Less Is More: Israel’s Major Advantage? Now Its Achilles Heel

The expression “Less is more” has been the secret of Israel’s success since its founding. Despite a huge gap in its population compared to its enemy neighbors, not to mention a lack of natural resources that they were blessed with (e.g., oil and gas in abundance), “small” Israel has found ways to leverage its few advantages (e.g., brainpower) into significant, not to mention national lifesaving, strengths. Unfortunately, that era is coming to an end – not merely for Israel but for all the world’s “Great Powers.”

The ongoing war against Iran is but the latest example. Despite an overwhelming advantage in military firepower, the U.S. and Israel have not been able to defeat Iran, as the latter are using missiles and drones to hit back at their opponents’ underbelly: closing the Straits of Hormuz against the U.S., sporadic missile attacks against Israel’s civilians. Similarly, Israel has virtually taken over all of southern Lebanon, but Hezbollah’s short(ish)-range missile attacks continue apace.

Of course, this phenomenon didn’t start here. Militarily, smaller Ukraine has led the way in its war with far larger (and wealthier) Russia. When the war started in 2022 most analysts thought it would be over in a few weeks; instead, it’s been going on for over four years with no end in sight, despite Russia’s huge demographic and economic lead. Why?

Because the Ukrainian army has taken on the “Less is More” mantra with a vengeance, developing small drone technology that essentially neutralizes Russia’s military manpower advantage. By first purchasing, and now building, their own “off-the-shelf” drones – not only singly but using advanced tech (AI, etc.) to them in swarms, thereby rendering suicidal Russia’s mass human attacks. Moreover, such small-size munitions enable the Ukrainians to attack Russian installations hundreds and even thousands of kilometers over the border, without a single Ukrainian soldier leaving the country’s own territory.

One can see similar considerations in other areas of political – and potential military – conflict. Why doesn’t (1.3 billion) China invade (23 million) Taiwan (less than 2% of China’s population!) that China considers to be an integral part of the mainland? Because of the latter’s “Porcupine Strategy” involving an asymmetric weapons strategy. Taiwan emphasizes small, portable, accurate, cost-effective weapons e.g., anti-ship missiles, drones, mines et al, instead of trying to match China with its high-tech but conventional weaponry. China is correctly afraid of losing its amphibious landing ships before they even reach the shore, cut down by the far smaller but much more numerous weapons implemented by Taiwan. And lest one forget: Taiwan is by far the world’s largest manufacturer of the most advanced microchips. Put those tiny things inside projectiles, drones, and the like – and you have a particularly deadly force that can hardly be seen!

Indeed, this last point is part of a far broader technology trend in the world that has been evolving over the past 80 years. In a word: computers. Whereas in the past, technologies were almost always thought of as “Bigger is Better,” the microchip revolution has turned this on its head: the smaller it becomes, the faster and more efficient it gets. That small cellphone in your hand? It’s got more computing power than all the computers used by NASA for the first moon landing!

The next stage in this army downsizing revolution is probably a mere decade or so away: robot soldiers. With advanced AI built-in, robots today have come a long way from when they were large, clunky, and distinctly “non-human” in appearance and capabilities. Robots today can dance, do sports, somersault etc. In another few years they should be able to do almost anything a human soldier can do – without any fear of death. Expensive? Sure – at the start, but like everything else in the AI/computer chip world, prices tend to go down quite fast. Imagine low population countries investing in a robot army – at first tactically managed by humans behind the scenes, but ultimately fully autonomous.

On top of all this is CYBER-warfare — a subject worthy of an entire blog essay itself. For now, needless to point out that this is by far the “cheapest” form of military weaponry, demanding knowhow on the part of a relatively small number of high-level experts in any size country: large, small or tiny. Indeed, there’s not even a need of a state apparatus: terrorist organizations can just as easily join and excel at this.

What does this mean for Israel moving forward? The good news is that the country is among the leaders in AI and military technology in general (cyber-warfare, too), so that it has been, and will continue to be, one of the first to implement such “weaponry.” Among other things, that would resolve today’s problem of its hugely overworked reserve duty soldiers. The bad news is that such weaponry ultimately becomes easily purchased “off-the-shelf.” Israel’s technologically backwards enemies are licking their chops in anticipation.

None of this is to say that Israel is “doomed”; it is to say that the time has come for its leadership to start thinking strategically about the mid-term future of warfare and what that means for the country militarily and politically-diplomatically as well. The Middle East is presently on the cusp of two alternative possibilities: “all hell breaking loose” or “peace in our time.” Given the technological-military trends discussed here, the latter looks like a far better choice for the country’s future direction. You don’t have to be artificially intelligent to understand that.