Hamas' Strategic Dead End
And a U.S. Critical Vulnerability
The world was reminded yet again that terrorism is not a dead strategy as Hamas initiated a long-planned air, sea, and land offensive against Israel killing, at the time of this writing, over a thousand people.
This is the first time I’ve seen Substack become a go-to source for unfolding information on a crisis, the kind that Twitter used to be. By contrast, Twitter has been nothing but a dumpster fire fueled disinformation and anti-Semitism machine. (Elon Musk himself is now tweeting out antisemitic accounts. If you’re still on the Musk-is-a-genius track and not on the Musk-is-just-a-rich-asshole track, time to jump trains.)
I’m not an expert on the region, but here’s a few sources I’ve found enlightening.
First, the Washington Post’s coverage has been excellent. They’ve started adopting some of the sources and methods of OSINT in their coverage which should really enhance journalism going forward, at least for coverage of conflicts.
Dan Drezner had probably the first good overview at his Substack, Drezner’s World. It’s a good place to start. Marc Lynch has another typically good overview.
Sir Lawrence Freedman unsurprisingly has the best overview of the strategic dynamics. His take is here.
This conflict will go down in history as an example of achieving strategic surprise on one side and a tragic intelligence failure on the other. Mick Ryan covered that aspect of the conflict and compared it to other examples here.
Finally, I really liked this description of Israel’s strategic options, Israel’s Strategic Cul-de-Sac. So much so that it inspired the title of this post. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad bear the responsibility for the current violence, but Israeli policymakers have driven themselves into this cul-de-sac over the last few decades.
The Strategic Dead End
Which is not to say that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are any better off strategically. Tactical success and achieving surprising is one thing, translating that success into strategic effect is another. This is always the problem with terrorism as a strategy: causing fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate doesn’t lead to a strategic effect that induces policy changes in the target that are beneficial for the side employing terror. Something Russia should also remember as it continues its terror campaign throughout Ukraine.
Strategic effect is key concept when it comes to understanding just how counterproductive terrorism can be. It’s a phrase that comes from Clausewitz, because of course it is, but it’s not one he explained or fleshed out. Army War College Professor Harry R. Yarger did flesh it out in his book on 21st century strategy, available for free here. It’s also going to be a major concept in On Strategy.
The basic idea is that tactical actions (or operational campaigns if you’re into that) have strategic effects that can be positive or negative, larger or smaller, depending on the action, the objective, and the political dynamics of the conflict. They’re hard to predict, so you better think through them carefully before hand.
Terrorism is a strategy focused on creating a sense of fear in an opponent’s population so that they will, in turn, withdraw support from the policy in question. It’s the same strategic logic as “strategic” bombing and just as effective. (Not very). So far, the strategic effect of Hamas’ actions has been to piss Israel off. Since there’s no place for Hamas/PIJ to go and they have no chance of generating enough combat power to actually defeat the IDF, they have not achieved a beneficial strategic effect. They can induce the IDF to escalate. They can cause the IDF to expend blood and resources fighting them. But they remain totally powerless to strategically change the dynamics of the conflict while they remain wedded to terror. Their horrific actions and civilians and threats to murder hostages, which I won’t link here because they are ISIS level brutal, is turning the world against them.
It’s important to note that the Palestinian people are victims of this strategy of terror as well. In Gaza, they’re locked in with terrorists who claim to have their interests at heart but clearly do not. Many innocent people will pay for these acts of terror, not just the ones that are directly harmed by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah.
The Critical Vulnerability
From the American perspective, there is unfortunately no surprise that we’ve been caught unready again. The primary policy goals are the safe evacuation of American citizens and the support of an American ally. But the tactical means are not available. A carrier strike group, complete with the newest aircraft carrier in the Navy the USS Gerald R. Ford, was in the Mediterranean and is headed towards the coast of Lebanon. But there is no available Marine Expeditionary Unit that would be the key enabler in the event of a NEO (non-combatant evacuation). The 26th MEU is in the Persian Gulf providing security to merchant shipping there. There is an LPD in Spain with some 26th MEU personnel aboard, but just a portion of the staff. Furthermore, the Ford CSG lacks the typical number of cruisers needed to protect the ships. (These numbers are accurate as of the 2 October 2023 U.S. Naval Institute fleet tracker linked above, which is where I get all my info about where ships are at any given time.)
This isn’t just whining about the lack of amphibious ships. Hezbollah has a significant anti-ship missile capability even though they last used it in 2006. Since it is now being reported that Hezbollah has taken casualties already, they may join the conflict which will lead to calls for the Ford CSG to respond. Even if the CSG just hangs out in case there is a NEO or to provide ISR support, there’s still a significant threat. That means the Navy is once again going into harm’s way undermanned, under-resourced, and lacking key capabilities for the job they may be asked to do. These are the very same resources that DoD and the Navy’s own leadership recently argued were unnecessary. Sometimes, events have a funny way of proving people wrong very quickly.
Unfortunately, it will be the sailors that will have to pay the tab if things go sideways.
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