Page 56 - INSS | 2019-2020

Conclusion:
Net Assessment and Policy Recommendations for 2020

Amos Yadlin

Nazanin Tabatabaee Yazdi / TIMA via REUTERS REUTERS / Kevin Lamarque Maj. Ofer, Israel Air Force [CC BY 4.0]

The Power Gap

As it enters a new decade, the State of Israel possesses impressive military, political, technological, and economic
power. However, Israel is hard-pressed to translate these advantages into strategic influence and achieve its key
national security objectives: mitigating threats, advancing peace, building alliances, and dictating the terms for
the satisfactory conclusion of conflicts. This reality results from the limited benefit that military action can provide
Israel against its main adversaries, as well as Israel’s high sensitivity to casualties and the heavy economic and social
costs of war.

Even when Israel identifies and defines the challenge properly, it often has difficulty shaping an effective and relevant
strategy, because an overwhelming military victory does not necessarily translate the achievements of war into
political objectives. Similarly, dealing with the consequences of war on “the day after” is generally no less complex
than managing military operations. The asymmetry in both the campaign’s objectives and the respective publics’
expectations (for Israel’s adversaries, not losing is victory, while the Israeli public expects decisive victory) as well
as the differences in the rules of engagement make it difficult to fulfill the campaign’s objectives, or at least require
their designation in minimalist terms.

The Implications of the Killing of Soleimani

The INSS strategic assessment for 2019-2020 was finalized immediately after the targeted killing of Qasem Soleimani.
This development creates a new context and has the potential to mark a strategic change whose scope and parameters
have yet to be determined.

R egarding the United States, is this development evidence of a fundamental change in US policy, signaling a
move toward a proactive military campaign against Iran’s regional activity? Or, was it a concrete action taken
for preventive and deterrence purposes by exacting a heavy toll for the activities of pro-Iranian elements, under
Soleimani’s guidance, which peaked with the death of an American citizen (December 27, 2019) and the storming
of the embassy in Baghdad four days later.

Iran was forced to weigh its options in response to the American move without input from Soleimani, who had
been responsible for the analytical thinking and planning of activities of this sort in the regional arena. Iran’s
limited and measured response to Soleimani’s killing testifies to Tehran’s understanding that President Trump
is not predictable; its awareness of its own conventional military weakness relative to the US; and its preference
for political moves to push the United States out of Iraq rather than military measures. At the same time, it is too
early to assess the effect of the elimination of Soleimani on Iran’s connections to its regional proxies and on the
Iranian resolve and brazenness evident in recent months.

54 STRATEGIC SURVEY FOR ISRAEL