Rodman (a contributor to such journals as The Journal of Strategic Studies, Israel Affairs, and Defence Studies) provides an explanatory outline of the Israeli national security doctrine, "pragmatic and effective, though essentially unarticulated." He begins with a description of the historical arcs of the key military and diplomatic variables of d.
A scathing and brilliant revisionist history, Defending the Holy Land is the most comprehensive analysis to date of Israel's national security and foreign policy, from the inception of the State of Israel to the present. Book jacket.
The most comprehensive study to date of Israel's national security. It combines an exhaustive analysis of the military, diplomatic, demographic and societal challenges Israel faces, with the responses it has developed, to present a detailed proposal for an overall new national security strategy, the first such Israeli strategy ever published.
This book provides a ground-breaking assessment of the Israeli national security experience from the establishment of the country through to the present day. Seventy-five years after its establishment, the State of Israel continues to face an acute national security predicament as a result of the still unresolved Arab–Israeli conflict. This monograph offers a new framework for analyzing this experience, first exploring the crucial events of the past and present that define it, including interstate wars, asymmetrical wars, low-intensity conflicts, and developments in weapons of mass destruction. The book then probes how Israel’s evolving national security doctrine has addressed these various challenges over the years, highlighting the roles of a number of variables: deterrence, warning, and decision; strategic depth and defensible borders; the quality and quantity of fighting men and machines; intelligence; self-reliance in military matters; foreign policy; and the influence of ethnic demography, societal resilience, economic prosperity, and water security. Written in accessible, non-technical language, the book will appeal to general readers seeking an introduction to Israeli security as well as to specialists and researchers in various fields, including Israeli history, Middle Eastern politics, and security studies.
"The U.S.-Israel relationship is in trouble," warn Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellows Robert D. Blackwill and Philip H. Gordon in a new Council Special Report, Repairing the U.S.-Israel Relationship. Significant policy differences over issues in the Middle East, as well as changing demographics and politics within both the United States and Israel, have pushed the two countries apart. Blackwill, a former senior official in the Bush administration, and Gordon, a former senior official in the Obama administration, call for "a deliberate and sustained effort by policymakers and opinion leaders in both countries" to repair the relationship and to avoid divisions "that no one who cares about Israel's security or America's values and interests in the Middle East should want."
During the early to mid-twentieth century, the Zionist Organization secured a series of political victories on the international stage, leading to the foundation of a Jewish state and to its ability to expand its territorial control within Palestine. The International Diplomacy of Israel's Founders provides a revisionist account of the founding of Israel by exposing the misrepresentations and false assurances of Zionist diplomats during this formative period of Israeli history. By comparing diplomatic statements at the United Nations and elsewhere against the historical record, it sheds new light on the legacies of such leaders as Chaim Weizmann, David Ben Gurion, Abba Eban, and Shabtai Rosenne. Including coverage of little-discussed moments in early Israeli history, this book offers an important new perspective for anyone interested in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In Zion's Dilemmas, a former deputy national security adviser to the State of Israel details the history and, in many cases, the chronic inadequacies in the making of Israeli national security policy. Chuck Freilich identifies profound, ongoing problems that he ascribes to a series of factors: a hostile and highly volatile regional environment, Israel's proportional representation electoral system, and structural peculiarities of the Israeli government and bureaucracy.Freilich uses his insider understanding and substantial archival and interview research to describe how Israel has made strategic decisions and to present a first of its kind model of national security decision-making in Israel. He analyzes the major events of the last thirty years, from Camp David I to the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, through Camp David II, the Gaza Disengagement Plan of 2005, and the second Lebanon war of 2006.In these and other cases he identifies opportunities forgone, failures that resulted from a flawed decision-making process, and the entanglement of Israeli leaders in an inconsistent, highly politicized, and sometimes improvisational planning process. The cabinet is dysfunctional and Israel does not have an effective statutory forum for its decision-making—most of which is thus conducted in informal settings. In many cases policy objectives and options are poorly formulated. For all these problems, however, the Israeli decision-making process does have some strengths, among them the ability to make rapid and flexible responses, generally pragmatic decision-making, effective planning within the defense establishment, and the skills and motivation of those involved. Freilich concludes with cogent and timely recommendations for reform.
The Israel Air Force (IAF) has accumulated as much battle experience as any air force in the world during the post-Second World War era, and it has recorded many outstanding accomplishments throughout a seemingly endless string of interstate wars, asymmetrical wars, counterinsurgency campaigns, and special operations. This book examines the IAF's experience in the ArabIsraeli conflict from the establishment of Israel in 1948 to the present day. It analyses this experience through the prisms of manoeuvre warfare, attrition warfare, counterinsurgency warfare, special operations, and humanitarian operations. The book reviews the IAF's performance in such wars as the 1967 Six-Day War, the 196970 War of Attrition, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and the 20089 Gaza War. The book also scrutinizes the IAF's participation in major counterinsurgency campaigns and special operations, traces the air force's experience with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which have occupied a very prominent place in air operations since the 1982 Lebanon War, and chronicles its experience with anti-aircraft defences and satellites. Up-to-date information on the IAF's bases, squadrons, and other infrastructure is provided as well. The book is based on personal visits to the IAF over the past few years, during which the author had the opportunity to tour bases, listen to lectures and briefings, and speak with numerous retired, reserve, and active duty officers.
Why do states persist in using force to enhance their deterrent posture, even though it is not clear that it is effective? This book develops an innovative framework to answer this question, viewing deterrence as an idea. This allows the author to explain how countries institutionalize deterrence strategy, and how this internalization affects policy. He argues that the US and Israel have both internalized deterrence ideas and become attached to these practices. For them, deterrence is not just a means to advance 'physical' security, but it constitutes their very selves as deterring actors. As a result, being unable to deter becomes a threat to their identity, evoking strong emotional responses. In recognizing these dynamics, the book provides a fresh perspective on the US war in Iraq (2003) and the Israeli war in Lebanon (2006), both of which can be seen as attempts to repair each country's shaken sense of self.
This book offers a comprehensive overview of the impact of ‘strategic culture’ on Israeli military operations against Hamas between 1987 and 2014. It has often been argued that Israeli policies and military operations against Hamas have proven tactically effective, but strategically disastrous, allowing the Islamic Resistance Movement to grow from a small spin-off of the Muslim Brotherhood into a powerful military and political actor in the Palestinian arena. This book argues, contrary to this opinion, that Israel was effective in its struggle against the Islamic Resistance Movement between 1987 and 2014, as the Jewish state ultimately managed to deny the majority of Hamas' strategic aims and to preserve a position of relative strength. By relying on a synthesis of primary sources, interviews, memoirs, scholarly and professional military studies and information gathered from the media, the study delivers a careful and comprehensive analysis of the conflict. It provides an historical outline of the development of the Israeli ‘strategic culture’ and analyzes its impact on the process of military adaptation during the First Intifada, the Oslo Peace Process, the al-Aqsa Intifada and the Gaza wars. Finally, the book illuminates how the Israeli strategic culture moulded a distinctive ‘way of war’ that, though marked by successes and failures, ultimately proved effective against Hamas. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, Middle Eastern politics, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism and security studies in general.
