BESA Post-Soviet Conflicts Research Digest No. 7 (April 2024)
In April 2024, the PSCR program’s materials covered the conflictual dynamics in and around Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Estonia.
In April 2024, the PSCR program’s materials covered the conflictual dynamics in and around Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Estonia.
Morocco, like many other African countries, maintained neutrality regarding arms supplies to Ukraine. The kingdom became the first African state to provide military aid to Kyiv. Once the shipment of all purchased armoured vehicles is completed, Morocco will rank second after Poland in supplying combat tanks since the start of the conflict.
Preventive war/the preemptive strike, defined as the identification of a major threat developing among one’s enemies and the taking of action to remove that threat before it materializes, was once central to Israel’s security concept. Since the rise of Hamas to power in Gaza and the Second Lebanon War against Hezbollah, however, the IDF has abandoned this practice. Instead, strategies were developed to keep escalation below the threshold of war – the “Campaign Between the Wars” in the north and repeated limited operations in Gaza. Notwithstanding these efforts, both Hamas and Hezbollah subsequently evolved, over the course of almost two decades, into terrorist armies that are a significant threat to Israel. Two recent cases illustrate this trend: Israel’s response to the development of Hamas’s offensive capability, with an emphasis on tunnels, starting in 2015; and Hezbollah’s conversion of rockets into precision-guided rockets starting in 2018. In both cases the option of a preventive war was raised but rejected. In direct response to lessons learned from the Iron Swords War, I propose that the preventive war/preemptive strike be restored to Israel’s strategic toolbox. The external and internal legitimacy for doing so stems from the fact that Israel has returned to the era of “wars of no choice.”
The BESA Center is pleased to announce that Brigadier General (res.) Eran Ortal has joined us as a senior researcher. Gen. Ortal served as commander of the Dado Center and in a variety of positions at IDF General Headquarters in the fields of force deployment and design. His areas of expertise are national security, military thought and military innovation.
Over the past six weeks there has been an escalation in Israeli air strikes against Iranian, Hezbollah, and other pro-Iranian militia locations in Syria. The most powerful strike, on 1 April, killed the commander, the deputy commander, and several staff members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard force coordinating the actions of all the allied and proxy Iranian forces operating against Israel. These are the highest-ranking Iranian officers to have been killed since the 2020 assassination by the US of Qassem Soleimani, who was chief of the Iranian al-Quds organization and responsible for all Iranian operations outside Iran aimed at the US, Israel, and pro-western Arab states. The targets of the 1 April strike were convening in a building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus. The Iranians claim the building was in fact a consulate, so Israel placed its embassies across the world on alert for a tit-for-tat retaliation.
During the night of 13-14 April, after two weeks of threats, the Iranians retaliated with their first-ever direct attack from Iranian territory into Israel. The operation is called “The True Promise.” According to Israeli officials, Iran launched a barrage containing 185 explosive drones (nicknamed “suicide-drones”), 36 cruise missiles, and at least 110 ballistic missiles. In addition to the direct Iranian action, their various allies and proxies – the Houthis in Yemen, Iraqi Hezbollah forces in Iraq and Syria, and the Lebanese Hezbollah – also fired at Israel.
The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict contains a maritime dimension in the Red Sea. The Houthi offensive, ostensibly directed against Israel, is not only targeting Israel itself but also commercial and passenger ships under several flags, thereby creating a critical international strategic challenge. The EU has decided to respond by launching Operation ASPIDES. Unlike the US- and UK-led Operations Prosperity Guardian and Poseidon Archer, ASPIDES is not attacking Houthi targets but intercepting their strikes. While this wholly defensive approach can play a useful role in protecting vessels and can contribute to deterrence, it concerns the Israelis, who fear that the EU’s limited response to the Houthi threat reflects a similar stance toward Iran.
Under authoritative international rules, Israel’s mid-March targeting of senior Hamas commander Marwan Issa was law-enforcing. Among other egregious crimes, Issa was a key planner of the October 7 rampage against Israeli civilians. Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman, former chief of Israeli military intelligence, accurately described this Palestinian terrorist leader as Hamas’s “strategic mind.” To fully understand this law-based action, geopolitical context is necessary. In essence, the world legal structure compels a vigilante system of justice. It is against the background of continuing global anarchy that terror-beleaguered states must identify and operationally shape their counter-terrorism options.
In March 2024, the PSCRP program of the BESA Center covered in its materials the regional developments in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, as well as particular problems related to Ukraine and Russia.
The war in Gaza has now been going on for six months, yet to this day, there has been no effort whatsoever toward a long-term political process. Without such a process it will not be possible to formulate an agreed plan for the “day after”. The only political process so far is related to the negotiations to Israeli hostages, and temporary ceasefire, clearly much needed agreement sooner than later. The impression this conveys to the international arena is that Israel is not interested in discussing alternatives towards ending the war and adopting steps for stabilizing the situation in the Gaza strip and beyond. Tremendous damage is being caused by this omission. A move towards a political process, based on the main principles suggested in this article, may reduce the damage and serve vital Israeli interests.
In recent years, the concept of decisive victory has eroded in Israel. October 7 brought it forcefully back to the center of the national security process. There are four types of victory: tactical (the ability of the IDF to negate the enemy’s fighting ability); operational (the ability of the operative echelon to dismantle the fighting system facing it, which is currently happening in Gaza); military strategic (the ability to remove the military threat posed by the enemy for many years to come); and grand, or national, strategic (military victory leads to a fundamental change in the geopolitical situation, like a peace treaty or the establishment of a new regime).
To continue its mission to defeat Hamas, Israel must take the initiative to replenish the stores of international legitimacy lost due to the acute humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. While the primary blame for the crisis lies with Hamas, which cares nothing for Gazan civilians, Israel is being held responsible even by the US for not doing enough to get aid in.
The US has embarked on a significant humanitarian initiative in Gaza, planning to establish a temporary maritime pier to facilitate large-scale aid delivery. This strategic move, announced by President Biden, aims to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by ensuring the steady flow of food, water, medicine, and shelter to the region.