Faced by threats from Iran and her proxies, the Israelis can't even count on the standard logic of deterrence, which is built upon the assumption of self-preservation. That might work if your enemy is North Korea -who's elite are enjoying life/perks- but Israel's enemies are mostly genocidal kooks who can't wait to die for the cause, from Tehran all the way down to the ground in southern Lebanon/Gaza...
So while Hezbollah may have as many as '100,000 rockets' from Iran, they can only launch a limited # of them per day, while Israel could rain-down thousands of missiles and smart bombs on southern Lebanon, setting back Hezbollah capabilities 'by decades' while they struggle to perhaps fire off a few rounds towards Israeli population centers.
To enable this strategy, Israel is currently in the midst of a radical air-power expansion that has brought a 4x increase in her striking power over the span of just two years:
The firepower of the Israel Air Force (IAF) will be four times greater by year’s end than it was two years ago, according to its commander, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, enabling Israel to bring another round of fighting with Hezbollah to a swift end.
“We can destroy [Hezbollah’s] military capabilities and the infrastructure that supports its activities on a scale that would take decades to rebuild,” he told a conference on national security, “an unimaginable scale”. ...
Eshel acknowledged that Hezbollah now has precision rocketry capable of hitting Israel’s northernmost air force base and to interfere with operations. However, he said, it would not diminish the IAF’s offensive capabilities, which can be projected from other bases as well. ...
The use of precision munitions and upgraded intelligence, based in part on satellites, accounts in good part for the increase in the IAF’s effective firepower... the air force could carry out thousands of accurate strikes in a single day.
By the end of this year, the air force will be able accomplish in 24 hours what it took three days to accomplish in the war with Hezbollah eight years ago...
And if the Lebanese national government -and Army- get involved? It's now pretty much controlled by Hezbollah anyway, so it's not hard to envision the entire country dragged into a war with Israel. And which side would Obama take? Good question!
Yet this would probably be a grave error for the Lebanese, as already back in 2010 Israel had fully prepared a plan for the IDF to wipe the entire Lebanese military off face of the Earth in just four hours... one can only assume they're still ready to do that -and more- if circumstances demand it.
