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David Rodman's “Israel's National Security Doctrine”

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David Rodman's “Israel's National Security Doctrine” AN EXCHANGE ON ISRAEL’S SECURITY DOCTRINE Editor’s Note: In the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, Vol. 5, No. 3 (September 2001) appeared David Rodman’s article, “Israel’s National Security Doctrine: An Introductory Overview.” [http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/meria/journal/2001/issue3/jv5n3a6.html]. In this exchange, Stuart Cohen raises additonal issues on this subject and the author, David Rodman, responds. DAVID RODMAN’S “ISRAEL’S NATIONAL SECURITY DOCTRINE”: SOME SUGGESTED MODIFICATIONS By Stuart A. Cohen* David Rodman’s “Israel’s National analytical structure that, in fact, is Security Doctrine: An Introductory insufficiently discreet to encompass the Overview” (MERIA Journal, Volume 5, multiplicity of themes that the article Number 3, September 2001) is an admirable discusses. exercise in condensation. Based on extensive At the heart of Rodman’s article lies a reading, not only does it present a succinct description and analysis of what he defines as overview of the major principles that have eight “basic security concepts” that have, in undergirded the history of Israel’s strategic his words, together “clearly driven Israeli behavior. It also presents an analytical thinking and conduct over the course of the synopsis of the major stages in that history. state’s existence.” These he lists “in no For all these reasons, it commands particular order” as: geography; manpower; attention and deserves a wide audience. quantity versus quality; offensive maneuver Precisely because of its many qualities, warfare; deterrence; conventional versus however, it also warrants review and unconventional threats; self-reliance; and suggestions for modification. The following great-power patronage. remarks are offered in that spirit. They do not This, surely, is too mixed a bag of seek to quibble with details of Rodman’s categories to be thus indiscriminately lumped analysis. Rather, they aim to present a together. somewhat different focus on some of its For one thing, the order of their major tenets. appearance, should be of importance – at the For purposes of presentation, I have very least, their ranking might provide an arranged my remarks under two headings: indication of the relative importance that the 1. Missed opportunities author considers to have been attached to each 2. Missing categories of these “concepts” at different points in time. It might also allow for an examination of the MISSED OPPORTUNITIES fluctuations in their degree of mutual Under this heading I list some of the issues reinforcement. As matters stand, Rodman’s that Rodman’s own analysis might have been higgeldy-piggeldy style precludes either issue expected to lead him to discuss, and that do from being explored. Take, for instance, the not seem to me to receive due attention in his first of his concepts, “geography” (for which, text. The reasons, I suggest, do not lie solely by the way, a better term – and one more in lack of space (although the need to keep the current in Israel’s own strategic parlance - is article concise is certainly apparent). Rather, “absence of strategic depth”).(1) As Rodman they seem to reflect a wish to sustain an himself points out, the salience of this Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 4 (December 2001) 127 Stuart A. Cohen and David Rodman “concept” has not been constant in Israeli selective. A taxonomy of Israel’s uses of strategic thought. In some periods, and force indeed reveals a remarkably wide against some classes of enemies, it was spectrum of force applications.(4) The thought to have dictated “offensive maneuver reasons are not difficult to discern. The vast warfare”; at other times, and against other majority of those who have formulated and foes, it was considered to mandate implemented Israel’s national security “deterrence” (on which more below). The task doctrine (there have been a couple of of the analyst is surely to account for these exceptions) have been pragmatists, above all fluctuations, and to construct some else.(5) Although they certainly favored framework for their interpretation. Sadly, certain forms and postures of strategic Rodman failed to take advantage of the conduct, very rarely did they allow those opportunity to show – however briefly – how preferences to automatically dictate their this might be done. behavior. Other missed opportunities – all the more Once again, by failing to recognize the frustrating because Rodman has clearly prevalence of the pragmatic strain in Israeli mastered the necessary data – seem to be the strategic thought and behavior Rodman has result of some conceptual confusion. Rodman missed an opportunity to explore its applies the generic term “concepts” to the consequences, positive and negative alike. eight security topics that he discusses. But These certainly deserve mention. Very this term is misleading, since it obscures the briefly, the most obvious advantage of the basic distinction between those categories in traditionally pragmatic Israeli mind-set on his list that have always been considered security affairs lies in the large measure of security “constraints” and those that are better flexibility that it has granted to the country’s defined as “responses”. Under the first rubric national security behavior. One of its most come the conditions arising from Israel’s blatant disadvantages, on the other hand, is smallness (in size, population, economic that it has dissuaded (perhaps even precluded) resources, etc.), conditions that the vast most attempts to formulate anything like a majority of Israel’s security community have coherent and cohensive national security always considered to be permanent operating doctrine that might be subjected to periodic factors, over which they can themselves wield and constitutionally authorized review. very little influence at all.(2) But these have Altogether, in fact, the formulation of Israeli to be analytically distinguished from other national security policies has tended to be a “concepts”, that encapsulate the strategic haphazard affair.(6) It has always owed more to solutions that the same community has the random predilections of individual political offered to the problems thus identified. The leaders and generals than to a systematic IDF’s traditional preference for military process of reasoned analysis. David Ben “preemption”, for “taking the fight to the Gurion did make some stabs at sketching a enemy’s territory”, and for “self-reliance”(for national security strategy which integrated instance) constitute deliberately chosen political and military elements (indeed, it was responses, selected from a wider range of he who introduced such concepts as possible options. Much the same is true of the “deterrence” and “lack of strategic depth” into political insistence on “great power the Israeli security lexicon). But the exercise patronage” and on swift results on the field of was never formalized. More important, no battle.(3) Thus to object to the use of the institutional framework was established in generic “concepts”, and to insist on a order to facilitate its repetition. Rodman fails to distinction between “constraints” and remind us of a fact that other observers have “responses”, is not merely to quibble over long considered to be critical: the absence of a semantic niceties. Only once we recognize truly powerful and well-entrenched national some of the “concepts” in Rodman’s list to be security council that might look beyond no more than preferred responses to perceived quotidian pressures and develop a coherent constraints can we appreciate why, in long-term strategy, based upon a detailed practice, their application has been fairly assessment and categorization of many of the 128 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 4 (December 2001) An Exchange on Israel’s Security Doctrine same notions that Rodman lists as “deterrence by punishment”. Many years ago, “concepts”.(7) the late Avner Yaniv sought to explore Israeli Undoubtedly the most serious casualty of applications of both of these forms, showing this situation has been the IDF. This is how their use has fluctuated over time.(8) More somewhat ironic, since it was the IDF which recently, Efraim Inbar and Shemuel Sandler for many years lead the opposition to the have suggested that Israeli “deterrence”, in both establishment of a national security council, its manifestations, has suffered erosion.(9) At and which has been largely responsible for the the very least, one would have wished for fact that the body that was eventually Rodman to refer to these studies, and then to established in 1999 has never exercised very suggest how their results they might be much real influence. Retrospect suggests this to synthesised with the other “concepts” in his have been a very short-sighted policy. Bereft of list, thus demonstrating their interaction. clear strategic guidelines, formally thrashed out Societal considerations constitute another, during the course of periodic dialogues and somewhat different, example of a missing between exponents of different points of view category. Certainly, Rodman is sensitive to the in both the civilian and military elites, Israel’s importance that these factors have always generals have, in intellectual terms, tended to played in Israeli security thought – as both live from hand to mouth. Instead of attempting “constraints” and “responses”. Yet, at no point to conceptualize the principles underlying their in his analysis does Rodman make explicit mission statements, they have invariably reference to what Michael Howard long ago resorted to variations on the shoulder- referred to as “the societal dimension” of shrugging theme of ein bereirah (“we have no strategy.(10) Instead, he largely restricts his choice”). Indeed, there is a strong case to be analysis of the influence exerted on Israel’s made for including that phrase in any check-list military doctrines by the size and composition of Israeli strategic concepts/principles – and not of her population to his sections on very far from the top of the pile at that.
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