Beep, beep, bang, bang: With exploding pagers, deterrence gets personal

Some 3,000 pagers exploded simultaneously across Lebanon, injuring hundreds of Hezbollah leaders and others carrying their pagers and paralysing the terrorist organisation’s command system. This happened because Israel has to re-establish its power to deter its enemies and it looks like it wants to do so without a wider, costly air and ground war involving Lebanon and perhaps Iran.

When, like Israel, you are a nation that is 35 kilometres wide surrounded by enemies who not only have publicly stated goals of eradicating you from the planet but act on them with violence, strong words are great but actions speak louder.

Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza, the Iranian Republican Guards Corps and Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq, Hezbollah on the Lebanese border, and Houthi rebels launching Iranian-supplied weapons from Yemen.

The Israeli Defence Force is more capable than any of these adversaries, even a collection of them acting together, but a wide ground war would be costly for everyone, including Israel.

At the same time, Israel has to deter Iran and Hezbollah from launching mass missile, drone and rocket attacks against the Israeli population. This is to re-establish physical security in Israel which will allow tens of thousands of Israeli citizens to return to homes, villages and towns they had to leave after 7 October last year.

So, what alternative strategy can Israel pursue other than expanding the ground war in Gaza to Lebanon?

The Israeli approach that has emerged over the last few months is clearer now with the pager attack against Hezbollah’s senior command structure. It’s about showing Israel’s enemies that the senior people directing foot soldiers and suicide fighters are the ones whose lives are at risk, wherever and whenever Israel wishes to target them.

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This is instead of confronting force with force directly in a major ground war like the one Israel fought in Lebanon against Hezbollah in 2006.

Hezbollah, Hamas and even Iranian leaders who make decisions about using force against Israel now have to consider that every time they do so, they are putting their own lives at considerable risk, and potentially the lives of those around them.

They take extraordinary precautions with their personal security like staying off internet-connected devices, having personal security details and not disclosing their locations or movements. But within this bubble they have been used to living in relative security while sending others off to fight and die. That’s different now.

The new “personal deterrence” strategy that’s unfolded has been complemented by Israel’s highly effective missile and air defence system. Israel demonstrated its effectiveness, responding (enabled by the US and other partners) to Iran launching around 300 rockets, drones and missiles against Israeli population centres and military facilities in April. Instead of mass casualties and damage, one Israeli girl was injured by shrapnel from this attack.

Meanwhile, days later, Israel fired a single missile to destroy an air defence radar system protecting an Iranian facility near Isfahan. The facility is probably a part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The message here is stark: you can fire mass barrages at Israel and we will defeat them. We can penetrate your entire defensive system and destroy sensitive targets deep in Iran at will. You can’t stop us.

That blunts the power of Iran’s and Hezbollah’s decades-long effort to build arsenals of rockets, drones and missiles to use against Israel. These arsenals were meant to give Israel’s enemies an unanswerable asymmetric advantage.

But, despite its success, this is a defensive measure that imposes no costs on the aggressor. That’s why the “personal deterrence” element is critical and why Israel has used several different paths for threatening the security of its enemies’ leadership.

Hezbollah’s senior military commander Mohammed Deif was killed by an Israeli airstrike in July. Then Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by unknown actors when his room in a secure Iranian Republican Guard Corps guesthouse exploded in the middle of Tehran.

Now, some 3,000 personal pager devices, used by what looks like most of Hezbollah’s senior commanders, have exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon, badly injuring scores of its leadership and perhaps killing some of those carrying or using the pagers at the time. As with the Haniyeh death, Israel has not claimed responsibility and will not.

The deterrent effect of this collected set of strikes is powerful. There is now an absolute and stark asymmetry between Israel and its enemies: their attacks on Israel can be blunted and defeated, but they are personally vulnerable and at risk of death wherever they are should Israel decide to strike them. Israel’s enemies cannot be protected by their intense security measures or by the thousands of fighters they command.

How Israel is finding and killing them is unclear, but Israel has also used multiple different means successfully. These all almost certainly involve penetrating and compromising the personnel and networks running Hezbollah, Hamas and even Iran’s most sensitive activities – like personal protection of leaders and clandestine procurement.

That’s disorientating and disturbing for everyone in these organisations and regimes. It will be unleashing paranoia, distrust and uncertainty.

There’s obvious risk to Israel here from its enemies also seeking new ways to strike Israeli leadership – and every Israeli success is also an opportunity for their adversaries to learn and adapt.

But the capability of the Israeli military and security and intelligence services is hard to copy or recreate, because it’s driven by an existential imperative and builds on decades of tradecraft. It’s also enabled by Israel’s technological and digital advantages over its enemies.

If this new strategy, coupled with Israel’s effective air and missile defences works, Israel will have re-established the deterrent power in the region it lost on 7 October last year.

That would create a security foundation for an uneasy but peaceful balance with Hezbollah and the Iranian leadership. Because Hamas relies on Iranian support and needs Hezbollah to widen the conflict, it would also put pressure on Hamas to agree to release the remaining hostages and begin a ceasefire.

Even if this works, wider political security and agreements will need to wait for a new Israeli government not led by Benjamin Netanyahu or extremists like his National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

That new government in Israel could use this recreated balance of deterrence to negotiate political settlements that go well beyond ceasefires.

Michael Shoebridge is director of Strategic Analysis Australia.