The Balance of Terror: War by Other Means in the Contemporary Middle East

Key takeaways

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Reading notes

• Strictly speaking, an actor's decision to em- ploy terrorism in pursuit of a given objective is not actually based on its util- ity, but on its expected utility relative to alternative means.

• Nonstate actors, which usually lack the well-defined territo- rial boundaries and infrastructure that characterize most states, enjoy varying degrees of limited immunity to conventional retaliation

• Strategic terrorism is designed to effect a long-term change in the status quo by forcing another actor into decisively altering a policy. It has been a common supplement to conventional force in Middle Eastern warfare. In several notable cases, the systematic use of violence against civilians has had a tremendous impact upon the outcome of the war

• As former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher once said, terrorism depends on "the oxygen of publicity."

• supplant conventional force as the principal mode of "diplomacy by other means." This suggests the absence of additional constraints on the utility of terrorism that has inhib- ited its use in other areas of the world.

• That terrorism in the Middle East does not incur such costs is largely at- tributable to the region's immense strategic importance to industrialized states that exert the greatest influence over the formation of international consensus. As a result, world powers have demonstrated an unprecedented willingness to tacitly condone terrorism by "friendly" regimes.

• former Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban termed the "rational prospect, ultimately fulfilled, that affected popula- tions would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities."27 By raising the costs to Lebanese civilians incurred by the PLO's presence, the IDF culti- vated the progressive growth of hostility toward Palestinians that later would culminate in the "Battle of the Camps."

• The Israelis sought to fundamentally alter the status quo that had existed since July 1993 by forcing the Lebanese government to "reign in" or disarm Hizballah. This entailed a strategy that differed significantly from that of Op- eration Accountability. Rather than targeting the Shi'i residents of south Leba- non exclusively, the Israeli attacks were designed to disrupt civilian life throughout the entire country