Shalem’s Old-New Strategy: An Interview with Prof. Efraim Inbar
Political scientist Prof. Efraim Inbar is deeply optimistic. Not because, sixteen months after October 7th, Israel’s defeat of its enemies is increasingly clear, and the balance of power is firmly in its favor. Nor is it because the fall of Assad in Syria—combined with a friendly new U.S. administration—provides a key opportunity to expand the Abraham Accords into a wider and more substantive regional force. At least, it’s not only because of these things. Rather, he’s optimistic because history has taught him to be.
“In the time of the Second Temple, we nearly destroyed ourselves through infighting,” he points out. “But thankfully, we didn’t. There’s a line that we as a people have never allowed ourselves to cross.” He then mentions that when he saw a recent protest against government policy, he noted that people on both sides of the issue were waving Israeli flags. “We were Zealots then, and we’ve always been zealots when it comes to fundamental issues. But we have also consistently recognized that beyond our differences lies a sacred unity.” When you have that historical perspective, he concludes, you have to be optimistic about Israel’s future.
That historical perspective is precisely what Shalem’s new program in Strategy, Diplomacy, and Security seeks to instill in its students, and why Inbar—the chair of the program and one of its key architects—believes it’s so critical for the Jewish state. The former founding director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and current president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, Inbar is intimately familiar with the approach to these subjects in Israeli academia and think tanks. Moreover, he has also taught these subjects at Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, and Boston Universities, and served as a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Yet only at Shalem, he points out, do students focus on the study of human nature as part of a degree in strategy. The reason for that is simple: “Human nature doesn’t change.”
“At the end of the day, and as we in Israel have seen this past year, soldiers still need to plant a flag,” he explains. “We still need to see the eyes of the enemy. If Shalem can provide its students with this added dimension of understanding, it will prepare them to be the kinds of leaders that Israel now understands it needs.”
Prof. Efraim Inbar, chair of the Department of Strategy, Diplomacy, and Security
In terms of the failure of Israeli intelligence, October 7th has been compared to the Yom Kippur War. Which one do you believe was worse?
In terms of existential danger, there is no question that the Yom Kippur War was the far worse of the two attacks. Our Arab aggressors were close to their apex of power, and we in Israel were confronted with two simultaneous invasions by two conventional armies. Even Hezbollah, the far stronger of the Iranian proxies that launched war against us on the 7th, had only 30,000 fighters and no air force or tanks. Although October 7th was a very dangerous moment for Israel, it’s important to place it in proportion.
That said, since 1973 our intelligence abilities improved tremendously. In that respect, there is no excuse for our having been taken by surprise. In terms of the gap between capability and outcome, there is a strong argument to be made for October 7th being the greater failure.
After October 7th, what do you think was the biggest blind spot in the academic field of strategic studies?
Academia is made up of people. People follow fashions, and peace is fashionable. Even people who are supposed to know better fell under the sway of the idea that deep down, everyone shares the same values and has the same hopes and dreams. They believed that compromise is the natural end of all conflict, because that’s what they wanted to believe.
Unfortunately, academia has allowed students to wear these conceptual glasses when looking at the region. Instead of diagnosing the problem, we allowed our conceptions to color and shape our thinking, and not the reality.
We in Israel constantly hear about failure of the old “conception” with regard to security. How is Shalem’s Program in Strategy, Diplomacy, and Security designed to help avoid such conceptions in the future?
When I was working with Colonel (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman on the program’s curriculum, I used to send it now and then to my colleagues at other universities for feedback. Often, they responded that they wish they could teach these things themselves. A course that explores the ancient Roman way of war, for example, could only happen at Shalem, both because our programs are multidisciplinary in nature and because we emphasize the human and cultural aspects of “purely” strategic decisions. In essence, the nature and emphasis of our program precludes the adoption of any one framework that purports to explain everything.
What is the experience of teaching these subjects like in the midst of a war, particularly with students coming from the front lines to the classroom, and vice versa?
Student reservists truly savor the opportunity to sit in class and learn. They know they can’t take this experience for granted, and they know how easily something as innocent as the freedom to study for a degree can be taken away if it’s not defended—which they’re determined to do. This realization gives discussions in class a whole new level of meaning. In turn, lecturers tell me all the time that teaching students who value their learning so much inspires them to give even more. It’s a positive feedback loop.
What are your hopes for Israel, in the short and long term?
Right now, we in Israel need to be clear-eyed about both the challenges and opportunities ahead. The hopes for a move toward a more benign political system in Syria are far from founded. And while some analysts have wondered if Lebanon may now be able to throw off Hezbollah’s yoke, its political leaders have never shown great courage, and its political system suffers from paralysis. As we work to strengthen relations with the new American administration as well as with local allies, we must also be wary of political engineering beyond our borders. Such experiments have never worked out well.
In the long term, however, there is every reason to be positive about where Israel is headed. The generation that is fighting and winning this war—many of whom are students at Shalem—is an incredible group of young men and women, full of ideals and willingness to sacrifice and an abiding love for the Jewish people. It is impossible, despite the heavy cost of our war with Hamas and the devastating losses of October 7th, not to feel a sense of optimism when you recall that Israel’s future is in their hands.
