Executive Summary
Israel’s security doctrine, based on David Ben-Gurion’s principles of warning, deterrence, and decision, was designed for swift victories followed by lasting peace. Today, that model is in crisis. Iran’s “ring of fire” strategy, which unites Hamas, Hizbullah, and other proxies, seeks to trap Israel in prolonged, multi-front conflicts that weaken its military flexibility and national endurance. Modern asymmetric warfare, using missiles, underground networks, and attacks on civilians, has eroded Israel’s early warning, deterrence, and ability to achieve clear victories. Over time, Israel’s growing reliance on airpower and intelligence instead of ground readiness has created new vulnerabilities, exposed since October 7, 2023. To ensure its security, Israel must redefine its defense concept by balancing rapid offensive capability with lasting resilience, rebuilding territorial depth, and preparing for an extended period of strategic defense.
Since the war erupted on the morning of October 7, 2023, Israel’s security concept, and its core assumptions, has entered a strategic maze.
The Iranian plan crafted by Qassem Soleimani to encircle Israel with a “ring of fire” and a coordinated envelope of jihadist forces on all its borders, anticipating an internal front of Israeli Arab unrest, was woven already in the previous decade. In August 2022, following Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Quds Day guidance to act for Israel’s destruction, IRGC commander Hossein Salami declared: “The Palestinians are now ready for ground combat. This is Israel’s main weak point. Missiles are excellent for deterrence… but they do not liberate land. A ground force must be deployed to liberate the land step by step… Hizbullah and Palestinian fighters will move on the ground as a single military formation.”1
Since Soleimani’s blueprint to encircle Israel with a ring of fire was set, it has evolved. Core elements have already been implemented in the current war. Even after Iran’s direct participation with missiles and UAVs on the night of April 14, 2024, the plan as a whole has only been partially activated. Hizbullah joined late and in a relatively limited manner, yet still succeeded in placing Israel in a strategic bind, with tens of thousands displaced from their homes and large IDF formations tied down in the north. Those forces, anchored in the north, would surely have aided in defeating Hamas in the south. Split between fronts, the war drags on with no quick end in sight. That fact, in itself, reflects the essence of the new security threat inherent in the region-wide system Iran has built for war against Israel.
The significance of this Iranian system of threat becomes clear when one compares Iran’s war logic for Israel’s destruction with the security concept laid down by David Ben-Gurion in the state’s early years.
The new form of war, as expressed by Hamas and Hizbullah under Iranian direction, and as voiced by Hizbullah’s deputy secretary-general in aspiring to force Israel into an endless war, challenges Ben-Gurion’s security concept on two levels:
It denies Ben-Gurion’s expectation of quick decision in war; and
It undermines his expectation that, after defeating the enemy, Israel would enjoy a prolonged quiet enabling a focus on growth and nation-building.
Ben-Gurion’s Starting Point: Enduring Tensions
Ben-Gurion was acutely aware of Israel’s quantitative asymmetry versus its enemies. He repeatedly stressed that even a decisive Israeli victory would not prevent the next round of war; at best, it would grant Israel years of respite to consolidate.
Israel’s security concept was forged amid the immediate challenges facing the nascent state. These were laid out to the Mapai Council on January 12, 1949, even before the War of Independence ended, in five goals: (1) immigration and ingathering of exiles; (2) “rapid settlement of the land’s empty areas,” especially territories captured in wartime momentum; (3) “a foreign policy of peace” for international recognition and support; (4) rapid economic development in agriculture and industry; and (5) upgrading the IDF in all aspects of quality.2
“The State of Israel,” Ben-Gurion explained, “is a state like all other states, and at the same time unlike any other state…”3 Israel must be, simultaneously, a “normal” state seeking prosperity and stability, and an “abnormal” state bearing unique national tasks—foremost, the supreme test of national defense. Recognizing these unresolvable tensions, Ben-Gurion framed governance as a daily navigation effort, balancing competing imperatives across the apparatus of state.
Leadership, at every level, from national strategy to public administration, was thus conceived as a daily calibration amid constant tension, employing a “both-and” approach that synchronizes seemingly contradictory aims. A traditional inspiration for this mindset appears in the Hebrew calendar, which uniquely combines lunar and solar logics: Passover always falls at full moon (15th) by the lunar count, while, unlike the Islamic calendar, it always remains in spring by the solar year, thanks to the intercalated leap month. In acknowledging that two aspirations cannot be unified into a single computation, the Hebrew calendar fuses lunar time with a solar synchronizing factor. That leap-month principle, inserted periodically by institutional authority, illustrates Ben-Gurion’s conceptual basis for navigating unresolved tensions. It also underlies the classic Mapai “compromise”: tensions are never fully resolved; they are balanced and synchronized by leadership.
Upon this conceptual base Ben-Gurion set Israel’s security concept, derived from diagnosing existential and security tensions. From the outset he had to synchronize, systematically, between the duty of constant war-readiness, recognizing neighbors might launch a surprise attack, and Israel’s inability to maintain a permanently fully mobilized army at requisite readiness. The newborn state had unprecedented nation-building tasks, ingathering exiles and constructing institutions, while also obligated to defend its existence. The balancing point settled on a small standing army backed in emergencies by a broad reserve mobilization. Given this reliance on rapid transition from peacetime nation-building to wartime footing, strategic warning became indispensable. Thus emerged the triad: warning, deterrence, decision. Ben-Gurion never articulated the triad explicitly in his writings, but later Israeli security thought, e.g., Maj. Gen. Israel Tal, National Security: Few Against Many, and David Freilich, Israel’s Security Concept, formalized it. In 2006, the Meridor report added a fourth pillar: defense.
The Conceptual Triad as a Compass
A compass is essential for navigation, but it does not set the destination. So too with Israel’s security lexicon: national leadership must choose direction and daily balance among unresolved tensions.
Warning (Hatra’ah): Early warning bridges the gap between peacetime posture and emergency requirements, enabling rapid reserve mobilization. Intelligence interpretation, to avoid mobilizing on every weak signal, has always been part of the craft.
Deterrence (Harta’ah): Deterrence sustains the balance between Israel’s normal aspiration for development and the moment demanding full national mobilization. It was never expected to eliminate the danger of war, only to postpone it and lengthen the interwar periods of growth. Over time, public discourse loaded deterrence with excessive expectations; “loss of deterrence” became a cliché, as if it were a quantifiable metric. Yet, in practice, whether in the 1973 surprise or October 7, deterrence, as commonly invoked, has proven misleading.
Decision (Hachra’ah): Once war breaks out, the IDF must win a clear, rapid decision to end the war quickly, restore normalcy, and re-establish deterrence. The IDF’s offensive strike force was built to shift the war swiftly to enemy territory and defeat its army there, keeping most wartime damage on enemy soil and sparing Israel’s civilians. It is precisely these foundations that the new Iranian war concept aims to shake: denying Israel’s ability to maintain warning, deterrence, and decision.
The Evolution of Hizbullah–Hamas Warfighting
In May 2000, after the IDF left Lebanon, Hizbullah fundamentally revised its war posture, effectively adopting Syria’s new war doctrine developed in the late 1990s by COS Gen. Ali Aslan (influenced by his role commanding Syria’s expeditionary force with the U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War). With Iranian guidance, Hizbullah optimized Lebanon’s mountainous terrain, village networks, and winding routes through built-up and wooded areas. Israel encountered the first full expression of this doctrine in the Second Lebanon War (2006).
Inspired by Hizbullah’s 2006 fighting, Hamas in Gaza fully adopted the Syrian-Hizbullah war idea. Since then, the two organizations have engaged in mutual learning, drawing lessons from IDF operations in Gaza over the past decade.
Over the years, a new war logic has been built on three systemic pillars:
Fire Arrays: Systematic preparation to deliver sustained, massed fires across all ranges for days on end, from concealed and dug-in positions prepared in advance, aimed at Israel’s civilian and military rear and strategic assets.
Defense Arrays: A multi-layered, multi-domain defense, including extensive subterranean networks, across the entire battlespace. Anticipating Israel’s desire to move the war into enemy territory, they invite IDF ground incursions into hardened defenses above and below ground, designed to inflict attrition and sow operational confusion over the purpose and payoff of maneuver.
Commando Blows: Penetrating raid forces as a preliminary or parallel shock across the entire front, compelling the IDF to commit elite units to homeland defense and delaying Israel’s transition to offensive maneuver (Hizbullah’s Radwan in the north; Hamas’s Nukhba in Gaza). This is precisely what Hamas executed on October 7 against border communities all along the line.
With these three elements, Hizbullah and Hamas have shaken the basic assumptions of Israel’s security concept. Their dispersed, redundant fires and defenses allow continued campaigning even after losing terrain and assets, deliberately generating Israeli strategic bewilderment.
Three Core Difficulties for the IDF
The evanescence of warning. When conventional armies (e.g., Egypt before 1967; Syria on the Golan before and after 1973) prepared for war, they left a trail of indicators. By contrast, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza—embedding permanent, concealed fire arrays and defenses inside populated areas, maintained at continuous readiness by local cadres—have greatly reduced classic warning signatures. Their posture allows a rapid shift from routine to emergency, compressing Israel’s warning time.
The erosion of deterrence. The adversary retains sufficient capacity to continue rocket and missile barrages into Israel’s rear even after significant IDF air strikes and territorial gains. As seen, fire continued even from areas already “cleared.” In Lebanon, even if the IDF were to seize south Lebanon, Hizbullah’s northern arrays could still hit Tel Aviv. Under such conditions, Israel’s offensive gains may not deliver a favorable opening position for cease-fire talks, complicating the re-establishment of deterrence. In Gaza too, full territorial control does not guarantee removal of the threat when the enemy fights from within the civilian population. Above all, Israel now faces a regional, axis-based war system directed by Iran and backed by the Russia–China–North Korea nexus; adversary fighters are animated by religious motivation (mujahideen), further narrowing Israel’s deterrence leverage.
The blurring of decision. Given Hizbullah’s depth across all of Lebanon and into Syria, seizing the south would not suffice for decision; with UAVs and cruise missiles, sustained fires could continue from thousands of kilometers away. IDF ground forces attacking the enemy’s fortified cores confront dense defenses that exact casualties and slow the advance. Prolonged clearing fights, while rockets still strike Israeli population centers, undercut Israel’s ability to achieve a clear, rapid decision. Meanwhile, elite units diverted to defense against Radwan/Nukhba near the border delay Israel’s shift to offense, and displacement near the frontlines grows.
Confusion in Identifying the State of War
A conceptual transformation has merged the basic operational modes, defense and offense, into a hybrid often called “defense-offense.” Both sides can launch deep, large-scale fire attacks without any ground border crossing. In such a setting—e.g., Lebanon from Oct 8, 2023 to Oct 2024—it is often unclear who is attacking and who is defending. The question becomes: When does a war become a “war” (versus a “day of battle” or a “round” of fire)? As soon as fires intensify beyond routine, or a serious border incident occurs (e.g., an IDF unit ambushed, soldiers abducted), the operational-strategic state becomes hard to define. Deciding, and persuading, whether to escalate into a broad campaign or all-out war is inherently difficult. This is not mere Israeli hesitation; it is a changed reality where the “boiling point” of war is context-dependent and elusive.
Between Strike Power and Staying Power
Even if this war ends with significant Israeli military achievements, it is hard to assume it will halt the Soleimani program’s trajectory. At first glance, it may resemble the old “worst case” scenario familiar in Israel’s early years. But key novelties exist.
Arab armies in the 1950s also sought Israel’s destruction. What has changed is the idea of operations and the strategic sophistication. The 20th-century threat drew on WWII methods of organizing and employing armies; Ben-Gurion’s concept, culminating in 1967, was tailored to defeat those methods. The Iranian war idea, however, is built on 21st-century warfare, refined by lessons from Ukraine: long-range ballistic and medium-range missiles, massed remotely piloted aircraft (swarms), precision rockets, and easy-to-operate cruise missiles—all while concentrating combat in built-up areas among civilians, with deliberate focus on Israel’s civilian rear and critical infrastructure. In aggregate, these developments challenge Israel’s traditional security concept and expose its vulnerabilities.
At Ben-Gurion’s core stood the unresolved tension between normalcy and unceasing struggle. Administratively, that tension meant balancing national-social tasks—immigration absorption, economic and infrastructure development, education—against the need to build a large, well-equipped army. Israel’s classic security concept favored strike power over staying power. As Maj. Gen. Israel Tal analyzed,4 “strike power” is the set of forces actually committed to win quickly and decisively; “staying power” encompasses the state’s broader capacity to endure—material resources, production, logistics, and civilian morale—especially in protracted war. Aware of Israel’s limits in staying power, Ben-Gurion aimed for short wars. The present war, like Ukraine, demonstrates the growing centrality of staying power. Even Russia has faced limits in societal will and logistics, relying on outside munitions (e.g., 1.5 million artillery shells from North Korea).
Iran’s war plan aims precisely to deny Israel quick decision, forcing Israel into the domains of its relative weakness: staying power.
Three Decades of IDF Conceptual Shift
Over the last 30 years, the IDF underwent a deep operational-concept shift. Beginning after the First Lebanon War, and especially under CoS Ehud Barak (inspired by the U.S. AirLand Battle and the 1991 Gulf War), the IDF developed “Asufa”—a concept of systemic, intelligence-driven precision fires from the air and the ground to achieve rapid, high-volume destruction. NATO’s 1999 Kosovo campaign reinforced the belief that future wars could be decided by stand-off airpower. In the 2004 “Avnei Esh-9” IDF exercise under CoS Moshe Ya’alon, ground forces remained largely static in border defense while the main offensive effort was assigned to the Air Force; a doctrinal paper soon followed.
Air-intelligence strike capabilities improved dramatically, and the IDF entered 2006 with this concept in place. Air strikes achieved notable successes against Hizbullah’s medium/long-range rockets (based on plans years in the making), but the war also exposed limits in suppressing Hizbullah’s short-range rocket fire on Israel’s rear. Ground maneuvers encountered dense defensive systems in villages, along mountain routes, and in heavy underbrush.
Operation Protective Edge (2014), 51 days, again revealed disappointment with over-reliance on systemic fires.
Throughout these years, Israel’s defense establishment shifted concepts without fully internalizing the implications. The IDF, historically focused on offensive maneuver into enemy territory, moved toward an effects-by-fire approach, gradually neglecting maneuver forces, especially reserves. Israel’s adversaries recognized this doctrinal pivot and its potential to unbalance the IDF. As Bashar al-Assad said in 2009:
“Israel is becoming militarily stronger as time passes… it has greater capacity for destruction but less ability to achieve military objectives, and therefore less ability to achieve political objectives. It moves from failure to failure… Today, Israel no longer fights on others’ land; that’s a strategic principle. Today, its campaign is ‘inside.’ The map has changed. Israel does not know how to deal with this map.”5
In Syria, the IDF successfully leveraged precise, intelligence-driven airpower in the Campaign Between Wars (MABAM) against Iranian entrenchment and weapon transfers. But the satisfaction with intelligence and air superiority coincided with reduced training for ground formations, especially reserves, and the erosion of local defense arrangements in border communities (shrinking rapid-response squads).
CoS Aviv Kochavi correctly identified the new threat posed by Hizbullah’s Radwan commandos, poised to attack border communities and positions, and stressed preparedness for defense, including tiered alerts (“Tzariah” first, “Mivtsar” second). Similar attention was paid to Hamas’s Nukhba in the south. Yet this defense posture depended on warning and on committed elite standing forces to defend first, delaying the IDF’s transition to the offensive. The classic Ben-Gurion expectation of rapid maneuver into enemy territory thus lost practical validity.
Confidence in intelligence superiority, nurtured by MABAM, masked the growing warning problem against rapid Hamas/Hizbullah attacks. Operation Guardian of the Walls (May 2021) began with Hamas rockets at Jerusalem, on about one hour’s warning, insufficient in strategic terms. Embedded within populations, organized on a local cadre basis, the enemy can shift very quickly to attack, deliberately blurring indicators and eroding Israel’s strategic warning capacity.
Viewed thus, the surprise of October 7 reflects a long, gradual process that has, in recent years, undermined the foundations of Israel’s security concept.
Conclusion
Given Iran’s enveloping threat architecture around Israel’s borders and in depth, pursuing a perpetual war posture, Israel must rethink both how to achieve a decision and how to build significant staying power for a long war. Ben-Gurion would likely argue that precisely here, Israel needs a new national security concept.
Charting the directions of a new concept first requires recognizing the roots of the conceptual crisis, a recognition that the defense establishment has yet to fully embrace. Outlining such a concept demands a seminar of inquiry and learning of the kind Ben-Gurion conducted in summer 1947 before the War of Independence.
As a guide, with warning, deterrence, and decision all constrained, Israel needs a new warfighting concept in both defense and offense. Above all, the shrunken warning window compels a renewed foundation for continuous defense along all borders and within the home front. Strengthening defense necessitates re-addressing territorial depth. Already after the War of Independence, it was accepted that Israel could not be defended from the narrow coastal plain along Kfar Saba/Route 6. In light of modern war capabilities, the required depth is greater still, mandating an Israeli hold in the Jordan Valley as the eastern security border and in vital areas of Judea and Samaria.
In today’s regional threat system, Israel’s security concept must acknowledge the growing multi-front regional existential threat, requiring the reconstruction of a national mindset for living under a continuous regime of strategic defense.
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Notes
