When the Yom Kippur War Broke Out, Two Psychologists Rushed to the Frontlines

In 1969, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky—both professors of psychology at Hebrew University—began an enduring collaboration (and close friendship) that would lead them to do pioneering research in understanding how people process information to make decisions. Kahneman eventually won a Nobel Prize for his work, which Tversky probably would have shared had he not died a few years beforehand. When the Yom Kippur War began in 1973, the pair immediately made their way from California to Israel, where they reported for duty at the IDF’s “psychology field unit.” Not content to sit in an office devising questionnaires, the pair grabbed rifles, jumped on a jeep, and set off for the Sinai Peninsula. Michael Lewis describes some of what they did there:

Danny [Kahneman] . . . had a gift for finding solutions to problems where others failed even to notice that there was a problem to solve. As they sped toward the front lines, Danny noticed the huge piles of garbage on the roadsides: the leftovers from the canned meals supplied by the U.S. Army. He examined what the soldiers had eaten and what they had thrown out. (They liked the canned grapefruit.) His subsequent recommendation that the Israeli army analyze the garbage and supply the soldiers with what they actually wanted made newspaper headlines. . . .

He also somehow found his way to the Israeli Air Force. Fighter pilots were also dying in unprecedented numbers because of Egypt’s use of new and improved surface-to-air missiles provided by the Soviet Union. One squadron had suffered especially horrific losses. The general in charge wanted to investigate, and possibly punish, the unit. . . .

Danny explained to the general that he had a sample-size problem: the losses experienced by the supposedly inept fighter squadron could have occurred by random chance alone. If he investigated the unit, he would no doubt find patterns in behavior that might serve as an explanation. Perhaps the pilots in that squadron had paid more visits to their families, or maybe they wore funny-colored underpants. Whatever he found would be a meaningless illusion, however. There weren’t enough pilots in the squadron to achieve statistical significance. On top of it, an investigation, implying blame, would be horrible for morale. The only point of an inquiry would be to preserve the general’s feelings of omnipotence. The general listened to Danny and stopped the inquiry. “I have considered that my only contribution to the war effort,” said Danny.

Read more at Vanity Fair

More about: IDF, Israel & Zionism, Psychology, Science, Yom Kippur War

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF