FEBRUARY 22 — For decades, Israel’s core argument has rested on a proposition that much of the world — even when uneasy — accepted: that military superiority was not a choice but a necessity, a condition of survival in a hostile strategic environment. That argument carried weight because it was paired, however imperfectly, with a political horizon — Oslo, the two-state framework, land-for-peace, normalisation through diplomacy. Force was presented as an instrument in service of an eventual settlement.
What is increasingly difficult to discern today is not Israel’s capacity to fight, which remains overwhelming, but Israel’s theory of how fighting ends.
Across multiple theatres — Gaza, the West Bank, and periodically Lebanon — military action has become structurally detached from a credible political end state. Tactical operations are precise, intelligence-driven, and often effective on their own terms. Yet they take place within a strategic framework that offers no clear pathway to a stable post-conflict order. The result is not simply a prolonged war; it is the institutionalisation of open-ended conflict as a governing condition.
This carries consequences that extend beyond the battlefield.
From deterrence to management
Israel’s traditional doctrine rested on deterrence: the use of decisive, time-bound force to impose costs on adversaries and restore a temporary equilibrium. That model assumed that military action could periodically reset the strategic environment.
The current pattern suggests a shift from deterrence to management.
In Gaza, the objective has evolved from degrading specific armed capabilities to controlling the long-term security environment of a territory whose political future remains undefined. In the West Bank, the steady expansion of administrative, legal, and settlement mechanisms is altering the territorial and demographic landscape in ways that preclude the revival of a viable negotiated framework. Periodic strikes in Lebanon are calibrated not to produce resolution but to enforce a shifting set of red lines.
This is not a strategy aimed at ending conflict. It is a system for containing it indefinitely.
Such systems can be sustained for extended periods, particularly by states with significant technological and military advantages. But they impose cumulative political costs that are harder to offset than battlefield risks.
The erosion of the political horizon
The central strategic problem is not operational; it is conceptual.
Military campaigns are most effective when linked to a political outcome that defines success. Without that linkage, even repeated tactical victories generate diminishing returns. Armed groups regenerate, international legitimacy erodes, and the conflict’s temporal horizon extends.
Israel’s earlier strategic successes — its peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, its normalisation agreements with several Arab states — were possible because they were embedded in a diplomatic framework that recognised the territorial dimension of the conflict. The implicit assumption was that the Palestinian question, however intractable, would eventually be addressed through a political process.
That assumption is now under severe strain.
As the prospect of a negotiated territorial settlement recedes, military power is increasingly asked to perform tasks for which it is not designed: to manage civilian populations, to enforce administrative outcomes, and to substitute for diplomacy. This expands the scope of military responsibility while narrowing the range of achievable strategic outcomes.
The global south and the legitimacy deficit
The implications are not confined to Israel’s immediate neighbourhood.
In much of the Global South, where memories of protracted conflicts and externally justified security operations remain politically salient, the perception has shifted. The issue is no longer framed primarily in terms of Israel’s right to self-defence — a principle that retains broad formal acceptance — but in terms of proportionality, duration, and end state.
This matters because Israel’s long-term security has never depended solely on military capability. It has also depended on diplomatic depth, economic integration, and the willingness of external partners to absorb political costs on its behalf.
As the conflict becomes structurally open-ended, that willingness is increasingly contested.
States that have recently normalised relations with Israel did so on the expectation of strategic stability and economic cooperation, not perpetual escalation. Western governments that continue to provide political and military support face growing domestic and international scrutiny. Multilateral institutions, even when constrained, are reflecting a wider shift in global public opinion.
Military superiority can offset some of these pressures, but it cannot eliminate them.
The paradox of unmatched power
Paradoxically, Israel’s position of overwhelming regional military superiority may be contributing to the absence of a political end state.
When the balance of power is asymmetrical, the incentive to accept the risks inherent in negotiated territorial compromise declines. The immediate security benefits of maintaining control appear to outweigh the uncertain gains of a diplomatic settlement. Over time, however, this produces a strategic environment in which force becomes the default instrument not because it is optimal, but because no alternative framework has been developed.
This is a familiar dynamic in modern conflicts. The United States in Iraq and Afghanistan achieved sustained tactical dominance without converting it into a stable political order. Russia in Chechnya secured military control at the cost of long-term political and reputational consequences. Sri Lanka’s military victory in 2009 ended large-scale combat but did not fully resolve the underlying political question, which continues to shape its domestic and international environment.
In each case, the decisive battlefield outcome narrowed, rather than expanded, the range of acceptable political options.
The strategic question
The issue, therefore, is not whether Israel can continue to prevail militarily. It can.
The issue is whether a doctrine of permanent conflict management can deliver the form of security that Israel historically sought: regional integration, international legitimacy, and a stable internal order that does not require the continuous mobilisation of society for recurring war.
Absent a defined political horizon, the risk is not defeat in a conventional sense. The risk is strategic entrapment — a condition in which military success perpetuates the very conflict it is intended to control, and where each operation reinforces the structural factors that make the next operation necessary.
This is not a uniquely Israeli dilemma. It is the central problem of contemporary warfare for states that possess overwhelming force but lack a viable framework for translating that force into a durable political settlement.
Conclusion
Israel’s long-term security will not be determined solely by its ability to eliminate immediate threats. It will be determined by whether it can re-establish a credible relationship between military action and a political end state.
Without that relationship, the country risks exchanging the logic of deterrence for the logic of permanence — a shift that offers short-term operational clarity at the expense of long-term strategic resolution.
The question is no longer how Israel fights its wars.
It is whether it can still define how they end.
*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
