94 THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
PART ONE: ISRAELI RMA
The “Unconscious” RMA (1973–1991)
The story of the Israeli RMA starts on the battlefields in 1973, when doubts
were raised about the credibility of the IDF’s concept of operations. In Particular,
t wo problems were highlighted: t he low ability of t he IDF to c onduct
combined arms operations, and the problem of the saturated battlefield. The
latter resulted in high rates of attrition and significantly restricted operational
maneuver, leaving no possibility for decisive breakthrough battle.1
The efficacy
of the traditional cult of the offensive began to appear reckless.2
Hampered by
numerous obstacles, the combined arms approach matured gradually in the
decade that followed.3
The issue of the saturated battlefield, however, created
serious dissonance in Israeli military thought.
Inasmuch as static defense totally discredited itself in 1973, the notion of
opting for reactive defense emerged. During the late 1970s, Saadia Amiel, scientific
advisor to the minister of defense, argued that recent achievements in
microelectronics and particularly on stand-off PGMs might be the most suitable
means to this end. It was his view that while these advanced technologies
were no panacea, they had the potential to enable on-time assessment of threats,
real- time battlefield intelligence, swift target acquisition, efficient command
and control, and precision fire strike.4
His views found support among a select
few5
but were not adopted by the Israeli defense establishment. The conventional
wisdom posited that a transformation to defensive doctrine would
signal to t he enemy that the IDF had n o intention to i nvade their territory.
This, it was argued, would decrease deterrence capability and would motivate
the enemy to invest massively in building offensive measures. Israeli decision
makers assumed that even if based on a remarkable PGM arsenal, defensive
military doctrine would not be able to stop enemy waves. Intelligence, communication,
a nd w eaponry s ystems ba sed o n s tate-of-the-art te chnologies
were procured, but neither doctrine nor force structure of the IDF underwent
any significant change.6
The IDF’s brilliantly orchestrated suppression of the Syrian air defenses in
the Bekaa Valley demonstrated this dual approach, when advanced technologies
were used in a revolutionary manner, without effecting a major change in
the IDF’s concept of operations. Lessons learned by the Israeli Air Force (IAF)
after 1973 brought significant techno-tactical innovation—an exclusive development
of the defense industries and the IAF. The IDF improved combined
THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS 95
arms coordination, capabilities for dissemination of target intelligence, command
and control, and precision fire.7
In summer 1982, Syria introduced mobile
and static SAMs into the Bekaa Valley, and created a d aunting tactical
situation for the IDF. Syrian deployment threatened Israeli air superiority and
restricted t he ability to c onduct reconnaissance, i nterdiction, a nd close a ir
support missions. Once the decision to engage the Syrian air-defense deployment
was made, the IAF executed an attack based on the most advanced weaponry.
In the first two hours of the battle, the IAF destroyed nineteen SAM batteries,
and in the next few hours shot down more than twenty enemy MIGs,
without losing even a single airplane. On about 1,500 square miles of airspace,
the IDF executed paramount intelligence collection, target acquisition, command
and control, and real-time data dissemination to precision-guided standoff
fire capabilities. Simultaneously the IDF jammed most of the Syrian ground
communication a nd c onducted el ectronic c ountermeasures a gainst r adars
that were subsequently destroyed by anti-radar missiles. The knockout of the
Syrian air and air-defense forces utilized t he most revolutionary electronic
and i nformation w arfare c apabilities. The re al-time b attlefield p icture w as
produced by the data fusion from the airborne surveillance radar, remotely
piloted a nd u nmanned flying vehicles, w hich monitored t he a rea u ninterruptedly.
In the final stages of the battle, the IAF attacked Syrian armor with
laser-guided missiles. The information was disseminated in real time, while
sensors, c ommand a nd c ontrol, a nd shooters operated a s one orchestrated
whole.8
The Isr aeli c utting-edge weapons a nd te chnologies were s o revolutionary
that the superpowers had not yet produced, let alone deployed, analogous
equipment.9
The IAF had, in Soviet MTR terminology, operated as a
gigantic, combined arms reconnaissance-strike complex. In American terms,
Israeli conduct could be dubbed R MA-NCW-type battle par excellence, because
i t t ailored i ntelligence a nd t arget ac quisition s ystems, c ommand a nd
control elements, and precision stand-off fire into one integrated system and
uninterruptedly i mplemented real-time s ensor-to-shooter loops, for a r elatively
prolonged period of time.10
Despite the successful execution of this innovative approach, the experience
did not produce any revolutionary transformation in the IDF’s concept
of operations.11
Paradoxically, the Lebanon war led the IDF to favor quantity
over examining conceptual, qualitative leaps forward.12
Technologies and concepts
of operation from summer 1982 were f urther developed in t he IAF
but became a sectarian, tactical innovation, with no significant impact on the
96 THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
concepts of operation of other corps, let alone GS. During most of the 1980s,
the GS hardly had time to dedicate to the question of revolutionary implications
of t he 1982 IAF success.13
Although pioneers in technology implementation,
the IDF did not produce any significant leap forward in its vision
of the future war and concept of operations.14
Israel regarded the Bekaa
battle as a successful synthesis of advanced technology and creative operational
improvisation—the essence of its qualitative edge.15
Thus, during most of the
1980s, state-of-the-art intelligence, communication, and precision fire systems
were procured, without changing doctrine and organizational structure whatsoever.
If new operation problems evolved, they were usually solved through
additional force and sophisticated technological improvements.16
The question of doctrine effectiveness was raised in the 1980s, under the
impact, among other reasons, of the Wald Report. This internal report criticized
the IDF approach to force buildup and defined its offensive concept of
operations based on the armor and air force, and the doctrine of static defense
as anachronistic and counterproductive. As a result, significant professional
debate a bout f orce b uildup ga thered mo mentum i n t he I DF b etween t wo
groups, broadly defined as “traditionalists” and “reformers.”17
Traditionalists
went along with the conventional wisdom. In future war, they argued, Arab
armies equipped with vast amounts of modern weaponry would try to impose
on Israel a war of attrition. To counterbalance Israeli “weakness” to wage a prolonged
campaign, they proposed the reliance on a traditional swift offensive
that would bring battlefield decision, and criticized defense as a negative form
of battle. Preventive offensive was seen as preferable over even the shortest
defense. Tanks coordinated with airpower, and assisted by other corps, were
seen as an ideal means for maneuvering, attacking, and capturing and controlling
territory. Driven by this line of thought, “traditionalists” saw in the
huge armor formations the backbone of future force. They demanded a s ophistication
of the iron fists of the IDF that would bring the offensive deep
into the enemy rear. They did not ignore new technologies; they saw in them
promising force and protection multipliers against enemy countermeasures.18
The reformers offered an alternative for the offensive breakthrough battle,
which they regarded with skepticism. Instead of breaking through an almost
impenetrable Arab defense, they proposed exhausting enemy forces and inflicting
heavy losses in the front and in the rear by using air force, navy, and special
operations forces and by capitalizing on Israeli superiority in stand-off PGM,
command and control systems, and target acquisition capabilities. They argued
THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS 97
that by utilizing a qualitative edge in technology and human skills, and embarking
on the defensive concept of operations, Israel could attain significant
strategic b enefits. Subs equent en velopment ma neuvers a gainst a w eakened
enemy would be far less impressive than the victory in 1967 but would minimize
attrition rates.19
The debate between the two groups expanded beyond the IDF and rose to
a national level. In 1987, Dan Meridor from the Foreign and Defense Affairs
Committee of the Knesset recommended gradually decreasing the traditional
armored force and injecting free resources into the massive procurement of
stand- off PGMs. This, the committee concluded, would create qualitative asymmetry
in favor of Israel. Minister of Defense Yitzhak Rabin was open to t he
proposals of the reformers; he was reluctant, however, to discredit the offensive
military doctrine. Thus, seizing the middle ground between the two schools of
thought, Rabin chose to develop and to procure new weaponry, but to incorporate
it in the existing force structure and concept of operations, without effecting
any changes whatsoever in the architecture of Israeli military power.20
Additional imperatives pushed toward further transformation, when the
confluence of several political, social, and economic developments began to
redefine the Israeli approach to military affairs in the early 1990s and led to
a search for alternative solutions to p reserving Israeli military power.21
The
peace process and the future return of the territories to Arab states potentially
nullified Israeli operational depth and made t he traditional instinct for preventive
strike and taking the war to enemy soil problematic. Under these geostrategic
changes, the IDF was compelled to look for doctrinal alternatives to
preserve Israeli security.22
In addition, Israel was incrementally transformed
from a collectivist society to an individualist market economy with a higher
priority placed on nonsecurity issues and a reluctance to spend excessively on
defense. Under liberalization of the Israeli society, the idealistic zeal of both
recruits and reservists to invest time and energy decreased dramatically, and
voices for abandonment of universal military service were heard. Economically,
massive procurement of high-tech weaponry became extremely expensive
in terms of training and compensation of the force that operated them. In
tandem with the above processes, lessons from American military conduct in
the first Gulf War began to permeate the Israeli vision. Desert Storm offered,
in the view of many Israeli experts, an example of a major advance in “sophisticated
conventional warfare” a nd demonstrated how advanced technology
may revolutionize war.23
98 THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
In light of these social and geopolitical changes, and under the influence of
the American experience, the Israeli military establishment started to contemplate
the notion that big military and advanced technologies might be mutually
exclusive, and that the best way to exploit the full potential of modern weaponry
would be a small, sophisticated and professional force. In the process of digesting
lessons from the 1991Gulf campaign, the IDF gradually assimilated the idea
that offensive mobility on its own was not an ultimate solution for the modern
battlefield.24
One after another, Israeli chiefs of the GS proclaimed their intent
to transform the IDF into a “small and smart military.”25
Their ideas strongly
echoed the arguments of the “reformers,” who called for defensively oriented
doctrine, and recreated a wave of attacks on the traditional security paradigm.
The reformers argued in favor of destroying the enemy deep inside its territory
without crossing international borders, and maneuvering precision fire in place
of heavy forces.26
Mostly from outside the IDF, experts examined the interrelation
of stand-off PGMs, advanced sensors, target acquisition and C4I systems,
UAVs, electronic and information warfare systems,27
and their impact on the
nature of warfare.28
Under the rubric of “the future battlefield,” they analyzed
how operational and strategic visions could be reassessed under the impact of
these new technologies when linked to a creative concept of operations.29
The overall influence of this conceptual debate about the changing nature
of warfare on the defense establishment was incremental. However, as an institution,
the IDF made only piecemeal attempts to comprehend the emerging
security regime and to transform itself along those lines.30
Because of the intellectual
conservatism and lack of relevant organizational framework, the
IDF was unable to put these concepts together in a coherent form and to translate
the abstract theoretical ideas into concrete military reforms. It was integrating
technological advances into existing organizations and routines, rather
than experimenting with radically different concepts. The acceleration of the
Israeli RMA depended on the personalities involved, no less than on the changes
in the strategic environment. Not until the time when a g roup of reformers
determined to i mplement these ideas institutionalized itself in the IDF was
the Israeli RMA put into motion.31
In contrast to “civilian” reformers outside
the IDF, who mostly criticized the “offense and heavy” orientation of the IDF
doctrine, “insiders” argued that lack of developed military thought and operational
cognition produced this conceptual myopia. During the 1990s, three
elements were introduced simultaneously into Israeli military praxis: a concept
of operational art, a unique methodology for the analysis of military opera-
THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS 99
tions, a nd acknowledgment of t he R MA. These t hree elements became organically
interconnected: by utilizing new methodology, the IDF embarked
on organizational and conceptual RMA innovation and treated it as development
of the Israeli version of operational art. All three elements were introduced
by the same small group of “insiders.”
An Acknowledgment of the RMA: Crafting the Israeli
Operational Art
Serious s tudy o f t he R MA, a nd i ntroduction o f t his c oncept i nto m ilitary
praxis, got under way inside the IDF with the establishment of the Advanced
Operational Group, later upgraded to t he Operational Theory Research Institute
(OTRI). In the early 1990s, several retired Israeli generals and academics
in the IDF military college came to the conclusion that, occasional display
of operational insight notwithstanding, the IDF totally lacked operational
thinking—an essential domain of knowledge between tactics and strategy. This
void, according to the group, resulted in the conservative approach of Israeli
military thought and prevented adaptation of the IDF to emerging technological
and geopolitical realities. Short of operational cognition, the IDF lacked
the intellectual milieu for systematic thinking about organizational structure
and concept of operations. The group resembled the above-mentioned “reformers”
and criticized both the form (the lack of an intellectual approach) and the
essence (the doctrine’s irrelevancy) of the Israeli military praxis. They criticized
t he idealization of a t actical offensive excellence, as opposed to t he
development of a proper theory of war based on operational logic. According
to them, tactical excellence in armor warfare diverted professional awareness
from broader a spects of t he t heory behind operational ma neuvering. They
stressed the predominant tendency among IDF commanders to perceive the
desired outcome of any combat activity as “mechanical destruction of opposing
force.” They c riticized t raditional a rmored o ffensive ma neuvers, w hich
could neither deter nor prevent the threat of a surface-to-surface attack on the
Israeli rear or low-intensity conflict.32
The group sought to embark on scientific research to fill these voids, and its
intention was approved by the GS in 1994. OTRI saw itself as a think-tank and
consultancy for the development of an Israeli version of operational art; as an
“experiment laboratory” for innovative concepts and doctrines; and, finally,
as an “educational order” that would enlighten the IDF commanders to think
critically and systematically about military affairs.33
The institute became the
100 THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
“knowledge authority” of the IDF in the decade that followed, and its influence
grew tremendously, along with the improvement of its bureaucratic position
within the military. The first educational activity for senior IDF officers,
known as the Advanced Operational Course (KOMEM), was approved by the
GS i n 1995 and conducted t he following year. By 1997 t he C entral a nd t he
Southern Commands employed the conceptual tools offered by OTRI, and by
2000 t he GS itself cultivated and disseminated the institute’s ideas in the IDF.
The intellectual engines of OTRI were Brig. Gen. (ret.) Shimon Naveh, who led
the institute alternately with Brig. Gens. (ret.) Dov Tamari and Zvi Lanir. The
institute stood behind most of the organizational and conceptual transformation
that gathered momentum within the IDF in the subsequent decade.34
In
its activities OTRI advanced along two vectors: operational art, as a major research
interest, and general systems theory, as a major methodology of inquiry
and conceptualization.35
The methodological credo of OTRI included theories
from architectural design and postmodernism. The quintessence of these concepts
served as the intellectual basis for the formulation of the IDF Concept of
Operations— the codified version of the Israeli variation on the RMA theme.36
Until the early 1990s, similar to the situation in the US prior to the 1980s,
the importance of the operational level was absent from professional cognition
of the IDF.37
Filling this void, OTRI was inspired by two theories of modern
military thought: the Soviet theory of Deep Operations and the American
doctrine of the Air-Land Battle. Because the latter was seen by OTRI as an
American emulation and adaptation of t he former, Soviet works on operational
art became the yardstick of theoretical excellence38
and the intellectual
fundament for Isr aeli e xperts.39
They s aw t he S oviet ter minology a s much
more advanced and rich than any Western analogue,40
and applied it extensively
to interpret Israeli military affairs and doctrine.41
After 2000 t he documents
and memoranda written in the GS, as well as the professional jargon of
Israeli senior officers, included a significant quantity of terms borrowed from
the Soviet military lexicon. OTRI experts saw the Soviet and the American
doctrines a s methodologically identical: b oth recognized the e xistence of
operational art; both developed “harmonious patterns of thought and action
in an environment saturated with contradictions”; both had put away “a mechanistic
approach aimed at the destruction of enemy’s forces” and had chosen a
“systemic approach seeking to disrupt the rival system’s operational rationale.”42
OTRI proposed to emulate this approach for the development of Israeli operational
doctrine. This methodology envisioned the enemy as a multidimen-
THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS 101
sional system, whose ability should be neutralized by: fragmentation strike,
which isolated an enemy’s military subsystem from the strategic supersystem
and disrupted its consolidating logic; simultaneity, which coordinated actions
across the spectrum of operations, to sh ock and paralyze an enemy system;
and momentum, exploitation of the synergetic effect produced by fragmentation
and simultaneity, in order to den y the opposing system response time,
ultimately causing it to break down.43
Israeli experts argued that the Soviets and the Americans had succeeded
in making this conceptual leap forward, thanks to adaptation of the systemic
thinking approach. Conceptualization of warfare in general systems language
provided, according to OTRI, the most relevant analytical lenses to deal with
a complex and chaotic operational environment. They believed that this theory
would enable translation of abstract strategic directives into mechanical
tactical missions, and vice versa—linking all the tactical engagements together
to achieve the strategic goal.44
The battlefield decision, according to this school
of thought, was not necessarily occupation of territory or destruction of enemy
forces in an integral battle of annihilation, but neutralization of an enemy
system’s logic by the triple operational strike described above.45
According
to Israeli experts, this logic was applicable to both low- and high-intensity
conflicts,46
and the digitalization and extension of the battlefield in the RMA
era only multiplied the relevance of this approach.47
After the mid-1990s most
of the Israeli senior officers went through KOMEM, an educational course offered
by OTRI. The curriculum consisted of four major thematic blocks: operational
art, based on the works of the Soviet theoreticians; structure of paradigmatic
changes, epistemology and dialectics; systems theory and cybernetics;
and space perception.48
The graduates of their educational activities were seen
by OTRI as soldier-philosophers who would become agents of influence inside
the senior level of the IDF.49
OTRI experts presumed that the main asset of future military forces would
be the ability to rapidly evolve knowledge, and they sought to provide the IDF
commanders with unique, systematic reasoning capabilities. The methodology
produced by OTRI was a mixture of general systems, chaos, and architecture
t heories, a nd p ostmodern app roaches f rom v arious ac ademic fields.50
OTRI experts saw rationalism, scientism, and objectivity, where formal logic
reduced the perception of the world to its elementary forms in order to pinpoint
causality, as irrelevant mechanical reductionism. Like postmodernists,
they maintained that reality is an organic, nonlinear, complex, self-organizing,
102 THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
dynamic system of interacting items, where chaos exists side by side w ith
order. Warfare was seen as chaotic engagement between two systems and as
an ephemeral accumulation of events, where each situation was different and
unique, and open to a v ariety of interpretations. OTRI argued that military
organizations, with their hierarchical, linear mind-set, tend to perceive complexity
as a simple system, applying a “one doctrine fits all,” mechanical approach.
O TRI o ffered to g rasp reality i n its totality a nd i nternal dy namic,
without reducing its complexity. To adapt military doctrine to the uncertain
and changing reality, they legitimized subjective knowledge in context as the
only tool to cope with complex issues. To achieve this goal, OTRI’s methodology
adv ocated conceptualization—developing a n in vented l anguage t o e xplain
observed phenomena in the given context.51
It did not accurately represent
an observed phenomenon but made heuristic interpretations about it.52
OTRI saw the traditional IDF approach to “estimation of situation” as mechanical
and irrelevant for operational and strategic planning.53
Conceptualization,
in its turn, would enable interpretation of blurred political directives, and
their translation into effective operational campaign planning. Conceptualization
was expected to enable “discourse”—a dialogue between the political echelon
and the operational and tactical level of command, where everyone would
be able to interpret intentions and orders of others.54
The ideas generated during
the discourse were presented in “knowledge maps,” and the insights were translated
into operational directives and orders.55
OTRI trained the IDF commanders
to see themselves as “operational architects”—to interpret and to conceptualize
c ombat en vironments u sing t he l anguage o f a vant-garde a rchitectural
schools and works on urbanism, cybernetics, and psychology. It was OTRI’s
belief that the logic of these disciplines offered greater facility for interpreting
situations than did traditional military terminology. Theoretical texts considered
essential readings were works by Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Christopher
Alexander, Gregory Bateson, Clifford Geertz, and Bernard Tschumi. The
language used by senior Israeli commanders in this period resonated strongly
with the architectural literature. For example, urban warfare in April 2002 was
described by the Israeli commanders as “inverse geometry.”56
OTRI’s ideas spread across the IDF rapidly. In 1998, the head of the Central
Command, Moshe Ya’alon, coping with challenges in the Palestinian arena,
substituted “estimation of situation” with a new alternative methodology. The
Central Command invented its own tools, language, and concepts to examine
phenomena, t rends, a nd o ccurrences b eyond t he t actical d imension of t he
THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS 103
conflict.57
This new methodology moved to the Southern Command, then to
the GS, and from there it was disseminated throughout the IDF, including the
Research and Analysis Directorate of Military Intelligence. When Ya’alon became
the chief of the GS, he turned the “conceptualization” and “discourse”
process into “a main axis of the GS estimation of situation.”58
Ya’alon s aw
this methodology as a to ol for generating a c onceptual and organizational
revolution in the IDF that would introduce new military knowledge into the
intellectual vacuum on the operational level.59
When in the mid-1990s the American theoretical RMA debate had evolved
into the all-encompassing military reform, the Israeli Ministry of Defense decided
to cooperate on this issue with its US colleagues. ONA was identified as a
main intellectual and bureaucratic engine of that process in the US, and designated
as a counterpart. OTRI was chosen as the most relevant Israeli partner.60
The first encounter between the RMA theoreticians from the two countries took
place in 1997 in Israel. Its goal was to expose each side to the other’s professional
vision of the changing nature of war. American experts headed by Andrew Marshall
presented the main postulates of the American approach to t he RMA.61
OTRI and the Doctrine and Training Unit of the GS (TOHAD) observed the
changing security and technological environment, recognized the necessity of
embarking on a profound organizational and conceptual reform, and presented
a new methodology for the development of Israeli military thought and operational
art.62
The Israelis did not accept the term RMA in its pure American form,
having found some of its aspects irrelevant to t he operational realities of the
IDF.63
However, the RMA concept on the whole was found extremely relevant
for emulation. Israelis who participated in the meeting saw themselves as the
architects of the Israeli version of the RMA. Although differences of interpretation
were in evidence, both delegations acknowledged that the emerging transformation
in the nature of war should be reflected in the organization and concept
of operation of the two militaries. It was agreed that in subsequent years the
experts of the two countries would be in constant touch, for adaptive, mutual
learning.64
The subsequent contacts, workshops, and scientific seminars on military
theory, innovation, and experimentation with the ONA65
became one of
the most important sources of intellectual influence on the builders of the Israeli
RMA concept. The concept of RMA and, later, the US Defense Transformation
were presented by OTRI as the main frame of reference for similar processes in
the IDF.66
Israeli conceptual reform, which resulted in a new Concept of Operations,
was deeply influenced by the US Defense Transformation.
104 THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
Following the first meeting with ONA, the Israeli participants started to
cultivate an intellectual climate in the IDF that would foster acceptance of the
RMA.67
About a year prior to the first meeting with the Americans, when interest
in the topic of the R MA became officially established at the IDF, the
Doctrine and Training Division, influenced by OTRI, started to translate and
to disseminate historical and theoretical works on the Soviet MTR, the American
ALB, and the American RMA, which aimed to f ulfill educational lacunae
in the theoretical knowledge of IDF officers.68
Simultaneously, an unprecedented
number of professional publications on various conceptual aspects
of operational art appeared,69
including applications of smart munitions and
information technology on t he operational le vel.70
Articles translated from
En glish reflected the American vision of the R MA new theory of victory.71
Following the first encounter with ONA, the opening volume of Ma’arachot in
1998 was fully dedicated to t he RMA72
and its implications for Israel.73
This
theoretical knowledge about diagnostics and changes in the nature of war was
designated a s a n essential i ntellectual foundation for formulating t he Israeli
version of the operational art. In subsequent years manifestation of the American
RMA during the conflict in Kosovo was vigorously discussed in the IDF.
Technological and conceptual lessons from the American campaign significantly
influenced the Israeli visions of modern war, especially in terms of smart
munitions and the role of airpower in the modern battlefield.74
It became obvious
that technological, political, and social changes made t he existing paradigm
of military operations obsolete and that there was a need to invent a new
system of explanations. However, in 1997, OTRI experts, paraphrasing Thom as
Kuhn, argued that in terms of the RMA the IDF was in a stage of the epistemological
crisis—one step before emergence of a new paradigm.75
The New Concept of Operations: Theory and Practice
In the late 1990s the IDF higher command had realized that the combat paradigm
of the IDF had l ost its relevance for the emerging assortment of scenarios
a nd t hreats. The n eed f or a n ew c oncept o f o perations a rose f rom
strategic changes in the region, diversification of the balance of threats, budget
cuts, advanced technological capabilities, and the influence of the American
R MA’s ideas about the changes in the nature of warfare. Synthesizing
between two sources of intellectual inspirations (Deep Battle of the Soviet
operational art and the US ALB) and elaborating on the methodology of general
systems theory, OTRI started to ma ke radical proposals for organiza-
THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS 105
tional and conceptual changes in the IDF, beginning in the late 1990s. The
most central recommendation demanded the formulation of an operational
doctrine that would serve as a coherent framework for the buildup, training,
and operation of the IDF. Specific recommendations included the reduction
of traditional elements of heavy maneuvers and development of operational
capabilities for mobility a nd s triking p ower a nd for w aging si multaneous
multidimensional operations on the front and in the rear, both by fire and by
maneuver.76
Heads of the regional commands, influenced by OTRI methodology, began
posing questions regarding planning of military operations, organizational
structures and force buildup, and command and control relations with the GS.
In response, then-CGS Shaul Mofaz set up a te am that drafted a do cument
entitled IDF Strategy. However, the work got bogged down and was renewed
under CGS Ya’alon when, in 2002, he established several teams of senior officers
to r eassess various aspects of the Israeli military doctrine. Ya’alon saw
this process as a conceptual revolution in Israeli military affairs that would
provide doctrinal guidance for the IDF in the RMA era. The new Concept of
Operations (CONOP) published in 2006 b ecame the quintessence of Israeli
views on the nature of warfare in the RMA era.77
Since OTRI experts provided
professional-academic support for doctrinal workshops, the final product
reflected the significant number of its ideas promoted, including the methodology
of systemic operational design (SOD).78
The new CONOP prescribed transforming both the organizational structure
and the doctrine of the IDF. In terms of fire–maneuver balance, the CONOP
emphasized precision and stand-off firepower (mostly from the air) at the expense
of ground maneuver by heavy armor formations. It discredited the utility
of massive ground engagements and defined capturing territory as less important
than destroying targets with minimum casualties and collateral damage.
Holding territory was deemed a political and operational burden. Presence on
enemy soil was to be replaced by the ability to maneuver through it for fixed
periods of time, and to produce “operational effects” to impact an enemy system.
In contrast to the traditional IDF doctrine, the CONOP advocated bringing
the war to the enemy’s territory not by “boots on the ground,” but by an
integrated system of stand-off, precision-guided fire, based on real-time intelligence
and supported by command and control systems. The se reconnaissancestrike
co mplexes were ex pected t o enab le st and-off c ontrol o f t he ter ri-
tory.79
The actual capabilities for these tasks existed for more than a decade;
106 THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
however, military thinking had not kept pace with the sophistication of the
IDF equipment.80
The new theory of victory strongly contrasted with classical linear operations,
where the enemy was brought to its knees in a decisive battle of annihilation.
The new approach demanded simultaneous attack throughout the
entire de pth a nd d imensions o f o perational de ployment t hat w ould c reate
overall paralysis of the enemy system. This type of victory not only was based
on physical annihilation, but paid a g reat deal of attention to a ffecting the
“rationale” of an enemy system and paralyzing its motivation and ability to
keep on fighting.81
In addition to emulating the Soviet approach, which is clearly
seen here, this new theory of victory relied heavily upon the American concept
of Effect-Based Operations (EBO). EBO advocated applying military levers
not only for the sake of inflicting damage per se, but in order to produce
indirect and cascading effects t hat would influence t he enemy a s a s ystem
and attain the strategic goals of the campaign. In 2003 OTRI organized a conference
on EBO and, together with TOHAD, disseminated explanations of its
operational principles in the IDF. The GS workshops identified EBO doctrine
as a revolutionary military concept, offered training for it during the largescale
exercise in summer 2004, and adapted it in the new CONOP.82
In its emulation
of the US, the IDF was strongly influenced by the application of these
new ways of war in Iraq.83
Although the new CONOP saw precision and stand-off fire as the principle
technique of f uture warfare, ma neuver was not totally d iscredited. The
CONOP suggested establishing a new force structure for the IDF basic formation.
It was envisioned as a network of small and autonomous units that would
be capable of executing versatile missions, including target acquisition and
guidance and execution of precision fire from the air and from the ground.
These units would operate as a self-synchronizing network, in which formations
coordinate with each other horizontally, and orient and navigate through
the battlefield w ithout going t hrough t he c entral c ommand. A n etwork of
separate units would be diffused throughout the whole operational depth and
would operate semi-autonomously, but jointly in frames of the unified campaign
plan. Under the assumption that it takes a n etwork to c ombat a n etwork,
these “swarming” formations would adjust themselves to the stealth capability
of the enemy. Considerable authority would be delegated top-down,
and decisions would be based on chance, contingency, and opportunity and
would be made in real time, on the immediate tactical level. This concept was
THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS 107
expected to beeffective against both conventional and asymmetrical threats.84
Although developed in-house, “swarming” and diffused warfare tactics were
strongly i nspired by t he US Network-Centric Warfare c oncepts. Given t he
frequent contact with the parts of the US military responsible for the development
of and experimentations with transformation concepts, it is not surprising
that the IDF was strongly influenced by this American approach.85
To ensure that combat activities could be simultaneously executed by all
the involved IDF units and synchronized throughout the whole operational
depth and from all possible dimensions,86
the concept of jointness (shiluviut),
borrowed from the US Defense Transformation, was established and became
another banner of the Israeli RMA. It implied the ability to deploy units from
all of the branches in a synchronized manner, which became possible through
the advanced command and control systems. Ideally, jointness blurred borders
between services, left classical linear combat behind, and opted for simultaneous
multidimensional warfare.87
The new CONOP also added an operational
level to IDF planning and thinking. The concept of an “operator”—a commander
r esponsible for de ployment o f a ll t he forces i n t he c omprehensive
theater of war—was introduced into the GS alongside the notion of jointness.
New departments for campaign planning were established in addition to the
existing operational planning units.88
The preference for flexibility in weapons
development, in light of diverse and unpredictable threats,89
also strongly
resembled the recently introduced American “capabilities-based approach.”90
The operational experience during the Second Intifada became a laboratory
for some of these new approaches.91
The combat experience was regarded
as successful and provided field-based evidence in support of the new CONOP
and the methodology developed by OTRI.92
Diffused warfare was considered
a great success and an effective revolutionary innovation.93
The IDF operated
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a network of reconnaissance-strike complexes,
which collated data on highly dynamic targets from an assortment
of intelligence sensors and transmitted it in real time through sophisticated
C4I systems, to precision-guided, stand-off, “smart” fire from manned and
unmanned, aerial and ground platforms. The IDF shortened sensor-shooter
loops to minutes and seconds. It widely practiced the jointness concept, when
these sensor-shooter centers consisted of representatives from different IDF
branches, and even civilian intelligence agencies, and operated as an integrated
whole.94
Eventually, the GS convinced itself of the rightness of its course. It was
believed that these operational methods could be applied to any contingency
108 THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
scenarios, both in low-intensity conflicts (LICs) and in high-intensity conflicts
(HICs).95
Advanced systems, which would enable the application of these concepts
to the conventional realm, were rapidly developed.96
According to the common wisdom that crystallized after the 2006 c ampaign,
the ideas inspired by OTRI account for some operational misfortunes
during the war, and much blame for the poor performance of the IDF lay with
the recent CONOP.97
This work deliberately refrains from analyzing the combat
effectiveness of the CONOP in the context of the Lebanon war, primarily
because of the different research focus. The book deals with the intellectual
history and cultural roots of military innovation, regardless of its combat utility.
However, some remarks are appropriate here. When judged from a more
distant perspective, it seems that linking the poor combat effectiveness of the
IDF directly with the 2006 CONOP and OTRI is an oversimplification. The
Lebanon campaign cannot serve as a n empirical test for t he quality of t he
IDF’s “operational theory,” because it was not really implemented in Lebanon.
The CONOP was the latest, but not the final, stage in a decade-long process of
crafting Israeli operational art. Moreover, t he document was introduced to
the IDF several months prior to t he war, and its concepts still had not gone
through field experimentation and a f ull training circle when the war broke
out. The concepts were disseminated through the IDF but not fully absorbed;
they were vaguely understood and implemented only partially during the war,
and not ac cording to do ctrinal g uidance.98
Also, it should be emphasized,
OTRI developed theories and concepts that were intended to serve as thinking
tools for the IDF and not as command practice.99
Indeed, the critique of “operational theory” both before and after the 2006
campaign and the poor conduct in the field reflect a c onceptual cacophony
that emerged in the IDF prior to the war. Many critics outside the IDF treated
the newly invented language and methodological approach as esoteric, blurred,
incomprehensible, and meaningless. The uncontrolled development of the new
terminology, free from any standardization, interfered with the ability to grasp
the essence of the operational concept. Even if potentially contributing, innovative
methodology and doctrinal ideas were lost in lexical confusion.100
The euphoria of conceptualization “ befuddled the minds of Israeli military
leaders”101
and turned the IDF into a Tower of Babel, in which tactical commanders
had no clue during the war about how to translate incomprehensible
orders formulated by their superiors in postmodern language.102
Other experts
questioned the very essence of the innovation. Some defined the doctrinal
THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS 109
logic of the new CONOP as counterproductive, compared to classical ways of
waging war,103
and saw the application of postmodern concepts to military affairs
as damaging, if not downright unprofessional.104
An additional group
criticized t he bl ind, mechanical emulation of t he A merican R MA, which
was seen by them as irrelevant for the Israeli geostrategic realities.105
Some
se nior officers argued that there was nothing revolutionary in the changing
military regimes, with no impact whatsoever on the classical principles of
war.106
During the several years prior to t he war, a sig nificant number of senior
IDF officers approached new concepts from the position of bureaucratic and
intellectual conformism and utilized the new vocabulary only as lip service to
the conceptual fashion of the moment. Very few truly studied these new ideas
deeply and in an orderly fashion. Even fewer were ready to admit that they did
not understand the meaning of what they were reading and/or saying. While
some voiced their concerns, others were embarrassed to o penly admit their
confusion. Using the same terminology they often meant different things, which
contributed to the overall conceptual mess. In 2005 the new CGS, Dan Halutz,
started to reorient the IDF in a somewhat different conceptual direction. With
his arrival, the IDF was further disoriented conceptually and tried to figure
out which of the concepts associated with the previous CGS’s school of thought
stayed intact under the new boss and which should be thrown away. The confusion
reached its height when in April 2006 CGS Halutz, who declared his
intention to redirect the IDF conceptually, approved the last CONOP, which
he inherited from his predecessor without making any changes. The CONOP
was defined as a basic military document, but it was not entirely clear within
the IDF whether the document should indeed be implemented to the letter or
should be treated as an additional new draft, l ike those disseminated in the
previous years. When Israel surprised itself with the decision to go to war, the
IDF was experiencing the climax of its conceptual disorientation. Eventually,
different command authorities in the IDF approached warfare from somewhat
different conceptual backgrounds, according to how they understood the notion
of “operational theory” and its doctrinal status in the IDF. This bureaucraticconceptual
chaos and doctrinal relativism were among the factors that made
the IDF war machine somewhat dysfunctional during the war.107
110 THE ISRAELI REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS
PART 2: ISRAELI STRATEGIC CULTURE
Cultural Characteristics and Cognitive Style
Although Israeli culture is a fusion of Jewish, European, subethnic Levantine,
and American traditions, it is not accurate to describe it as a “shapeless hybrid
about which all generalizations are impossible.” Its coherent inner logic allows
one to sp eak of a si ngle Israeli culture.108
In terms of social structure,
individualism coexists in Israel with well-developed group orientation,109
but
that differs from “ individualistic America” or “collectivistic Russia.” Israeli
individualism expresses itself in a casual attitude toward rules and regulations,
in self-reliance, and in little respect for imposed authority. However, Israeli
loyalty is less oriented to oneself and tends to be focused more on the pursuit
of collective goals and the well-being of the society. Despite the ongoing transformation
of the Israeli society from a collectivistic ideal to a more liberal individualistic
one,110
a nd A mericanization of Israeli culture,111
in Hofstede’s
measurements Israel scored only moderately individualist.112
Egalitarian social norms established by the founding fathers produced a
striking informality of behavior and inattention to hierarchy. Defined by anthropologists
as a “small power distance society,” Israel has a s econd-lowest
in e qual ity in superior– subordinate relations.113
This atmosphere exists even
in such a hierarchical organization as the IDF. Having a lean organizational
structure and simple military bureaucracy, the Israeli military and defense systems
are informal and egalitarian and foster a lot of innovative ideas bottomup
through informal or gan iza tion al shortcuts.114
Lack of distance, a c ult of
simplicity, and social informality have produced an “ultra-low-context” communications
style among native-born “new Israelis” (sabras). In sabra narrative
a direct, even confrontational, communication style (speaking “dugri”)
was equated with integrity and synonymous with “honest and authentic.” In
contrast, a pacifying, diplomatic style is regarded as suspect and hypocritical
and perceived as “insincere and artificial.”115
Although the various waves of
immigration brought different cultures and communication styles, they were
socialized to the norms of speaking dugri and to the point (tachlis)116
and were
eventually absorbed by the low-context approach of the Israeli melting pot.117
Israelis prefer a d irect, spontaneous, natural, a nd unrestrained speech t hat
leaves little to interpretation.118
For practical Israelis, style matters less than
content; they are uncomfortable with formality and ceremony and disrespect
external forms of courtesy. They have manifested this mode of interaction