Since its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel has moved with a sense of urgency that often resembled the dominant manoeuvre’s definition later articulated by U.S. defence planners under the Revolution in Military Affairs framework. Donald Rumsfeld, who championed the RMA during his tenure as U.S. Secretary of Defence, spoke of “dominant manoeuvre” as the ability of dispersed, technologically advanced forces to achieve decisive control over adversaries by combining speed, information superiority, and precision strike capabilities. Although the doctrine was formally associated with the U.S. military, Israel, long before and after Rumsfeld, has demonstrated the application of dominant manoeuvre in both overt and covert domains, using it not only for survival but for projecting influence far beyond its borders.
Israel was born in the aftermath of the Holocaust, a state surrounded by adversaries and with little geographic depth. Its earliest manoeuvres already contained the seeds of what would later be understood as RMA: striking before being struck, leveraging alliances for legitimacy, and integrating concepts of intelligence and information-based operations with rapid action. The 1956 Suez Crisis, though a joint effort with Britain and France, showed Israel’s willingness to project force beyond its frontiers. The Six-Day War of 1967 was to become the quintessential example of dominant manoeuvre through Operation Focus, the massive preemptive air strike, destroying the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian air forces while they were still on the ground. Within hours, Israel had secured air superiority, paralysed enemy responses, and thus ensured victory within six days. In RMA terms, this was the perfect illustration of mobility, precision, and information dominance used to shape the battlefield before the first counterblow could land.
The world needs to understand that Israel’s decades-long application of dominant manoeuvre, blending military strikes, intelligence, diplomatic outreach, and technological exports, calls for a renewed push to obviate global instability.
The undeclared doctrine was again enacted in 1981 when Israel executed Operation Opera, sending its aircraft deep into Iraq to bomb the Osirak nuclear reactor. The strike neutralised a threat before it matured, embodying the RMA belief that technology and intelligence should give a state the capacity to act decisively and unilaterally. Again in 2007, with Operation Orchard, Israeli jets destroyed a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria, reinforcing the principle that no existential threat would be allowed to develop unchecked.
Israel’s strategy extends beyond conventional warfare. Agencies like Mossad and Unit 8200 developed a global intelligence and cyber footprint. Iconic missions, from capturing Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1960 to cyber sabotage like Stuxnet attacks against Iran’s nuclear program show how information dominance and covert precision create both psychological and physical deterrence. Israel’s ability to “see and strike anywhere” is a manifestation of dominant manoeuvre.
Israel extends its concept of dominant manoeuvre in diplomacy and technology, as well. The Abraham Accords with Gulf states and growing defence ties with India illustrate how Israel outflanks isolation turning former adversaries like the UAE and Bahrain into partners. Exporting cyber technologies, advanced surveillance, and agricultural innovation transforms its technical prowess into strategic leverage. These dispersed nodes of influence fuse military, economic, and diplomatic tools into an RMA-style networked posture.
The costs however are profound. The ongoing war in Gaza, West Bank settlements, and assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders sustain a cycle of instability. War on Gaza, widely condemned as genocidal, underscores how preemption hardens conflicts rather than resolving them. Israeli strikes on Iran and, more recently, Qatar illustrate Israel’s readiness to escalate anytime, anywhere thus deepening regional hostility.
Israel’s manoeuvres have been polarising the world for a long time. Allies like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Gulf partners stand on one side. Nations like China and Russia remain lukewarm, whereas the likes of Iran, Turkey, and Ireland, along with movements like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, portray Israel as an aggressor. This division spills into international institutions, turning the United Nations and other forums into arenas of competing narratives. Moreover, Israel’s precedent of unilateral preemption inspires imitation. India’s posturing towards Pakistan, culminating in the brief but intense May 2025 war, reflects the diffusion of this mindset, normalising preemptive action and raising global insecurity.
For Pakistan, the challenge is direct and layered. Islamabad refuses to recognise Israel, but its friends in the Gulf, notably the United Arab Emirates, have normalised ties with Tel Aviv, complicating Pakistan’s diplomatic stance. More critical is the defence dimension; India’s embrace of Israeli drones, missile systems, and AI-driven surveillance threatens to tilt the South Asian strategic balance, although Pakistan successfully countered Indian-Israeli cooperation during the May 2025 conflict.
Israel’s story is one of aggression wrapped in a survival instinct which unleashes the Zionist agenda. Speed, preemption, intelligence, and diplomacy have ensured security and global influence, but at the cost of perpetual mistrust and regional turbulence. Dominant manoeuvre may deliver short-term victories and psychological edges, but, as seen in U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, it rarely resolves deep political disputes. Instead, it risks sowing long-term instability.
Domestically, the Israel question fuels polarisation in Pakistan. Pragmatists argue that limited engagement can yield technological and economic gains, while religious and nationalist groups view normalisation as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause which Pakistan has championed historically. Israel’s doctrine thus indirectly destabilises Pakistan’s internal politics, narrowing the space for consensus.
Therefore, the way forward treads through strategic autonomy. Sustaining deterrence will require continuous investment in indigenous defence technologies, cyber capabilities, and nurturing its strategic alliances with states like China and Turkey, Pakistan should focus on strengthening advocacy for just solutions to conflicts like Gaza and even Kashmir. The aim must be to mitigate the ripple effects of Israeli strategy while preserving own national security and moral standing.
To conclude, the world also needs to understand that Israel’s decades-long application of dominant manoeuvre; blending military strikes, intelligence, diplomatic outreach, and technological exports calls for a renewed push to obviate global instability. More and more nations must rise to denounce Israel’s ever-expanding cake walk around the globe at will. The civilised world should confront its consequences by balancing pragmatism with principle, denying a free run to an international bully.
The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at zulfiqar.shirazi @gmail.com