Matt Hoh: Deterrence For Dummies

Today on Judge Nap’s show the topic of the Israeli concept of deterrence came with Matt Hoh. Hoh explained it in terms anyone can understand:

Matt Hoh: Can Israel Fight Iran Alone?

Oh, the answer to that question was: “No.” Duh! But regarding Israel’s concept of deterrence:

Nap: You have told us, along with many of your colleagues who come on this show weekly, that Israel survives by instilling fear of its vaunted military in its neighbors. Is that a myth?

Hoh: Well, Israel is a nuclear power and they are genocidal maniacs. So, the idea of going tit for tat with genocidal maniacs with nuclear weapons is something that gives every nation pause--that is a real deterrent. Do you want to get to the point where the Israelis decide that they are justified in using a nuclear weapon--not just for military means but for political means--and that they feel that they will have the United States supporting them? Does anyone really think that if Israelis use an atomic weapon against the Iranians that the United States Congress is going to do anything about it? They'll probably pass a resolution celebrating it!

…

Nap: Syria is an ally of Russia in the sense that Russia will defend Syria. Why do the Israelis keep poking the Bear, then, and attacking Syria?

Hoh: Let's not get overly complicated, judge. Let's go back to Occam's Razor. The simple answer is the right answer: they're genocidal maniacs. I mean, that's part of this. We don't want to believe it's that simple, that these people are crazy--for lack of a better term--but they are. They have people in power, just as we do, who want to have the final battle. They want to throw down. They believe in their own righteousness. They believe in their own place in history and they want this to come to some conclusion, some definitive battle for which they will have ownership, which history will remember them for. So I think it's just as simple as that.

I actually regard Occam’s Razor as BS—outside of the fact that it’s almost always invoked outside its true context. Human nature, motivations, intentions—this is complicated stuff. Not that I’m disagreeing with Hoh—sometimes the simple answer is totally sufficient. For example, the usual narrative used to justify the Israeli quest for nukes is that the Zionists were afraid of the Arabs, or that it was out of fear of genocidal Goys in the West. Eh. If I had a nickel for every time a Jew told me that the Jews were better off under Muslim rule than under Christian rule …

Anyway, if that ‘fear’ narrative were really the case, why buy off the Brits for Palestine in the first place, back in 1917, before the Holocaust was even a glimmer in the fevered imagination of what’s his name? Why go to a place teeming with supposed enemies, before nukes were ever invented? Or, why not devise some way to get along with the am ha eretz, instead of using devious means to dispossess them and piss them off? There actually were Jews who did exactly that before the Zionists were offered Palestine in place of Patagonia. No, my view is that the quest for nukes was always more in the nature of an offensive strategy for regional domination well beyond the current borders of Israel, rather than a defensive strategy—that was all an ex post facto bit of gaslighting.

Anyway, here we are. It was always forseeable that if a bunch of genocidal maniacs moved into the neighborhood and acquired nukes, the neighbors would scramble to come up with their own deterrent. I know, I know. The neighbors were all a bunch of dummies. That’s the hubristic part of the equation.