[(Continued from p.4)]
possibly the very existence of Israel.Since the pinnacle of its victories in the Six Day War of 1967 each full-scale or limited war has ended with a less convincing result in Israel's favor. The IDF is no longer perceived by the Arabs as an unbeatable army. It is worth focusing a bit on the "objective" reasons for the downward turn of the IDF victory curve in regular wars (we will deal later with the "subjective" reasons dependent solely on ourselves). The Arabs learned to derive lessons from their defeats. They rearm and improve quantitatively and qualitatively making it harder to win victories like 1956 and 1967. Even if, in terms of manpower, there has been no great improvement, their progress in terms of quality weapons systems is apparent.
Another cause stems from the expansion of the circles of warfare. Countries distant from Israel are capable of participating in a war against Israel with firepower alone, i.e. SSMs, while in the past they could participate only by dispatching expeditionary forces to the Arab countries bordering Israel. The peripheral countries (like Iraq, Iran etc.) enjoy a certain immunity (due to their distance from Israel) from the IDF's strategic long-arm. In the Gulf War, the Israeli air force could have struck Iraq, but because of the long distance it is doubtful if it could have operated systematically.
Yet another cause of the decline in the IDF's deterrence stems from the loss of certain monopolies to which the Arabs had no response--military or otherwise. Until the Yom Kippur War, the IDF had maintained clear superiority over Arab air forces. The Arabs, whose impotence in the air was apparent, realized there would be no remedy for them in air-to-air battles, and therefore searched for alternative answers. They rested their hopes initially on SAMs, which did indeed limit the Israel Air Force's ability in the 1973 war, but not for long. The IDF found appropriate answers, and the proof was in the Lebanon war. In any case, the surface-to-air missiles did not fully eliminate the Israeli monopoly in terms of Israel's ability to conduct air raids deep into enemy territory, and the Arabs did not find a solution.
This military monopoly ended, though, when the Arabs began purchasing ground-to-ground ballistic missiles (e.g. Scuds, "Frogs") which would strike deep into Israel and its civilian population. While it is true that SSMs cannot win or determine the outcome of a war nor are they particularly militarily effective relative to air power, in Israel's case, with its hypersensitivity to its civilian population, this weapon is capable of satisfying Arab strategic requirements. Moreover, once they saw Israel's distress in the face of the Iraqi ground-to-ground missiles and the public's "Pavlovian" fear of the missiles and more lethal weapons, the Arabs could conclude that not only had they achieved strategic balance but perhaps they had a powerful military tool in their possession.
It is worth mentioning here that in the Arrow missile, Israel today has a potential monopoly to thwart the danger of SSMs from the confrontation and peripheral states. No country in the region, even in the world, has any weapons systems capable of intercepting SSMs as Israel does. If the Israeli "active defense" disposition through these anti-ballistic missiles performs as expected when needed, this could bring about a militarily revolutionary step, returning the countries in the region to square one, namely, their inferiority vis-a-vis the Israeli long-arm.
When speaking of Israel's military monopolies, her nuclear capability immediately comes to mind. No other country in the region has acquired nuclear capability, though Iraq has taken steps (and perhaps continues to take steps) to acquire it, and so has Iran. More years will pass before any country in the region will possess effective nuclear weapons. However, even the present monopoly in this area is limited. First, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which this nuclear deterrence would be implemented, given Israel's geo-strategic circumstances. And even if a scenario of this sort does exist, it is certainly an apocalyptic--"let me die with the Philistines--"version. Second, most Arab countries have achieved a reasonable balance to Israeli monopoly in the nuclear realm through the possession of other non-conventional weapons systems, i.e. chemical and biological weapons. In the Israeli context (with its limited size and population and its extreme sensitivity to fatalities and damage), they can be viewed as neutralizing the Israeli nuclear monopoly. Third, Israeli nuclear deterrence cannot be applicable in a limited conventional war and is ineffective against terrorist acts and guerrilla warfare as demonstrated in the intifadas and in South Lebanon.
The fact that Israel no longer possesses exclusive military advantages over its neighbors is a reality which necessarily impacts negatively on its deterrence capability vis-a-vis those neighbors. And while its military superiority remains intact, this superiority is ineffective in the field of irregular warfare.
The aversion on the part of the Israeli public to exercise power, even when circumstances call for it, is conspicuous. Consequently, its determination to emerge victorious from struggles and violent conflicts in which it has been involved has significantly decreased.
The watershed event was the Yom Kippur
War. Although the IDF turned the tables and ended up with
a glorious tactical victory on the ground, it did not
conclude with Israel in an improved situation. On the contrary,
[(Continued on p.6)]
April 2001 - 5 - Outpost