Wednesday, November 15th, 2023 at 12 PM ET
In his recent essay published in Mosaic Magazine, The Hidden Calculation Behind the Yom Kippur War, historian and foreign policy expert Michael Doran provides an in-depth analysis of mistakes made not just by the Israeli government but also by U.S. policy that led to Golda Meir’s fateful decision to not conduct a pre-emptive attack that may have ultimately saved Israeli lives. Doran observes that upon the surprise attack by Egyptian and Syrian forces, “It suddenly became clear that Israel’s assumptions about its own strength, the character of its enemies, and the fundamental shape of the modern battlefield were erroneous.” Fast forward to the Hamas war that shocked Israel and the world on October 7th, and once again it appears that Israel’s assumptions were once again inaccurate. Join us for an insightful conversation with Michael Doran on perhaps parallel mistakes in the lead-up to Hamas’ attack to those that occurred prior to the Yom Kippur war, U.S. policy that both contributed to those mistakes and that may impair Israel’s full ability to fight this war to the win, and lessons that may be learned in order to prevent future war.
About the Speaker: Michael Doran is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at Hudson Institute. He specializes in Middle East security issues and co-hosts the Counterbalance podcast.
In the administration of President George W. Bush, Doran served in the White House as a senior director in the National Security Council, where he was responsible for helping to devise and coordinate United States strategies on a variety of Middle East issues, including Arab-Israeli relations and US efforts to contain Iran and Syria. He also served in the Bush administration as a senior advisor in the State Department and a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Pentagon.
Born in Kokomo, Indiana, Doran went to elementary school in Carmel, outside of Indianapolis, before his family moved to Fullerton, California, where he graduated from Sunny Hills High School. He received a BA from Stanford University and an MA and PhD in Near Eastern studies from Princeton University.
Before coming to Hudson, Doran was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has also held teaching positions at New York University, Princeton University, and the University of Central Florida. His latest book, Ike’s Gamble, was published by Free Press in 2016. He appears frequently on television, and has published extensively in Foreign Affairs, the American Interest, Commentary, Mosaic, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
