Israel continues to wage a war against Hamas, blurring the line between Palestinian civilians and militant groups, but the conflict has escalated with Israeli missile attacks on southern Lebanon. Iran and its ally Hezbollah believe Israel was behind the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in an attack in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Moreover, Israel was expecting retaliation from Hezbollah following the assassination of senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr in an attack in Beirut on July 30. Iran and Israel exchanged missiles in April this year, which Tehran claimed was a retaliatory action for Israel's bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus. In this light, the recent firefight between Israel and Hezbollah increases the possibility of Iran becoming involved in a war.
Anticipating a threat from Hezbollah to Israeli citizens, the Israeli military launched what it called a preemptive strike in Lebanon, and shortly thereafter Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared a nationwide state of emergency for 48 hours, beginning on the night of August 25, 2024.
Recently, on the evening of August 18, a bomb exploded in an Israeli city, shocking officials, an hour after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv to press for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release agreement. Hamas claimed responsibility for the explosion, which reportedly killed a suspect and injured a civilian. The involvement of Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, in the ongoing war complicates Israel's descent into an uncertain asymmetric war. The recent exchange of artillery and missile fire between Israel and Hezbollah represents a form of asymmetric warfare, as it does not distinguish between military and civilians.
Israeli defense and intelligence preparations have undergone many technological revolutions that clearly failed to anticipate the machines of a bygone era, such as the bulldozers used to breach the border security on October 7, 2023. Israel has long focused on building underground technologies to neutralize Hamas’ reliance on tunnels to wage asymmetric warfare, and on developing the Iron Dome missile defense system to weaken Hamas’s ability to deliver destructive rocket munitions, thereby failing to notice Hamas’ use of simple ground operations. Despite the technological advances in Israel’s war effort, it can be asserted that the country still embraces the grand war paradigm. In an age of globalization, the “democratization of technology,” “privatization of war,” and “miniaturization of weapons” have emboldened militant groups against state actors.
States cannot claim a monopoly on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). Non-state actors such as terrorist groups are also mastering these technologies, and to the dismay of state actors, these groups are using a combination of advanced and traditional technologies and tools to defeat states, as witnessed in Israel. During the ongoing war, Israel faced such challenges posed by asymmetric threats. Israel cannot convincingly defeat an enemy that uses civilians as human shields and civilian infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, and mosques as bunkers and storage facilities for weapons and rocket launchers. It is always impossible to win such an asymmetric war convincingly.
As the war unfolded, it became clear that Israel intended to significantly weaken Hamas and its infrastructure, but could not achieve this without inflicting major damage on its own security. Similarly, Russia's bombing campaign against Ukraine and Ukrainian retaliation do not distinguish between civilians and professional or conscripted military personnel, and the war has caused massive destruction of civilian infrastructure. Even two decades of U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan have failed to end the insurgency and defeat the Taliban.
Warfare through Information Technology
Countries already engaged in long-term wars want to weaken their opponents by relying on the domains of knowledge and information technology to bring in the element of surprise and intangible power assets. Russia's extra-regional ambitions, reflected in the strengthening of the Assad regime in Syria and now Russia's unwillingness to loosen its regional control through its active role in Ukraine, have increased tensions between Russia and the United States and other NATO allies. China is providing strategic support to Russia, making the war more complicated.
The recent escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East, involving other regional powers such as Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, has raised fears of an all-out war with Israel backed by the US and Iran and supported by China, Russia and North Korea. However, the powers indirectly involved in these wars, as well as the direct parties to them, after a certain level of destruction of human lives and mounting global pressure reaches a tipping point, would rather turn to the realm of knowledge and destroy the enemy's critical infrastructure than enter into a full-scale war.
The devastating nuclear arsenals and military power that each power has over the other, and the indecisive nature of asymmetric warfare, would prevent these powers from entering into an all-out war, similar to the mutually assured destruction (MAD) scenario that prevented the former superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, from going head-to-head during the Cold War.
For a variety of reasons, great powers are poised to choose the cyber domain, rather than direct confrontation, as the primary means of achieving their wartime objectives.
First, information technology can provide opposing forces with the ability to degrade their opponents much more effectively by targeting critical infrastructure such as the banking, energy, and defense sectors without suffering the damage that would result from direct war.
Second, the cyber domain could provide opposing forces with a means to operate from unknown sources and inflict damage while avoiding military retaliation.
Third, the US’s technological superiority could encourage it to maintain its hegemonic ambitions, primarily through the cyber domain, not only by shaping global norms but also by neutralizing its adversaries militarily. The US military first used and benefited from high-tech applications in the Gulf War, which in turn encouraged other powers to use their technological prowess. Moreover, the revelations by former CIA technician Edward Snowden of how US officials hacked into Chinese mobile phone companies to access millions of private text messages, and reports that the US, with Israeli support, resorted to cyber attacks to cripple Iran’s uranium processing facilities using the digital worm “Stuxnet,” indicate the US’s propensity to use its technological superiority to harm its adversaries in these wars.
Fourth, Russia, China and Iran want to resort to cyber warfare strategies to weaken US primacy in these regions. These great powers have shown their readiness to contain US hegemonic ambitions by disrupting and disrupting US technological dominance while isolating their own technological space from the US. For example, to weaken US primacy, Iran is accused of launching cyber attacks on US dams, financial systems and government networks, while Russia has been accused of targeting the Ukrainian power grid and interfering in US elections through the cyber domain.
Similarly, China has been accused of stealing American intellectual property to strengthen its economic power, and Chinese tech giant Huawei has been charged with theft of trade secrets.
But Russia and China have long asserted the notion of “national sovereignty” to protect their technological space, which they believe will help prevent the United States from infiltrating their sensitive military information and influence their domestic politics, institutions and ideology.
China has implemented censorship measures, including blocking certain websites, to crack down on anti-government activity that it believes is incited by the United States. These opposing forces are turning to digital opportunities that can shape their views and interests in a desired direction. The Digital Silk Road is considered an integral part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, through which Beijing has sought to export internet infrastructure and surveillance technology to countries across Asia, the Persian Gulf region and Africa.
