Continuing with the second work in our five-article series on the current war on Iran, we are adopting the strategic lens of Israel. In this article, we put ourselves in the position of the Jewish state to understand what it can do to win this war. As the primary aggressor in this war, of course, Israel could simply make peace, and the war would be over. However, there are reasons why Israel decided to wage this war, making this assumption “just to stop the war” unrealistic and superficial. Without assessing the normative dimension of Israel’s strategy from an external perspective, we aim to develop an understanding of Israel’s position and examine the war from its perspective.
The value and purpose of this series is to display our impartiality, flexibility, expertise and the strategic strength of our analytical framework. Usually, work in the political field is limited to cognitive and conceptual frameworks of ideologies and interests. With this series, we underline that politics can, and should, be approached from a technical angle to ensure that crafted measures truly reflect functional and sustainable solutions. It follows from the above that we are not inherently adopting the stances of the parties but merely adopting their lens for the purpose of our strategic analysis. This series must therefore not be read as a positioning from our side.
Israel’s Goals And Interests In This War
To understand Israel’s goals, it is important to outline the deep connection between the state and the religion of its population. Similar to Iran, Israel is a theocratic political system which is directed towards the fulfilment of religious goals. Unlike Iran, however, Israel’s theocratic model is not geared towards interfering with its citizens’ individual lifestyles and their compatibility with the religious works of Judaism. Rather, Israel’s state policy is directionally pointed at the achievement of a collective goal, without being primarily concerned with how this goal is achieved. The goal in question is the rule over the territories between West-Sub-Anatolia, Persia and Anatolia itself, as Judaistic scripts outline a promise of those territories to the Jewish people. We can see that this goal has also informed the foreign policy of Israel in the context of the war over Palestine, the current war against Lebanon and its diplomatic and political strategy in the bilateral relations with Syria and Jordan.
It is important to note that this goal of Israel needs to be treated as a constant, as opposed to many other goals of other nations that are usually variable. The firm belief in this goal is the basis for direct and indirect measures of Israel taken at the domestic and international levels. It follows that the attack on Iran originated from a tactical assessment of military superiority over Iran to conquer, annex or, through vassalage of a local leader, control Iran, which would bring the Jewish nation closer to achieving the long-term goal of ruling the territories described above. It also follows from the above that, regardless of the outcome of the current war, this goal will remain in place, meaning that if the current war is lost by Israel, it will need to find new ways to take over Iran. This, in turn, makes it even more important for the Jewish nation to win this current war to avoid high costs and loss of public support and cohesion.
Israel’s Strategy To Achieve Its Goals
Military Strategy
Since the beginning of the war, Israel has primarily relied on the use of ballistic missiles to attack Iran. Here, the first targets were the political and military leadership of the Persian nation to demoralise the Persian population, as well as disrupt decision-making processes and disturb strategic coherence. This tactic has been successful in that the former Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, was killed by one of the strikes during the first days of the war. Further, Israel attacks concentrate on critical resource and energy infrastructure of metropolitan areas, such as Tehran and Isfahan. On the other side, military bases and infrastructure in Iran’s borderlands with Iraq are targeted to disrupt potential preparation of ground troop movements.
The more critical strategy of Israel, however, is the use of the United States of America (hereinafter: USA) as an extension of its military. The Jewish nation and the USA are jointly attacking Iran by making use of the numerous military bases of the USA in the region, as well as using the naval forces of the USA, stationed in the Persian Gulf. Due to the capacities of the USA, this has given Israel critical support to sustain its campaign against Iran for over two weeks now. However, with the depletion of national military capacities and the disrupted supply chain of North American weaponry, the Jewish nation must seek alternative ways to avoid jeopardising its goal to overtake Iran. If Israel runs out of missiles before Iran gives in, it will need to mobilise ground troops and air forces to directly invade Iran. Such mobilisation will take time, giving Iran crucial advantages for recovery and strategic realignment.
Therefore, if Israel plans to follow through with this offensive and decisively win against Iran, it will need to mobilise its troops very soon, while also convincing its vassal state, the USA, to do the same. It is quite a difficult move because even if troops are fully mobilised, they would need to cross Jordan and Iraq, which is more than 1000 kilometres. However, then the tactical situation would shift in favour of this two-state axis. Potentially, Israel, with its global media power, could also spread misinformation about its current strength, creating the illusion of missiles and ammunition running out, while displaying the massive destruction of Israeli cities. This would create a false sense of confidence on the Iranian side and the nations that supply Iran with technology and resources, making them more likely to reduce pressure, production and external supply. At this point, Israel could use surprise attacks and offensives to make quick gains in its campaign.
Diplomatic and Political Strategy
One of Israel’s biggest disadvantages is its diplomatic situation. Due to developments in recent years, Israel’s foreign policy is increasingly considered to be illegitimate and in conflict with norms of good governance. Events like the release of the Epstein files or the genocide in Gaza made Israel lose much of its international credibility, alienating European allies and forcing other states to harden their stances against the Jewish nation. Moreover, the decades-long allegations of Iran developing nuclear weapons are also no longer credible, especially after the attack on Iran. Therefore, Israel is in a difficult situation diplomatically to gain support for its goals. States are less likely to side with Israel openly, and even strong allies, such as Germany, are voicing their support for the Israeli cause more reluctantly than ever.
USA And Europe Relations
As we know from the Epstein files, most of the European and Neo-European politicians in high-ranking positions are compromised due to incriminating evidence that the intelligence agency of the Jewish state holds. This is also why the USA and some European nations still explicitly support the war on Iran. However, as neither the general public nor the legal systems reacted to the release of some parts of the files, the compromising nature of the material has significantly weakened, as such politicians might now fear the release of additional material less. Therefore, it becomes more important for Israel to either expand its influence over people in allied states’ apparatuses vertically, meaning that also government personnel, economic figures and politicians of lower ranks need to be targeted, or in depth, meaning that the pressure on the already compromised people needs to intensify. By doing so, Israel can more sustainably steer the USA and other nations in this war to support its win.
Russia Relations
Simultaneously, the Jewish nation needs to pursue a strategy of sustainable diplomatic relations with Russia and China. This sounds counterintuitive at first, as both nations have strong normative footings and are interested, at least to some degree, in Iran’s victory. Further, Russia is fighting a war against Ukraine, which is already under indirect control of Israel, while China’s political and societal system is almost impermeable in its current structure. However, both nations have crucial interests that Israel could enable them to pursue by pressuring the USA to make concessions. The Jewish state could make Europe ease the military and economic pressure on Russia with the help of the USA; of course, not significantly, but considerably. Although one could think that Russia would then channel resources to Iran, two factors would make that less likely. First, Russia would use the breathing room to recover from the war. Second, in psychological terms, this would ease tensions with Israel just enough to potentially strike a peace deal with Ukraine to consolidate the current borders. That would then keep Russia from fully supporting Iran.
China Relations
China, on the other hand, wants to gain control over Taiwan. The USA have been supporting Taiwan massively due to its importance in providing the USA with crucial technology. Accordingly, Israel could pressure the USA into giving up the support of Taiwan, which would save China years of diplomatic, military and economic resources, as well as grant it immediate power over the region. Via a similar logic, China would then be more reluctant to continue supporting Iran by providing technology and other supplies.
Economic Strategy
In terms of economic strategy, Israel does not have many options. It is not a production or technology state. Its military technology sector may be deep, but the technology and capacity are currently needed in this war. Further, buyers of Israeli technology are rare due to the legitimacy crisis of the Jewish state. Therefore, its only feasible option is to more intensively rely on the USA. Here, the financial system of the USA can be exploited to make profits for sustaining military efforts against Iran. As many of the North American companies, especially banks, are Jewish-owned, or at least majority Jewish-led, these companies could increase investments in Israel, even writing them off from their tax sheet. Banks could give out loans to Israeli companies or even the state. Depending on the case, the receiving entities could file for bankruptcy after the war to avoid repayment of the capital.
As this movement of capital would burden the stock markets of the USA, Israeli financial actors could enter short positions before the capital movements to further profit from a collapsing stock market. That way, there would be a dual cash flow, giving the Jewish state further economic options to continue to pursue a victory over Iran. Moreover, this would also erase much of the usable cash that is in circulation, effectively counteracting inflation. However, as the USA are very important to Israel, a full depletion of resources would not be sustainable. Further, the majority of the population of the USA is non-Jewish, which means that an exaggerated exploitation of the USA would lead to civic unrest. To avoid that, the USA’s central bank, which is also majority Jewish-led, could pursue a more aggressive expansive monetary policy to fill the opening gaps in the companies. As to the question of why such a policy could not be pursued directly, it needs to be said that this would not yield the triple effect of reducing inflation, enabling short positions, and channelling capital to Israel through the private sector, thereby shielding the public sector from accountability issues. The central bank, in turn, provides the companies with some cash under the premise of structural support in the crisis.
Societal Strategy
One of the biggest advantages of Israel is its control over almost all significant media flows in the world. Next to the most-consumed news sources in the world, the most used social interaction platforms are operated by Jews, giving Israel significant discursive power. Here, Israel can turn the disadvantage of international illegitimacy into an advantage. Instead of pursuing a harshly restrictive regime of censorship, the Jewish state could allow for controlled expression of dissatisfaction to keep the global community emotionally involved in matters regarding Israeli foreign policy. This has the effect of making people believe they are involved in solving the war by voicing their opinions.
As our brains work mostly chemically, the release of hormones that satisfy our need to be heard and feel valued acts as a natural blocker of further action. On the contrary, if heavy censorship were applied, people would try even harder to make themselves heard, potentially leading to real political action. By allowing social media interaction and giving a stage to some opposition, people experience involvement in the war and its perceived end chemically, making physical political action very unlikely.
Additionally, intentional “social interaction overload” can be applied. This concept posits that if organisms are overwhelmed with information and social interaction, they become emotionally and socially numb. They develop apathy that makes the behaviour of such organisms very predictable. In this case, the Jewish media network could intensify information output and diversify the spectrum of information to create political lethargy. Paired with the described strategy above, political pressure from the global citizenry becomes very unlikely in the short to mid-term.
Final Remarks
Although we have examined the situation in the necessary depth, we stress that there are still many more policy options available to Israel at more micro-levels of policymaking. These options, however, fall more into the category of tactics, as opposed to strategy, which is the focal point of this work. Moreover, it needs to be stressed that we are examining this topic from a perspective of limited informational resources. From what is available, we conclude that the above strategy would enable Israel to achieve its goals. It is also very important to consider the limitations of political actors. These can be in terms of resources, normativity or structure. Therefore, the assessments above should also be read in light of those real-life constraints of the said actors.
In our next article in this series, we are looking at the second actor in this war: the USA. Here, too, we are going to adopt the lens of the said actor and argue in light of its interests. As we move forward in the series, we will see that interests diverge but also converge at some points among the different actors, which then paints a complete picture of the war.
