Military expert on Gaza war: “When politicians act like children, children wind up dying”

On Oct. 7, the Islamist militant movement Hamas launched a surprise attack, breaking through a supposedly secure border fence between Gaza and Israel in multiple locations. At least 1,300 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians, with more than 3,000 injured. Current estimates suggest that roughly 150 to 200 hostages, including a number of children and elderly people, were captured alive by Hamas and taken into Gaza.

These attacks have been widely described as Israel’s equivalent to 9/11. In some ways, the historic weight may actually be greater: It appears that more Jewish people were killed on Oct. 7 than on any single day since the end of the Nazi Holocaust.

Hamas’ ability to amass a large number of forces in secret, to subvert much of Israel’s border security and to launch a coordinated series of attacks across southern Israel has raised many questions about that country’s vaunted military and intelligence capabilities.

Israel is now engaged in a massive military campaign in Gaza which is likely to involve a near-term ground invasion with a variety of goals: rescuing Israeli hostages, destroying the leadership of Hamas and degrading its ability to launch further attacks, and reassuring the Israeli public (and the world) that “security” has been assured.

Gaza, a densely populated territory of more than 2 million people packed into 141 square miles — roughly the same land area as the city of Philadelphia — is now effectively blockaded and cut off from the outside world. More than 2,100 people have already been killed there as a result of Israel’s bombing campaign, and the death toll is certain to go much higher, with an invasion by Israeli troops likely imminent. Food and fuel are running short, and there is little or no electricity. International organizations and Palestinian health officials have described the situation as a humanitarian disaster.

In an attempt understand the military and strategic aspects of the war between Israel and Hamas, as well as how it will affect international tensions between the U.S., Iran and Russia — as well as the rest of the world — I recently spoke with Elliot Ackerman. He is the author of several bestselling books, including “2034: A Novel of the Next World War,” “The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan” and “Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning.” His latest book is the alternate-history novel “Halcyon,” set in a fictional version of 2004. Ackerman is also a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a Marine Corps veteran who served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart.

This interview took place last Wednesday. The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

After the massive terror attack by Hamas against Israel, we face the possibility of a broader war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine continues. How are you feeling? How do you make sense of these events? 

The first rule of international affairs is to expect the unexpected. Human beings are unpredictable; politics is unpredictable. These attacks took most of the world, and certainly Israel, by surprise, and it wouldn’t be the first time in recent memory there was a major event that took the world by surprise. There was the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the collapse of Kabul that took place in just the last 24 months.

What is your assessment of how the news media and supposed experts have been responding to this new crisis? What did the talking heads who offered breathless coverage last weekend as the attacks took place and shortly thereafter get right or wrong in hindsight?

The evidence of what happened in Israel is pretty clear. There’s no challenge there. In the first 12 to 24 hours the details were still developing, but now we have a good sense of what transpired. The more complex question is: What happens next? Where are the areas where we should be very cautious? How should we be thinking about this crisis?

One thing that I think we underweight in these instances are emotions. Where are we emotionally, in terms of the reaction to a given crisis? If we look back, even in recent memory, to decisions that are made without a lot of strategic foresight, they are made in the heat of the moment. They’re deeply informed by the emotions of that moment and what people or societies demand emotionally. Those emotions are real; they’re not made up. They’re a force in politics, as much as anything else. But it’s worth being cognizant of your society’s emotional state when you are planning a response.

Military leaders or political leaders are cognizant of how many tanks and missiles they have when they’re planning a military response. There is going to be a strong counterattack into Gaza. We’re going to see more carnage and more destruction. But in this moment, being keenly aware of where a society is emotionally and psychologically as Israel is waging this war — and the world’s emotions too — is going to be very important.

What kinds of conversations were taking place at the highest levels of government as these attacks took place? What does that crisis response look like during such a moment?

Senior leaders need to decide relatively quickly what they want to have happen next. What are the strategic objectives? In this case, the Israeli leaders have said very clearly that their strategic objective is to eliminate Hamas, that Hamas will no longer exist as a political organization, and also to bring to justice the individuals who perpetrated these attacks and free the hostages that have been taken.

Once leaders get a clear handle on what their strategic objectives are, you start breaking it down. How are we going to accomplish those objectives? Then you start looking at the options of how one might do that. Once you decide on the various options of how you might achieve certain objectives — maybe there are two or three courses of action — you settle on one that seems to be the most effective. If it’s hostage rescue, maybe it’s going after the hostages before there’s a major incursion into Gaza. Maybe it’s waiting? Maybe it’s negotiating? These are all options of how to recover your hostages.

With regard to Gaza, how hard do we go in? Once the leaders in the room have ascertained what their strategic objectives are, that’s when the people around them, the professional military officers and intelligence officers, start breaking down that much larger task into subordinate manageable tasks to accomplish the job. And while this is happening you still have to respond to your adversary and what they are doing, in this case Hamas and Hezbollah, and how their actions may impact your plans and objectives.

Given Israel’s, and America’s, intelligence and military capabilities, from the satellites to the ability to intercept communications to spies and human assets on the ground, how did Hamas manage to launch a surprise attack on this scale?

The capabilities of the intelligence agencies in the United States or in Israel are very impressive, but they’re not omniscient. There are always huge gaps. These failures are not necessarily outliers. If you have a group of people who are planning an attack and they are capable and intent on hiding their plans, sometimes they will succeed, as they did in Israel. There is no amount of technology that can outsmart a group of humans who are trying to plan something in secret 100 percent of the time. Surprise is an element of almost every war — and, fundamentally, miscalculation is a part of all wars. Both sides believe they can win the war and, ultimately, one side is of course wrong, because somebody always loses.

How did Israel’s national security state get it so wrong?

I believe complacency played a large role here. One way that societal complacency can manifest is the type of dysfunctional and childish behavior we are seeing in our politics. We’ve seen this in the United States and Israel. Our political leaders don’t believe that there is any type of outside threat. They don’t believe that this dysfunctional behavior will ever have severely negative ramifications. As we are seeing in Israel right now, when politicians act like children, children can wind up dying in these types of attacks.

In the United States, we have become the poster children for political dysfunction across the world. I have similar fears that as we are inwardly facing and navel gazing at whatever the controversy of the day is, our adversaries are plotting our demise. That certainly took place in Israel where they were preoccupied with internal domestic political disputes these last few years. That led to a certain degree of complacency, and nobody saw an attack like this coming.

What do you believe that this surprise attack by Hamas will do to the perception of Israel, which is supposed to have one of the most powerful and professional militaries in the region, and the world? And what about the reputations of the Mossad and Israel’s other intelligence agencies?

I think it certainly puts their reputation to the test. It may even erode it a little bit. Israel has been surprised before. The 1973 war would be the obvious example — and they eventually won that war. The Israelis will now have to show their mettle in the days and battles ahead. It appears the country is coming together very, very quickly. When the war is over, there will be commissions investigating how these attacks took place and were so successful. I would not be surprised if Benjamin Netanyahu pays a steep political price for whatever shortcomings are revealed by that commission.

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These attacks have been framed as being Israel’s version of 9/11. How accurate is that comparison?

There are parallels and similarities. Israel was caught by surprise and didn’t see this coming. There are real emotional parallels between how Israel is going to try to make sense of these attacks and how the United States did so after 9/11. There’s going to be everything that came before and everything that came after. These attacks by Hamas will be a dividing line in history for Israel.

What are Hamas’ strategic goals? What do they want?

I don’t think we know that yet. Is this an isolated attack? I tend to doubt that it is. How do these attacks play into a broader strategy? How many actors are complicit in that strategy? The Biden administration has come out strongly in saying they do not see any direct connections to Iran, in terms of planning this attack on Israel. Most critically, how do the other powers in the Middle East behave in the days, weeks and months ahead? 

Israel intends to destroy Hamas. Hamas was successful with these attacks, but the organization will likely no longer exist in the same form once the fighting is over. From that perspective, were these attacks really a victory?

That doesn’t mean they lose. It’s important to always keep in mind that war is politics, and all war is political. War is a tool of policy. The Tet Offensive of 1968 effectively destroyed the Viet Cong. However, the Tet Offensive was a massive political success for the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong, even though militarily speaking it was a disaster. With regard to Hamas, the question is: What is their political aim? What are they hoping to achieve with these attacks? Those questions are essential to understanding the nature of the attacks themselves. Hamas does not have the high-end conventional military capabilities that modern armies possess. But Hamas still wields political power, and they can use certain military tools to achieve political ends. That is what guerrilla movements have done since time immemorial.

How does Hamas’ use of terrorism fit into its goals?

We have seen this with the Islamic State and others, and it’s a tactic that’s as old as war. Terrorism is a form of psychological warfare. It can be designed to do just that, strike terror into people’s hearts. Terrorism can also be used to incite a response that may be too strong or imprecise. Those types of terror videos are designed to be disturbing, with the goal of eliciting a visceral, emotional response.

What are the conversations like that are taking place within the Biden administration about how to respond to these events?

There is the geo-strategic question of how we stabilize and de-escalate this conflict and prevent it from turning into a broader regional war. Even more concerning is the question of how to stop this from becoming a broader world war. There’s the potential for the United States to find itself not only in a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, but in a proxy war against Iran in Israel. That would be a challenge. The Biden administration should be trying to manage and de-escalate this conflict with the understanding that the Israelis are going to destroy Hamas and assure their own security in the future. Now, with regard to the U.S. hostages being held in Gaza, that is a tactical problem: How are we going to recover them? There are a variety of means by which you can do that, such as using special operations forces that have a specific hostage rescue mission. I’m sure they’re all being spun up right now. The U.S. hostages can also be recovered through negotiations or by our Israeli partners.

There are already discussions of how the war between Israel and Hamas could spiral into a much larger conflict, perhaps even a world war. How plausible is such a scenario?

The most essential thing here is to keep the lines of communication open so that the situation can de-escalate. That’s a key part of keeping this from spreading. The way these conflicts spread historically is when one side takes a military action, another side escalates that military action and the other side escalates in turn. There are misinterpretations of intent and then it keeps escalating.

How do you think Vladimir Putin is viewing these events?

Putin had a great weekend. The attacks in Israel have taken the world’s attention away from Ukraine. That gives Putin a little bit of political space, which I’m sure he appreciates. That doesn’t mean he’s going to suddenly win the war in Ukraine, but in the short term the events in Israel benefit him.

Israel is almost certainly going to invade Gaza. What is old and what is new about the types of fighting their forces are going to engage in?

We are going to see hybrid warfare. The new things are drone technologies, advanced surveillance technologies and some of the innovations that we’ve seen in Ukraine, such as people using cell phones to crowdsource targeting and intelligence, and watching a war being broadcast on social media channels. What is going to be old is fighting in a city like Gaza. That is house-to house-fighting. It is very brutal. Fancy new technology does not really help you there. That type of fighting is going to be very costly and very time-consuming.

Given recent events, what are you most concerned about? What would you tell people to focus on as they try to make sense of this moment?

What gives me the most cause for concern is the idea of the conflict now in Israel metastasizing to other parts of the Middle East. If that happens, it could draw in other countries that are antagonistic to the United States, such as Iran or Russia or even China to a limited degree. As much as our leaders can keep what’s going on in Israel isolated to that country, that would be in all of our best interests.