The most significant conventional military threat to Israel is posed by the northern arena, specifically, from Iran and those under its patronage: first and foremost, Hezbollah in Lebanon, followed by the Assad regime and militias active in Syria and Iraq under Iranian guidance, and Iranian (and Hezbollah) forces active in the Syrian arena. In addition, Israel must consider how the targeted killing of Soleimani might impact on the northern arena. In recent years, Israel has adopted a “campaign between wars” strategy in order to...
The Power Gap
As it enters a new decade, the State of Israel possesses impressive military, political, technological, and economic power. However, Israel is hard-pressed to translate these advantages into strategic influence and achieve its key national security objectives: mitigating threats, advancing peace, building alliances, and dictating the terms for the satisfactory conclusion of conflicts. This reality results from the limited benefit that military action can provide Israel against its main adversaries, as well as Israel’s...
Following President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw United States forces from the Kurdish zone in northern Syria, the international media and many political and military commentators hurried to crown Russia as the big winner in Syria and present it as the entity enjoying free rein there. The many summits President Putin has recently held with Middle East leaders (including a meeting with Turkish President Erdogan, a state visit to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and a summit in Russia hosted jointly with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah...
This collection represents a collaborative effort by the Institute for the Research of the Methodology of Intelligence (IRMI) at the Israeli Intelligence Community Commemoration and Heritage Center and the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). It includes articles on the challenges of the cognitive campaign in the era of modern communications from a variety of perspectives. As such, it is a significant contribution to the public discussion of cognition and to the development of a professional knowledge base among the...
The wave of protests in Moscow in recent months reflects heightened domestic challenges to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime. It seems that deflections of Russian public opinion toward “the external enemy” have exhausted their effectiveness, and that the Kremlin will exploit the coming year (until the presidential election in the United States) in the hope of achieving accommodations with the United States and the European Union. This might help to reduce external pressures as period of domestic upheaval...
Attempts by countries to influence other countries constitute a security challenge and a threat to democracy. European countries have identified this challenge as a threat to national security and are dealing with it through government actions, civilian activity, and cooperation between countries, reflecting different approaches and proposed solutions to the problem. This article seeks to examine the various methods that the major European countries are using to cope with this challenge and to assess the differences between them by...
The meeting in Jerusalem in late June between the national security advisers of the United States, Washington, and Israel was a preliminary stage in renewing cooperation between Washington and Moscow on a range of issues. In the Syrian context, it was a bid to pressure Moscow to reduce aid and support for Iran in exchange for an easing of the Western sanctions imposed on Russia. For its part, Russia is working to brand itself as a mediator between the United States and Iran on issues ranging from the nuclear file to regional...
The meeting of the national security advisers of the United States, Russia, and Israel in late June is an achievement for Israel’s policy, which navigates between the interests of Moscow and Washington and is a party to the superpowers’ dialogue on the future of Syria and the Iranian intervention in that country. For the United States and Russia, this is another step in the their efforts to create closer ties and to focus the dialogue between them on matters of dispute. The choice of Israel as the venue for the meeting was meant to...
The rescue of Bashar al-Assad’s regime by the pro-Assad coalition, comprising Russia, Iran, and Iranian proxies, led to the victory of the regime over the rebels; the coalition’s achievements stem primarily from the effective cooperation between Iran and Russia since 2015 in fighting the rebels. Now, with the battles over, despite shared interests in consolidating the Assad regime, inherent tensions between Russia and Iran regarding influence in Syria have emerged in greater relief. Yet despite the disagreements, this it is not a...
The INSS 12th annual international conference addressed the web of challenges and opportunities Israel faces at the start of 2019. As in previous years, we chose strategic issues from the different spheres – domestic, regional, and international – that make up Israel’s strategic reality, and examine these individually and in context of one another. Continuing a trend from our previous conferences, we approached Israel’s national security priorities critically from a variety of perspectives.
More than two weeks after Prime Minister Netanyahu’s most recent visit to Moscow, the public lacks answers to the four most important questions that concern Israel’s relations with Russia regarding Syria and the Iranian presence there: Has the deconfliction mechanism between Russia and Israel changed since the downing of the Russian plane and the decisive turning of the tide in the Syrian civil war? Has Netanyahu managed to persuade Putin not to give Syria control over the S-300 batteries deployed on Syrian soil? Is the reduction in...
