Israel's quest for escalation dominance

This isn't yet a "wider war" but rather a sequential Road House-style beatdown

It’s trite to say that things are heating up in the Middle East, and it would also be misleading.

Some experts, like NYT’s David Sanger argue that “the long-feared ‘wider war’ in the Middle East is here.” Others claim that America is already at war with Iran by helping Israel, a bit I don’t buy even as we clearly are sticking with our chosen side.

As I noted here not that long ago:

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Israel has been very deliberate in not just paying back to every player that has recently targeted it but also in going beyond such signaling in a — so far, successful — effort at establishing escalation dominance.

The usual performative tit-for-tat drill is what Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis keep expecting. And what Israel delivers instead is something far more aggressive. Instead of slap-gets-slap-gets-slap, here, slap gets massive strikes and several of your top leaders assassinated.

So, is this the dreaded “wider war”?

Not by my calculation.

No, this is Israel reaching for — and establishing — a form of escalation dominance that is often derided by national security experts as a mirage.

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Escalation dominance (the theory) is when a state is able to maintain a superior position over its adversaries across various/all levels of conflict, thereby deterring the opponents from attempting the same in response. The term comes from the infamous nuclear strategist Herman Kahn.

The idea is to get your opponent to perceive any further escalation on its part as a completely losing proposition.

Simple example: Force A uses 10 units of attack power and Force B responds with 1,000 units of attack power. Something like that. Proportionality be damned, the whole object is to let the other guy know you’re going to keep going far overboard on the dynamic until they quit. You do this by signaling that — in effect — there are no limits to your response.

And yeah, in nuclear thinking, this tends to signal that Force B is willing to embrace Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) as its final option.

In Kahn’s theory, one engages in escalation dominance below and above the nuclear threshold, the idea mostly being that if it doesn’t work below, then, baby, it sure as hell better by threatening the above part. Because, once you cross that threshold, the disproportionality quickly turns into the end of the world.

You’ve probably heard of Nixon’s “madman” corollary to this concept: the purposeful signaling that, yeah, you are that wild and crazy guy! That’s basically a bluffing version of escalation dominance (and yes, I am avoiding the ED shorthand and all its comedy potential).

So, what does it take to achieve ED? Other than drinking too much like Nixon?

You have to be able to out-force your opponent across the so-called escalation ladder. What’s the ladder? It’s just the old anything you can do, I can do better — at first.

That’s the performative section of the fight.

And, if that doesn’t work, then things grow more serious.

So, Hezbollah ritualistically sending over rockets into northern Israel for the last 12 months, expecting some similar strikes back … that’s your classic tit-for-tat performative strike, like those “stunning” Iranian drone and missile attacks that kill one or two Israelis.

Second key to ED, you have to have the military goods across the spectrum. In Israel’s case, it’s got the beef at every level, to include its amazing Iron Dome defense system (its most close-in line of missile defense):

So, yeah, don’t try this at home unless you have big-time defense capacity to render what would otherwise be a serious attack into performance art. Because, if you have that level of self-confidence/defense, then you can slap your opponent as much as you want.

A metaphoric example from the recent remake of Road House (note the strategic communications):

Now, our man Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal here), he’s got the capacity to beat you at every level — and demonstratively so (thus signaling to your entire crew of baddies). Israel has that sort of “primacy,” as David Ignatius likes to call it. And, yeah, it is right now totally into re-establishing that alpha dog sense across the region.

But another big part of this is controlling the narrative by likewise signaling that you’re trying to limit collateral damage (warnings to civilians) while simultaneously proving that, frankly, you don’t give a damn about collateral damage. It is thus bullying of the highest order. Or, let’s say here, out-bullying an entire gang surrounding you like Iran and its Axis of Resistance minions (who are all looking pretty minion-y right now, along with Tehran).

The problems with this approach are several:

• How to keep things from spinning out of control? I say, slap early and hard and repeatedly, like our man Dalton.

• How to keep on the offensive? I’d say Israel is pulling out all the stops on every trick it’s been working on for the last decade — like the pager play.

• How to make sure your opponents recognize your superiority? Bring the fight to all of them everywhere all at once, or make feel like that by filling every expected post-strike pause (dust settling) with YET ANOTHER BOLD AND VICIOUS ATTACK.