Article contents
The changing Israeli strategic equation: Toward a security regime
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2009
Extract
Israel is situated in the Middle East, which is not a zone of peace but rather of turmoil. In contrast to the West where peace has become the norm, the Middle East exists in a different socio-political time zone. It is war-prone and the use of force still evokes remarkable popular support. The Middle East, similar to other Third World regions, displays a greater propensity for intra- and inter-state conflict as compared to the environments of the developed states. Therefore, the Middle East is not about to be transformed into what Karl Deutsch called a ‘security community’, where recourse to arms is not acceptable for the resolution of inter-state conflict.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © British International Studies Association 1995
References
1 For an elaboration of this post-Cold War distinction see Singer, Max and Wildavsky, Aaron, The Real World Order. Zones of Peace/Zones of Turmoil (Chatham, NJ, 1993)Google Scholar. For an analysis of international relations that differentiates between the Western and other cultures, see Huntington, Samuel P., ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ Foreign Affairs, 72 (Summer 1993), pp. 22–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Ayoob, Mohammed, ‘Regional Security and the Third World’, in Ayoob, Mohammed (ed.), Regional Security in the Third World (London 1986)Google Scholar; for a similar evaluation concerning the Middle East, see Stein, Janice Gross, ‘The Security Dilemma in the Middle East: A Prognosis for the Decade Ahead’, in Korany, Bahgat, Noble, Paul and Brynen, Rex (eds.), The Many Faces of National Security in the Arab World (London, 1993), pp. 56–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 See his discussion of this term in Deutsch, Karl W. et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, 1957), pp. 5–7Google Scholar.
4 For this term, see Jervis, Robert, ‘Security Regimes’, International Organization, 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 357–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For other aspects of international regimes, see Krasner, Stephen (ed.), International Regimes (Ithaca, 1983)Google Scholar. For a discussion of security regimes and the application of this notion to the Arab-Israeli arena, see Stein, Janice Gross, ‘Detection and Defection: Security Regimes’ and the Management of International Conflict’, International Journal 40 (Autumn 1985), pp. 599–627Google Scholar. For a review of the literature on international cooperation, see Milner, Helen, ‘International Theories of Cooperation among Nations: Strengths and Weaknesses’, World Politics, 44 (April 1992), pp. 466–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 See Yair Evron, Regimes of CBMs in the Middle East (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, forthcoming); Stein, ‘Detection and Defection’.
6 Jervis, ‘Security Regimes’, p. 357.
7 Stein, ‘Detection and Defection’, p. 599.
8 Stein, ‘Detection and Defection’, p. 600.
9 Klieman, Aaron, ‘Tacit Security Regimes: Jordan and Israel’, in Inbar, Efraim (ed.), Regional Security Regimes. Israel and Its Neighbours (Albany, 1995).Google Scholar
10 Rabinovich, Itamar, ‘Controlled Conflict in the Middle East: The Syrian-Israeli Rivalry in Lebanon’, in Ben-Dor, Gabriel and Dewitt, David D. (eds.), Conflict Management in the Middle East (Lexington, 1987), p. 98Google Scholar.
11 Jervis, , ‘Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma’, World Politics, 30 (January 1978), pp. 181–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 The concept of deterrence is methodologically problematic. For a comprehensive debate see, inter alia, the special issue dedicated to ‘The Rational Deterrence Debate: A Symposium’, in World Politics, 42 (January 1989)Google Scholar; Zagara, Frank C., ‘Rationality and Deterrence’, World Politics, 42 (January 1990), pp. 238–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lebow, Richard Ned and Stein, Janice Gross, ‘Deterrence: The Elusive Dependent Variable’, World Politics, 42 (April 1990), pp. 336–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Huth, Paul and Russett, Bruce M., ‘Testing Deterrence Theory: Rigor Makes a Difference’, World Politics, 42 (July 1990), pp. 441–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a review of the earlier debates in the literature of deterrence, see Buzan, Barry, Introduction to Strategic Studies (London, 1989)Google Scholar, part 3. For a review of the literature on Israeli deterrence, see Inbar, Efraim and Sandier, Shmuel, ‘Israel's Deterrence Strategy Revisited’, Security Studies, 3 (Winter 1993/1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 Mandelbaum, Michael, The Nuclear Revolution (Cambridge, 1981), p. 60Google Scholar.
14 Claude, Inis, Power and International Politics (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.
13 Jervis, ‘Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma’, p. 176.
16 For a discussion of the impact of Jewishness on Israel's foreign policy, see Brecher, Michael, The Foreign Policy System of Israel (New York, 1972), pp. 229–43Google Scholar; Klieman, Aaron, Israel and the World After 40 Years (Washington, 1990), pp. 52–7Google Scholar; Inbar, Efraim, ‘Jews, Jewishness and Israel's Foreign Policy’, Jewish Political Studies Review, 2 (Fall 1990), pp. 165–83Google Scholar.
17 For the early search for allies, see Yaniv, Avner, Deterrence Without the Bomb. The Politics of Israeli Strategy (Lexington, 1987), pp. 48–55Google Scholar; For a critical analysis of an American-Israeli defence treaty, see Evron, Yair, ‘Some Political and Strategic Implications of an American-Israeli Defense Treaty’, in Shaked, Haim and Rabinovich, Itamar (eds.), The Middle East and the United States (New Brunswick, 1980), pp. 371–94Google Scholar.
18 Inbar, Efraim, ‘Israeli Strategic Thinking After 1973’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 6 (March 1983), pp. 41–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 Klieman, Aaron, Israel's Global Reach (Washington, 1985)Google Scholar; Inbar, Efraim, ‘The Development of the Israeli Defense Industry’, Encyclopaedia Judaica Yearbook 1988/89 (Jerusalem, 1990), pp. 119–25Google Scholar.
20 For the development of the offensive tendency, see Levite, Ariel, Offense and Defense in Israeli Military Doctrine, JCSS Study no. 12 (Boulder, 1989), pp. 25–62Google Scholar. See also Handel, Michael I., Israel's Political-Military Doctrine (Cambridge MA, July 1973)Google Scholar; Tal, Israel, ‘Israel's Doctrine of National Security: Background and Dynamics’, Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 4 (Summer 1977)Google Scholar; Horowitz, Dan, ‘The Constant and the Changing in Israeli Strategic Thinking’, in Alpher, Joseph (ed.), War by Choice (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1985), pp. 58–77Google Scholar.
21 Yaniv, Deterrence Without the Bomb, p. 56.
22 See Shai Feldman, , ‘Israeli Deterrence’, in War in the Gulf-Implications for Israel (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Papyrus, 1991), pp. 170–89Google Scholar. For a view that Israel's nuclear potential was of little relevance, see Levran, Aharon, The Military-Strategic Lessons from the Second Gulf War (Hebrew) (Ramat Gan, 1993)Google Scholar.
23 For the complexity of conventional deterrence, see Snyder, Glenn H., Deterrence and Defense (Princeton Press, 1960), pp. 44–5Google Scholar; George, Alexander, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy (Boulder, 1980), pp. 249–50Google Scholar.
24 Organski, A.F.K., The $36 Billion Bargain: Strategy and Politics in U.S. Assistance to Israel (New York, 1990)Google Scholar.
25 Rabin, Yitzhak, Memoirs (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1978), pp. 253–4Google Scholar.
26 For a sober analysis of extended deterrence in the Middle East, see Stein, Janice Gross, ‘Extended Deterrence in the Middle East: American Strategy Reconsidered’, World Politics, 39 (April 1987), pp. 326–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 Ben-Dor, Gabriel, ‘Arab Rationality and Deterrence’, in Klieman, Aaron and Levite, Ariel (eds.), Deterrence in the Middle East (Boulder, CO, 1993), pp. 87–97Google Scholar.
28 For the importance of systemic factors in isolating states and for the strategic implications of isolation, see Inbar, Efraim, Outcast Countries in the World Community, (Denver, 1985)Google Scholar.
29 Haaretz, 29 November 1992, p. Al; Ben, Aluf, ‘Humiliating Conditions’, Haaretz, 19 January 1993, p. B2Google Scholar.
30 See Frankel, Benjamin, ‘The Brooding Shadow: Systemic Incentives and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation’, Security Studies, 2 (Spring/Summer 1993), pp. 52–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 Jervis, ‘Security Regimes’, pp. 369–71. For a discussion of the potential American input in the establishment of such a regime, see Robert J. Lieber, ‘The American Role in a Regional Security Regime’, in Inbar, Regional Security Regimes.
32 Stein, ‘Detection and Defection’, pp. 622–23.
33 Milner, ‘International Theories of Cooperation Among Nations’, pp. 476–7.
34 See Stein. ‘Detection and Defection’, p. 669. For the decline in Arab nationalism following the 1990–91 events in the Gulf, see Ajami, Fouad, ‘The End of Arab Nationalism’, The New Republic, 12 August 1991Google Scholar; Faour, Muhammad, The Arab World After Desert Storm (Washington, 1993), pp. 55–60Google Scholar.
35 Klieman, ‘Tacit Security Regimes: Jordan and Israel’; see also Garfinkle, Adam, Israel and Jordan in the Shadow of War (New York, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 For a general argument that deterrence could lead to fears and escalation, see George, Alexander and Smoke, Richard, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy (New York, 1974)Google Scholar; Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Relations (Princeton, 1976)Google Scholar, ch. 3; Lebow, Ned, ‘The Deterrence Deadlock’, Political Psychology 4 (April 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 For an analysis of such strategies, see Stein, Janice Gross, ‘Reassurance in International Conflict Management’, Political Science Quarterly 106 (Fall 1991), pp. 431–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
38 Inbar, Efraim, ‘The Israeli Political Leadership's Use of Force’, Midstream, 39 (October 1993), pp. 2–5Google Scholar; Inbar, Efraim, War and Peace in Israeli Politics. Labor Party Positions on National Security (Boulder, 1991), pp. 135–7Google Scholar.
39 Haaretz, 9 November 1993, p. Al.
40 Inbar, Efraim, ‘Israel and Arms Control’, Arms Control, 13 (September 1992), p. 217CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steinberg, Gerald M., ‘Arms Control in the Middle East’, in Burns, Richard D. (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Arms Control and Disarmament (New York, 1993)Google Scholar.
41 For the role of common aversions in collaboration, see Stein, Arthur, ‘Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World’, International Organization, 36 (Spring 1982), pp. 304–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the rise in the power of the Moslem fundamentalism, see Esposito, John L., The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (New York, 1992)Google Scholar; Faour, The Arab World After Desert Storm, pp. 66–75; Faksh, Mahmud A., ‘Withered Arab Nationalism’, Orbis (Summer 1993), pp. 425–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 Israeli, Raphael, Fundamentalist Islam and Israel (Lanham, 1993)Google Scholar.
43 See ‘Comparisons of Defense Expenditures and Military Manpower 1985–1991’, in IISS, The Military Balance 1992–1993 (London, 1993), pp. 218–19Google Scholar.
44 Levran, Strategic Implications of the Second Gulf War, pp. 64–72. See also the reports of purchases in the Middle East section of recent volumes of The Military Balance.
45 Kanovsky, Eliyahu, The Economic Consequences of the Persian Gulf War (Washington, 1992)Google Scholar.
46 Interview with Weizman, Ezer, Spectrum, 6 (June 1988), p. 10Google Scholar. This Labour Party monthly is published in English.
47 Peres, Shimon with Naor, Arye, The New Middle East (New York, 1993), p. 46Google Scholar.
48 Speech delivered by PM Yitzhak Rabin to Graduates of the National Security College, 12 August 1993, Official Text, p. 3, (emphasis in the text).
49 See ‘Interview with PM Rabin’, Bamahaneh, 23 September 1992.Google Scholar
50 ‘Interview with PM Rabin’, Bamahaneh. See also statements of the Israeli Air Force Commander, Bodinger, Herzl, Haaretz, 15 June 1992, p. A3Google Scholar.
51 One of the conditions for erecting such a regime, according to Jervis, is the perception that war is too costly (see his ‘Security Regimes’, pp. 361–62). See also Stein, ‘Coordination and Collaboration’.
52 For a detailed discussion of Israeli deterrence, see Inbar and Sandier, ‘Israel's Deterrence Strategy Revisited’.
53 For a similar conclusion, see Evron, Yair, War and Intervention in Lebanon (London, 1987), pp. 186–87Google Scholar, 194.
54 On the war in Lebanon, see Yaniv, Avner, Dilemmas of Security Politics, Strategy, and the Israeli Experience in Lebanon (New York, 1987)Google Scholar.
55 See Abd al Manam, Muhamed Feisal, ‘The Arab Deterrence and the Shattering of Israeli Strategy’, in Sivan, Emmanuel (ed.), The Arab Lessons from the October War (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1974), pp. 25–27Google Scholar; Bar, Shmuel, The Yom Kippur War in the Eyes of the Arabs (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1986), pp. 70–7Google Scholar.
56 Schelling, Thomas C., Arms and Influence (New Haven, 1966), pp. 55–9Google Scholar.
57 Inbar, Efraim, ‘The “No Choice War” Debate in Israel’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 12 (March 1989), pp. 22–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
58 Maariv, Shabat Supplement, 24 December 1993, p. 16.
59 For a critical analysis of the active defence option embodied in the Arrow, see Pedatzur, Reuven, The Arrow System and the Active Defense Against Ballistic Missiles, Memorandum No. 42 (Tel Aviv: October 1993)Google Scholar.
60 Peres, The New Middle East, p. 83.
61 See Gold, Dore, US Policy Towards Israel's Qualitative Edge, JCSS Memorandum No. 36 (Tel Aviv, September 1992)Google Scholar; Schiff, Zeev, ‘Limited Cooperation’, Haaretz, 19 May 1993, p. B1Google Scholar.
62 Such status would have given Israel access to certain missile technologies that the United States was unwilling to share with Israel (Haarelz, 29 July 1992).
63 Haaretz, 16 November 1993.
64 See ‘Interview with PM Rabin’, Bamahaneh.
65 Haaretz, 20 November 1992.
- 8
- Cited by