|
Trending Topics
|
Source: https://jcfa.org/defensible-borders-are-the-floor-not-the-ceiling/
An American Commander's Case for Israeli Strategic Depth after Oct. 7
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) USAF Gen. (ret.) Charles F. Wald - Hamas's massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, settled an old strategic argument. Israel, about the size of Maryland, is bordered almost entirely by adversaries intent on its destruction. Defending Israel requires strategic depth. The country lacked buffers in Gaza, southern Lebanon, and on the Syrian Golan front. A familiar argument says precision rockets, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones make terrain obsolete. But while rockets and drones are lethal, they are not war-winning. Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Iranian regime do not aim to harass Israel - they seek its elimination. That requires a ground invasion like Hamas executed. Buffer zones, demilitarized areas, and topographical control prevent such invasions. The recent record of American military operations reinforces the same conclusion. The Taliban were defeated in five weeks in 2001; Saddam Hussein's regular forces collapsed in three in 2003. The American error in both theaters was the assumption that follow-on political reconstruction could remake those societies in a Western democratic image. It could not. The applicable lesson for Israel is: defeat the adversary's capability to threaten and to invade, do not attempt to remake his worldview, and return to dismantle the capability whenever it begins to reconstitute. Oct. 7 showed what happens when geography is left undefended and threats are allowed to grow. Defensible borders are the minimum required for a small state's survival in a hostile neighborhood, and the precondition for any lasting peace. The writer is former Deputy Commander of U.S. European Command.