The evidence from Israel’s Gaza campaign, which is also a proxy war stage-managed by Iran, shows that states aren’t necessarily at a disadvantage in asymmetric encounters.
One of the oldest dramas of urban warfare unfolded in circa 1500 BCE. As the song has it, “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, and the wall come tumbling down.” Alas, there was no such city at the time, archeological research reveals. But the biblical account limns one pattern for the next three-thousand years.
It is siege, capture, and bloodshed inside. A second “model” emerged in the 20th century. Bombers, not Joshua’s trumpets, leveled cities either in part or in toto. In World War II, recall the deadly fate of Warsaw, Coventry, London, then Dresden, Berlin, and Tokyo (where the firestorm killed more people than did “Little Man” in Hiroshima). The third type pertains to our days. It is mano-a-mano in places like Beirut, Grozny, Gaza, Fallujah, and Mosul. These battles were rendered more deadly by an order of magnitude with the help of tanks, 1000-pound bombs, and missiles.
Asymmetric warfare between states and nonstate actors has not been a winner for the former in the post-World War II era. With the exception of the British in Malaya, the much-maligned “White Man” lost the decolonization wars from Kenya to Algeria. Israel ultimately pulled out of Southern Lebanon after 18 years. Prior to “10/7,” it would fight to a labile draw in the four prior assaults on Gaza, an emblematic urban venue. Israel’s strategy was to “mow the grass” regularly, which quickly grew back.
So, is this less-than-sterling record destiny? Asymmetric, usually proxy war supported by outside powers, favors the defender who exploits the natural advantages of his urban setting. He knows the layout. He can hide in the warrens of the city. His small autonomous units ambush the intruder. As in Gaza, the locals can stash materiel and supplies in a vast network of tunnels, which enables them to move quickly, while the attacker runs into traps. Above, combatants deploy snipers and rocket-propelled grenades against tanks that cannot maneuver in the labyrinth. Nor is the battlefield limited to the city. Hamas has fired piles of cheap missiles into the Israeli hinterland all the way to Tel Aviv. Iran has delivered arms and guidance—let our proxies die.
So, the invader is literally stuck? Not quite, as the Israelis have shown in the latest round against the Qassam troopers. After years of preparation not detected by Israel’s vaunted agencies, Hamas had raised its tactical IQ. The surprise was stunning. But note the dialectics of warfare. Apart from missing the signs, the IDF had learned from previous engagements. The army had practiced in city mockups at home. It sent in latest-model Merkava tanks, protected by infantry and sophisticated reactive armor. The IDF has acquired low-yield munitions that take out a sniper on the top floor without leveling the entire building. To save the lives of their own in the maze, the Army used explosive quickly jelling chemicals to seal tunnels. Robotic devices sniffed out traps and enemy fighters. Armored bulldozers destroyed IEDs in the streets above.
Nor is it just a matter of hardware. Israel has also profited from indirect means that tilt the balance against Hamas. Their fuel supplies controlled by Israel, the Qassam Brigades lost mobility. Blocking telephony, electricity, and the Internet rendered them deaf and blind. Meanwhile, the IDF wasn’t exactly “Eyeless in Gaza,” as the title of Aldous Huxley’s novel had it.
Asymmetry often favors the locals, especially when aided by outsiders as they invariably are. But as Israel’s tactics demonstrated, both can play this game, though with different chips. Take force-exchange ratios. Hamas lobbed hundreds of unguided missiles into Israel costing 500 dollars apiece, while the country’s Iron Dome projectiles go for 50,000 per shot. That ratio is hundred to one. Meanwhile, Israel has fielded Iron Sting, a mobile laser beam technology that operates on electricity costing a pittance. This force-exchange ratio clearly favored Israel. So does the tally of Israeli vs. Palestinian casualties. Low hundreds (not counting the murder spree on 10/7) vs. thousands in Gaza.
Military academies round the world will study this war, and for all of Israel’s sophistication, they will note an irreducible asymmetry faced by democracies—and not by Russia, which simply rubbed out Chechnya in the Nineties. The Kremlin did not have to care about world-wide condemnation. Israel does. The core of Hamas’s strategy was to mobilize opinion and diplomacy against Jerusalem, humiliate the United States, and rupture the Abraham Accords. This was precisely Iran’s purpose as well. In essence, the U.S. and Israel were the real targets, though at one step removed to enjoy “plausible deniability” and avoid retaliation. This is the essence of all proxy warfare.
The overarching political war was about legitimacy. And, as for Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, the most critical duel was the “battle of images.” Cynically put, the civilian corpses in Gaza and Lebanon, both armed by Tehran, were worth more than Israel’s. Hiding behind human shields in hospitals and high-rises was the name of the deadly game, which placed the onus on Israel and unleashed hundreds of demonstrations against the Jewish state—especially in the West.
So, for Israel as for any democracy, successful intervention has a short sell-by date. To borrow from Shakespeare’s Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 7), “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.” Time is the worst enemy of intruders and the best friend of those hit. Hardly had Israel’s assault begun when Western and UN pressure began to escalate. Israel’s military triumph as mini-superpower in the Middle East was virtually foreordained. But peace remains elusive, and the political price of urban warfare is enormous—not to speak of thousands of lives lost on both sides. Iran, the sponsor of this proxy war, applauded from the sidelines.
