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----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: 29 May 2000 4:31 AM
Subject: Israel/Lebanon - The Geopolitics of Maturity
>
> Stratfor.com's Global Intelligence Update - 29 May 2000
>
> Israel, Lebanon and the Geopolitics of Maturity
>
> Summary
>
> Israel's abrupt withdrawal from Lebanon is not merely a major event
> in Israeli history, but a turning point. The Israelis have
> withdrawn from occupied territory in the past. But this time the
> Israeli military withdrew because of exhaustion and the realization
> that there may be non-military solutions to its problems. For a
> country that - since its founding - regarded the military solution
> to be the surest and most secure, this represents more than a
> change of policy. It is a change in a nation's psychology.
>
> Analysis
>
> Israel has withdrawn from occupied territory before, either because
> of foreign pressure, treaty or military necessity. Israeli forces
> withdrew from their over-extended lines in the Beirut area after
> Operation Peace for Galilee. But last week's withdrawal was
> different. Like all dominant powers, Israel has encountered the
> limits of its military power and is searching for more subtle
> stratagems. For a country that has from its founding regarded the
> military solution as the safest and most secure course, this
> represents a fundamental change not only of policy, but also of
> national psychology.
>
> Since its founding, Israel has lived in a perpetual state of
> national emergency. The country has wrestled with a deep-seated -
> and very real - fear of sudden, simultaneous attack by all of its
> neighbors, overwhelming Jerusalem's military and annihilating the
> nation. The threat was real. In 1973, Egypt and Syria coordinated a
> surprise attack that, even if it never truly threatened Israel's
> existence, did in fact justify Israel's worst fears:
>
> 1. All front-line states - Syria, Jordan and Egypt - would fully
> commit themselves to a coordinated attack.
>
> 2. Other Arab states and even Iran would forward deploy their
> forces into the front-line states.
>
> 3. All of these armies would acquire state-of-the-art weaponry and
> fully integrated command.
>
> 4. Israel's foreign political support, particularly from the United
> States, would evaporate - taking with it re-supply of weapons.
>
> 5. Israeli intelligence would be unable to clearly understand Arab
> intentions and planning, leaving the country blind.
>
> This was Israel's nightmare. For a people to whom something truly
> unimaginable had just happened, believing in nightmares was not
> irrational. All nations have their nightmares. Following Pearl
> Harbor the United States was transfixed by the possibility of an
> attack at a completely unanticipated time and place. American
> nuclear planning revolved around the dread of a nuclear Pearl
> Harbor. This also meant that planning for contingencies that
> actually occurred - Korea and Vietnam - was haphazard and
> insufficient.
>
> Israel's nightmare scenario has not come to pass. Indeed, for
> nearly half of Israel's existence, the scenario has been
> impractical. Israel has been stronger than it liked to admit, even
> to itself. And its enemies have been comparatively weaker and
> suspicious of one another. For nearly a quarter century, Israel has
> had a peace treaty with Egypt. It is far from a warm relationship,
> but between the treaty and a Sinai buffer zone, the nightmare is
> impossible. Obviously, reversal is possible, but it would be
> presaged by the deployment of Egyptian forces into the Sinai and
> the withdrawal of the American buffer force. There would be a
> warning.
>
> But the nightmare has shaped strategies and responses. First,
> Jerusalem placed an emphasis on military responses. Second, Israeli
> forces needed buffer zones for room to maneuver; they could not do
> so properly within the 1948 borders because they would leave
> population centers exposed. Third, Israeli forces focused on a pre-
> emptive strategy designed to disrupt the enemy and keep him off
> balance.
>
> This was the strategy that led Israel into Lebanon. Israel had
> created effective buffers in the Sinai, the West Bank and the
> Golan. The only point at which Israel proper had a frontier without
> a buffer was in the north, its border with Lebanon. Two perceived
> threats existed. First there was the fear that Syria, defeated in
> the Golan in 1973, might flank around Mt. Hermon and strike from
> the north; the ability of the Syrians to carry out such a complex
> maneuver was doubtful.
>
> The second threat was more serious. Following the expulsion of the
> Palestine Liberation Organization and Yasser Arafat's Al Fatah from
> Jordan in 1970, they transferred operations to Lebanon. Indeed,
> southern Lebanon became known as Fatahland. Fatah and other
> Palestinian factions could not actually threaten the fundamental
> security of northern Israel, but they could and did launch sporadic
> attacks.
>
> Israel's response derived from its general strategy: when
> confronted by a threat, define it in military terms and define a
> military response. The military response must involve creating a
> buffer zone. It should also include pre-emptive attacks against
> threats to the security of the buffer zone. The Israeli entry into
> Lebanon in the 1970s derived, therefore, from Israel's essential
> strategic principle. That principle continued to govern operations
> in Lebanon until the withdrawal.
>
> But the intervention was much more complex than that. Lebanon had
> been torn apart. The arrival of the Palestinians had changed
> Lebanon from the Christian enclave that the French had created into
> an unstable and fragmented society. The Syrians, who had long
> regarded Lebanon as a part of Syria carved off by French
> imperialism, had always wanted to retake it. When chaos broke out
> in Lebanon, it was not only the Israelis that intervened. The
> Syrians intervened as well - against the Palestinians and on behalf
> of a Maronite Christian faction that had a longstanding
> relationship with the Assad family. Israel's own intervention,
> while formally condemned by the Syrians, was actually not
> unwelcome. It weakened the Palestinians and strengthened the
> Syrians.
>
> As early as the 1970s, Israel's nightmare scenario and the
> political reality of the region diverged. On one hand, Israel
> sought a military solution. On the other hand, the reality was that
> military opponents were unofficial allies. Israel wound up with a
> schizophrenic policy. The Israel decision to annihilate the
> Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon in 1982 derived
> from its core strategy. It failed because the core strategy was
> superb in managing the national nightmare but had nothing to do
> with reality.
>
> With the passage of time, the problem only deepened. The Golan
> Heights and Sinai were generally uninhabited; Lebanon, like the
> West Bank, was very much inhabited. Creating a buffer zone in the
> latter meant grappling with the complex problems of administering
> and controlling a hostile population. In Lebanon, Israel tried to
> solve the problem by creating a buffer state of Christian Lebanese
> and an allied militia, the South Lebanese Army. But as the Israelis
> pushed further north they found that they had to rely on
> themselves. The buffer zone had to be managed and protected against
> attacks. Israeli forces became bogged down in constant, low-
> intensity conflict.
>
> Some have argued that the operation in Lebanon was successful
> because if the Israelis had not been defending the buffer against
> threats, they would have been defending northern Israel. The
> counterargument was that operations exacted a large toll in Israeli
> lives. Contemporary threats like Hezbollah would be destroyed more
> easily without the buffer zone. Finally, and most importantly, the
> argument went, the essential problem with Hezbollah was political
> and not military. Hezbollah's interests were in Lebanon and not in
> Israel. By removing Israel from the equation, domestic Lebanese
> forces, plus the Syrians, would be forced to deal with Hezbollah.
>
> In the end, this line of reasoning prevailed. The view of Hezbollah
> as a minor irritant to be managed by Lebanon's domestic politics
> and by the Syrians, rather than as an apocalyptic threat represents
> a massive shift in Israeli psychology.
>
> What Prime Minister Ehud Barak is doing is de-escalating the
> psychological terror posed by Hezbollah. Rather than seeing the
> militants as part of the nightmare scenario, Barak has assigned
> them a much more minor place, as an irritating group with minimal
> power. The withdrawal means that Israel can now deal with threats
> outside the context of the nightmare scenario. Israel has done a
> cost-benefit analysis on occupying part of Lebanon and has decided
> that it just wasn't worth it - even if some attacks on Israel
> proper might now take place.
>
> This is an earthshaking event in Israel's history. The emergence of
> a class of enemies representing tolerable threats, which might be
> dealt with in venues other than the battlefield, redefines Israel's
> fundamental vision of its security. There are now large parts of
> its environment not linked to the nightmare scenario. Similarly,
> Syria is not going to attack Israel from Lebanon for the time
> being. It just isn't worth the trouble.
>
> The garrison state of a generation ago has yielded to a technically
> advanced, capitalist society in which dreams of glory on the
> battlefield have given way to dreams of IPOs. The best and
> brightest used to go into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) or the
> defense research establishment. They now go into computers and the
> Internet. Indeed, the expertise accumulated in the Israeli defense
> research community is pouring into the commercial markets.
>
> The nightmare scenario is not impossible. It is, however, distant.
> Like many democratic societies, Israel's tolerance for extended
> military engagement without a clear exit strategy is limited. The
> most astounding fact, though, is that there is near consensus; the
> military itself concluded that occupation was not worth the effort.
> The Israeli military has arrived at a different appreciation of the
> country's strategic reality.
>
> Israel is becoming a normal country in the sense that, while it has
> enemies, these enemies can be managed without extreme measures.
> Israel is coming to rely more on political arrangements than
> military solutions, reaching subtle understandings with formal
> enemies who share interests. In short, it is changing its view of
> the world. To be sure, there will be political costs, particularly
> when this new vision is extended to the West Bank, as it ultimately
> will be.
>
>
> (c) 2000 WNI, Inc.
> Stratfor.com
> 504 Lavaca, Suite 1100 Austin, TX 78701
> Phone: 512-583-5000 Fax: 512-583-5025
> Internet: http://www.stratfor.com/
> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
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