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Abstract
National security conception or securitization theory frames threats and conceptualizes the responses towards them. But in many cases, and especially in the Israeli context, there is a tendency to blur the nature and essence of different threats; security threats become strategic threats and then existential threats. In the Israeli context, because the broad concept of security is perceived, in most cases, as equivalent to military security, the meaning of the strategic threat will be framed, mostly, militarily, derived from military thought.
The article examines the nature of existential threats in the Israeli context and seeks to find the implications of securitization theory in this regard by analyzing the unique role of the military establishment and the influence of the military thought on strategic thought in Israel. The article also deals with the centrality of ‘military wisdom’ in the Israeli ethos and the sense of insecurity embedded in the Israeli narrative that leads to an ‘intellectual symbiosis’ between the political and the military echelons and finds this phenomenon as one of the major explanations for the influence of the military establishment on defining the nature of security threats as well as on the crucial decision to launch wars.
Notes
1Israel Tal, National Security – The Few Against The Many (Tel-Aviv: Dvir 1996) (Hebrew).
2Baruch Kimmerling, ‘The Social Construction of Israel's “National Security”', Democratic Culture, Vol. 4–5 (Jan. 2001), 270.
3Ibid., 272.
4Ido Oren, ‘The Subjectivity of the “Democratic” Peace: Changing US Perceptions of Imperial Germany', International Security 20/2 (Fall 1995), 147–84.
5Ole Weaver, ‘Security, Insecurity and Asecurity in the West-European Non-War Community', in Emmanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds.), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1998), 69–118.
6Amir Oren, Haaretz, 24 Jan. 2008.
7Kimmerling, ‘The Social Construction of the Concept “National Security” of Israel', 271.
8Kobi Michael, ‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority: An Intellectual Challenge in the Reality of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict’, Journal of Strategic Studies 30/3 (June 2007), 421–46.
9Kimmerling, ‘The Social Construction of the Concept “National Security” of Israel’.
10Sergio Catignani, Israeli Counter-Insurgency and the Intifadas: Dilemmas of a Conventional Army (London: Routledge 2008).
11David Last, ‘Transformation or Back to Basics? Counter-Insurgency Pugilism and Peacebuilding Judo’, in Kobi Michael, David Kellen and Eyal Ben-Ari (eds.), The Transformation of the World of War and Peace Support Operations (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International 2009).
12Kobi Michael, ‘The Second Lebanon War in the Mirror of the Civil Control's and Strategic-Intellectual Leadership's Weakness’, Politika[the Israeli journal of political science and international relations] 17, (Winter 2008), 131–54 (Hebrew).
13Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP 1957).
14Norman Dixon, On the Psychology of Military Incompetence[1976] (republished in Hebrew by Ministry of Defense Publications, Tel Aviv 1979).
15Michael, ‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority’; Yehoshfat Harkabi, War and Strategy, 4th ed. (Tel Aviv: Ma'arachot 1994).
16Michael, ‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority’; Kobi Michael, ‘The Dilemma Behind the Classical Dilemma of Civil-Military Relations: The “Discourse Space” Model and the Israeli Case During the Oslo Process’, Armed Forces & Society 33/4 (Summer 2007), 518–46.
17Amir Oren, Haaretz, 24 Jan. 2008.
18For further reading about the nature of intractable and protracted conflicts and their implications in the Israeli context see Nadim Rouhana and Daniel Bar-Tal, ‘Psychological dynamics of Intractable Ethnonational Conflicts: The Israeli-Palestinian Case’, American Psychologist 53 (1998), 761–70; Louis Kriesberg, ‘The Development of the Conflict Resolution Field’, in I. William Zartman and J. Lewis Rasmussen, Peacemaking in International Conflict (Washington DC: US Institute of Peace Press 1997).
19Yagil Levy, ‘How Democratization Encourges Warfare – the Second Lebanon War’, Politika (the Israeli journal of political science and international relations) 17 (Winter 2008), 111–30 (Hebrew).
20Frank G. Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars (Arlington, VA: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies Dec. 2007).
21Dov Tamari, ‘Can the IDF Become Different Following the Second Lebanon War?’, Ma'arachot (the journal of the IDF), Vol. 415 (Nov. 2007), 33 (Hebrew).
22Michael, ‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority’.
23Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London: Allen Lane 2005).
24Tamari, ‘Can the IDF Become Different Following the Second Lebanon War?’, 30–1.
25Last, ‘Transformation or Back to Basics? Counter-Insurgency Pugilism and Peacebuilding Judo’.
26For further details about the concept of cultural intelligence see Kobi Michael, ‘Doing the Right Thing the Right Way; The Challenges of Military Mission Effectiveness in Peace Support Operations in a “War Amongst the People” Theater’, in Cees M. Coops and Tibor Szvircsev Tresch (eds.), Cultural Challenges in Military Operations (Rome: NATO Defense College Research Division 2007), 254–63; Kobi Michael and David Kellen, ‘Cultural Intelligence for Peace Support Operations in the New Era of Warfare’, in Kobi Michael, David Kellen and Eyal Ben-Ari (eds.), The Transformations of the World of War and Peace Support Operations (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International 2009), 157–72.
27Michael, ‘The Dilemma Behind the Classical Dilemma of Civil-Military Relations’; Last, ‘Transformation or Back to Basics? Counter-Insurgency Pugilism and Peacebuilding Judo’.
28Tamari, ‘Can the IDF Become Different Following the Second Lebanon War?’, 30–1.
29Rita Taureck, ‘Securitization Theory and Securitization Studies’, Journal of International Relations and Development 9 (2006), 53–61.
30Ibid.
31Cori Dauber, ‘The Practice of Argument: Reading the Condition of Civil-Military Relations’, Armed Forces & Society 24/3 (Spring 1998), 435–46.
32Huntington, The Soldier and the State.
33Claudia Aradau, ‘Beyond Good and Evil: Ethics and Securitization/Desecuritization Techniques’, Rubikon: International Forum of Electronic Publications (Dec. 2001), available at <http://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/Brubikon/forum/claudia2.htm> (accessed 15 Dec. 2005).
34As quoted in Yoel Marcus, Ha'aretz, 11 March 2008. Another example can be found in the Minister of Justice Haim Ramon's testimony in front of Winograd investigation committee explaining his view about Hizballah Attack: ‘in my view, whoever tries to harm the sovereign State of Israel within the 1967 borders, wants to destroy the State of Israel … and it will eventually be translated into an existential threat’ (Winograd initial report, 32).
35Yagil Levy, ‘The War of the Peripheries: A Social Mapping of IDF Casualties in the Al-Aqsa Intifada’, Social Identities 12 (2006), 309–24; Levy, ‘How Democratization Encourges Warfare – the Second Lebanon War’.
36For further details see Yagil Levy and Shlomo Mizrahi, ‘Alternative Politics and the Transformation of Society-Military Relations: The Israeli Experience’, Administration & Society 40/1 (2008), 25–53; Levy, ‘The War of the Peripheries: A Social Mapping of IDF Casualties in the Al-Aqsa Intifada’.
37For further details see D. Lake, ‘Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and War’, American Political Science Review 86 (1992), 24–37; C. Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992 (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell 1992).
38Barry Buzan, Ole Weaver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1998), 29.
39Ibid., 24.
40Ole Weaver, ‘Aberystwyth, Paris, Copenhagen: New Schools in Security Theory and the Origins between Core and Periphery’, International Studies Association Conference, Montreal, Canada, March 2004, 13.
41Tamari, ‘Can the IDF Become Different Following the Second Lebanon War?’, 40.
42Huntington, The Soldier and the State; Richard H. Kohn, ‘How Democracies Control?’, Journal of Democracy 8/4 (1997), 140–53.
43Further details about the weakness of civil control on the military and the military's influence on the decision-making process regarding the launching of Second Lebanon War and its management see: Michael, ‘The Second Lebanon War in the Mirror of the Civil Control's and Strategic-Intellectual Leadership's Weakness’, 131–54.
44Michael, ‘The Dilemma Behind the Classical Dilemma of Civil-Military Relations’.
45Kimmerling, ‘The Social Construction of the Concept “National Security” of Israel’, 299.
46Ami Gloska, Eshkol, Give An Order (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publication 2004).
47Arye Shalev, Failure and Success in Warning (Tel Aviv: Defense Ministry Press 2006).
48Winograd Investigation Committee Initial Report, <www.vaadatwino.org.il/reports.html#null>.
49See in this regard the report about Prof. Ruth Gabison's (one of the Winograd committee's members) public lecture, Ruth Gabison, ‘Criticism of the Political Echelon’, Tel Aviv Univ., 4 March 2008, <www.ynet.co.il/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3515002,00.html>.
50Winograd Initial Report, 56.
51Kimmerling, ‘The Social Construction of the Concept “National Security” of Israel’, 299.
52Dan Meridor, The 8th Herzlia Conference, Jan. 2008, <www.herzliyaconference.org/_Articles/Article.asp?ArticleID=2662&CategoryID=325>.
53Ibid.
54Ibid.
55Winograd Initial Report, 46.
56Ibid.
57Daniel Bar-Tal, Living with the Conflict (Jerusalem: Carmel Press 2007).
58Kobi Michael, ‘The Military's Influence on the Transition Process from War to Peace – the Israeli Case – Focused Comparison: The Peace Process with Egypt and Oslo Process’, PhD Dissertation, The Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, 2004; Michael, ‘The Dilemma Behind the Classical Dilemma of Civil-Military Relations’; Yoram Peri, ‘The Israeli Military and Israel's Palestinian Policy from Oslo to the Al Aqsa Intifada’, Peaceworks No. 47 (Washington DC: US Institute of Peace 2002); Yoram Peri, ‘The Political-Military Complex: The IDF Influence over Policy Towards the Palestinians since 1987’, Israel Affairs 11/2 (April 2005), 324–44; Yoram Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room – How Military Shapes Israeli Policy (Washington DC: US Institute of Peace 2006).
59MK Yuval Stienmitz in Haaretz daily newspaper, 11 March 2008.
60Transportation Minister and former minister of defense, Shaul Mofaz in YNET, <www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3537162,00.html>.
61Michael, ‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority’, 441.
62Ibid.
63Kimmerling, ‘The Social Construction of the Concept “National Security” of Israel’.
64Winograd Initial Report, 110
65Ibid., 111.
66Michael, ‘The Second Lebanon War in the Mirror of the Civil Control's and Strategic-Intellectual Leadership's Weakness’.
67Asher Arian et al., Democracy Index 2003 (Jerusalem: Israeli Democratic Institution 2003). Ephraim Ya'ar and Tamar Herman, Peace Index February 2005: ‘IDF is the institution with the highest trust and the common evaluation is that its influence on shaping national policy is suitable, not too strong and not too weak’.
68Peace Index – May 2007, <http://www.tau.ac.il/peace>.
69Ibid.
70Winograd Initial Report, 123.
71Ibid., 128.
72Michael, ‘The Second Lebanon War in the Mirror of the Civil Control's and Strategic-Intellectual Leadership's Weakness’.
73Winograd Initial Report, 141.
74Livni's testimony, Winograd Initial Report, 12.
75For details regarding the lack of knowledge and its implications see Aviezer Ya'ari, Civil Control on the Military in Israel, Memorandum 72 (Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies: Tel Aviv Univ. Oct. 2004), 23, 25, 28, 30, 32, 34–5.
76Michael, ‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority’.
77Ya'ari, Civil Control on the Military in Israel, 31.
78Tamari, ‘Can the IDF Become Different Following the Second Lebanon War?’, 31.
79State Comptroller, Annual Report 57A, Sept. 2006 (Hebrew), <www.mevaker.gov.il/serve/contentTree.asp?bookid=473&id=186&contentid=&parentcid=undefined &sw=1440&hw=830>.
80Tamari, ‘Can the IDF Become Different Following the Second Lebanon War?’, 40.
81Ibid., 27.
82Ibid., 28.
83Ibid., 49.
84A very similar principle was introduced by Charles Tilly in his seminal essay ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, in P. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer and T. Skocpol (eds.), Bringing the State Back (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1985), 169–91 (1985).
85Michael, ‘The Second Lebanon War in the Mirror of the Civil Control's and Strategic-Intellectual Leadership's Weakness’.
86Michael, ‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority’.
87Dauber, ‘The Practice of Argument’.
88Dauber, ‘The Practice of Argument’, 435–46.
89Michael, ‘The Dilemma Behind the Classical Dilemma of Civil-Military Relations’.
90D. Peter Feaver, Armed Servant: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2003).
91Tal, National Security, 104.
92John Allen Williams, ‘The Military and Modern Society: Civilian-Military Relations in Post-Cold War’, America, World and I 14/ 9 (1999).
93Kori Schake, The 8th Herzlia Conference, Israel, Jan. 2008, <www.herzliyaconference.org/Eng/_Articles/Article.asp?ArticleID=2027&CategoryID=248>.
94Michael, ‘The Military's Influence on the Transition Process from War to Peace’ and ‘The Dilemma Behind the Classical Dilemma of Civil-Military Relations’.
95Douglas L. Bland, ‘A Unified Theory of Civil-Military Relations’, Armed Forces & Society 26/1 (Fall 1999), 7–26.
96Yagil Levy, The Other Army of Israel: Materialist Militarism in Israel (Tapuah, Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot/ Sifray Hemed 2003).
97Michael, ‘The Second Lebanon War in the Mirror of the Civil Control's and Strategic-Intellectual Leadership's Weakness’.