Following the exploding Hezbollah pagers in Lebanon and the elimination of the terrorist organization’s senior leadership in the last week, there is a sense that Israel is shifting from a strategy of containment to one of decisive action. This paradigm shift moves beyond merely managing the threat toward a bolder objective: pre-emption and total victory.  

As President Isaac Herzog said, “we don’t want war, but if it’s waged against us, we go all the way.”

Israeli leaders have long understood the existential danger posed by Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. Yet over the last two decades, instead of eliminating these threats, Israeli policies — at the West’s insistence — have often emboldened the rise of these powerful non-state militias. The policy of limited warfare has allowed these groups to survive, grow and become more entrenched. 

This strategy is not unique to Israel. Since the end of World War II, Western powers have consistently avoided all-out victories, often choosing containment and appeasement or limited engagement over total warfare and the crippling of these terror networks. The result? Persistent, unresolved conflicts which, like the Korean War, linger to this day with continued threats.  

If the West had allowed Gen. Douglas MacArthur to fully deploy his military strategy against North Korea and its Chinese backers — including a blockade of Chinese ports and decisive action to cut off supply lines — the outcome could have been quite different. As matters stand, we are left with a North Korean regime that continues to destabilize global security to this day. 

The Vietnam War presents another example of limited warfare’s long-term costs. President Richard Nixon eventually escalated U.S. actions with the bombing of Haiphong and incursions into Laos and Cambodia, but by then, it was too late. Had the U.S. taken these decisive steps earlier or used the full force of its military to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail from the start, the course of the war might have shifted. Instead, Vietnam became a symbol of American defeat.