Weekly Overview Cables - Grand strategy and options in the Israel vs Hamas war.
*note: we will discuss Russian/Chinese response and interests involved separately, in the upcoming cables.
Grand strategy of this conflict.
First things first: a long war benefits Hamas much more than it does Israel.
All other things being equal, a protracted war will most likely lead to the following outcomes;
1) Increase in civilian death toll in Gaza - this would then reduce Israel’s global support and political capital to prosecute this war in geopolitically favorable conditions.
2) Related to but separate from above: pressure for a UN-led ceasefire/mediation will grow.
This may indeed become necessary in order to reduce the death toll/collateral damage, but such an intervention may end up hampering Israel’s ability to eliminate Hamas definitively.
3) Israel’s standing with the other Arab nations may go down significantly.
A protracted war with an enormous civilian toll could end up souring Israel’s relations with the gulf states, Morocco and Bahrain and consequently, ruin the gains secured from the Abraham accords.
It would naturally make it much harder for Saudis to resume normalization talks (which they have already frozen).
But political and strategic losses would not end here.
There are 2 billion muslims worldwide, including an additional 400 million that have joined social media since 2010.
The global media narrative against Israel will become extremely unfavorable and consequently, big, economically hefty majority-muslim states like Malaysia and Indonesia may end up cool on the idea of closer relations with Israel.
Both are also important US allies and play a significant role as checks against China in the Pacific.
Indonesia is the biggest prize for the US in the pacific - it is the only large economy with a geopolitical heft and growing military strength that is yet to become an outright military ally of the US.
Both Malaysia and Indonesia may increase political pressure on Washington to rein in Israeli excess.
It is also what DC will want to do even without such an influence.
America’s soft power in Indonesia has a big room for significant losses if it is seen as granting a license to Israel to inflict indiscriminate violence on Gaza.
4)A free recruitment boost for Hamas and other terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
The more muslims see continuous total siege of Gaza, hunger and destitution mixed with indiscriminate bombing, the higher the likelihood that at least some small proportion of young and enraged muslims will “join the jihad”.
There will be a higher likelihood of attacks on Israeli embassies, assets, and ordinary jewish civilians all over the world (let alone direct confrontation with the IDF by new recruits).
A really horrible scenario that is best to avoid by keeping this war as short as possible.
5) The pressure on Iran to get involved will grow.
Hizbollah is already involved in minor clashes with the IDF. This is largely done to preserve its own reputation and not appear as a group that abandons “fellow muslims fighting Israel”.
But Iran will be facing ever more pressure to increase its funding and military support for militias all across the Middle East: its credibility will be on the line.
If Hamas is destroyed slowly and gradually, while Iran sits back and continues to watch the conflict from the sidelines, then its influence and control over its proxies will weaken - a scenario that Iran will try hard to avoid.
For all these reasons (and surely many more), in terms of grand strategy, it is in Israel’s interests to reduce the duration of this war, and conversely, Hamas will be very interested to prolong the conflict for as long as possible.
Israel’s options in the limited war.
Note: for the purposes of the analysis below, we shall presume that: 1) There is not going to be a direct outright war with Iran (Mossad-led sabotage/assassination campaigns targeting Iran are likely, but probably not imminent - so we shall discuss these at a more appropriate/relevant time), and 2) Israel’s ground invasion in Gaza is certain - all indicators point to the inevitability of this move (and Israel itself has announced the imminence of this invasion - and there is no US pressure to induce a last minute cancellation), and besides, it is hard to see how hostage recovery operations could take place in any other way.
Natanyahu had previously (in 2011) traded 1,000 Palestinians for one IDF soldier - Gilar Shalit.
On this occasion, in addition to civilians (who make the bulk of 100+ in captivity) Hamas has a few IDF soldiers and other high-value targets (meaning, a few to dozens of Americans) in captivity.
It is likely that the price for their release (currently, 4,500 jailed Palestinians) would remain high.
But with signaling pressure for revenge and not a negotiation, thus far, the Israeli government looks uninterested in even considering this trade.
In other words, a ground invasion is all but certain at this point.
With that said, this invasion can go forward in a number of ways, and with a range of endgames:
1) Exclusive focus on Hamas/Gaza: destroy and occupy.
The first option is that Israeli forces enter Gaza and engage in a brutal and protracted urban warfare, and that at the end of this operation Israel occupies Gaza.
This is going to take some time and major intel resources will go into this.
Under this scenario, Israel remains as an occupant of Gaza - such an occupation would by definition be indefinite - probably ending only if/when favorable conditions for exit are met.
Such conditions could be transfer of governance to a temporary UN-led force for supervision, or US-led NATO forces (like The Kosovo Force/KFOR) until Gazans are able to come up with a new political leadership that is not obviously terrorist-backed/aligned.
But Israeli occupation is far from ideal, and Biden is right in his attempt to dissuade the Israeli government from such a move.
For a start, this will attrit Israeli resources and render them vulnerable to additional third party attacks.
Israel will simply find it much harder to prosecute this war on multiple fronts - fighting Hizbullah and Hamas simultaneously.
It is important to remember that Israel doesn’t have significant manpower resources: a population of less than 10m but where approximately 2.75m citizens are exempt from mobilization (2m Arabs and 750k ultra-orthodox Jews).
In addition, occupation will almost inevitably induce an insurgency: a particularly challenging scenario in a place like Gaza - one of the most densely populated areas on earth, and thus, a nightmare for urban warfare.
2) Exclusive focus on Hamas/Gaza: destroy and withdraw.
The second option is similar to the first one above, but instead of occupying Gaza, Israeli forces would withdraw as soon as some basic objectives are met.
This would probably mean that a sufficient number of Hamas terrorists, their commanders, their hardware and logistics/resources, and key organizational nodes are destroyed, and that Israeli generals are confident that withdrawing Israeli troops is warranted to prevent further casualties to the IDF.
But withdrawal does not mean return to status quo ante.
Instead, a tighter blockade is likely to remain.
The toll on civilians will be significant, and unless a new UN or NATO-led contingent is deployed to restore order and governance, the territory will simply revert back to its status as a breeding ground for future terrorists.
3) Exclusive focus on Hamas/Gaza with significant destruction involved.
This would start with either one of the options above, but quickly escalate into “leveling Gaza” before or during land operations.
This is going to be catastrophic.
Gaza would essentially turn into Bakhmut in Ukraine - except that Gaza is 23x more populous than when Russians first started bombardment of the former.
The civilian toll will be immense.
This scenario is also one of the reasons why Egypt is unwilling to open its borders to fleeing Gazans (primary reason being the security concern of importing Hamas terrorists that are ideologically aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt) that are trying to escape Israeli onslaught.
Egypt is worried that Israel will drive out the entire Palestinian population, turn it into a “car park” after “leveling it” (a desire shared by few politicians in Congress) and thereafter occupying it fully - with little worry of an insurgency (since there would be no one left in that territory).
Essentially, this would amount to a complete destruction.
As of right now, an unlikely scenario.
4) Simultaneous campaign against Hamas and Hizbollah - air/missile strikes only.
Thus far, there have been only a few localized clashes between Israel and Hizbullah involving artillery and mortar fire.
That Hizbullah opened very limited fire on Israel so soon after Hamas attack without launching a full-scale campaign is indicative of two things:
a) There is currently no interest in a full-scale war with Israel
b) Hizbullah is aware of the strong expectations/signaling pressure placed on itself: there would be a significant reputational/threat display costs if Hizbullah (and by extension Iran) was seen as sitting this war out completely on the sidelines.
It is not a surprise therefore, that Iran warned Israel that it would ‘‘intervene’’ if Israel was to launch a ground invasion of Gaza: sitting this one out, and watching passively while Israel was to enter Gaza to annihilate Hamas, would be too politically costly for Iran.
To be clear, at this point, this intervention is likely to be implemented via proxies only: mainly Hizbullah and militias in Syria.
There is also a high likelihood that fighters of Iran’s Quds forces would participate - ostensibly, fighting as members of Hizbullah and other militias.
Indeed, there are already reports that Quds forces/their militias in Syria have moved to the west of Syria in anticipation of a possible boost needed to Hizbullah.
On the other hand, there are no indicators of a general mobilization or any other movement of significant military assets within Iran proper that would suggest Tehran’s preparation for a general war against Israel.
Such a war would be too costly for Iran in any case, but America’s decision to deploy two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean, and strong statements of support from Biden and Blinken, as well as a direct warning to Iran to stay out probably helped a lot with deterrence too.
(side note: what did not help, was a possible US President come Jan 2025 - Donald Trump - calling Hizbullah ‘‘very smart’’ and attacking Netanyahu in the middle of this war)
But to what extent this deterrence will be sufficient enough to deter Hizbullah itself is anyone’s guess.
Iran may still calculate that reputational costs of passivity would damage its credibility as a Middle Eastern power far more than huge attrition caused to its crown jewel of militias - Hizbullah.
In addition, Tehran may worry of a preemptive Israeli strike: they may be concerned that upon a conclusion of the war in Gaza, Israel would turn its full focus on Hizbullah in the north, and that this is what Netanyahu meant by a warning of a ‘‘long and difficult war’’ to come.
If that was indeed Iran’s belief, it would only be rational for them to attack Israel preemptively, while it was still fighting in Gaza - fighting an enemy on two fronts is better than one.
In theory, removing this perception may not be so complex: the US could signal to Iran that Israel would not attack Hizbullah as long as it stayed on the sidelines.
But, that assumes true Israeli disinterest in fighting Hizbullah - it is entirely possible that Israeli generals could conclude that definitively defeating both enemies (now that the war has started, and there is a political momentum from the public that demands revenge) is far better than leaving Hizbullah intact.
Finally, there is also a risk that the Hizbullah - Israel war may start through a sheer momentum.
If clashes continue, at some point, a disproportionate response (i.e. use of hitherto unseen firepower) from one of the parties may induce the other to launch a full-scale attack.
Violence has its own logic and comes with a danger of uncontrollable escalation.
And if that ultimately happens, the first scenario is where Israel refrains from using its ground forces and relies solely on missiles, artillery, and air strikes to target the core ammo depots, and command/logistics nodes of Hizbullah.
Hizbullah has accumulated approximately 150k missiles, and many of them are now precision-guided missiles.
Hizbullah commanders may therefore fear losing these highly valuable missiles in a possible Israeli air strike, and may decide to launch them before this eventuality.
In other words, Hizbullah may face a ‘‘use it or lose it moment”.
And if these PGMs are to be used, they will most likely target core IDF infrastructure, like the Iron Domes, air fields, army bases, key highways, and ammo depots.
All of this would then necessitate an even stronger response from Israel, and the IDF commanders may very well estimate that a ground invasion is now inevitable.
5) Simultaneous campaign against Hamas and Hizbollah - a full on ground invasion.
This is a scenario that harms all parties involved in the short to medium term, but arguably, in the long-term, Israel would benefit from a definitive showdown against all Iranian proxies on its periphery.
Given the tragic circumstances that started this particular war, Israel is currently enjoying a strong moral and political backing.
There is therefore a strong incentive to cash in on this momentum and use it to wipe out all of Iranian assets in Lebanon, and possibly, even in Syria.
There will be a strong appearance that Israel is facing a siege and attack from all sides, such an opportunity to get rid of Hizbullah and other militias in Syria may not present itself anytime soon.
So in the long term, and with America’s backing and continuous rearmament of the IDF, Israel will certainly be victorious against Hizbullah and co.
With that said, and in the near-term, a ground invasion of southern Lebanon will be very costly to Israel.
Israel will have to devote a significant portion of its armored units to this assault.
Its Merkava 2 and 3 tanks (around 900 altogether) will come under attack from modern anti-tank missiles that Hizbullah is now in possession of (thanks to Iran).
It is important to remember that this is not the Hizbullah of the mid 2000s.
With the help from Iran, its approximately 50k soldiers will field modern drones and anti-armor/anti-tank missiles.
It is also very likely that other militias and Quds forces themselves (posing as militia) will partake in this war.
And precisely because Hizbullah is so important to Iran, it is very likely that Iran will throw the kitchen sink of military capabilities under its control: additional weapons, and mobile, short-range air defense systems in particular (targeting Israeli drones) will likely be deployed.
It is also probable that Tehran will (in exchange for continuous support) seek Russian anti-tank mines that proved so successful in Ukraine.
With all that, Israel will likely sustain significant attritions in tanks, armored personnel carriers, drones, and soldiers.
It will come out victorious, but bloodied.
Which means that its reputation for asymmetric technological edge and invincibility will in fact be dented - reducing future deterrence against similar attacks from regrouped/reformed Iran-backed militias.
And precisely this danger means that if/when the ground war begins, Israel has to go all the way and uproot these proxies with enough vigor that their comeback becomes very unlikely anytime soon.