A key feature of this war is the lack of feasible goals.
The goal of human warfare throughout history has always been victory.
And “victory” needed no extra definitions. Victory is akin to a skillet.
No one would be bothered to call a skillet something else, like a shallow cooking pot.
Both “skillet” and “victory” have their own dictionary entries.
The winning side occupies the enemy's land.
They enter and pillage the capital, snatching movable and immovable property, like sculptures and monuments.
They murder those who resist, tax those who don’t, and proclaim the new territory theirs.
Job well done.
They emerged victorious, conquered new lands, and became stronger.
This isn’t rocket science, and it has worked for millenia.
But what about now?
Such practice has become obsolete in the modern world, and we can’t see anyone pull it off.
We keep saying that wars of conquest make no sense nowadays, but the same goes for defensive wars.
No one has the foggiest idea what to do with either a victim or an aggressor.
CAN GAZA JOIN ISRAEL?
Let’s say the Israeli troops enter Gaza.
They obliterate the enemy’s defenses utilizing their technological, numerical, and organizational superiority.
They set up headquarters in the area, and begin patrolling every street.
The remnant Hamas combatants hide in their tunnels, and are gradually being smoked out.
This is one of possible scenarios.
But what’s next? Should Israel annex Gaza?
Even the closest allies won’t recognize it.
It’d only lead to Israel borders’ delegitimization and following consequences.
Modern international law doesn’t recognize border revision by force.
Let’s leave international reaction aside.
For simplicity sake, imagine Israel is the only nation out there.
What do you do with 2 mil people of Gaza? Grant them citizenship?
That almost 20% increase to Israel’s 9 mil. And these 20% are impoverished.
Israel’s GDP per capita surpasses that of Gaza nearly 20 fold.
Accepting the poor, uneducated, and unskilled means providing for them till their end.
Naturally, some will turn it to account, quickly integrate into Israeli society,
get a degree and make a lucrative career.
There will be success stories of, say, a teenager with the sole prospect of joining Hamas squads
who 30 years later owns half a bank corporation thanks to Israel's victory.
But such stories don’t depict the majority.
Gaza as a part of Israel is doomed to remain a poverty-stricken enclave
where hardship and crime are passed through generations.
The issue isn’t even the price of dinner in Israel that equals a monthly income in Gaza.
The problem is population disloyalty.
Gazans have never been fond of Israel, but if the IDF razed their homes, Gazans’d hate Israel’s guts.
Integration of Gaza would eventually lead to Hamas’s spiritual successors operating not from
beyond the Iron Wall, but from the parliament.
20% of the population isn’t some political minority.
If they manage to unite their efforts, they’ll influence or even define the state’s policy.
No Israeli politician will be able to disregard the opinion of those who loathe him and his country.
Gazans can’t be annexed as non-citizens, either.
They can’t be offered a parallel legal regime that deprives them from voting rights and social benefits.
Firstly, official division of citizens into castes will make Israel an international outcast.
Secondly and most importantly, this is a fail-safe recipe for civil war.
Turning Gaza into Israel is an absurdly complex, expensive, and lengthy process.
Turning Israel into Gaza, where people are murdered on the streets, can be achieved overnight.
Gaza’s integration into Israel is barely achievable in theory and straight up impossible if you apply politics.
Crisis is inevitable, and it’ll be deteriorating the economy, social environment,
security, and overall quality of life for the foreseeable future.
Selling it to voters is unlikely, and no sane politician would attempt it.
Moreover, a conventional victory is unreachable for Israel.
No country exists in isolation, especially a democratic one.
As a part of the international democratic community, Israel can’t afford to act like a lunatic.
Alongside Israelis, it has to take other countries’ citizens into account.
An assault on your territory, however foul, won’t conceal images of razed buildings,
murdered children, and sobbing old people.
That’s what the world media will broadcast 24/7.
And their audience, the E.U. and U.S. citizens,
will lose their rags and demand their politicians to denounce the villains or even punish them.
FIGHT FOR STATUS QUO
Is it possible to annex Gaza and wave the Israeli banner over it?
Yes. But it’s akin to a tumor transplant. It’s possible, but why, and what’s next?
This isn’t victory, this isn’t a flag over the Reichstag.
It’s a man-made national disaster no one will take responsibility for.
The same goes for Russia and Ukraine.
Let’s assume one of the sides can achieve a military victory, which they can’t.
Let’s imagine that Putin has a shot at capturing Kyiv, and the AFU may seize Moscow.
The same question remains, what’s next?
The victor will instantly lose all international support if he had it.
The victor will become an occupier, and the world will demand him to bug off.
The victor won’t change any colors on the political map of the world.
It’s restoring the 1991 borders, achieving status quo when Ukrainian borders on the map reflect reality.
What’s victory like for Israel?
It’s establishing a relatively sane regime in Gaza.
It doesn’t have to be friendly to Israel, it mustn’t be subordinate,
it just shouldn’t see the extermination of the Jews and Jewish state as the sole purpose of its existence.
Israel too needs its status quo back, when Gaza is close to a peaceful neighbor,
and no Mad Max-esque marauders flood in from there.
Even if victorious, neither country can gain anything for the blood they had to pay.
Their victories are restoration of peace.
And for that, both Ukraine and Israel are paying the price that can’t be compensated.
Neither country can achieve military victory.
Hamas can be defeated, but if Israel establishes its administration in Gaza,
it’ll last as long as the Israeli army is there.
It happened in Afghanistan.
As soon as the last American soldier checked out, the loyal administration was overthrown.
Israel has no choice but seek partnership with leading Arab states, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
First and foremost, Israel needs Arab Muslims to devise a more or less viable regime on their territory.
Ukraine is forced to wait for political changes in Russia.
The front line may move, and even if, fancy that, it reaches the 1991 borders, the war won’t stop.
It’ll just change location.
From the Ukrainian soldiers’ families POV, it doesn’t matter if their son, husband,
or father perished at the legitimate Ukrainian border, or at some imaginary line delirious
Putin sketched in a fit of madness.
An obituary after storming Moscow wouldn’t make a difference either for that matter.
Long-range missiles can pierce 60 mi deeper into the front with no mood swings.
It won’t make Putin any more suasible.
He couldn’t have cared less about losing annexed cities, he simply has no plans to end this war.
The war will only end with Putin’s end, and only via negotiation.
Ukraine and Israel face very different situations and enemies.
But one thing is common: the most optimistic scenarios for both are far from glorious.
They have to keep fighting for a slim chance of starting a discussion
with unlikable characters about being left alone.
Even Napoleon would find it challenging to motivate his troops in such a context.
As of now, it sounds terrible: countless people keep dying as politicians grope for a point
when there’s nothing to achieve, and it’s only possible to stop losing and move on.
This is why functional governments ceased waging wars.
That’s why, despite horrors and atrocities that take place globally,
the so-called “Long Peace” is ongoing, and local conflicts don’t turn into world wars.
WHY NORMIES DON’T WAGE WAR
Because favorable goals are unreachable, and reachable goals are gloomy.
Even your role doesn’t matter: either you pounced on a neighbor or acted in self-defense,
either you’re in the right, or you’re a deranged goon.
Even your military power balance doesn’t mean much.
War has long ceased being economically viable, but now it offers no political gains, too.
True, a leader who rides triumphantly into another capital on a white horse or black Mercedes
may restore his ratings, unite the elites, and strengthen his regime.
But a leader who after mountains of corpses and months of bloodbath
and misery is forced into negotiation with the enemy
or their allies in search of any sort of compromise doesn’t come across as a Father of the Nation.
Maybe in 20 years, when the debate isn’t as heated, a thorough research or perhaps a movie will be released,
and the authors will acknowledge your decision to end the war at the right time in the best conditions.
But here and now, when freshly dug graves stretch beyond the horizon,
and you shake hands of those who filled those graves, it’s ignorant to expect a wide national support.
Big war will certainly reveal all the issues that could’ve been kept under the rug for decades.
All the mistakes, incompetency, corruption, ones’ deliberate lies and others’ sincere delusions
will become clear.
It applies to the army, intelligence services, public administration, and legislature.
Any state has its flaws, its rotten beams, leaking pipes, and dodgy wiring.
Some of them are evident, but not crucial at peacetime.
Some are covered up.
War is a shock to the system, and it exposes all its defects.
As soon as the fog of war clears, uncomfortable questions will follow.
There have been times where war was a solution for it.
When everyone saw the necessity of reforms, changing the topic to mass murder was a way to weasel out.
Now we see the opposite: modern governments are developed enough
to ignore the most serious issues for ages.
But war discloses them all. Nowadays, war isn’t a way to end the discussion about issues, but a way to spark it.
Who may start such a war?
It can be a dictatorship, rotten to the bone with corruption,
where all decision making is confined in one skull of a very delusional man.
It’s useless to discuss causes and effects in attempts to convince a senile mind.
Or such a war can be brought upon by fanatics who lost touch with reality, for they’re fanatics.
Their rationale is beyond worldly reasoning.
Any other regime, not necessarily democratic nor amiable,
a one that has rudimentary mechanisms of decision making based on real life information,
understands the obvious.
A step into the battlefield will be followed by a step into the abyss.
Before the end, I remind you we have performances next week in London, Berlin, and Prague.
In London, we sell affordable £25 balcony seats, and £10 seats for refugees and students. Come join us!
See you tomorrow!