Besides the immediate question of the intelligence failure of October 7—why didn’t the IDF and Shin Bet anticipate the attack and prepare to defend against it—there is also the much broader question of what went wrong with Israel’s strategic thinking. In this 2021 essay, recently made available in English, Omer Dostri criticizes the IDF for losing its appetite for maneuver warfare, i.e., sending substantial ground forces to destroy an enemy and bring about a decisive victory. Dostri argues that, in struggling with the difficulties of confronting enemies like Hamas, Israeli generals erred by focusing on limited warfare and attacks from the air. They developed complex doctrines, influence by French postmodernist philosophers, that lost sight of the basic principles of war.

Perhaps it is too soon to tell, but Dostri’s analysis appears prescient in the wake of October 7. He takes a careful look at other similar cases of conventional armies pitted against guerrillas—such as America in Vietnam and the French in Algeria—to argue that decisive victory is not impossible in such scenarios. He concludes:

War, including one in which the sides are not balanced in terms of power, can be decided only by use of ground forces, deployed as part of the general use of military and non-military capabilities. Clear evidence of this can be seen in past wars between states and guerrilla or terror groups. During such conflicts, enemy insurgents cannot be defeated in “clean” wars from the air alone, and are not impressed by efforts to influence them mentally with the pyrotechnics of smoke and fire.

This is also true of the Israeli case, despite its unique circumstances. The enemy’s military buildup and transformation into a terror army requires the state of Israel, and the IDF especially, to wage a war which will certainly require use of ground maneuver as part of a broad combined-arms effort. Maneuver needs to be aimed at military decisions in stubborn and complex fighting, which will very likely lead to serious losses.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.