The longer the Gaza war drags on, the more I drag my feet. I’m tired of writing about it. I can’t even imagine how tired Israeli reservists must feel. But the war keeps pulling my attention. There are many reasons for this. Among them is that the war is a vibrant and compelling challenge to everything I’ve been reading about military strategy, things that provide the lens through which I see events and bring into focus the strategic challenges the war presents.
I’ve often written here about General André Beaufre’s concept of the External Maneuver. For those of you who might be new to my work, Beaufre is my favorite military strategist and thus I refer to him often. He was France’s greatest military strategist of the 20th century. The fact that he was directly involved in France’s greatest military catastrophes and failures of that century (1940, Indochina, Suez, Algeria) only makes him more interesting, for he strove throughout to understand what happened and why. Most of his published writing in fact dates from after he retired from the French Army in 1961, after these disasters (the Algeria War ended in 1962, but by 1961 the writing already was on the wall, in bright neon letters), and all of it, one way or another, was about them and an attempt to learn from them. I can think of no comparable American or British military thinker, or at least none at Beaufre’s intellectual level.
Beaufre’s concept of the External Maneuver boils down to this: In modern wars, adversaries complement whatever it is they are doing on the battlefield with “maneuvers” external to the theater of combat. The External Maneuver was nearly always necessary, and often it was decisive, more decisive than anything one might do in battle.
I am not aware of any definition Beaufre gave to “maneuver,” but that of Admiral Raoul Castex, 20th century France’s second greatest strategist, will do. Maneuver, Castex wrote, is “moving intelligently to create a favorable situation.” Beaufre might have amended that to read, “moving intelligently to expand or preserve one’s Liberty of Action while diminishing that of one’s adversary.” The External Maneuver is anything one might do outside the theater of war that has frees one’s hands—or keeps them free—while binding those of one’s enemy. Beaufre observed that military weaker parties to a war depended on External Maneuver to make up for their inability to best their opponents in battle. In those situations, the weaker party’s chief objective in battle was merely to survive and drag out the war, while giving the External Maneuver time to have its effect. It was the External Maneuver that would give them victory, not battle. The less victory through battle was a viable option, the more one relied on the External Maneuver.
Examples of External Maneuvers included anything that increased support for one’s side domestically and abroad and weakened that of one’s adversary. What Beaufre had in mind was diplomacy, propaganda, lawfare, and the use of international forums to advance one’s case and diminish that of the enemy. It meant working with and through the media, or sympathetic groups abroad.
In Beaufre’s day, Communist liberation movements in Indochina and Algeria benefited from the activism of sympathetic media and Leftist groups in France and abroad, which worked to sap public support and limit France’s ability to mobilize to fight its wars and sustain the fight over the long term. Will was everything in war, and anything that weakened an enemy’s will was invaluable. The Communists’ External Maneuver in France and internationally raised the cost of the war for French leaders both in terms of the will of French voters to keep at it, and also in terms of diplomacy and other countries’ will to support France’s war, stay out of it, or assist France’s enemies. This all contributed to limiting France’s ability to fight and stay in the fight, to marshal and keep marshalling the resources necessary for fighting effectively and outlasting the enemy.
Jane Fonda in Hanoi, 1972. North Vietnam invited her; this was part of its External Maneuver
All Wars Have Four Parties
Beaufre added to this the idea that no or almost no wars were purely limited to the two principal adversaries. In theory, if one protagonist—Beaufre called it “A,” was strong enough, it could directly assault its enemy, “C,” and achieve the desired decision. Even then, however, A needed to make some effort externally to ensure that one’s allies, “B,” stayed on side, and that the rest of the world, “E,” either helped or kept out of the fight. More often, the two sides were more evenly matched, in which case cultivating B and E became more critical. Likewise, if A lacked the strength to achieve victory through a direct strategy of military assault, it had to have recourse to External Maneuvers. It needed to court E to encourage them to join the ranks of B, or keep them from joining the enemy. Or keep them out of the fight. It needed to isolate C and weaken its will. All warfare, Beaufre insisted, ultimately was psychological.
In our day, the Ukraine War is a clear demonstration of how this works: Ukraine, which militarily is weaker than Russia, understood from the beginning that it needed to court public opinion abroad to get the material support it needed to stay in the fight. Ideally, it could also encourage friendly countries to impose sanctions on Russia, and generate opprobrium in international forums that increased the price of the war for Russia and the Russian public. Ukraine has done this through diplomacy and propaganda. Zelensky’s repeated visits to world capitals, his meetings with world leaders and legislators, and his heavily televised visits to devastated neighborhoods, are all of a piece. He appears to grasp intuitively Beaufre’s insight that in the long term, his External Maneuvers are at least a precondition for battlefield success.
Recently, Newsweek ran a story based on the reporting of a Ukrainian non-governmental organization (which does not mean they it is not financed and directed by the Ukrainian government) and a Ukrainian think tank (that also might be operating at Kiev’s behest) that named several Western companies that were paying millions of dollars in taxes to the Russian state. One, B4Ukraine, says on its website’s home page that its purpose was to “defund and disarm” Russia. The whole point of the exercise was to name and shame Western companies and, hopefully, get them to stop funding Russia. This would constrain Russia’s ability to wage war. Newsweek, wittingly nor not, was reinforcing what was nothing less than a Ukrainian External Maneuver. To be clear, I approve, though I wonder what this means in terms of journalistic standards. I don’t approve when media are complicit in Hamas’s External Maneuvers.
Indeed, Gaza presents a classic example of how an adversary that is radically inferior in terms of military power (Hamas) avails itself of External Maneuvers to blunt the strengths of its adversary (Israel). Hamas has no chance of defeating Israel’s mighty military in battle. Thus, when it fights, its objective is survival. Hanging on. Hamas’s best hope is to tire out the Israeli public, and use the External Maneuver (propaganda and lawfare, primarily) to do several things at once: Sap public support for the war in Israel, weaken the resolve of Israel’s allies, and encourage the rest of the world to help one way or another. The effect of all of it is to weaken Israeli will and constrain its Liberty of Action so that its ability to do what it wants diminishes progressively. Hamas cannot stop Israeli air strikes by shooting down Israel’s jets, but it might be able to cut off the supply of aircraft parts and munitions. It cannot stop the Israeli Army from entering Rafah through military force; it might be able at least to raise the price of entering Rafah (a military maneuver) by stoking the international outcry over entering Rafah. The more Hamas can limit Israel’s ability to do what it wants (Liberty of Action), the more it has neutralized Israel’s military superiority. Meanwhile, Hamas and its supporters can see the protests abroad and watch as foreign governments castigate Israel and rally to the cause of Palestinian nationalism. This bolsters their will.
It is hard to know the extent to which the global campaign against Israel is directed by Hamas and its allies or entirely spontaneous and independent. During the Cold War, one might easily find a Soviet hand behind “anti-colonial” movements worldwide. In fact, the entire Leftist anti-Zionist movement, if not the PLO itself, was a Soviet conspiracy. Today, matters are less clear. Qatar clearly is a party to the war on Hamas’s side; its propaganda arm, Al Jazeera, is an instrument of war, and it may well be Hamas’s most effective weapon. As for the activist groups leading anti-Israel demonstrations worldwide, such as those behind the campus protests in the United States or the massive street marches in Europe, some may well be “useful idiots,” acting entirely of their own accord. I have my doubts. Someone probably coordinated the campus encampments. Someone paid for all those tents. There may be no direct connection to Hamas. More likely, the hand behind the protests is an organization aligned with Hamas, one subsidized perhaps by a state like Qatar or a non-governmental organization, which in turn might get some state support. Is this true for all the activist groups and in all instances? Probably not. But it probably is true for some.
What we do know is that Hamas carefully stage-manages the imagery coming out of Gaza. All the so-called journalists or stringers in Gaza feeding the international media work for Hamas, one way or another. Misinformation and disinformation are the best weapons of the weak in the 21st century.
Some Israelis or Israel supports shrug of Hamas’s External Maneuver, arguing that the battle of perceptions is irrelevant, and all that matters is the reality on the ground. There also is a pronounced tendency to reason, “They hate us no matter what we do, so f*ck it.” Such a response is understandable. Much of the antipathy toward Israel over the course of its existence has to do with its existence, not anything it may or may not do or have done. Besides, one can hardly claim hatred of Jews originated with the events of 1947-1948, or 1967.
Beaufre would call such a cavalier attitude dangerous, and he would be right.
Minding the Servitudes
Castex’s concept of the Servitudes comes into play. The basic idea is that while a purely military logic might suggest that one conducts a military campaign in a certain way, using these weapons and tactics and attacking those positions, very often there are other strategic considerations that get in the way of acting as pure military strategy suggests one should. Those considerations—Servitudes—stem from the reality that one must complement military strategy with other strategies—political, economic, diplomatic, etc.—that demand that one does some things and not others. One disregards the Servitudes at one’s peril. Castex’s favorite example was the German High Command’s decision to conduct unrestricted submarine warfare against the Allies in the First World War. The decision reflected pure military logic: submarine warfare offered the best chance of weakening Britain and France. But pursuing that course of action meant disregarding the diplomatic Servitude of managing relations with neutral powers, above all the United States. As it happened, the U.S. declared war, which, militarily, was far more consequential in its effects than any harm the submarines could do to allied shipping. One must have an overall or “total” strategy, of which the military strategy is but one component.
Counter External Maneuver Maneuvers
Israel must attend to many Servitudes. Among them are the need to manage relations with allies and court uninvolved nations—“E” in Beaufre’s parlance—to enlist their support or keep them from supporting the enemy. Another is to mind the enemy’s External Maneuver, and counter it. This brings us to the subject of Counter External Maneuver Maneuvers, the things one can done to thwart the enemy’s External Maneuvers. One can do this positively through one’s own propaganda campaign, or availing oneself of lawfare and international forums, all to increase one’s Liberty of Action and undermine that of the enemy. One also may avoid arming the enemy by giving it the ammunition required by its External Maneuver.
Israeli strikes against or near hospitals is a case in point. Pure military logic might reason like this: The enemy is firing from a position, which might happen to be a hospital. Cold military logic indicates that the thing to do is to fire on that position. The idea of the Servitudes suggests, however, that military logic must at times cede to the demands of other strategies, which in this case strongly argue for holding one’s fire. Doing so would support the overall, total strategy (assuming one exists, as it should), even if it hampers pure military strategy. One has to weight the harm done by not returning fire against the potential harm done by returning fire, knowing full well that Hamas’s “journalists” will document or fabricate the effects of the destruction, and the international media, uncritically, will disseminate that ever they produce. Striking a position may do some military good—killing enemy fighters—but also will arm the enemy’s External Maneuvers.
As best as I can tell, Israel’s leadership heeds only one perceived Servitude fully, the political Servitude of needing to keep the ruling coalition together. This, I believe, has led to policy paralysis, i.e. an inability to construct a clear policy or “total strategy.” I see no strategy, just contradictions. To some extent, it attends to the Servitude of needing to defer to the wishes of the United States, although really only the Trump Administration. Beyond that, the government also is mindful of the economic Servitude, which has to do with ensuring that Israel’s economy keeps chugging along despite the war. This has the unfortunate result of limiting the manpower at the military’s disposal. It can only ask reservists to serve so often, and for limited periods of time. To make matters worse, the political Servitude of keeping the coalition together makes it impossible for the government to do one thing that would help with its manpower problems, drafting ultra-orthodox men who presently are exempt from conscription.
I would have Israel think more clearly about the power in the long term of Hamas’s Externall Maneuvers, and focus more on Counter-Maneuver Maneuvers. I would also have them think more lucidly about the Servitudes that impede their military maneuvers. Which are real, which aren’t, which really can be shrugged off, and which needed to be heeded. Alas, I have long ago concluded that Israelis do not do strategy. They confuse tactics with strategy and therefore believe their tactical prowess is sufficient. It is not.
Sometimes military logic must prevail. One must attack. One must bomb. One must neutralize this or that threat, never mind the collateral damage. Otherwise, one might expose one’s own forces to too much risk or be prevented from achieving necessary military objectives. But not always. Beaufre and his fellow veterans of Indochina and Algeria would remind Israeli commanders that every act of war has to be measured not according to its material value, i.e. the fighters killed or the weapons destroyed, but its psychological value. Perversely, and in large measure thanks to Hamas’s External Maneuvers, the psychological impact of a given strike often benefits Hamas more than it weakens it. If it strengthens Hamas’s action upon Israeli and world opinion, it can benefit Hamas more than the loss of the fighters killed harms it. The attack boomerangs. It weakens Israel’s will; it decreases international support. Meanwhile, Hamas can watch domestic and international opposition to Israel’s war mount, which will strengthen its resolve and bolster its own will.
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