Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

Faculty Member, Defence and International Affairs

Other Affiliations: King's College London, War Studies

Thesis Title: Tactics without Strategy: Explaining Israel's strategic deficit during the 2006 Second Lebanon War against Hezbollah

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Possession of superior military capability on the battlefield has traditionally been viewed as a reliable determinant of success in war. Since 1945, however, some of the world’s most powerful armies have increasingly struggled to convert their immense war-fighting capacity into decisive political results against materially weaker opponents. The aim of this research is to explain the ‘paradox of unrealized power’ in the case of Israel, with a particular focus on the inconclusive outcome of the month-long confrontation that opposed the Israel Defence Forces to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon in 2006.

General theories of asymmetric conflict outcomes suggest a range of explanations for this paradox. Although these theories offer valuable insights, they are of limited validity in this particular case. Using a theoretical framework derived from Clausewitz’s concept of war as an instrument of policy, this research proposes to focus instead on the strategic conversion mechanisms that enable the successful translation of tactical success into intended political outcomes in war. The hypothesis is that Israel suffers from a 'strategic deficit' that severely hinders its ability to successfully convert tactical performance into political rewards.

Israel’s strategic deficit manifests itself, conceptually, in a strategic orientation that privileges short-term tactical effectiveness at the expense of long-term political considerations. This conceptual deficit is largely rooted in Israel’s strategic culture and its adoption of an apolitical concept of national security. Moreover, structural and institutional weaknesses in Israel’s civil-military relations and political system perpetuate the ascendancy of military criteria over political considerations. The in-depth case study illustrates the numerous ways in which Israel’s strategic deficit manifested itself at critical stages of the decision-making process during the 2006 Lebanon War.

The research concludes that a number of deeply-ingrained pathologies in the process of strategy-making in Israel synergistically interact to produce a ‘way of war’ that is tactically excellent but strategically inept. Deficient strategic conversion mechanisms therefore explain the paradox of unrealized power in this case, a finding with theoretical and practical implications that extend far beyond the Israeli case.

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