Israel’s Counterstrike: Did It Work? Did It Restore Deterrence?
Israel’s recent counterstrike against Iran—in which Israel fired a few missiles that hit a few sensitive targets deep inside Iran with remarkable precision —clearly was a technical success. However, the strategic outcome is entirely unclear. Press reports indicate that Israelis themselves are satisfied that they successfully restored deterrence. At least that’s the official line. Maybe they have. The problem is that there is absolutely no way of knowing, and thus asserting that Israel has restored deterrence is, to my mind, absurd. This is not to say I disapprove of what Israel did. My problem is with affirming confidently that it worked, or that it did not.
An Iranian Ballistic Missile. “Death to Israel”, reads the words written in Hebrew.
Along the lines of my previous essay about the challenge of restoring deterrence without dangerously escalating a conflict, what Israel did was a clear example of an attempt to restore deterrence without escalation by means of a demonstration. Israel demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to strike whatever it chooses to strike, and it did so without in fact doing significant harm. How they did this is not yet clear: I’ve read that they used air-launched ballistic missiles. I’ve also read that perhaps Israel fired the missiles from Azerbaijani territory, which, if true, is super interesting in and of its own. Maybe Israel did. I have no idea. In any case, the point was not to hurt Iran but to demonstrate that it could. Israel achieved this.
The logic behind the Israeli strike is sound. But we must not be naïve and assume that it had any of the effects on Iranian thinking that Israel hoped it would. We simply do not know if Iran’s leadership understood or cares about the Israeli intention to limit the damage to avoid escalation. We do not know that Iran’s leaders have taken to heart the lesson that Israel could do much more harm if it chose. We do not know how Iran’s leaders interpret the failure of their own strike (which may or may not have been intended to do harm) in light of the success of Israel’s.
This is the problem with deterrence: Even when it exists, it’s seldom possible to prove it exists. Also, when it does exist, it exists until it doesn’t.
Is deterrence more likely to be restored by a massive attack rather than a limited, pin-prick operation like what Israel did? Probably, although even then, one cannot know that a massive attack would have the intended result. The adversary might not reason rationally, or at least not according to our understanding of rational. One also runs the risk of so making someone so angry that they no longer care what the consequences are of getting even. Could a nation’s leaders behave this way? Given the extent to which resentment drives Iran’s regime, I don’t see why not. The only thing I believe to be certain is that dealing meekly with Iran only invites more trouble.