After three years as President Biden’s quiet man on the Pentagon, Protection Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III stepped off his airplane at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on Monday and into the limelight.
It was his second go to to the area since Israel launched a battle in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led terrorist assault on Oct. 7. Throughout conferences and conversations with Israeli officers, Mr. Austin has burdened each the Biden administration’s assist for Israel and issues in regards to the rising Palestinian loss of life toll.
However his message has grow to be extra blunt: Israel, Mr. Austin lately predicted, may face “strategic defeat” that would go away the nation much less safe if it doesn’t do extra to guard civilians.
The warning is one which Mr. Austin is effectively geared up to ship. The retired four-star basic brings a wealth of army expertise in fight, together with city warfare. Early U.S. efforts to focus on the Taliban and insurgents in Afghanistan in 2004. The troop “surge” in Iraq in 2007. The planning to pry Mosul, Iraq, from the fingers of the Islamic State in 2016. Mr. Austin was concerned in all of that.
Because the Biden administration navigates the Gaza disaster, the intensely personal Mr. Austin is taking a outstanding function and likewise revealing extra of himself.
“You understand, I discovered a factor or two about city warfare from my time combating in Iraq and main the marketing campaign to defeat ISIS,” he mentioned in a speech on the Reagan Nationwide Protection Discussion board earlier this month. “The lesson just isn’t that you may win in city warfare by defending civilians. The lesson is that you may solely win in city warfare by defending civilians.”
Republicans criticized the protection secretary for not sounding supportive sufficient of Israel. The day after the speech, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, instructed CNN’s “State of the Union” that Mr. Austin was “naïve,” including “I’ve simply misplaced all confidence on this man.”
However critics of Israel’s bombing marketing campaign say the message is lengthy overdue, because the loss of life toll in Gaza nears 20,000, in keeping with well being officers there.
“This stage of civilian killing and destruction, and the fad it generates, ensures militant recruitment and assist for resistance amongst future generations, each in Palestine and past,” mentioned Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who’s now the president of the U.S./Center East Mission. “That’s an issue for each Israel and the U.S.”
Criticism of how Israel is conducting the battle has grown in latest days after its army mentioned that troopers on Friday unintentionally killed three Israeli hostages held in Gaza. The lads have been holding a makeshift white flag once they have been shot, the army mentioned.
Throughout his earlier journey to Israel, six days after the Hamas assault, Mr. Austin warned his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, and the nation’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, that the massive variety of troops that they had assembled on the border of Gaza, mixed with the air marketing campaign, was extreme.
Israel wanted to ascertain humanitarian corridors and an outlined algorithm to guard Palestinian civilians, he instructed them. The Israel Protection Forces, he mentioned, ought to perform a focused precision air marketing campaign, with restricted numbers of particular operations troops on the bottom to behave rapidly on intelligence leads in regards to the location of senior Hamas leaders.
At some point later, on Oct. 14, he took his warning public. In a Pentagon assertion describing his cellphone name with Mr. Gallant, and in different statements about their calls since then, Mr. Austin raised the problem of civilian casualties.
Mr. Austin’s recommendation comes from each successes and failures of the U.S. army, together with the 1000’s of civilian deaths in American bombing campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Final yr, Mr. Austin ordered the U.S. army to strengthen its efforts to stop civilian deaths in fight operations.
He has additionally urged Israeli leaders to prioritize efforts to get well hostages taken by the group and others on Oct. 7, sending scores of U.S. Particular Operations forces to advise Israeli planners and dispatching MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drones to fly over Gaza to seek for clues in regards to the captives’ areas.
For the reason that battle in Gaza started, Israel has insisted that it’s attempting to restrict civilian casualties in a battle towards a terrorist group that embeds itself among the many inhabitants.
Israeli army officers scaled again their floor marketing campaign considerably. However they didn’t observe Mr. Austin’s steering on utilizing principally precision munitions accompanied by focused particular operations raids, as a substitute persevering with to bombard Gaza with unguided “dumb bombs.”
On Dec. 2, Mr. Austin turned up the stress.
“In this type of a struggle, the middle of gravity is the civilian inhabitants,” he said on the protection discussion board. “And if you happen to drive them into the arms of the enemy, you substitute a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.”
Practically half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has utilized in Gaza have been unguided, in keeping with a U.S. intelligence evaluation, which Pentagon officers say could assist clarify the excessive civilian loss of life toll.
An I.D.F. official acknowledged that the Israeli air power used unguided “dumb bombs” in Gaza however mentioned the U.S. intelligence evaluation was too excessive.
Even the precision-guided munitions that the US army has favored in its campaigns in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan produced excessive civilian casualties. Unguided munitions pose a good better menace to civilians, analysts say.
The USA and Britain used dumb bombs over Dresden, Germany in 1945, killing about 25,000 individuals. However “army doctrine has developed since World Conflict II days, and at this time, the popular doctrine in extremely dense city areas is to do intelligence-led precision strikes with precision munitions, and particular operations forces,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the previous chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees, mentioned in an interview.
“It’s a must to go slower, with better precision, and it’s going to take longer and it’s more durable, however it’s a must to do this — that’s what Austin is attempting to get at,” Normal Milley mentioned. “He’s a soldier. He has expertise in fight operations. He understands the army instrument and the way it is best to use it.”
Chatting with reporters on Monday after conferences in Tel Aviv, Mr. Austin mentioned that U.S. assist for Israel was “unshakable” and that the nation “has each proper to defend itself.”
He added, “As I’ve mentioned, defending Palestinian civilians in Gaza is each an ethical obligation and a strategic crucial.”
In June, Mr. Austin provided recommendation that went unheeded in Ukraine’s battle with Russia. He and different senior Pentagon officers urged their Ukrainian counterparts to pay attention forces of their counteroffensive in a single primary effort to punch by Russian strains. Whereas Ukraine may lose many troops, Mr. Austin mentioned, Ukrainian forces would stand a greater likelihood of reaching the ocean and breaking Russian defenses.
However as a substitute, Ukraine break up up its troops, sending some to the east, and a few to different fronts, together with within the south. The counteroffensive failed, and now U.S. and Ukrainian officers are trying to find a brand new technique to revive Kyiv’s fortunes.
Mr. Austin “clearly was proper, from my perspective,” Adm. Mike Mullen, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees in the course of the George W. Bush and the Obama administrations, mentioned in an interview.
Throughout his time as protection secretary, Mr. Austin, 70, has stored a low-key profile.
It has been greater than a yr since he appeared on the lectern on the Pentagon briefing room to deal with the information media, and he has been identified to typically keep away from reporters who journey with him abroad.
On these journeys, he prefers to dine alone in his resort room when he doesn’t have an engagement with a international counterpart.
For many of his tenure, he was overshadowed by the voluble Normal Milley, whose time period as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees expired on Oct. 1. Now Mr. Austin is teamed with Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who one senior official joked could be the solely particular person on the Pentagon extra restrained than Mr. Austin.
Mr. Austin’s time period has been characterised by his skill to soak up a sequence of nationwide safety crises (the coronavirus pandemic, the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal, Russia and Ukraine, a maintain by Senator Tommy Tuberville on lots of of army nominations). As the primary Black man to run the Pentagon, Mr. Austin has additionally confronted a stream of criticism from pro-Trump Republicans that the Pentagon he leads has grow to be too “woke.”
He hardly ever defends himself towards political critics, and actually, left it to Normal Milley to reply when a Republican congressman complained that the Protection Division was educating vital race idea.
As an alternative, behind the scenes, Mr. Austin pushed on.
When the Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe v. Wade, he put in place a coverage offering paid depart and journey reimbursement to service members needing to journey for reproductive well being care, together with abortions. He made historical past for the Marine Corps, which had by no means earlier than had a Black four-star basic, when he really helpful that Mr. Biden promote Gen. Michael E. Langley to be the pinnacle of Africa Command, a four-star place.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he rapidly put collectively a contact group of protection chiefs from greater than 40 international locations who meet each month to determine army help and assist for Kyiv.
And when the Biden administration sought to woo the Philippines again from China’s embrace, it was Mr. Austin who delivered one thing that President Rodrigo Duterte desperately needed — Covid vaccines — in July 2021.
Mr. Austin walked into a gathering with Mr. Duterte and began chatting about how his father had served within the Philippines throughout World Conflict II, aides mentioned. By the top of the assembly, Mr. Duterte mentioned he would restore an important pact governing the presence of American troops within the Southeast Asian nation.
Now, with the Gaza disaster, Mr. Austin is attempting to carry Israel again from what the Pentagon views as the sting.
In the beginning of the battle, a senior Protection Division official mentioned, the Israelis have been speaking about annihilating Hamas in a approach that Pentagon officers apprehensive would lead to excessive civilian casualties. The official spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of she was not approved to talk publicly.
Throughout his journey to Israel in October, Mr. Austin urged army officers to decelerate. “This can be a time for resolve and never revenge,” Mr. Austin mentioned at a news conference with Mr. Gallant, the Israeli protection minister, at his facet.
Mr. Austin talked in regards to the battle to liberate Mosul and his experiences combating in a fancy city atmosphere, the official mentioned, including that the protection secretary spoke of Israeli forces combating the “proper approach.”
Extra vital, Mr. Austin is worried that Israel’s bombing marketing campaign is driving extra Palestinians towards extremism.
In delivering that message to Israeli officers this week, Mr. Austin “is speaking to them not on an ethical stage, however on a really sensible stage,” Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who heads the Armed Companies Committee, mentioned in an interview. “He’s saying, ‘If you wish to simply lash out, effectively, that may purchase you a while, however it gained’t purchase you victory.’ ”
Gen. Joseph L. Votel, who succeeded Mr. Austin at Central Command in the course of the Islamic State marketing campaign, mentioned that Mr. Austin discovered the significance of minimizing civilian casualties the exhausting approach.
“President Karzai known as us on the carpet time after time, and in the end we needed to fully change the best way we have been working,” Normal Votel mentioned, referring to the previous Afghan chief, Hamid Karzai. “In the end we went from attempting to go straight into individuals’s homes to moving into and simply surrounding them, and calling individuals out.”
Mr. Austin, Normal Votel mentioned, is aware of that for the I.D.F., it’s “by no means ever too late to vary.”