The Politics and Psychology of Restraint: Israeli Decision-Making in the Gulf War
| Author | David A. Welch |
| Published date | 01 June 1992 |
| Date | 01 June 1992 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070209204700206 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DAVID
A.
WELCH
The
politics
and
psychology
of
restraint:.
Israeli
decision-making
in
the
Gulf
War
Two
horses
were
sitting
at
a
bar
reminiscing
about
the
day's
races.
'The
strangest
thing
happened
today,'
said
the
first
horse.
'I
was
waiting
for
the
start
of
the fifth
race
at
Rockingham
Park,
when
I
felt
this
odd
twitch
in
my
hind
leg.
As
soon
as
the
race
started,
I
sprinted
to
the
lead,
and
never
looked
back.
I
won
by
four
lengths.'
'What
a
coincidence,'
said
the
second
horse.
'The
same
thing
happened
to
me in
the
third
race
at
Suffolk
Downs.
I
felt
the
same
twitch
just
before
the
race,
and
I
ran
faster
than
I
ever
have
in
my
life.
I
won
by
six
lengths!'
Just
then
a
greyhound
sitting
at
the
far
end
of
the
bar
put
down
his
beer
and
approached
the
two
horses.
'Pardon
me,
boys,'
he
said,
'but
I
couldn't
help
overhearing
your
conversation.
You'll
never
believe
this,
but
I
felt
a
strange
twitch
in
my
leg,
too,
just
before
the
start
of the
second
race
at
Wonderland
today;
I
set
a
course
record,
winning
by
eight
lengths!'
'Now
there's
something
you
don't
see
every
day,'
said
the
first
horse
to
the
second:
'A
talking
dog!'
From
time
to
time
an event may
involve
so
many
puzzles
at
once
that
when
our
attention
is
drawn
to
one
in
particular,
we
tend
not
to
notice others
that
may
be
just
as
important
or
perplexing.
The
Gulf
War
of
1991
is
a
case
in
point.
Who
in
January
i99o
could
have
predicted
that,
within
a
year,
American
and
Syrian
troops
would
be
fighting
side
by side
in
the
Middle
East,
that
the
Soviet
Union
would
staunchly
support
a
massive
American
mili-
Assistant
Professor
of
Political Science, University
of
Toronto,
Toronto,
Canada.
The
author
would
like
to
acknowledge
the
invaluable
assistance
of
Colonel Bruce
F.
Williams
(ret.),
former
United States
defense
attache
to Israel;
Mende Meron,
former
director
general,
Israeli Ministry
of
Defense;
Oded
Eran,
deputy chief
of
mission,
Israeli
embassy,
Washington;
Itamar
Rabinovich,
rector,
Tel
Aviv
University;
Yehuda
Ben
Meir
and
Dore Gold
of
the
Jaffee Center
for
Strategic
Studies,
Tel
Aviv
University;
Zvi
Levy;
Michael
Mastanduno;
Robert Matthews;
Timothy
McKeown;
Louis
Pauly;
Timothy
Prinz;
Debora
Spar;
Janice
Gross
Stein;
Melissa
Williams;
and
the
Connaught
Fund,
University
of
Toronto.
International
Journal
X L
v
I I
spring
1992
ISRAELI
DECISION-MAKING
IN
THE
GULF
WAR
329
tary
operation
in
the
Third
World,
that
the
United
Nations
Secu-
rity
Council
would
authorize
a
collective
security
action,
that
the
Iraqi
air
force
would
seek
refuge
in
Iran,
or
that
Israel would
weather
a
sustained
ballistic
missile
attack
against
two
of
its
larg-
est
cities
without
responding?
Any one
of
these
developments
would
seem
to
qualify
as
a
talking
dog.
Of
all
these
features
of
the
Gulf
War, the
last may
be
the
most
remarkable.
For
the
first
time
in
history,
one
state
employed
its
military
forces
against
the
metropolitan
territory
of
another
without eliciting
so
much
as
a
single
shot
in
return.
It
may
be
that
this
was also
the
first
time
in
history
that
a
state
attempting
to
goad
another
into
war
failed
to
do
so.
Moreover,
by
not
responding
to
Iraq's
assault,
and
by
accepting
the deployment
of
American
Patriot
air
defence
missiles
and
crews
to
intercept
Scud
missiles,
Israel
forsook
two
cardinal
tenets
of
its
security
policy:
(i)
swift
and
decisive
retaliation
to
any
and
all
armed
attacks;
and
(2)
military
self-reliance
-
a
policy
reinforced
less
than
a
week
before
the
outbreak
of
war
by
the statement
of
Prime
Minister
Yitzhak
Shamir
that
Israel's defence
'always
was
and
always will
be
the
sole
and
exclusive
responsibility
of
the
government of
Israel."
To
add
to
the
sense
of
wonder,
it
may
be
noted
that
for
several
months
-
indeed,
right
up
to
the
eve
of
war
itself
-
Israel's
highest
officials
had
stated
repeatedly
and
une-
quivocally
that
Israel
would
respond
if attacked.,
There
can
be
i
Jerusalem
Post,
14
January
1991,
1.
Editorially, the Post
acknowledged
that
Israel's
dependence
on
American
forces
during
the
Gulf War
set
a
dangerous
precedent:
20
January
1991,
4.
2
Shamir,
for
example,
stated: 'Saddam
Hussein
knows
that
if
he
tries
to
attack
Israel,
we
shall strike
back.
Our
allies
are
aware
of
our
position
and
of
our
state
of readiness.'
The
foreign
minister,
David
Levy,
warned
of
a
'strong
response'
and
'very
painful' retaliation,
a
point
he
stressed
repeatedly, including
to
a
group
of visiting
American
congressmen.
The
minister
of
defense,
Moshe
Arens,
likewise
made
several
similarly
definitive
statements.
On
this
issue,
the
cabinet
was
unanimous.
See,
eg,
Jerusalem
Post,
2
January
1991,
x;
David
Makovsky,
'Scenarios:
will
Israel
hit
Iraq?'Jerusalem
Post,
4
January
199g, 9;
and
Jerusalem
Post,
14
January
1991,
i.
Prominent
Israeli
military
figures
echoed
the
theme.
For
example,
Shlomo
Gazit,
former
head of
Israeli
military
intelligence,
wrote
(Jerusalem
Post,
8
January
1991,
4):
'Saddam
is
no
fool;
he
undoubtedly
knows
that
were
he to
launch
an
unprovoked
attack
against
Israel,
330
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
little
doubt
of
Saddam
Hussein's
confidence
both
that
Israel
would
respond and
that
by
doing
so
it
would
tear
apart
the
coa-
lition
arrayed
against
him.
Indeed,
this
confidence
may
explain
yet
another
major
puzzle:
the
failure
of
compellence
under
near
ideal
conditions
(Saddam
Hussein
refused
to yield in
the
face
of
overwhelming
military
force,
an unprecedentedly
effective
trade
embargo,
and
almost
total diplomatic
isolation).3
The
decision-making
process
that
led
Israel
to
forbear
is
fas-
cinating
and
instructive because
the
decision
itself
was
neither
pre-determined
nor
over-determined;
it
touched
issues
at
the
very
core
of
the
value
system
of
most
states;
and
it
directly
posed
the
'co-operate
or
defect
dilemma'
that
lies
at the
very
heart
of
the
dominant
realist
analysis
of
international
politics
and
of
sev-
eral
current
debates
in
international
relations theory.
I
will
attempt
to
argue
that
at
its
present
level
of
development,
inter-
national
relations
theory
is
poorly
equipped
to
explain
Israeli
behaviour.
Each
of
the
explanations
that
seem
prima
facie
most
plausible
from
various
theoretical
standpoints
has
at
least one
glaring
weakness.
A
system-level
explanation
couched
in
terms
of Israeli
dependence
upon
the United
States
does
not
fit
the
general
pattern
of
American-Israeli
relations
and
cannot
explain
why
(as
seems
virtually
certain)
Israel would have
retaliated
under
fairly
well
specified
conditions
that,
through
sheer
luck,
simply
never
materialized.
A
state-level
explanation
couched
in
Israel
would
have
to
respond.'
Not
until
16
January
did
the
government
modify
this policy,
when,
on
Israeli
television,
Shamir denied
that
Israel
was
committed
to
'automatic'
retaliation,
noting
instead
that
Israel
merely reserved
the
right
to
decide
whether and
how
it
would
respond:Jerusalem
Post,
17
January
1991,
I.
3
The
virtual
certainty
in
the
United
States
and
Canada
that
Israel
would respond
if
attacked
was
reflected
in
an
informal
poll
I
conducted
in
the
months
between
the
Iraqi
invasion
of Kuwait on
2
August
19go
and
the
beginning
of
Operation
Desert
Storm
on
17
January
i991.
Of
several
dozen
political
scientists,
current
and former
government
officials,
and
military
officeis
surveyed,
only
one
(Colonel
Williams)
believed
it
even
conceivable
that
Israel
would
weather
an
Iraqi
attack
without
a
military reaction of
some
kind.
A
similar informal
survey
after the
war
yielded
a
different
result,
however:
a
slim
majority
claimed
not
to
have
been surprised
at
Israel's
restraint.
I
suspect
that
this
may
be
a
function
of
the
same
bandwagon
effect
that
leads
a
far
larger
proportion
of respondents
in
post-election
polls
to
claim
to have
voted
for winners
than
actually did.
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