Carl von Clausewitz famously wrote that war is the extension of policy by other means. He meant it as a caution against romanticism. Wars do not erupt from nowhere; they are the end products of political failure, accumulated grievance, and strategic calculation. By that measure, the open war between Israel, the United States and Iran that the world is now witnessing is not a surprise. It is a conclusion.

This war was always going to happen. Not necessarily at this exact moment, and not necessarily in this exact form, but it was inevitable in the way that a flood is inevitable when five rivers converge during a heavy rain. The question was never whether, but when. Five distinct arcs of history: local, regional, ideological, global, and personal: matured simultaneously and collided. Understanding each arc separately is useful. Understanding how they converged is essential.

The local arc: from territorial to existential

The modern state of Israel was born in 1948 into a condition of permanent siege. For most of its history, Israelis understood the conflict with their neighbors in essentially territorial terms. After the stunning victory of 1967, a quiet confidence settled in, and Israel’s existence was no longer seriously in doubt. The question became borders. Land for peace became the negotiable future. This strategy found its full expression in 1979 with the historic peace agreement with Egypt and the return of the Sinai Peninsula.

Yet the euphoria of that peace deal overshadowed another tectonic shift that same year. The Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution in Iran expressed out loud what Israel’s enemies had said quietly. The new Iran was a neighbor that did not want Israel’s land; it wanted Israel’s elimination. In response to the Iranian threat, Israel’s security establishment eventually adopted characteristic pragmatism: contain the threat, deter escalation, avoid direct confrontation, and manage the proxies.

That doctrine held for over four decades. Then came October 7, 2023.

What Hamas did on that morning was not merely an atrocity. It was a strategic forcing function. Hamas dragged Israel into the very war its political leadership, including its current Prime Minister,  and security establishment had spent years engineering around. It prematurely pulled Iran and its entire proxy network into open conflict before all strategic pieces were fully in place. The Israeli response was therefore not just military retaliation. It represented a fundamental rewriting of Israel’s security doctrine, shifting from containment, which focused on balancing an enemy’s intent vs. ability, to the pre-emptive disabling of capabilities simultaneously across multiple fronts. The conflict is no longer viewed by most Israelis as territorial. It is viewed as existential. When a nation concludes its existence is at stake, the calculations change entirely.

The regional........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)