String of IDF successes might cause Nasrallah to back down, but won’t lead to victory
Israel is hoping stunning tactical achievements will head off war against Hezbollah, but defeating the organization requires a different approach
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Israel’s security services are on a hot streak as they hammer Hezbollah in Lebanon.
On Friday, an airstrike eliminated the senior leadership of the elite Radwan force, the unit that the terror group has been building up for years to invade the Galilee and carry out an attack that would make the horrors of October 7 pale in comparison.
And over the last few days, the IAF struck hundreds of Hezbollah rocket launchers in southern Lebanon that were primed for immediate attacks on Israel.
Those blows came in the aftermath of stunning operations in which Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, killing 37 and leaving thousands of fighters maimed. Though Israel has not taken responsibility, Hezbollah blames its arch-enemy, and has no idea how much deeper the penetration of its secretive organization goes.
Those high-profile successes — along with the killing of Hezbollah’s military chief Fuad Shukr by Israel in July — overshadow another bold operation that seems to have gone off without a hitch. Israeli special forces reportedly carried out a raid deep inside Syria 10 days ago, destroying an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facility for the development of ballistic missiles and drones for Hezbollah and other proxies.
Though these highly public (and deeply humiliating for Hezbollah) operations are undoubtedly escalations in the 11-month-long fight across the Israel-Lebanon border, they seem designed to avoid an all-out war.
For decades, Israel has relied on deterrence to guarantee relative quiet on its borders. This approach, which is expressly not designed to defeat or destroy an adversary, seeks to dissuade an enemy from crossing red lines by threatening to exact a cost that they deem too dear.
Repeated deterrence operations in Gaza and Lebanon since the 1990s resulted in boasts from Israeli leaders, limited periods of quiet, and enemies that grew steadily more dangerous.
The problem with deterrence is that it exists only in the mind of the enemy, and therefore there is no guarantee that one will be aware that their adversary’s cost-benefit calculations have changed. Israel learned its deterrence against Hamas was nonexistent only when thousands of terrorists streamed across the border on October 7, and discovered the limits of its deterrence against Hezbollah the next day, when the Lebanese terror group began to open fire on the north.
Now Israel is trying to use what military theorists call compellence — forcing an adversary to stop actions they have already begun. It requires a deep understanding of the other side’s calculations, a “nuanced understanding of the needs, fears, capabilities, interests, and will of the target state,” in the words of US Army War College scholar Tami Davis Biddle.
“And the coercer must be able to articulate the demand in ways the target state can comprehend and comply with.”
The purpose of any damage done to an enemy is to signal that there will be much more on the way if it doesn’t change its behavior in a specific way.
“Unhappily, the power to hurt is often communicated by some performance of it,” wrote Thomas Schelling in “Arms and Influence.”
“Whether it is sheer terroristic violence to induce an irrational response, or cool premeditated violence to persuade somebody that you mean it and may do it again, it is not the pain and damage itself but its influence on somebody’s behavior that matters.”
Israel is hoping that eliminating Hezbollah’s senior command echelon, thinning its ranks by thousands of fighters in 48 hours, and degrading its missile array will finally convince the Shiite group that it will ultimately pay too high a price if it doesn’t stop firing at Israel.
The danger is that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will make other calculations. He may decide that the strikes prove that Israel is about to attack and that war is coming. It may also push him into an aggressive response to save face and show his supporters and Iranian patron that his organization is capable of standing up to the hated Jewish state.
War in the north seems inevitable, but Israel will be far more likely to win it after several years of transformation and replenishment, when it can surprise Hezbollah with a full-scale invasion meant to defeat the organization once and for all
Israel can only take the decision out of Nasrallah’s hands by going to war against Hezbollah and dismantling it as a military force.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far ruled against such a move. It is a reasonable decision, given the effects of 11 months of fighting in Gaza on the readiness of the army to take on a more dangerous enemy in Lebanon, and the fact that IDF reforms initiated in 2019 to enable it to defeat Hezbollah on the battlefield were not completed by October 6.
War in the north seems inevitable, but Israel will be far more likely to win it after several years of transformation and replenishment, when it can surprise Hezbollah with a full-scale invasion meant to defeat the organization once and for all.
If and when that war happens, stunning operations like those we have seen carried out against Hezbollah in recent weeks will have to be launched as part of a comprehensive and decisive campaign — not as standalone tactical successes. In other words, Israel today is still fighting Hezbollah as if it is a terrorist organization it wants to keep quiet, and not an enemy army it intends to destroy.
If Hezbollah does back down, Netanyahu would be well-served to end the strategic muddle in Gaza and dramatically enhance military pressure on Hamas to destroy the organization’s remaining capabilities and possibly convince its leader Yahya Sinwar to agree to a hostage deal. That effort will need to be supported by a concerted program to replace Hamas civil rule in Gaza, a crucial element that has been far too long in coming.
However, if Israel fails to compel Nasrallah to call the rockets off and is left with no choice but war in Lebanon, Sinwar will see his plan finally come to fruition. He has staked his hopes for survival on Muslim states and armed groups joining the fight, forcing Israel to shift its focus from Gaza and leaving Hamas intact.
Israel finds itself in a perilous strategic environment, and daring tactical successes don’t guarantee a way out. Only determined, aggressive military moves against Hamas, coupled with a civil effort to replace the terror group, free from domestic political considerations, can bring the victory in Gaza that is long overdue.
And when the time comes for Israel to fight Hezbollah on the ground in Lebanon, the same principles will apply.
