⁴Telephone interview with Gen. Giora Eiland, 22 Dec. 2009.

¹⁵Ibid.

¹⁶It should be noted that almost a week after the campaign had started, Prime Minister Olmert gave a speech to Parliament (Knesset) in which he gave a broad set of goals: ‘in Lebanon, we will insist on compliance with the terms stipulated long ago by the international community, as unequivocally expressed only yesterday in the resolution of the 8 leading countries of the world: [1] The return of the hostages, Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser and Eldad Regev; [2] A complete ceasefire; [3] Deployment of the Lebanese Army in all of Southern Lebanon; [4] Expulsion of Hizballah from the area, and fulfillment of United Nations Resolution 1559’. This statement came, of course, six days after Israel had decided to go to war. The Knesset, ‘Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Address to the Knesset During the Conflict in the North’, 17 July 2006.

¹⁷Gen. Dan Halutz, interview with the author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 24 June 2010.

¹⁸Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1966), Ch.1, 2.

¹⁹Ibid, Ch.1, 1.

²⁰Ibid, Ch.1, 2–3.

²¹Ibid., Ch.2, 69–70.

²²Robert J. Art, ‘Introduction’, in Robert J. Art and Patrick M. Cronin (eds), The United States and Coercive Diplomacy (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press 2003), Ch.1, 8.

²³See for instance Donald Neff, ‘Israel Bombs Iraq's Osirak Nuclear Research Facility’, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1995, 81–2; Leonard S. Spector and Avner Cohen, ‘Israel's Airstrike on Syria's Reactor: Implications for the Nonproliferation Regime’, Arms Control Today, July/Aug. 2008.

²⁴Shai Feldman, ‘Deterrence and the Israel War – Summer 2006’, in Anthony C. Cain (ed.), Deterrence in the Twenty-first Century, Based on conference held in London, UK, 18–19 May 2009 by Proceedings (United States Air Force Research Institute: Air University Press 2010), Ch.17, 279.

²⁵Efraim Inbar and S. Sandler, ‘Israel's Deterrence Strategy Revisited’, Security Studies 3/2 (1993), 331–3.

²⁶Yitzhak Rabin, ‘After the Gulf War: Israeli Defense and its Security Policy’, Address at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Bar-Ilan University, 10 June 1991.

²⁷Ibid.

²⁸Stuart Cohen, ‘Israel's Three Strategic Challenges’, Middle East Quarterly 6/4 (Dec. 1999).

²⁹David Rodman, ‘Israel's National Security Doctrine: an Introductory Overview’, Middle East Review of International Affairs 5/3 (Sept. 2001), 77.

³⁰Shai Feldman, ‘Deterrence and the Israel-Hezbollah War – Summer 2006’, Ch.17, 282.

³¹Ibid., Ch.17, 284.

³²Schelling, Arms and Influence, Ch.1, 3.

³³Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman, The Dynamics of Coercion: American Foreign Policy and the Limits of Military Might (New York: Cambridge University Press 2002), Ch.1, 10–11.

³⁴Ibid., Ch.1, 11–13.

³⁵The work of Schelling is influenced by nuclear weapons, the Cold War, with states being the key actors, and the discipline of strategic studies rooted in this reality.

³⁶Schelling, Arms and Influence, Preface, vii.

³⁷Yair Evron, ‘Deterrence and its Limitations’, in Shlomo Brom and Meir Elran (eds), The Second Lebanon War: Strategic Perspectives (Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies 2007), Ch.3, 36–7.

³⁸Ibid., Ch.3, 38–9.

³⁹Ibid.

⁴⁰Harel and Issacharoff, 34 Days, Hizballah, Ch.5, 75.

⁴¹ Haaretz, ‘Nasrallah: we wouldn't have snatched soldiers if we thought it would spark a war’, 27 Aug. 2006, <www.haaretz.com>.

⁴²Harel and Issacharoff, 34 Days, Ch.5, 82.

⁴³Ibid., Ch.5, 75–6.

⁴⁴Telephone interview with Geir O. Pedersen, 30 Aug. 2010.

⁴⁵Colin S. Gray, ‘Deterrence Resurrected: Revisiting Some Fundamentals’, Parameters (Winter 2010–11), 100.

⁴⁶Evron, ‘Deterrence and its Limitations’, Ch.3, 38–9. For additional reading of Hizballah's military strategic thinking, an excellent account is provided by Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, ‘“While You're Busy Making Other Plans” – The “Other RMA”’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (Aug. 2010).

⁴⁷Telephone interview with Geir Pedersen, 30 Aug. 2010.

⁴⁸Telephone interview with Alvaro de Soto, 11 Aug. 2010.

⁴⁹Ibid. The ‘tribunal’ as de Soto phrases it, refers to corruption allegations that surfaced during winter/spring 2006. Uri Blau, ‘State Comptroller to probe sale of Olmert house to former campaign contributor’, Haaretz, 22 Feb. 2006. Jeffrey Heller, ‘Israeli police to investigate Olmert house purchase’, Reuters, 24 Sept. 2007.

⁵⁰Telephone interview with Giora Eiland, 22 Dec. 2009.

⁵¹Giora Eiland, ‘The Decision Making Process in Israel’, in Shlomo Brom and Meir Elran (eds), The Second Lebanon War: Strategic Perspectives (Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies 2007), Ch.2, 25.

⁵²Ibid., Ch.2, 25–6.

⁵³Charles D. Freilich, ‘National Security Decision-Making in Israel: Processes, Pathologies, and Strengths’, Middle East Journal 60/4 (Autumn 2006), 639.

⁵⁴Ibid., 640.

⁵⁵Ibid., 641.

⁵⁶Eiland, ‘The Decision Making Process in Israel’, 27.

⁵⁷Ibid., 28.

⁵⁸Ibid., 29–34.

⁵⁹Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, The US, and Israel (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP 2010), Ch.4, 110–12.

⁶⁰Ibid., 115–17.

⁶¹Freilich, ‘National Security Decision-Making in Israel’, 644.

⁶²Adamsky, Culture of Military Innovation, 119.

⁶³Ibid., 112.

⁶⁴ The Economist (ed.), ‘Israel's military strategy : two eyes for an eye . The role of retribution in Israel's military thinking’, 8 Jan. 2009.

⁶⁵Harel and Issacharoff, 34 Days, Ch.5, 77.

⁶⁶Gen. Eyal Ben-Reuven, interview with the author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 29 June 2010.

⁶⁷The UN Security Council Resolution reiterates ‘its strong support for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized borders, Noting the determination of Lebanon to ensure the withdrawal of all non-Lebanese forces from Lebanon, Gravely concerned at the continued presence of armed militias in Lebanon, which prevent the Lebanese Government from exercising its full sovereignty over all Lebanese territory, Reaffirming the importance of the extension of the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory.’ United Nations Security Council, ‘Resolution 1559 (2004)’, 2 Sept. 2004.

⁶⁸Harel and Issacharoff, 34 Days, Ch.6, 96.

⁶⁹Gen. Dan Halutz, interview with the author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 24 June 2010.

⁷⁰Ibid.

⁷¹Ibid.

⁷²Telephone interview with Gen. Giora Eiland, 22 Dec. 2009.

⁷³Freilich, ‘National Security Decision-Making in Israel’, 637.

⁷⁴Adamsky, Culture of Military Innovation, 115.

⁷⁵Interview with Jakken Bjørn Lian, Tel Aviv, Israel, 28 June 2010.

⁷⁶Ibid.

⁷⁷Ibid.

⁷⁸Telephone interview with Geir O. Pedersen, 30 Aug. 2010.

⁷⁹Telephone interview with Alvaro de Soto, 11 Aug. 2010.

⁸⁰Ami Bentov, ‘Olmert says Lebanon war was a success’, USA Today, 7 Dec. 2007.

⁸¹Gen. Eyal Ben-Reuven, interview with the author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 29 June 2010.

⁸²Gen. Dan Halutz, interview with the author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 24 June 2010.

⁸³Ibid.

⁸⁴Telephone interview with Geir O. Pedersen, 30 Aug. 2010.

⁸⁵Ibid.

⁸⁶Interview with the Norwegian Ambassador to Israel, Jakken Bjørn Lian, Tel Aviv, Israel, 28 June 2010.

⁸⁷ The Jerusalem Post (ed.), ‘Summary of the Winograd Committee interim report’, pt. 10b.