Publications

Since the establishment of the state, deterrence has played a key role inIsrael’s security doctrine. Military deterrence was a primary component ofthe security doctrine, as reflected in Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s 1923 essay “TheIron Wall: We and the Arabs”; the security principles espoused by DavidBen-Gurion; the report of the commission formed in 2005 and headed byDan Meridor to update these principles; and the IDF strategy documentpublished in August 2015.1In recent years, deterrence was a declared keygoal of military operations undertaken by Israel against the violent sub-stateorganizations Hezbollah and Hamas.2In the West, especially the United States, the concept of deterrence hasevolved in recent years as part of a debate intended to adapt global securitychallenges and needs to a post-Cold War world.

This essay examines severalmajor changes to the concept of deterrence and their relevance to the Israelidiscourse on deterrence. It underscores the need for an extensive debateabout the nature of Israel’s deterrence and its adaptation to the new andemerging security challenges in a changing international arena. The essaybegins with an overview of the concept of deterrence and its role in Israel’ssecurity doctrine. It then discusses some of the prominent changes in theglobal post-Cold War world order and three new trends that have emergedin deterrence thinking. The essay concludes by offering three conclusionsabout the concept of deterrence in Israel’s security doctrine that may bederived from those changes.