Is war inevitable

There is much Israel could learn from NATO's newly enunciated defense strategy.

It's a lesson that could set Israel on a path that doesn't consider war a permanent fixture of the Jewish state's existence, doesn't see ruptures with Israel's Western allies as inevitable, and could open the door to repairing its shattered international standing and resolving multiple conflicts with the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

For now, that's a prospect that neither Israel's governing far-right nor its more center-right opposition parties or a majority of its citizenry envision.

On the contrary, if Israel and NATO's strategy have anything in common, it is the strategic goal of obliterating an adversary's military capabilities.

But even on that, there is a stark difference between NATO and Israel's approach.

The difference is that NATO believes it doesn't have to come to that and views peace as sustainable rather than a temporary lull.

NATO conceives the threat of obliteration defined as attacking anything and everything that supports, sustains, or controls an enemy force as a deterrence, that if it fails to deter, is a defensive rather than a preemptive strategy, framed by the belief that war is avoidable and the alliance's democratic values.

Laying out NATO's theory of victory at this week's Warsaw Security Forum, the alliance's top commander, US General Alexis Grinkovich, posited that our alliance exists to preserve peace, but let there be no doubt.

Should war come, we will block, blunt any attack, and then, if it does not cease, we will break the forces conducting aggression against us.

Built on the concept of block, blunt, and break, Mr. Grinkovich's notion of obliteration is phase two of a situation in which an adversary has attacked and has been blocked.

Block envisions NATO land and frontline forces dominating the battlefield on which an adversary has attacked.

Blunt intends to strip the enemy of momentum and establish battlefield superiority.

Finally, break or obliteration only kicks in if necessary.

In other words, NATO theory is not offensive, embraces peace as achievable and sustainable, doesn't put the legitimate existence of NATO's adversaries and neighbors in doubt or seek to destabilize them, doesn't embrace the principle of supremacism as superseding democracy, and makes obliteration conditional.

There is much Israel could learn from NATO's newly enunciated defense strategy.

It's a lesson that could set Israel on a path that doesn't consider war a permanent fixture of the Jewish state's existence, doesn't see ruptures with Israel's Western allies as inevitable, and could open the door to repairing its shattered international standing and resolving multiple conflicts with the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

For now, that's a prospect that neither Israel's governing far-right nor its more center-right opposition parties or a majority of its citizenry envision.

On the contrary, if Israel and NATO's strategy have anything in common, it is the strategic goal of obliterating an adversary's military capabilities.

But even on that, there is a stark difference between NATO and Israel's approach.

The difference is that NATO believes it doesn't have to come to that and views peace as sustainable rather than a temporary lull.

NATO conceives the threat of obliteration defined as attacking anything and everything that supports, sustains, or controls an enemy force as a deterrence, that if it fails to deter, is a defensive rather than a preemptive strategy, framed by the belief that war is avoidable and the alliance's democratic values.

Laying out NATO's theory of victory at this week's Warsaw Security Forum, the alliance's top commander, US General Alexis Grinkovich, posited that our alliance exists to preserve peace, but let there be no doubt.

Should war come, we will block, blunt any attack, and then, if it does not cease, we will break the forces conducting aggression against us.

Built on the concept of block, blunt, and break, Mr. Grinkovich's notion of obliteration is phase two of a situation in which an adversary has attacked and has been blocked.

Block envisions NATO land and frontline forces dominating the battlefield on which an adversary has attacked.

Blunt intends to strip the enemy of momentum and establish battlefield superiority.

Finally, break or obliteration only kicks in if necessary.

In other words, NATO theory is not offensive, embraces peace as achievable and sustainable, doesn't put the legitimate existence of NATO's adversaries and neighbors in doubt or seek to destabilize them, doesn't embrace the principle of supremacism as superseding democracy, and makes obliteration conditional.