Reuters has a fairly unbiased look at the changes the IDF has made in the past year.
A year after suffering surprise setbacks against Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel’s armed forces are poised once more for a major conventional war.
Tens of thousands of conscripts and reservists have been training with an intensity not seen in Israel for decades, flush with emergency funds from a government which speaks openly of possible new conflicts against arch-foes Syria and Iran.
“An army has two jobs: waging war or preparing for war,” said Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, a career infantryman who took over the military in February with orders to knuckle down on troops perceived as having lost their morale and menace.
This is why I keep saying that Israel is fighting the next war, while Syria, Hezbullah, and Hamas are all fighting the last war. It won’t be a walkover—no war ever is—but this time, the IDF is far more prepared for the tactics that will be used against them.
It’s a worthwhile read.
One problem with this, Meryl: Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. are preparing to re-fight the last war, with the same tactics as the last war, because those tactics won them the last war. They stopped the IDF cold, and it wasn’t with conventional large-scale battle tactics either. They fought a guerilla war writ large, and proved again that a guerilla army can beat a heavy-armor army, just as the NVA did against the US, the mujahedeen did against the Soviets, and the Palestinians have been doing against the IDF. The only way for an armored army to beat a guerilla army is to physically crush it, town by town, block by block, house by house. That goes double for a guerilla army that’s fighting on prepared ground, like southern Lebanon with all its traps and arms caches. Time after time, we’ve seen that “civilized” Western governments are no longer willing to pay the political price that such a strategy would cost them.
Why should the Palis (or you, or I) believe that Israel is now politically willing to do that, when a year ago it wasn’t, and the last few weeks have seen Olmert turn even softer on the enemy than he was a year ago?
I have to agree with wolfwalker. The problem is that Israel now has to fight what’s referred to as a 4th generation war. The IDF may be better trained than last year, but better trained in tactics and strategy that are unable to cope with widespread guerrilla warfare. With the exception of Syria and Iran, there will be no state to attack conventionally.
Additionally, Israel will be subject to the wishes of the US, when the next war breaks out. At some point, the US will threaten to refrain from replenishing weapons and ammunition, should Israel’s actions cross a line determined by the administration. Israel’s political leaders are weak, and could never resist US pressure.
I don’t have any solutions, but I can see the problem clearly. I hope that a lot of resources have been poured into the various sayeret units. They’re going to be needed as much as armour, artillery and infantry.
There is an address for the IDF: Damascus
That is one head of the beast (the other is in Tehran) that can be decapitatd, if only Jerusalem has the will to do it this time.
Both wolfwalker and the mamzer are correct. Let me throw in one more thing – Iran and nuclear weaponry. I think that while the IDF deals with Hizballah, Hamas, and possibly Fatah, Syria and Iran may have to be dealt with in a far nastier manner than Olmert probably has beitzim to do.
chsw
Um. Did you all read the entire article?
They’re not just practicing tactics for Syria. They’re also taking into account the things they learned in Lebanon last year.
I sure hope the IDF learned from the last war – And I hope there would be a new government (Barak is a step in the right direction compared to Peretz). I just hope they (the IDF) hold back anymore.
In the Second Lebanon War, the IDF fought with insufficient supplies, poorly trained or untrained reserves, and a command structure that had little idea what was expected of it.
These issues have been addressed, and the IDF has always set the standard for asymetrical warfare, as long as it had the materiel.
Does the enemy want to lose its ability to resupply Hizballah and Hamas? If not, it cannot allow Syria to become involved in fighting on any level.
More interesting than speculating on a multi-front war is what Israel plans to do about Hamas before that war can break out.
Meryl,
Yes, I did read the whole article.
I believe the IDF has been training hard. I believe they’ve been doing their best to train realistically. I believe that they’re better prepared for the tactics they’re going to face than they were a year ago.
What I don’t believe is that they’ve managed to improve enough.
Look at the bit of the article you quoted: “division-strength units have practiced overrunning enemy posts and villages.” This sounds to me like a training scenario for a classic large-scale combat action conducted by fire and maneuver, where an enemy is beaten by driving him away, and troops can quickly secure conquered territory before moving on.
But guerilla wars aren’t fought with division-size units. They’re fought with squad, platoon, company, sometimes battalion-size units. And we ourselves have spent the last four years proving that it isn’t possible anymore to really secure territory in the face of a hostile local populace. What will one of these divisions do the first time it “overruns” a village and finds only women and children, no fighting-age men at all? Will it consider the place ‘secured’ and move on, while the fighting men come out of their bunkers and start sniping at the IDF forces from behind? Will it leave a “security force” tasked with trying to track down and kill the fifty or a hundred two- or three-man mortar and rocket and IED teams that pretend to be peaceful villagers one day, and slip out to snipe at the occupiers the next? If the IDF is really training to fight a conventional armored war against Hezbollah, then the result will be the same as it was last year, and the same as the first two years of the US experience in Iraq: a long bloody drawn out struggle in which their own population’s will to win will be sapped by a slow and steady drip, drip, drip of casualties, while the enemy seems to remain as strong as ever no matter what measures the IDF takes.
Believe me, I want to believe that you’re right, and the IDF will blow the Palis into very small pieces, as they so richly deserve. But when I read that article with a skeptical eye, I simply don’t see much reason for optimism there. Frankly, I’m reduced to hoping that the reporter didn’t know jack about what he was seeing and hearing, so he bungled the report and the real situation is very different.
Hi Meryl;
I read the whole article, and this sentence (which you quote) really jumped out at me:
“Israeli concern, then, is for preserving the ability to win “asymmetric†conflicts decisively enough to avoid casualties on a scale that would sap support for the citizens’ army, while leaving the leadership in a position to dictate truce terms.”
If we take that at face value as accurate, the Israeli government has already given in to political correctness, which is a sure fire way to lose. Win just decisively enough to limit casualties so that you don’t “sap support for the army”? Excuse me, but if you give up support for the army, you all die. Don’t they realize that? Apparently not.
“Position to dictate truce terms”? If you win, there is no truce, only a surrender, which you get to dictate to the loser. There is a truce only if you fail and can at best achieve a tie. Which means more of the same later.
When will they get decent leadership over there? Clearly they need another Golda Mier (Meryl, I think there’s a job for you waiting to be filled).
The IDF has no choice but to adapt and overcome. If they don’t the results could be catastrophic !
This section
is what bothers me. The leadership seems as much in charge as a dog being taken for a walk. The dog appears to be in front, but only because it is constantly checking to see where the master wants to go. That sentence says that the people “in charge” of the government are not leaders and are only interested in saving their own position.
Also, trying for a “truce” means that they will be left with the same situation as 1948, and 1973.
Syria is getting ready as well.
I’d been emailing Michael about that, Eric. But thanks for reminding me to post about it.
Tom Frank, you wrote:
“Position to dictate truce terms� If you win, there is no truce, only a surrender, which you get to dictate to the loser. There is a truce only if you fail and can at best achieve a tie. Which means more of the same later.
Well, name one war Israel ever really won, then. Israel never wins by the conventional definition. She just survives long enough to fight some or all of the same enemies all over again.
Meryl, you wrote:
“Um. Did you all read the entire article?”
My point was that Damascus is the pressure point of the Hezbollah forces in those villages Israel shouldn’t have to overrun if she brings enough pressure to bear….
The IDF can learn from its errors, but can Olmert? I see no evidence to that effect. This is a man, after all, who thinks that the way to strengthen a “moderate” is to fortify him with terrorists.