Jan 7, 2024. Posted by Balkan Periscope - Hellas
Just over a week after Oct. 7, while Israel was
still reeling from one of the worst security failures in its history, U.S.
President Joe Biden landed in Tel Aviv with a warning: Don’t repeat America’s
mistakes.
Biden was thinking of the 9/11 attacks, and the series of U.S. military interventions — some would say misadventures — that followed.
U.S.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also worried that Israel faced the prospect
of “strategic defeat” in its war against Hamas, adding, “You know, I learned a
thing or two about urban warfare from my time fighting in Iraq and leading the
campaign to defeat ISIS.”
"Israel
has seemingly not heeded the advice of its strongest ally. Why?" asked
Jeff Rogg, an assistant professor at Joint Special Operations University, in
op-ed for the Hill.
"Because
Israeli officials have another analogy in mind," he wrote. "While
America’s missteps in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past generation have
haunted U.S. policymakers during the last two months of the Israel-Hamas war,
Israeli leaders envision a different end state."
He said
that the Israeli officials "compare the war against Hamas to the war
against Nazi Germany and argue that postwar Gaza should follow the path of
postwar Germany."
In his
brilliant book, “Analogies at War,” Yuen Foong Khong examines how policymakers
use analogies to justify their actions and rationalize difficult decisions.
"While
Israel is at war with Hamas, these analogies are also at war. Understanding
them is essential to understanding how the war is being fought and how it might
end."
The war of
analogies has surfaced in the debate over Israeli tactics and strategy. Both
the Americans and Israelis are using analogies to advance their own narrative
and preferred positions." Chastened by U.S. experiences, American
officials, including members of Congress who served in Iraq and Afghanistan,
have encouraged the Israelis to use less aggressive tactics in conducting urban
warfare in Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated areas."
As Israel
planned the ground campaign in Gaza, the U.S. sent Marine General James Glynn
to Israel as an advisor, citing his experience in Iraq. "Ironically,
American policymakers widely perceive the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as
strategic failures, but they are recommending that the Israelis adopt similar
tactics."
"Meanwhile,
the campaign against ISIS, which U.S. military commanders compared to the
destructive urban combat of World War Two and former Secretary of Defense Jim
Mattis described as a “war of annihilation,” has somehow become America’s
example of how to successfully conduct counterterrorism and urban warfare even
though it required displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians and turning
cities like Raqqa and Mosul to rubble."
Under
mounting public and international pressure, Biden accused Israel of
“indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza, which invokes images of the Second World War.
American officials are comparing Israel’s tactics to the Second World War while
warning that it faces a strategic defeat comparable to the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
"The
Israelis have reached the opposite conclusion. In their own defense, they are
citing American and Western military operations in urban environments from the
Second World War to the present. They analogize the IDF’s tactics in Gaza to
U.S. tactics in Iraq and Syria, insisting that the ratio of civilians to
combatants killed is comparable."
Israeli
leaders have also reminded their American counterparts that "the Allies
indiscriminately bombed German and Japanese cities in their effort to win the
Second World War."
"Notably,
the Israelis reject the comparison in terms of tactics but still use it as
evidence of their strategic end state, recently re-articulated by former Prime
Minister Naftali Bennett."
The current
analogy dominating the minds of American officials is itself the product of a
war of analogies during the U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like
the Israelis, George W. Bush referenced the Second World War to explain his
decisions. However, Barack Obama viewed the wars through the lens of Vietnam.
"America’s
own experience with analogies at war can therefore provide a foundation for
what General H.R. McMaster calls “strategic empathy” and should inform the
dialogue occurring between American and Israeli officials."
Rogg
believes "the real challenge for both America and Israel is the power that
analogies have over policymakers and the public."
The Americans are using the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to try to pressure Israel to change its tactics and revisit its strategy.
The Israelis are using the Second World War to justify the war and defend their decisions.
"Through their
choice of analogies, they are also revealing their sense of optimism or
pessimism about the outcome of the war."
"If
American officials continue to view the war through the analogy of Iraq and
Afghanistan, they are more likely to endorse a ceasefire or take other measures
to try to change Israeli actions. If Israeli officials remain committed to the
Second World War model, the war will likely go on much as it has," he
added.
"As
the war in Gaza rages, so does the war over analogies. We must remember they
are only analogies. The reality of those wars was far more complex, and their
outcomes not predetermined. In fact, in the fullness of time, the Israel-Hamas
war may one day become an analogy itself."
Shafaq
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