The Diffusion of Strategies of Atrocity

Photo: A student wrapped in an Israeli flag listens to Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on campus at the University of Texas at Austin, on April 30, 2024, in Austin, Texas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly accused critics of Israel or his policies of antisemitism, including the U.S. college campus protests and the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

       Congresswoman Elise Stafanik, May 19, 2024

Others will now use the same strategies that Hamas has proven to be effective. Even if the Israelis do eventually achieve victory, Hamas’ success has shown the world that strategies of atrocity generate sympathy and restraint from the West, rather than provoking the use of decisive and overwhelming force. Soon other actors will initiate the deliberate use of atrocities to provoke the use of violence that imposes costs on their own non-combatant populations, and then to leverage the losses among these populations to extract concessions from Western governments.

Consider the southern border:  The immigration policies of the United States remain unenforced; the border wall remains incomplete; the public grows dissatisfied with the welfare benefits (here, here, here) extended to illegal immigrants; Americans have become horrified by violent crimes perpetrated by illegal immigrants on citizens; and the residents of the United States deplore how the cartels smuggle narcotics – invented, improved and produced with Chinese support – across what is, in effect, an open border. 

On the Mexican side of the border, powerful, armed gangs have displayed no hesitation in deploying rape, murder, and hostage taking.  If a future administration cracks down on the sources of cartel revenue – drug and people smuggling – expect a response; adversaries learn, adapt, and seek the benefits of strategic surprise.

What if the cartels decide to take a page out of the successful Hamas playbook? US citizens in Mexico  are obvious targets in any confrontation. Many American citizens live in Mexico, including large concentrations in the tourist towns on the coasts – which have, on occasion, become battlegrounds among the various cartels.  US companies have expanded significantly in Guadalajara and across Mexico in recent years, in response to sanctions against China. It is easy to imagine a Mexican government, with Chinese backing, siding informally with the cartels by extorting money before aiding the United States to secure the border, stop illegal immigration, and obtain the release of hostages.

Certainly, any campaign of kidnapping, rape, or other attacks on Americans and assets, especially if it were backed or ignored by an indifferent Mexican government, would tempt a US government into direct kinetic action to recover threatened citizens and suppress the cartels. And that is where the strategy of atrocity comes into play – any such attacks would certainly provoke protests and unrest, with progressive Americans objecting to a renewal of what they would see as colonialist and imperialist violence against Mexico. All the same arguments and propaganda being deployed against Israel would be deployed against the United States, including accusations of unnecessary civilian casualties, violations of the laws of war, attacks on schools and hospitals, disproportionality, and denial of aid to civilians.

This pattern – atrocity, counterattack, and then an appeal to progressive elements within the polity of the attacked state on the basis of comparative military weakness and poverty – will be played out elsewhere over the coming years.

The positive press and demonstrations in favor of Hamas in the West have shown that certain Western progressives are eager to support terror attacks on the West. Given the success of Hamas in generating pressure on the Biden administration, recent events in the Levant are unlikely to stay in the Levant.

Michael Hochberg earned his PhD in Applied Physics from Caltech. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University and the President of Periplous LLC, which provides advisory services on strategy, technology, and organization design. He co-founded four companies, representing an exit value over a billion dollars in aggregate, spent some time as a tenured professor, and started the world’s first silicon photonics foundry service. His publications include a co-authored, widely used textbook on silicon photonics and his articles have appeared in Science, Nature, National Review, The Hill, American Spectator, RealClearDefense, Fast Company, Naval War College Review, etc. Michael’s writings can be found at longwalls.substack.com, and his twitter is @TheHochberg.

Leonard Hochberg is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and serves as the Coordinator of the Mackinder Forum-U.S. (www.mackinderforum.org). He taught at Stanford University (among other institutions), was a Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and co-founded Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (i.e., STRATFOR). He has published work in Social Science History, Historical Methods, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Orbis, National Review, The Hill, American Spectator, RealClearDefense, Cartographica, Naval War College Review, etc. Len earned his PhD in political theory and European history from Cornell University.