The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Battle of the War and Terrorism Experts - John Spencer vs. Robert Pape - Is Gaza Backfiring?

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

Get Ready To Rumble John Spencer is an award-winning scholar, professor, author, combat veteran, national security and military analyst, and internationally recognized expert and advisor on urban warfare, military strategy, tactics, and other related topics. Considered one of the world’s leading experts on urban warfare, he served as an advisor to the top four-star general and other senior leaders in the U.S. Army as part of strategic research groups from the Pentagon to the United States Military Academy. He’s authored over 130 articles in our leading intellectual publications. He is the author of three books, including The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender, which was translated into 16 languages. Robert A. Pape is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affairs. His commentary on international security policy has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, as well as on Nightline, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and National Public Radio. Before coming to Chicago in 1999, he taught international relations at Dartmouth College for five years and air power strategy for the USAF's School of Advanced Airpower Studies for three years. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1988 and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982. His current work focuses on the causes of suicide terrorism and the politics of unipolarity. He is the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats. 0:00 Introduction 3:36 Coin Toss Decision 5:30 Robert Opening Pape's Argument 11:20 John Spencer's Counterargument 15:53 Pape Responds 29:53 Assessing Hamas's Strategic Goals 34:00 Critique on Planning for the Future 37:13 Rebuilding Democracy in the Middle East 41:01 Pape's Preferred Israeli Strategies for October 8th 42:46 Creating a Wedge Strategy 47:09 Insights from General McChrystal 49:42 Differing Military Strategies 50:23 Debating Military Approaches 51:38 Winning Battles vs. Winning Wars 55:58 Political Power Dynamics 59:00 Importance of Words in Strategy 1:01:27 Acknowledging Past Mistakes 1:04:53 Counterinsurgency Strategies 1:08:36 Role of Threat in Strategy 1:10:20 Separating Militant Groups 1:12:05 Achieving Strategic Objectives 1:12:09 Counterinsurgency Tactics 1:14:20 Importance of Meaningful Conversations 1:14:38 Sharp Arguments and Surviving Contact with the Enemy

Okay, good evening everybody and welcome to Live from the Table. We're going to have a special kind of conversation slash expert and advisor on urban warfare, military strategy, tactics, and other related topics. Considered one of the world's leading experts on urban warfare, he served as an advisor to the top four-star general and other senior leaders in the U.S. Army as part of strategic research groups from the Pentagon to the United States Military Academy. He's authored over 130 articles in our leading intellectual publications. He's the author of three books, including the mini-manual for the Urban Defender, which has been translated into 16 languages. And in the other corner, Professor Robert A. Pape, a political science professor at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affairs. His commentary on international security policy has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, as well as on Nightline, ABC News, CBS News, CNN,

Fox News, National Public Radio. Before coming to Chicago in 1999, he taught international relations at Dartmouth for five years and air power strategy for the USAF School of Advanced Air Power Studies for three years. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1988 and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982. His current work focuses on the causes of suicide, terrorism, and the politics of unipolarity. He is the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats. Welcome, Robert Pape and John Spencer. Thanks, Al.

Thank you. John, it's also very nice to meet you. Ah, yeah, and introduce you to each other. So the way you guys came on my radar is being on opposite ends of the Gaza war. Robert Pape has written an article saying essentially that the war in Gaza is backfiring on Israel. And John Spencer has an article, which I think is about to come out, saying that Israel is winning the war in Gaza. So I thought it'd be great to have you guys do a conversation, and I'm thrilled that you guys have agreed to it. This is the way I like to do it. We didn't discuss the ground rules in advance.

I want to flip a coin and decide who goes first. I think each person makes kind of an opening summation of their general view on this. And then I would like to proceed this way. I'd like to have you guys simply ask each other direct questions.

And I think the answers should be between two and three minutes. I'll kind of let you know when you're at three minutes if that's necessary. And I think interruptions are okay. I think interrupting is a normal part of a constructive conversation, but use your discretion. And I don't really want to be involved except to say that I think a question hasn't been answered to give you except to say that i think a question hasn't been answered

uh to give you guys another shot at answering it just as kind of an an audience member so he didn't really answer that is that that's unagreeable to everybody i think that's great sure robert uh heads or tails uh i'll take heads heads. Okay, it is heads. So you can choose to present first or present second. Okay, I'll start out here. And let me just say what a big pleasure it is, a big honor. And I think it's before I give you a summary of my piece, I just want to say a word about how important it is that, Noam, you put this conversation together. Because essentially, I've not met John before, but looking a bit at his background, we are having conversation between realists. So this is not a conversation between a realist and an idealist. This is a conversation here between people, a discussion, maybe a debate here between people

who are very, not just familiar with the military but I've spent three years not just teaching for the military I devoted my life during that period to building the the syllabus and the curriculum for the school advanced air and space studies that's the equivalent of the Army Sam's program that John is going to know very very well we I was part of that a group of professors kicking off that program I'm going to speak there, very well. I was part of that group of professors kicking off that program. I'm going to speak there in just a few, not even a few months, in a month. Here I go back quite a bit. And so I really am somebody who really cares deeply about our military and our military

strategies. And I also care quite a bit about the security of Israel. So I'm not coming at this in any of my work as being somehow not in favor of Israel's existence. In fact, I see myself now is trying to give the best advice possible to help Israel to continue to exist. And I think its situation is far more precarious as a result of the last nine months. And so I am very glad about this. Now, what is my basic, what is my basic argument? My basic view, as you said, is that I believe Hamas is winning the war according to the criteria that matter. The criteria that don't matter a lot are what I call the body count fallacy. It is definitely the case that at the tactical level, and this was true for the United States and Vietnam, this is true for us in Afghanistan, at the tactical level, we see that the IDF,

one of the absolute most tactically proficient organizations on the planet, has not lost a battle. They are scoring points at a tactical level, and they are killing Hamas fighters. Now, whether they've killed really a third or a half, as they want to present, or whether they've killed something like 20% the way Hamas claims, or the U.S. intelligence is smack in the middle here. This doesn't matter a lot for my views. And the reason is because I'm not doing an assessment of the IDF as trigger pullers. That's just not it. They're great at pulling triggers. When I talked to the U.S. Air Force, I taught the best pilots in the world at putting bombs on on targets and I was not teaching them how to put a bomb on a target I'm dealing

with strategic analysis I'm dealing with what are the consequences here beyond the tactical level here for actually winning war so that's why my book is called bombing to win and that's what that that discussion is about and it's about strategic level. Well, here at the strategic level, what matters for the power of a militant group like Hamas, and it doesn't matter whether we call Hamas a terrorist group, guerrilla group, or insurgent group, what matters for the power of a militant group is not how many people Hamas has on station today to fight here. As a militant group, they do lethal operations. Their people die in the course of those operations.

The power of Hamas is due fundamentally to its power to recruit. It's the power to replenish losses, grow the organization over time. And that comes from support from the local population. And so that's why in my piece in foreign affairs, I lay out that the best data we have, which is the best data on the world on this, that we can see through the opinion poll data that we have, that the bonds between Hamas and the Palestinian population are stronger today than before October 7. Their relative support of Hamas compared to Hamas's political competitors is greater. The percentages of the Palestinians who want to commit to actually kill Israeli civilians is higher today than it was before October 7. And therefore, because these bonds are growing so much, what we are seeing is that Hamas is going

to be able to recruit more people and replenish its losses. And it will be able, if the IDF withdrew today from Gaza and went back and basically stayed out for eight to ten hours like it did on October 7, Hamas would have plenty of fighters being able to go kill Israeli civilians, and many of them would rush to do that. So I think this is a very, very bad situation. And then I would further add that since 1973, Israel, its main enemy has been terrorist groups, not state actors. And since 1973, do you know how many terrorist groups Israel has defeated since 1973? Not Black September, who did the Munich Olympics, and then they put out of business in 73. They have defeated, Israel's defeated zero terrorist groups

since 1973. And in fact, their operations, both in southern Lebanon, in 1973, there was no Hezbollah. In the early 80s, Israel invaded southern Lebanon. They were trying to go after the PLO, but one month late after Israel invaded southern Lebanon in June 82, that's when Hezbollah was born. And then Israel stayed in occupation of southern Lebanon virtually 20 years, until 1999. That's the period when Hezbollah went from this teeny tiny little terrorist organization to a large organization, a political party, and a shadow government in southern Lebanon. And it has only grown stronger since 1999. Hamas did not exist in the 1970s. So anyway, I'm just trying to make a point. I'll come up in a minute and give John a chance. What I'm saying, Hamas did not exist in the 1970s.

It, too, was spawned out of, I would say, bad military policies and other policies by Israel. And it has only grown stronger. And so the basic problem here is that for 51 years, Israel has had a military heavy strategy that has killed terrorists, for sure, but it has produced more terrorists than it has killed. And Israel now needs to have a massive strategic rethink because this is now a very dangerous situation for the next 10 years for Israel. John? Thank you.

John, your opening remarks. Well, thanks, Robert. A lot to do there, and of course, thank you also, Noam, to having this civil debate. My counter-argument is definitely not an attack on Robert. It's an attack on the ideals and the assertions and inferences in the data. I think that words do matter. So one, Israel is by every definition winning in Gaza to achieve its strategic goal. War, it can be defined. It has a start and a stop point.

It can be defined by the pursuit of political objectives. So if you're going to assess who is winning, Hamas or Israel, you have to assess who is achieving their goals stated for the world, not the grand strategy. And we can talk about how the ideals of grand strategy. This is where it does become very important. What do you call Hamas? What is Hamas in this war? Is it an insurgent group?

Is it a terrorist group? What is it? I think it really matters. Israel declared war in accordance with the UN Security Council 51 self-defense after attacked on October 7th viciously against Hamas in Gaza with the u.n security council 51 self-defense after attacked on october 7th viciously against hamas in gaza with three prescribed objectives remove hamas from power destroy and dismantle its military return the hostages and secure its borders that is the only metric and actually robert actually falls into the very body fallacy, the body count, the number count that he prescribes is what Israel is falling into by counting the popular sentiment of the Palestinian people towards Hamas or counting the number of recruitment status of the Palestinian people.

Those numbers don't mean anything. They're not the metrics of a war. This is where you, if you apply a counterinsurgency framework on all conventional wars, on all wars of the pursuit of political objectives, you get to what I think is a fallacy in fundamental start of the analysis. This isn't a counterterrorism campaign. This isn't a counterinsurgency.

Gaza was a self-governing territory on the borders of Israel. it was not within israel it's not resisting israel it on 2005 it was given ownership of the territory and after they started attacking of course israel put up a wall started restricting the weapons that go into it but hamas is the governing authority both politically and built a, for the sole purpose of attacking Israel. That is the measurement. To just say that Israel hasn't been successful in returning its hostages. It's brought over half the hostages home, and I'm sure we'll debate whether it did that through political negotiation

or a combination of political and military force. Has it removed Hamas from power? And trust me, you do not, in war, as I i would teach and i did teach for over four years strategy at west point if you were saying that the sentiment of the enemy's population is a great metric of whether a military is being successful at removing a power from from its existence that's like saying how much of the japanese people supported the emperor during world war ii and we pursued our war objectives and we really pulledlled the population of the Japanese people, which 100% supported the emperor's goals before unilaterally defeating the military.

Same thing goes for the German population when we were removing the Nazis from power and removing Hitler from power. The metrics on whether, though, because the article and the words that Robert used in his article, and mine's soon to be published, really matter. Like the fact that Israel hasn't been successful at dismantling Hamas's military. That's just absolutely, holistically not factual. To say, which Robert did on your podcast, that Israel hasn't been successful at getting the leadership, not true. Israel has killed over 20 battalion commanders, over 150 company company commanders three of the five brigade commanders

two of the top three of the leadership israel has dismantled and completely broken hamas's military capabilities and which really comes into when you enter the counterinsurgency phase which we're not in by the way it has sealed the enemy from supplies unlike we did in vietnam afghanistan iraq the insurgency while it can have a lot of young men joining their resistance group and in their insurgency once that starts it no longer has unlimited resource replenishment manufacturing capability the border between egypt and gaza has been sealed by israel and the cross-border tunnels will be eliminated in the metrics of the goal the metrics that matter israel is being successful is winning now it's up to them if they win and

that's where this counter-insurgency counter-terrorism campaign comes into the day after. We're not in the day after, so we can't use metrics of the day after to assess how the war is going. That's not how war works. All right. Thank you, John. I detect a little flaw in my rules here, so I think because you actually got also to respond to Robert's opening and he didn't have the same chance.

I'm going to let Robert respond to what you just said, and then we'll start the questioning. Go ahead, Robert. So I don't disagree with a single fact. I think that John laid out, they just don't matter. So I think, and this is extremely common. This is exactly the body count fallacy. And my piece in Foreign Affairs lays out much of the data here on the body counts that Israel has wrapped up. And I don't think that's really where we're disagreeing. I don't doubt that mid-level and low-level leaders here in Hamas have been taken off the battlefield. But that doesn't, that's really not, and then why do I say, and I also don't doubt that hostages have been returned. I

don't doubt that. And we're not going to, I don't think it's worth debating the details of how exactly that came out. I'm not going to go to that, that level because that's really not at stake. The fundamental goal here, and it doesn't matter what Israel said its three goals were, because the Obama administration, every government will list goals and they will make them virtually Impossible not to achieve the most famous case of this was when we invaded Iraq as the United States military invaded Iraq in March 2003 we had a set of goals and by we invaded March 2003 by the by April 30th 2003

George W. Bush stood up and famously declared, mission accomplished. And we accomplished the goals just as John laid out. We ticked them off. And you know what? That did not matter. Now, does it mean we didn't do anything? Of course not.

Did we take Saddam out of power? Of course we did. I'm not disputing these details here, but let's just talk about the strategic level and also not what's on paper here that are written so that it's impossible to say the military's not winning, because that's really why the paper's written. So it's non-falsifiable that the military can't lose by that definition. The problem is that the real objective here is to prevent future October 7th. That's the goal.

And if Netanyahu stands up and says, mission accomplished, we have done one, two, three. And then two weeks later, there's another October 7 here that gets anything close to killing the number of Israeli civilians that happened before. No one's going to care that he ticked off those successes. And no one's going to promote all those generals. The military's not going to gain from this the real problem okay you got to take the the threat away not just come up with paper definitions of goals that are being met john answer that and then end your thing with a direct question for robert and let's start the back and forth okay okay i'll think about the question it's going to be hard um in response to this since i was a part of the 2003 invasion of iraq and jumped into northern Iraq to attack the Iraqi division that was holding northern Iraq and preventing us from achieving the goal, which was to overthrow the regime and dismantle the military, which is important, as I know Robert knows, is the will of the enemy to fight in that phase. And we did accomplish our goals. And the goals of a war can change. But Robert's trying to impose a goal on Israel that hasn't yet begun. When President Eisenhower, on October 1945, after Hitler was removed and the Nazi regime was no longer in power and the Nazi military had lost the will to fight, said would take 50 years to re-educate the nazis and if you think that i'll ever give germany the capability to wage war again you're crazy those

are direct quotes from the article actually that is the situation which i actually like what robert asked added there about the one of the measures although that's not you actually measure a war by the stated objectives of both sides so we we can talk about which Robert has discussed, what Hamas, which that will probably be the question is what does Hamas's goal on October 7th, uh, strategic goals. And sometimes people say,

I talk tactics when we're out, we are talking the strategic aspect of a war are the political goals and why I have interviewed Netanyahu, the idea head of chief of staff, the idea of division commanders, because I want to understand the bridge between strategy and tactics to what's going on. But the still the body count that he accuses me is the exact body count. The numbers he's using don't matter. While he says the numbers that I use don't matter. matter when if the measure is can they do a knock on october 7th again if you want to take out the

political aspect which is can they govern gaza this ruthless terrorist government can rule gaza that's a measure can they do they have military capability which matters how much military supplies do they have not how many fighters i don't care how many privates you have in your military but military combat power which robert knows is not measured by pure in strength it's measured in weapons vehicles capabilities rockets manufacturing capability resupply capability by that every measure of that hamas's military which was vast it wasn't just 40 000 individuals and no that body count is actually a fallacy if you say well you've only killed 10 000 of the 40 000 you're not winning that's a fallacy in the body count because that's not combat power combat power is organized formations trained and experienced

leadership and to say they've only gotten the mid or the low level leaders i don't know what other leaders that robert thinks are a part of hamas's political military apparatus but they do not have military capability to wage war which is october 7th so i agree with him on that they do not have the capability not in any way to wage another october 7th war combining a vast array of rockets drones mortars munition ability to pull back into gaza and israel have to fight a bloody block-by-block war to do that. That's actually wrong. So the question is, oh, what was Hamas' strategic goal on October 7th?

Well, we do propaganda analysis at the University of Chicago. So we have an APAT. That's the Arabic Propaganda Analysis Team. And we do – these are Arabic speakers, so native Arabic speakers. So I'm not just sort of reading things from the, and if you look at the piece here, you'll see it refers to a gigantic analysis of Hamas propaganda. In fact, a systematic analysis of all of Hamas's propaganda on Telegram and especially the Al-Qassim Brigades, which is the heart of this, since October 7. This is over 500 pieces of Hamas propaganda. So we are very familiar here at my center with the details of what groups say, and we've been doing this for decades. This is one of the big things I did after 9-11

in standing up the center. Now, all that to say is that we don't have 100% clarity, and I wouldn't even say it's still even 50% clarity, on Hamas operational or strategic objectives the way we did with Zarqawi in 2004. So as John will likely know, the leader of AQI Zarqawi famously wrote a letter to Bin Laden in 2004 which we intercepted and we studied. And that letter laid out in detail the entire campaigns al-Kawai was going to lay out, the entire objectives. We have some statements by Mohammed Deif. John will know who that is. He's the real military commander here in the Al-Qusaym Brigades,

a very important one, has been for some time. That's why Israel just tried to kill them a few days ago and missed, or at least we don't know for sure he's been killed. Let's put it that way. But what I would say is that I think watching their public propaganda, not any of the secret stuff, especially out of Qatar and especially the statements about wanting to do more October 7th, I would bet this is a standard provocation strategy. Terrorist groups, and Zarqawi did this directly, they love targeting civilians in democracies

in order to cause the democracy to come in and kill their own civilians. And you see Hamas leaders talk all the time. In fact, the Wall Street Journal just did big interviews here where Hamas leaders were explaining they want Israel to come in to kill the civilians. And the reason is this is called a provocation strategy. And the goal here is to make an attack that will so provoke the democracy and so make it emotional that it will respond emotionally and it will respond in a way that they want payback and they will kill lots of civilians. That is Palestinians in this case. Now, the reason to do that is to help Hamas recruit.

It's to help Hamas grow its power. And this is a strategy very well for Zarqawi and I would say it's likely what's going on with Hamas John you want to answer your own question a little bit and then uh we'll talk the other way go ahead yeah so again Robert really wants to put Hamas in the terror database that has been built Robert really wants to put hamas into the insurgency database comparing it to al-qaeda in iraq which i lost soldiers fighting um both in 2007 and to eight nine which we can talk about what worked um hamas is not an insurgency so to assess an insurgency strategy to achieve its goals to resist a force in a territory. Hamas was the governing authority of an autonomous region.

That's like saying the Japanese deployed a kind of enticing strategy to get the Americans to join in World War II when they attacked Pearl Harbor. You're applying a construct of war against a counter-terror ideology, counter-ideology strategy, all these things that are after. We did successfully remove Saddam and the Ba'ath regime from power in Iraq, and they never achieved power again. create a new power to prevent a new power to allow a new power to be there to include the insurgent forces from outside of iraq coming in and trying to disrupt that they weren't both only resisting the united states they were resisting the new form of government in iraq stop i can't you know it's really hard to have a debate when somebody is using a fallacy in what the two combatants in a war are belligerents the two belligerents of the war you have hamas leaving gaza invading israel attacking it viciously violating every war crime war norm even you know for reasons of starting a war and then retreating back to

his territory like i don't i can't i can't work with somebody who believes it's just a resistance group it was a military so when you assess war constructs you have to give it that status it's a military it owns territory it has strategic goals for the war so that's why i asked a very specific question, not the overall strategy of achieving its grand strategy. Right. So I want Israel to attack me. I want the which again, even in terrorism, AQI, ISIS, Taliban, Japanese, Germans, nobody has deployed a strategy. I'm like, look, I need you to kill as many people of my population, my population in order for me to achieve my strategic goal, grand strategy, which is the destruction of this other nation. This is, again, where Roberts thinks that Hamas is a terrorist group that just wants self-determination, its own territory.

The only problem they have is the settlements. I don't know where to go with what is Hamas's strategy on October 7th when you continue to put them in this terror bucket to include comparing them to this minority fraction that was in Iraq that caused a lot of problems that was resisting the new government. It wasn't Saddam left over still fighting the Americans after the fall of them in March. These are insurgent groups that came in because there wasn't stability in those regions and we had to deploy a counter terror counter insurgency hamas is not a fraction of the population in gaza it was the government for 15 years that built a military this is why isis was so much different and caused so much academic problem like what is this this is an insurgent force that has held territories in another country for years and now we got to go cut that cancer out all right robert i give a if you

want to give a tight little response to that go ahead and then and then um ask uh john a question that well well no rather than defend myself point by point i think your listeners let me build on what uh john said with respect to iraq and then we will get back, let me build on what John said with respect to Iraq, and then we will get back to, let me ask a tight question about Iraq. So John, on April 30th, 2003, about six weeks after we invaded Iraq, George Bush, the President of the United States, stood up and made your way to the world and said, mission accomplished. Game effectively over. We won. Mark that up as a W in the clock in this. Do you believe that on April 30th, 2003, that we had actually accomplished the mission? So the answer to that question, one is I've actually, I hope that Israel doesn't do the

same mistake. One, the mission accomplished banner that was behind the president at the time was because that ship had returned from its duty and its mission was accomplished had we completed our objectives of the first phase of the invasion of iraq have we removed the power these these measurements matter removed the power and defeated the the military's will to resist i was on the ground in iraq in April 2003, being welcomed by parades of mostly Shia populations in northern Iraq for liberating Iraq from Saddam. Was the job done?

No, but this is a problem where people can't understand the phases of a war. If the goal of the war is to keep the power, so remove them and keep them out of power, which is the determination of whether you're successful or not. Had the American forces, like I was told, left after removing Saddam and the Ba'ath regime and just left? Do you think not? So the answer is yes, I think we achieved the strategic goals, but strategic goals can change. Just like when Russia was defeated in Ukraine on April of 2022, it changed its strategic goals. That's a normal as well

robert wants to criticize israel because it wants to put it in that post-conflict phase this is the point like you have to remove saddam and the bath party and then enter this other phase if you were if we would have left mission accomplished if yes if the president of the united states said we did what we were supposed to do here, we're out. The Ba'ath Party and the Saddam regime would have immediately just reoccupied and seized power with the goal of, you know, its grander goals of what it was trying to accomplish. So I understand the rationale and the the the theories behind Robert's question about counter insurgencies u.s the u.s doesn't have a good track record of doing counter insurgencies making them work like we were defeated in afghanistan even though we were doing eventually the strategy that was supposedly works in all

areas but unless we were willing to back the new power, even with a small force. And this is, again, getting into what we have different ideas of what will work in Gaza. If you think, well, I'll shut up there. I answered the question. John, if you wouldn't mind, since I didn't take a chance to be very expansive, if I could make a brief comment and then I think this will bring it back to Moss. So what John's effectively doing is having very narrow definitions of what a goal is, that almost impossible not to achieve. And he's saying, George Bush, we achieved these goals on April 30th, 2003. But of course, this is not really the case, because the goals were not narrowly just about X, Y, or Z.

The goal was stopping threats of terrorism, stopping threats of terrorist groups. The goal was not, well, we're going to go in, knock off Saddam Hussein, and then if we spawn a much bigger terrorist group, oh yeah, that's all fine. Not a chance. And that's why George Bush was in such hot water during that period. And in fact, the reason that we failed there was because we didn't do what's called phase four planning. So John talked about, well, got to understand the phase. I definitely with you here. And what happened is the political, and I don't just mean George Bush, not just the civilian leader, but not just Rumsfeld, but the military commander. I just, Robert, Robert, Robert, I want to keep this conversation as much as it can to Gaza and Israel.

Well, let me come back to that thing if I could. And I hear you now. But let me just say, that is what it means to not plan for the day after. What's happening today, right now, is that Israel is making exactly the same error of not planning for phase four, meaning they're not planning for what to do after they've racked up the body count. And this is what's going on in Gaza and is what is the huge strategic failure Israel is repeating that we just did in Iraq in 2003, and also that Israel has had the normal failure against terrorists and militant groups for 51 years. John, you want to answer that?

Yeah. Again, it's revisionist history. One, to think that the United States military didn't have a plan after the fall of Saddam and the Ba'ath regime. It had dissidents that it was bringing in who said that they could be the new government. And with their support, we made horrific decisions. And I was on the ground for the disbanding of the military, all that function, the reconciliation process of post-conflict operations. And, yes, it took us four years. But to say that Israel is making the mistakes of the United States is revisionist history. If you think that the U.S., all of the Pentagon, the 40,000 people that reside in the Pentagon, there wasn't a phase four planning. The General Franks on the back of his knack and just created the plan and said, boom, we're out.

There's no planning afterwards. Then why would we bring in all these different government leaders that we thought would be the next Iraqi government, which didn't work out? And it took us four years, but a lot of work in those four years before we decided but to say that israel so this is the so what right one that's revisionist history two if you believe that that today in gaza israel could have implemented the 2007-8 surge and bar awakening strategy that i was a part of in ira I implemented in Baghdad, then you are also trying to mislead people with faulty data. Robert, I'll let you respond to that. But let me just add into that because this question that we opened with Hamas's strategic goals, it doesn't seem to be

quite answered in my mind. So let me just read you a headline that from an article that was in Haaretz that really had a big effect on me. The headline is Hamas actually believed it would conquer Israel in preparation. It divided the country into cantons. Do you do you believe that they actually believe they would conquer Israel, or do you simply believe they intended to provoke a response, as you say? I think that, first of all, I don't think, again, we have great vision into this. I would say we know at best half, and I know quite a bit about what is there in Arabic. So there may be stuff, of course, at the SITK level and so forth I'm not familiar with. But I don't think you're going to find that in harats or the newspapers either. So I don't think it's quite possible. There were some aspirations here. We had aspirations in when we went into Iraq of

building a well-functioning democracy, just like in the United States, that was completely foolish as well. That did not mean we had more we did not have more serious plans along the way. And I suspect that happened here with Hamas as well. There may have been this kind of, ah, yes, we're going to totally remake everything and all this. Here, maybe there's a little bit like we did with going into Iraq, with we're going to rebuild democracy across the entire Middle East in one fell swoop here. But I think much more likely, and this is much more serious, is that Hamas leaders, I think, were quite prepared

and willing to go through rounds of this. And if Israel is wiped off the map 15 years from now, as I'm sorry to say, this is not anymore just an open and shut-in question like never could happen. But if that happens 15 years from now, this is going to be a different story. And those leaders, from their graves, perhaps, will think they contributed to that outcome. And that's what I'm worried about. I'm worried that what's happening here is just as we set our military up for failure, and I feel for John Badley here.

I was part of advising the Bush administration White House, including with the secretary. Cue the music. This is not. I don't want to go through and refight the Iraq war. But I do want to point out, I feel for the military, especially those under the level of three and four star generals who are forced to obey the orders and do the very best they can and they do they are brave they are amazing and the problem is we put often in on we're we're winning at that tactical level is not enough and that's what's happening now robert yeah i'll let john answer go Well, I rail against again.

It's an academic strategy to say that you're talking about tactics. We're not talking about strategy. When I taught strategy and I am talking about strategy. I have it. I've had General Petraeus on my podcast. He misrepresented even General Petraeus's opinion on Gaza in your last podcast. I've interviewed the four star generals of Iraq. I've interviewed the political leadership of Israel.

So to say that I'm just stuck in the tactics and he feels sorry for me, no thanks. The one thing that he said that is violently wrong in the construct of nations, that Israel, the only threat to Israel since 1973 has been a terrorist organization. That the threat of Iran to Israel isn't its greatest threat to its survival.

The fact that this terrorist group was left in Gaza and was able to amass an immense amount of military capability, I will agree, it took its eye off a real threat, real military capability. This idea about fighting ideologies in a long game. But if you believe a nation's threat is this terrorist group, not the nations that have attacked it in this past. And why is strategy for Israel and what it can and can't do to Hezbollah, to Hamas? Is it strategy as this dead old guy who doesn't exist? Sun Tzu said, attack their strategy. Attack their allies.

Israel is strong. It has many allies and built normalization with many nations on its borders. Attack its military, which Hamas tried to do. Attack with their military force. Or attack its besieged cities. The old dead guy is still right today. So to say that

I talk tactics and I'm not thinking through the strategy of Israel. And Israel's not going anywhere in 10, 15 years. Hamas is broken. Hamas won't have the capability to wage war, which is the measurement for a very long time because it won't have the military capability. Ideologies need military capability. All right. So I have an idea. Robert, if your position is that Israel's tactics have put them in a precarious situation where they might be no Israel in 15 years from now, let me ask you this.

On October 8th, what should Israel's strategy have been and the tactics that they should have used to get there? And once you answer that, I'll let John say where he thinks that's right or wrong. So again, very specific. So I actually have- Wait, wait, wait, wait. Very specific. One second. What should Israel's strategy have been

and what tactics should they have used? What would your advice have been on October 8th? Go ahead. They should have done a two-pronged strategy, a military and a political component combined together right from the get-go. And this would have completely obviated the need for Tom Friedman to publish infinite numbers of articles about the political component. That two components should have been right off the bat, similar to actually what Israel's kind of doing right now this second, by the way, I would say in the last week or two, they should have adopted limited military

operations, I would say mostly from the air, but even it could have been with special forces, to attack the fighters that were involved from Hamas who were actually involved in October 7th and specifically to degrade the leaders. I would have focused on that, not the tunnel system, not all these other ambitious goals of remaking Gaza and so forth and so on. I would have focused on, this would be like after 9-11, we focus on getting bin Laden when it took us 10 years to do that because we decided to go off and go fight this war in Iraq. Okay, but this is what I think we should have done. I would have married the military, the limited military component, which could have gone on for years, with a political component where the fundamental issue here is how do you have anything that would look like the Anbar Awakening happening inside of Gaza? How do you make that happen? You need to take something off the table immediately. You need to provide a real step that there could be a two-state solution, an independent Palestinian state and that as I said before Noam on the on the program would have been to declare until 2020 Israel would not build settlements

and that would be the political window to create opportunity to develop a wedge strategy inside of inside of Gaza and inside of the Palestinians because without that political wedge strategy, this is only going to feed the power of the militant, the terrorist group. So that would have been my combined point right from the get-go on October 8th. That's exactly the direction I would have gone. And I gave a presentation to my class on October 9th and also public presentations on October 18th exactly saying that. So this was not something I've come up with since.

This was immediately trying to figure out how to actually secure Israel from future October 7th. Okay, John. Yeah. Well, luckily, Robert has no influence over the U.S. defense establishments, because if that would be the recommendation to the American people, if somebody would attack us. Look, here's the strategy from the military prong. Look, it'll take you a few years to get your hostages back. Yes, you have to keep the rockets six thousand on day one, thousands ever since.

You have to keep those raining down no matter what you do. This is on October 7th, 8th, 9th, before Israel has even moved towards Gaza. You just have to keep that going. Okay, I know they're attacking you, but just leave it be. Leave the hostages. The ideal, again, this is where tactics separated from strategy. There are a lot of famous quotes on this. The ideal that you could have used limited air operations and special forces to stop the rockets and retrieve the hostages. Number one, retrieve the hostages is just devoid of reality.

And if somebody would recommend that to any government, I think that they should not be listened to anymore. From the political realm is the ideal, which he said, I know, on your show that that's you know that fixes hamas's situation the settlements in judea and samaria that that's it although if this was about settlements when israel pulled out of gaza what are you talking about how does that fixes hamas is the situation with hamas in gaza it has nothing to do with it i would think more of somebody who's taught at the highest level of a military institution that that is a solution for a nation who has just been attacked, invaded, who has the number one concern is the reestablishment of its own security, its borders, the sense of security in the people, the unpopulated areas. To just try this other military strategy that will take you a few years. And I've written in a Wall Street Journal like Anthony Blinken making that recommendation. If you think, again, from a little bit of a military vignette, that there's any special forces operation in the world that can enter contested, dense, urban, enemy held territory that they've held it for years and they know you're coming then you should not be listened to anymore because even us going to get ben lobman or we can talk about jakari those are

when the conditions are set when they don't know you're coming this is again not recognizing what gaza is what hamas built what the terrain is in there they think that these other political military strategies would have done it better it would have kept the support of the palestinian people which i argue strongly has nothing to do with after october 7th when you set a war goal to remove your attacker from power to remove his ability to ever attack you again i can tell you with strong confidence hamas does not have the capability to do october 7th again and it't get it because we didn't talk about the security. One of the things that Israel did, the security of the border known was established a security.

Although Robert said on your show, the reason the wall failed that you got to invest in your defense. Again, really bad military and political strategy. Israel is creating a new security framework where Hamas, no matter what happens, Hamas will never get a chance at October 7th again. Okay, Robert, go ahead. So about a week after October 7th, I was fortunate that Stanley McChrystal, who of course John will know, briefed John, that person who actually is part of wording John John's book came to Chicago and he was part of a conversation here and it was public conversation so I'm not revealing anything there was no Chatham House rules so I directly asked him if he

would advise ground operations going into Gaza and what his strategy for Gaza would be and in fact this is somebody who's been advised and so forth and so on in many many different ways and he said there was no way he would advise sending the IDF into Gaza that was simply not going to win number two he said that what he would do is rely on air power and special forces because of all the things that basically I am laying out here. The McChrystal math is very well known here. And so John is using here, and look, I don't doubt John really means what he's saying. And I don't doubt John's very upset and angry about what happened to Israel.

I'm angry about what happened to Israel too. But I want to win. I don't just want to go in and be a tough guy. And neither did McChrystal. Can you just clarify? Yes. Go ahead. Go ahead, Noah. Can you just clarify then, John?

When McChrystal said they should use air power, did he mean air power like the air power that you've complained about? He's talking about things like more the – no, he's not talking about doing the mass punishment. In fact, he was advising strongly against that. So no, no, no, no, no. In fact, I mean, so this is really the stunning thing that I discovered, okay, in the month after October 7, is that if you went to here, I did not have any personal conversations or public conversations with Petraeus, but if your listeners will go to Petraeus on Fareed Zakaria, when my work is discussed and Petraeus actually not being interviewed, you'll see there's very little daylight here, at least on that program, with General Petraeus in my views. Not true. But with Stanley McChrystal, I'm just saying that for a month there was almost no advice by any serious person who's been a general in our wars in iraq

and afghanistan that looked anything like what israel did and i think it's because they knew it was going to be a failure okay john all right so we want to name drop um it's just we can't defend through historical research and anything that's come before um of the the the four stars like like general petraeus general of the people that blurred my book um general mcmaster um who was a national security advisor has said that absolutely. Step one is remove them from power and defeat their military's will to fight. I rail against Robert's continued use of the word punishment, which does have meaning. Collective punishment. It means intention.

It means action. So I rail against him continuing to use this term. McMaster, Petraeus, on on my podcast don't listen to what he said with frigate jacario on the questions well how about you listen to what he told me in my podcast and we can talk i really want to talk with the difference between what israel has done and what general petraeus has said along this process since he has visited like i have the israeli government and the idf since the war began and then lastly which is most importantly general millie four-star general chief of staff

of the U.S. military for two presidents who would have given the United States the recommendation for what it should do after October said, if you think the Americans would do this differently, you're absolutely right. We would respond with extreme force to achieve the first step in this.

Yes, we can talk about where does Israel go from now, what strategies will work? If you think that the use of air power, which I have my own opinions on the use of air power to achieve strategic goals in war. If you think air power, strategic sites that rely on years of intelligence or special forces rage would have been able to achieve any of the three goals that israel set for the war rightfully so then again you're not a student of war go ahead robert uh well what i would say is that um if the military component really can achieve anything then israel's just simply in a doomed loop i mean the fact of the matter is hamas is uh i would stick by what i've said it's stronger today because its recruitment

capabilities are far greater. The ability to generate the next generation is far greater today. I would say it's especially a problem is a doom loop for Israel and so what what John is really saying is that so if this strategy I'm laying out is a non-starter no one would believe it you've got all these very important people who are going to go in and and and say not to do it and then this is this is the best that can be done then this is the best that can be done, then failure is the best that can be done, which means that this is a very hard thing for, again, folks in the military, which is because we ask our folks in the military to execute. And when we ask them to execute and not design,

they're not on the NSC, they're not designing. When we ask them to execute and things don't go well, this is a problem. And that's true when we want everybody to say mission was accomplished on April 30th, 2003, even though what's on a piece of paper. They care about the threat to them. And if we're not actually diminishing the threat, then this is simply a problem. And the military is being asked to basically carry water for failed strategies. And I'm fortunate. I'm not in the military. I'm not in the government. And so I'm able to just basically speak here, but I'm not in the military. I'm not in the government. And so I'm able to just basically speak here, but I'm not doing it because I'm anti-military. It's the complete opposite. I'm not doing it because I'm anti-Israel. It's the complete opposite. I'm doing it just as after 9-11 when I was telling the Bush administration they were doing everything wrong by invading Iraq.

And then it was the Bush administration that started my center. The very people I was telling was doing everything wrong here in 2002 and three. They then started my center and they at least I think was helpful to them as we dug ourselves out of the hole here in the second Bush administration. Robert, I mean, it's no secret to anybody who watches the show that I'm more of a hardliner than you are. But I'm going to ask you a question because I think let me respond and I will let you let me add this and then I'll let you respond because it's part of it. And I think the audience must be thinking it. Did I hear you correctly that you thought Israel on October 8th should have announced a settlement freeze? Oh, yes, I would have. Well, maybe not October 8th. That's probably a little too early

for all the political reasons that John would say. And then it would be dismissed. It seemed unbelievable to me. I would bow. No, let me just be, be reason. I'm not trying to be unreasonable and ivory tower and so forth. Um, the bottom line is I would have done it pretty soon. Uh, maybe a month or two later would have still been fine. I'm not talking about stopping. Well, I guess, I guess what I'm asking is that, and then it looks like that it seems to me just just it's not because I'm pro-Israel, not pro-Israel, just in any kind of objective way politically and practically that while foreign powers has committed that atrocity and then they're holding your hostages, that you could advise that government to then make concessions like that. So that's your position. That's fine. Well, no, no, no no no no no again

again no this is the please the audience should not think that you guys are hardliners i'm the softy and i'm a professor and they shouldn't listen to what you said let me just point out let me just point out that what i would have done is i would have been thinking about well can we tie that call it israel's concession to getting the hostages so if in fact here again we're talking about actually serious interest in getting the hostages which I'm sorry to say I'm not seeing any real value I mean again this is another failure on the part of Israel and I think large parts of israel is really okay let's let's let's stop there let's stop there to freeing the hostages and then it's up to hamas to decide oh no no no we we need to hold on to the hostages for this reason so again please guys i'm you keep insulting me i'm not fighting back i'm not insulting you

um but i'm hearing over and over and over again things that are basically insults. And that's okay. I mean, look, this is, I'm not, you know, people right in the crosshairs here in Israel or Gaza. So I don't mind to hear, you know, the insults, but it's not really the way to go forward. The way to go forward is to recognize I'm putting some seriously good ideas on the table. Yes, they need to massage and work with them a little bit, but the idea that you're going to paint me

as this really idiot, naive, had no idea the real world here is just simply an insult. Okay, I didn't mean to insult you. I didn't mean to paint you as naive. i actually was giving you a chance to clarify the answer because the answer was specifically about october 8th but go ahead

john go ahead the question is about october 8th yes okay so i'm sorry that robert feels offended as well um i didn't take offense when he keeps saying that i said that you know everything the u.s military did in the invasion of ira Iraq was correct and that we won in April of 2023. Those aren't my words. And it did take four years for anybody to come up with a solution to get us out of Iraq. So I didn't take that as offensive. But I guess when Noam, you repeat his words back about the settlements would have been the political strategy to return the hostages, somehow that's an attack on him.

So be it um on the aspect of what do we teach military people since i too worked in a military institution trying to educate the future leaders of the u.s military we teach them military theory and strategy as well and to include what what robert said which isn't true that the the military doesn't sit on the nsc i mean that the role of the person who i quoted the chairman of the joint chief staff is the best military advice to the president into the national security council so the military absolutely has input into the national security council and the decisions that the politicians make and they get advice from to include civilians in academia but like the fact

that the other person i quoted was a military person who was made the national security advisor sitting on the national security strategy and makes the recommendation. So to say that that's disingenuous. But Robert did say this is about settlements. Robert did said that was a strategy that would have worked to get the hostages back, which blows off Hamas's entire leadership. And the words do matter when robert says the words famine when robert continues to say the word israel is punishing the palestinian people those words have severe implications inferences assumptions on strategy what we're talking about so i do take uh positions when you

use words like that all right robert i'm going to give you a chance i would only say from my point of view because it's so interesting that i I can't help notice that in all the hostage negotiations going back and forth, I don't think Hamas has asked for the settlements to be removed as one of their demands. But anyway, Robert, what would you say is the most fundamental misunderstanding and mistake in John Spencer's general opinion and worldview. The most fundamental mistake is thinking that the mid-level operational level of war is all you need to win a war. Winning a war is not about winning a battle, which is what the operational level is all about. And winning battles is very important. so don't get me wrong you it's very hard to

win the war overall if you lose battle after battle but simply winning battles don't help the Tet Offensive is a perfect example in spring in 1967 so in 1967 the United States is is winning battles We're chucking up body counts in the Vietnam War. And then what happens is the Tet Offensive comes. And the Tet Offensive occurs on a famous holiday in Vietnam. And there's an attack by the VC against many bases and so forth. We win those battles. We win those battles. We don't lose those battles, but we end up effectively walking away from Vietnam with our tail between our legs. And then the military after that, and we know from all the movies and so forth and so on,

then the military's got to say, no, the military didn't lose. It was the civilians who wouldn't let us win and so forth but the fact is even smart folks in the military knew there was a problem General Welsh who started SAS the school I was asked to be part of to found in the inaugural address by General Welsh chief of staff of the Air Force said the reason for SAS was because airmen did not know enough about strategy in the Vietnam War, and that was part of the reason we lost. Now, that may be hard to say nowadays because we've just got to always say we win everything,

but this is not, no, this isn't right. When we have real conversations about security, our best minds are willing to accept that we have not always done the best, and they're looking for good ideas, even if it comes from some civilian professor who's never served in the military. If those ideas can help win, our best folks, often they pay attention. John? Oh boy. Okay. I agree. There are civilians who have never served. This has nothing to do with that. I don't know why Robert keeps

listing out his CV. There are civilians that I respect like Lawrence Friedman, the Yoda, the Pentagon, that have never served that are the world's leading strategists. i i recommend reading lawrence friedman's book on strategy um the number one if you want to ask me that question gnome one is he continues to try to put me in that bucket of you just think battles although

he just he just interpreted what the definition of strategic operational and tactical are wrong battles are tactical combining battles over a campaign is operational. But we would discuss that in a military strategy class. The idea of the Tet Offensive, which happened in. Oh, by the way, in 68 was a great strategic. I would never argue that because war is a contest of will. lost the will because the united states was backing a government that was corrupt that was implementing strategies that wouldn't achieve their goal of maintaining power in southern vietnam this again no the fundamental error in known or sorry in robert's position in his paper

is thinking that israel is in a counterinsurgency like iraq like afghanistan like vietnam it's the wrong contract that's not what they're doing this is israel's not fighting their war for somebody who's there and in good examples is he keeps quoting the what your judea and samaria what's called the west bank you know who doesn't care what the the support for hamas is in the west bank the palestinian authority doesn't care what the support for hamas is in the west bank the palestinian authority doesn't care what the support for hamas is in the west bank since they viciously took power over hamas if you did an election hamas would win in the west bank this this theory of the ideologies that the battle of the ideals this hearts and minds you're pulling more you're creating more terrorists and

then you're taking off the battlefield. This population-centric strategy. All these theories. Just wait. That's not how you start the construct of this war. Yes, Israel can be strategically defeated in Gaza. I will give Robert that. Absolutely. If it doesn't implement a new power, backs a new power that that pursues the actual the good things for the population and does. If you think and again, this is the question I want to go to know him is where is the difference between General Petraeus is ideal of what would have worked since he was the one who visited the most versus what Israel did. The clear whole build strategy. The live amongst the people strategy that I did.

Or the fact that you think the Sunni awakening worked everywhere across Iraq. The Anbar awakening. The thing that worked in Anbar. If you think that was implemented in Baghdad, you're not right. It's not a counterinsurgency, as you say, but there are some overlaps to it correct like we haven't seen

terrorism uh start in israel or but we certainly could see that and israel would find itself in something related to the problems of an insurgency rather than a traditional war like against Japan. Am I on to anything there? In some ways, yes. Because Israel has started the war, you know, basically responded to the war, started against it and entered Gaza to remove the power. You have to do this post-conflict resolution phase, which is me and General Petraeus on our show debated this. When does that start, right? When are the conditions set? Like this is why Fallujah,

when the Americans try to do a population-centric approach in Fallujah before evolving into the population-centric, I spoke emptying Fallujah of all, everybody, and then ridding it of the terrorists, and then reoccupying, then doing a population strategy. If you think that Israel could have entered like Gaza City and started the population-centric clear build hold, that is devoid of the power that Hamas had built,

both physical power and psychological power in Gaza. So it can, yes, Nome, afterwards, just like we did in post-war to Japan with the emperor still in place and this is where you know Robert keeps talking about Iraq and I hate doing this but when you removed the bath party disbanded the military didn't do reconciliation general Petraeus and I both agree that's where it all went wrong and it doesn't matter what you plan to do that's where it all started to go wrong so't matter what you plan to do that's where it all started to go wrong so like we left the emperor in place because he had influence over

the people but unilaterally surrendered again this is where we all have ideas on what could have worked the the enemy in japan unilaterally surrendered and gave up his pursuit to destroy the rest of the world or overcome it and et cetera, et cetera. That these certain things that have to be present for a population centric, you know, protect the population. And I know I'm even said the only way you get terrorists is through human intelligence, which is not true.

It has to have the conditions. And Robert and I violently disagree on when those strategies can work. It wasn't going to work on October 7th. All right. So to wrap it up, Robert had. I'm sorry, you want a quick response, which is I think it's simply the wrong paradigm to compare it to Japan and Germany, because what really meant that made the occupations of Germany and Japan go well was the Soviet threat. You see, the reason the population started to side with us and the reason even some of the government leaders, including the emperor, started to side with us was in both cases, the Soviet threat was manifest and immediate. And so what happened is not that the population suddenly immediately

fell in love with the United States and so forth and but we did do things with textbooks over decades what happened was there was a Soviet threat and that Soviet threat was instant and immediate and so there was a choice did they want to be occupied by the Americans or do they want to be occupied by the Soviets and in both of them and this is not the case in Gaza. So the Gaza, the Palestinians here, there is no third threat here that is greater than the Israel threat to the Palestinian people. Without that threat, Realism 101, it says the Palestinians will see Israel as that threat going forward. This has been the problem Israel's faced for 50 years,

and it will, unfortunately, it's a tragic situation, but the tragedy is going to continue unless Israel adopts a major strategic reset. Can I respond to that? You can respond. The way I want to end is that since Robert had the first option of whether to go first or second, after you finish responding, you can either do your closing statement or pass to Robert and then have the last words up to you. Go ahead. So I want the last word, of course. I figured you would. I was surprised Robert went first, but that's, that's the way it works. Okay. So I agree. I think Robert and I have quickly discovered what the, um, the, the, the gap is between us both we have a different paradigm

um to a to look through the lens to look through i think it is a very applicable to a post-war to analogy where war is a contest of will both the nazi regime and the japanese emperor and military were defeated into where they lost the will to continue to fight in the post-conflict occupation occupation the the allies in the United States occupied Japan and Germany that is not an option for Israel and we probably both agree and I would agree that the third actor here that again Robert does can you discount it's the palestinian authority the other political power for the palestinian people because they don't care what the support for hamas is they want power and they will maintain their power these are about power constructs but war is a contest of wills of the politicians the militaries and the populations and in that framework we'd have

the right assessment on how to defeat Hamas in Gaza. Robert, you want to give your closing remarks just to remind everybody and you that the overall subject was that the war in Gaza is backfiring on Israel. So to the extent that you can address that, that'd be great, but you don't have to go ahead, Robert. So in order to defeat a militant group like Hamas, it's crucial to separate the group from the local population. But what's happened in the last nine months is the opposite. Israel's military operations have been building tighter bonds

and fusing the militant group with the population even more than it was before October 7th. So this is fundamentally backfiring because the whole concept of the war is producing the opposite of the necessary condition for success. Yes, I want to diminish the will to fight. Yes, I want to take Hamas out of meaningful political power with the Palestinians. But to do that you really have to separate Hamas from the local population not fuse it tighter and tighter together and by failing to think seriously about a meaningful wedge

strategy which involves a political dimension this has been the biggest failure, and this is going to unfortunately lead to another doom loop for Israeli population. All right, John. In war, there is a strategic objective given to the military by the politicians. In this war, those objectives are being achieved. Yes, in counterinsurgencies, the number one theory is to remove a very fraction of the insurgent from its popular support. It needs to survive. To apply that to Gaza after October 7th is a fallacy in thinking that comes later right now the population's beliefs about hamas that have been ingrained

for 15 years need to be dealt with that's called de-radicalization and again which eisenhower said it would take 50 years to de-radicalize the Nazis. The idea that you do that in the execution of the war in phase one is just devout of history. hope that as things develop, maybe we can do it again. To be frank, I'm very happy to know you both, and I pinch myself sometimes that somehow from my perch owning a comedy club, I managed to connect and have such

nice relationships and fruitful relationships with such important thinkers. just and i would like to say how grateful i am and about me i'm so i'm so happy with myself you are and i want to say my life right now go ahead you norm for doing this as i said on your podcast doing a real discussion with people who um have meaningful things to say in disagreement is very great. And I just want to say thank you to John. So this is not easy.

It's a lot easier when we get together with everybody we're comfortable with all the time. It's not so easy here when we go in disagreeing. And I, for one, would be absolutely glad to, you know, if you want to come back, do this again in the fall or something or so forth. I think we need more conversations that look like this in the fullness of this, by the way, so that people will be able to judge for themselves. But I think full conversations like this are just badly needed. And we have so few of these in our country. No, they're very badly needed and we don't we have so few of these in our country no they're very badly needed not i mean i'm sure you guys will have the same experience

and we got to go is that even when i think i've thought everything through and i'm 100 sure i've got it right nothing sharpens my argument like have no plan survives contact with the enemy that's what you guys say right it's the same thing with arguments so it's very important and noam i want to echo my thanks again um i know that's not the title of your podcast but tough conversations are needed and i really appreciate robert um he knows as a student of this that um in war we say um even the simple is complicated so there this is a human endeavor with multiple humans doing well some of them trying to do the right thing um and figure this out and and this is why um the study of it is so important but having these tough conversations to include but what's happened in the past

to and what's happening in their present are really important all right thank you very much everybody good night guys make sure until you