The Wednesday Letter #189 – 10/11/2023

THIS WEEK: The New Way of War; A Few Facts About Gaza; Energy M&A; The Whisperer; S&P Sectors Update; GeoReads #8 Special Israel-Hamas; Tweets and Charts.

THE NEW WAY OF WAR

The massacre and rampage that took place in southern Israel highlight the effectiveness of non-state or small-state actors at killing civilians of much larger states. When the mission is not to gain territory but to kill people in large quantities, a relatively small group can cause enormous damage. In the past, small states and non-state actors were exposed to severe retaliation by the vastly superior security services or armies of larger sovereign states. But today ingenuity and technology have eroded the sovereign advantage. This leads to questions of how effective the Israeli army will be in a ground battle inside Gaza and how vulnerable a US carrier strike group will be to guided drones and missiles.

Israel has mobilized 300,000 reservists in a very short time but its enemies could potentially field greater armies of Muslim believers who are willing to die in an effort to recapture Jerusalem. In this context, we should view the Hamas attack not only as Israel's 9…