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This episode’s guest is Dr. Daniel Sobelman, a lecturer in international relations at the Hebrew University and a research fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard University. Dr. Sobelman, who recently published his book “The Axis of Resistance”, explains the concept of asymmetric warfare, describes the development of the Axis of Resistance as a strategic community, and analyzes the effects of the current war on the axis and its perceptions.
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Asymmetric warfare
At the beginning of the conversation, Dr. Sobelman clarifies that most conflicts in the world are asymmetric, meaning they are conducted between parties with distinctly different levels of power, like Israel versus Hamas or Saudi Arabia versus the Houthis. According to him, the concepts of symmetric and asymmetric are a mental model that simplifies reality for the purpose of analysis. He adds that other distinctions, such as between a “state” and a “terrorist organization”, can also be misleading. Sometimes, it is more effective to refer to all entities in the arena simply as “actors”.
Dr. Sobelman argues that the concept of “proxy actors” is also problematic. Hamas, for example, is sometimes seen as a proxy of Iran, but in the October 7th attack, it trapped its patrons, Iran and Hezbollah, in a situation they did not want and had not coordinated with it. This phenomenon, where a weak actor in an alliance drags its stronger partner into a dangerous adventure, is known from history, as in the case of the network of alliances in Europe before the First World War.
The Axis of Resistance as a strategic community
The central thesis of Dr. Sobelman’s book is that in recent years, a regional strategic community has formed that calls itself the “Axis of Resistance” (Mihwar al-Muqawama). According to him, this is not a hierarchical network of a patron and clients, but a system in which all actors learn from and teach one another.
He explains that he noticed the phenomenon when he identified that Hezbollah’s strategic language and concepts, which he had been studying since the 1990s, had spread among other actors in the axis. Terms like “rules of the game” (and later “rules of engagement”) and “deterrence equations”, coined by Hezbollah, were adopted by Hamas, the Houthis, and even the Iranians themselves.
Hezbollah as a laboratory and Nasrallah as the “axis of the axis”
According to Dr. Sobelman, Hezbollah is the central “laboratory” of the Axis of Resistance, and Hassan Nasrallah is the “axis of the axis”, the master planner to whom everyone looks up. Even the Iranians, who are considered the patrons, see him as a source of inspiration. As an example, he brings up the days following the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in 2020. According to him, the Iranians first turned to Nasrallah to consult on how to respond, and the Iranian response bore Hezbollah’s conceptual “fingerprints”, for example, in its emphasis on a proportional response and in relation to the American action.
Rules of the game and deterrence equations
Dr. Sobelman elaborates on the key concept of “rules of the game”. This refers to an unwritten language and patterns of behavior that develop between adversaries, even if they do not recognize each other and there is a huge power gap between them. These rules create mutual expectations about what is “allowed” and what is “forbidden”. For example, an attack in broad daylight is considered more severe than an attack at night. Over time, both sides, and even the civilian population, learn the rules and know how to anticipate the adversary’s moves.
He explains that even the weaker actor has the ability to create leverage. Just as security prisoners obtain better conditions by threatening to set the area ablaze, organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah use their ability to inflict pain on Israel to impose red lines and “rules of the game” that serve them.
Victory through survival
Dr. Sobelman quotes Henry Kissinger, who said in the context of the Vietnam War that in an asymmetric war, the strong side loses if it does not win, and the weak side wins if it does not lose. This principle, he says, explains the rise of Hezbollah’s prestige. The organization was perceived as the victor in 2000, when Israel withdrew from Lebanon, and again in 2006, when it survived an all-out war against the IDF.
At the beginning of the current war, Hamas leaders explicitly used the analogy of the Vietnam War. They claimed that the heavy losses in Gaza are a necessary “tax” (dariba) on the path to victory, just as the Vietnamese lost millions but were perceived as victors against the United States.
The current war and the day after
Dr. Sobelman believes that the current war has dealt a severe blow to the Axis of Resistance’s operational model. The belief that it is impossible to inflict a devastating preemptive strike on them, because they are decentralized and operate underground, has been shaken. He compares this to the collapse of the idea of Pan-Arabism after the Six-Day War.
Finally, he argues that the biggest mistake Israel can make now is not to leverage its extraordinary military achievements. According to him, military achievements, however impressive, are temporary if they are not anchored in long-term political and diplomatic arrangements. Without a strategic vision to translate military power into a political settlement, the other side will eventually recover, and the opportunity will slip away.
The original episode, in Hebrew: הציר קורס?