This article explains why the Israeli Army—despite Israel’s economic strength and material superiority—struggles to translate battlefield success into decisive victory, in stark contrast to 1967. The core claim is institutional: over the past decades a welfare-state political economy, the diffusion of real power to unelected legal-bureaucratic actors, and the internalization of expansive “international norms” (notably proportionality as understood by military lawyers) have reshaped incentives, leadership selection, and rules of engagement in ways that privilege risk-averse legality over victory. The paper concludes with suggestion of reforms to re-center victory on territorial defeat and replacement of hostile regimes/social infrastructures, to re-scope military law and enforcement. The paper also suggests to reconsider attitude to hostages and reduce dependence on foreign actors.