The Jewish–Arab conflict and the fighting it engenders began before the establishment of the state of Israel and has been a constant of Middle-Eastern politics for over a hundred years. The intensity of the fighting has fluctuated but the variations have been like a jazz tune that plays around a common constant central theme. Because of the continuity and longevity of the conflict, as well as various short-term issues affecting it, each strategic event is analysed by the rival decision makers according to three separate time factors: the immediate – how to achieve the best result and terminate the specific event as quickly as possible; the medium term – how the current event results from the trend of the past few years and will affect that trend favourably over the next few years; and lastly the long term – how the results of the specific current event and the current trend it belongs to fits into the overall conflict and will favourably affect its future direction. Of course, the ‘best strategic result’ and ‘favourable strategic effect’ are different for each participant. The purpose of this chapter is to explore and describe the characteristics of the conflict as a whole and the major theme of the Israeli strategic responses to them, while touching on various shifts in trends or specific events that required fundamental changes in the melodies or temporary improvisations.

All too often, the terms terrorism and insurgency are used interchangeably, just like tactics and strategy. But terrorism is indeed a tactic while insurgency is a strategy, and the two concepts are far from synonymous. This chapter details the differences between terrorism and insurgency, and hence, terrorists and insurgents, by tracing the evolution of each of these terms and placing them in the proper context, while providing numerous examples of terrorist chieftains and insurgent leaders, and how these individuals thought about strategy over time. The chapter will also investigate the considerable overlap between terrorism and insurgency. After all, militants pursuing an insurgent strategy may seek to use terrorism as a tactic toward achieving their objectives. Size can be a useful distinguishing characteristic, because terrorist groups often consist of a small number of individuals. By contrast, insurgent organisations, such as Lebanese Hizballah or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), number in the thousands. Indeed, many of the most important ‘terrorist’ groups in the world – including Lebanese Hizballah, LTTE, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – are better described as insurgencies that use terrorism than as typical terrorist movements.

This chapter offers an overview of the strategic environment and grand strategies employed by the Ming and Qing dynasties. It discusses how they built upon pre-existing strategic traditions while also incorporating new technologies and tactics to expand the empire, creating a sophisticated state capable of responding to a dazzling array of challenges. The chapter not only delineates the nature of the strategic threats faced by the last Chinese empires, but also covers the extensive primary source materials demonstrating how imperial leadership and personal networks operated alongside institutions to create an effective grand-strategy paradigm allowing the Ming and Qing to retain their superiority in east Asia for some five centuries. Finally, this overview of late imperial grand strategy offers clues into how China still perceives the world and its strategic goals in Asia.