DOI: 10.1111/mepo.12701
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
‘Decisive Victory’ and Israel’s Quest
For a New Military Strategy
Jean-Loup Samaan
Dr. Samaan is a senior research fellow at
the Middle East Institute of the National
University of Singapore and a nonresident
senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s
Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.
Correspondence
meijcbs@nus.edu.sg
Abstract
In 2020, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced
the development of a new operational concept called
Decisive Victory that aimed to change the way Israel
fights wars and to redefine victory on the battlefield.
The root cause of this change was the evolution in non-
state threats from armed groups in Gaza and Lebanon.
The concept was to drive major reforms of the IDF in
training, interoperability among the services, weapons
procurement, and civil-military relations. However, the
efforts encountered significant challenges in terms of
politics, financial resources, and the implications for
the IDF’s force structure. This article examines these
developments to shed light on the evolving way of war
in the Middle East and the struggle within the IDF to
redefine its posture.
On January 16, 2023, Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi ended his four-year term as the 22nd
chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and handed his responsibilities to
Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi. In many ways, Kochavi’s tenure reveals both the successes
and failures of Israel’s military strategy. It was marked by the stellar performance of Iron Dome
interceptors against Gaza’s rockets, demonstrating the successful evolution of Israel’s missile
defense. However, the endless cycle of conflicts with Palestinian factions like Hamas and Pales-
tinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also shows the increasing inability of the IDF to claim victory on the
battlefield.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits
use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or
adaptations are made.
© 2023 The Author. Middle East Policy published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Middle East Policy Council.
MIDDLE EAST POLICY. 2023;30:3–15. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mepo
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