"War Month": A Test of the IDF’s Operational Concept and a Dress Rehearsal for the Next War | by Gal Perl Finkel

The IDF plans to conduct a month-long exercise, the first of its kind in Israel, which will simulate war in multiple arenas and multiple levels, and include elements of powerful offense and strong defense. The exercise will test, for the first time, Chief of Staff Kochavi’s ambitious operational concept for victory. What are the criteria for the exercise’s success?

• originally published as an "INSS Insight" No. 1457, April 25, 2021

The IDF announced recently that it would hold a "war month" in the first half of 2022 lasting four weeks – the first General Staff exercise of its kind. The exercise, which will include regular army and reserve forces on an especially large scale, is designed to evaluate the army's forces during the course of a long, consecutive, challenging, and life-like exercise in order to enhance readiness and fitness for war. The "war month" name is taken from the concluding stage in training IDF infantry troops. This phase includes a "war week" in which the training companies simulate a combat operation in order to test their fitness in an array of missions for which they were trained. In addition to a difficult and demanding drill involving many forces, the exercise will facilitate a thorough assessment of the operational concept for victory formulated by IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi.

Between August and September 1941, the US Army carried out a number of exercises in Louisiana over an area of 8,800 square kilometers. The exercises, in which the army wanted to test new concepts and weapons, such as the quality of commanders, was initiated by then-Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General George Marshall, in order to strengthen and improve the army's readiness for taking part in the world war that began in 1939. It appeared then that at some point the United States would have to intervene in the war. The forces were divided into two armies (red and blue) of 200,000 soldiers each. During the exercise, these armies conducted maneuvers in which weapon systems such as tanks and new fighting frameworks were tested, among them the armored division commanded by General George Patton. The army had to develop a combat doctrine that would enable it to halt the German blitzkrieg, or alternatively, to move forces forward rapidly in order to exploit opportunities on the flanks and conduct attacks in a large area. In a briefing to his men before the maneuvers, Patton said, “Find the enemy, hold him, and get around him, always moving, do not sit down, do not say ‘I have done enough, ‘keep on, see what else you can do to raise the devil with the enemy…You must be desperate determination to go forward." The division under his command indeed demonstrated great mobility, and highlighted to the army commanders the advantage of large frameworks and mobility in armored forces.

The exercises also examined new ideas about integrated multi-corps and multi-branch battle management. Many of the lessons from these maneuvers became operational concepts of the US armed forces after the United States entered the war in December 1941. Furthermore, many of the commanders in those maneuvers, among them Omar Bradley, Mark Clark, Dwight Eisenhower, and of course George Patton, played prominent roles in the war and were appointed to key positions in the army in the campaign against Germany. The exercises, which were referred to as the Louisiana Maneuvers, became famous in the American ground forces, and are still regarded as a model for how innovative concepts and new weapons should be tested and evaluated.

It appears that like Marshall, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi seeks to conduct an up-to-date version of the Louisiana Maneuvers. The IDF recently announced that in the first half of 2022, it would hold a "war month" lasting four weeks – the first General Staff exercise of its type. The exercise, which will include regular army and reserve forces on an especially large scale, is designed to evaluate the army's forces during the course of a long, consecutive, challenging, and life-like exercise in order to enhance its readiness and fitness for war.

"War month" is taken from the concluding phase of training IDF infantry troops, which includes a "war week," in which the training companies simulate a combat operation in order to test their fitness in an array of missions for which they were trained. It appears that the reason for the exercise is due primarily to the realization, as expressed by German General Erwin Rommel following his experiences as a company commander (and as an acting battalion commander) in an elite infantry battalion in WWI, "War makes extremely heavy demands on the soldier's strength and nerves. For this reason, make heavy demands on your men in peacetime exercises." In addition to a difficult and demanding drill involving many forces, the exercise will facilitate a thorough assessment of the operational concept for victory formulated by IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, aimed at "undermining the enemy’s approach and building military power that will prove to the enemy that its approach is no longer effective."

Kochavi's concept include three main efforts in the use of force, all of which are to be practiced during the "war month": a multi-dimensional maneuver for enemy territory, powerful attacks with firepower and cyberattacks, and a strong multidimensional defense, designed, as stated in an article by Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi, "so that the offensive achievements are not offset by the enemy's achievements in our territory." All of these efforts will be made simultaneously in order to expose the enemy and destroy it quickly.

Implementing the approach requires essential operational conditions, including intelligence superiority, air superiority, digital superiority, naval superiority, a policy that permits the effective use of firepower in the populated areas where the enemy hides and defends itself in the midst of the civilian population, the resilience of the home front during weeks of warfare, and operational continuity.

Key ideas in the approach are multi-branch efforts and multi-dimensionality, and according to the concept, all of the IDF's capabilities in all of the dimensions will be utilized in order to execute a more effective and deadlier maneuver and defense. For example, as US military theoretician and retired armored corps officer Douglas Macgregor said, sensors mounted on fighter jets and remote unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying above the battlefield are likely to gather intelligence about the enemy in a specific location, which will be transmitted to the land or naval force, and actually to anyone can do the best job of destroying it. At the same time, the force utilizing electronic warfare can disrupt the enemy's drone operation designed to attack the maneuvering land force, and can provide that force with protection.

Furthermore, the goal of the maneuvering force is to influence the dimension in which it operates, and to influence that and other dimensions. For example, an armored force that destroys the enemy's rocket launchers or artillery will perform a land mission that affects the home front's ability to maintain operational continuity, while alternatively, an elite infantry force flown into enemy territory that gains control over areas where it can prevent land-based fire against the navy's ships will ensure naval freedom of action.

The new elements shaping the modern battlefield, including advanced technology and the ability to integrate and connect branches and forces more effectively, do not eliminate the need for maneuvering forces to conduct land-based warfare in enemy territory, sometimes at short range. The enemy is able to adjust to the firepower directed against it; prepare in advance, both above and below the surface; and continue fighting. As Patton said, flexible and fast maneuvering forces are therefore needed that will be able to find the enemy, expose it to firepower, and strike it directly in order to reduce the barrages fired at the Israel home front.

The planned IDF exercise will therefore include a scenario of an integrated multi-front campaign in the north and south, according to the up-to-date and gravest reference scenarios, as well as testing all of the necessary capabilities: the transition from peacetime to emergency, inter-organizational coordination, management of the home front and civilian assistance, use of firepower, maneuver in a built-up area, and approach to a civilian population in enemy territory. One key challenge for the IDF is conducting a large-scale maneuver at the front and deep in enemy territory, based on general staff capabilities and activity of special forces.

Like the Louisiana Maneuvers, "war month" delivers a warning message about enhancing readiness for an upcoming war. A divisional exercise is accordingly being added for the first time, in which the IDF Fire Formation (98th Paratroopers Division) and Depth Corps, commanded by ex-paratrooper Maj. Gen. Itai Veruv, will conduct maneuvers in Cyprus. The exercise also has a deterrent element – displaying the ability to transport a combat division quickly behind enemy lines in an air assault. Cyprus is topographically similar to the Lebanese mountains, and training in foreign territory with features similar to those of areas beyond Israel's borders in which Israel's forces are likely to fight is of great value. The airborne mission; movement and navigation in unfamiliar territory; handling pressure, fatigue, and forces simulating the enemy, all far from home, pose a real challenge to the commanders and forces. The exercise as a whole is designed to bolster a sense of capability and self-confidence, and to facilitate the advance and development of operational know-how and combat doctrine.

Large exercises that comprehensively assess the systematic fitness of the IDF and validate innovative concepts of warfare, while testing the fitness of the forces and the ability of the commanders to function under a heavy load for an extended period, have considerable advantages. At the same time, given the current uncertain state of the IDF's resources resulting from the political crisis, the absence of an up-to-date state budget, and the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, budgetary issues arise. The alternative cost of the exercise and the constraints imposed by an exercise lasting an entire month on the IDF's operational continuity in a range of areas, from counter-terrorism and regular security in the Palestinian theater to the war between wars in the north, must be taken into consideration.

Another question is the degree to which the new operational concept is assimilated. One of the causes of the failures in the war between the IDF and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 was that the operational concept formulated before the war was not properly assimilated by the IDF forces. Nevertheless, the "war month" will provide the IDF with a period long enough to assimilate the current concept and its derivatives, and improve the expertise of forces and their commanders. A thorough assessment will make it possible to draw conclusions and update the concept in time for the next campaign.

The challenge facing the IDF is to learn lessons from the “war month” and the campaigns in which it fought against hybrid semi-military organizations, from the Second Lebanon War and Operation Protective Edge until the current time, so that victory is achieved in the next campaign in a shorter period. This will be an expression of the profound change that has occurred in the IDF.

Win the close fight/ By Gal Perl Finkel

Like my peers, I argued to stay the course, to persist and persist, to ‘clear/hold/build’ even as the ‘hold’ stage stretched for months, and then years

Similar to the way Israel stands against Hamas and Hezbollah, hybrid organizations that combine terrorist, guerrilla and military elements into one entity, the United States is conducting a campaign against Islamic State (ISIS). Although the organization suffered a defeat in the battle for Mosul, it is far from disappearing from the stage.

In an article he wrote in 2014, retired US general Daniel Bolger, who rose through the ranks of the Army infantry units and served in Iraq and Afghanistan, admitted (with uncommon integrity) that the US, himself included, is losing in the war against terrorism. The US, he wrote, “did not understand the enemy, a guerrilla network embedded in a quarrelsome, suspicious civilian population. We didn’t understand our own forces, which are built for rapid, decisive conventional operations, not lingering, ill-defined counterinsurgencies. We’re made for Desert Storm, not Vietnam. As a general, I got it wrong. Like my peers, I argued to stay the course, to persist and persist, to ‘clear/hold/build’ even as the ‘hold’ stage stretched for months, and then years.”

That strategy was wrong and, as he points out, the American people had never signed up for this sort of war. According to Bolger the Surge strategy “in Iraq did not ‘win’ anything. It bought time. It allowed us to kill some more bad guys and feel better about ourselves.” In the meantime the enemy, terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida, just let the attrition war take its toll, knowing that in the end the price would be too high and the US would back away. It happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and one can assume that ISIS expects that the US will not commit its forces a third time.

Bolger is not the only critic of the way the US fights its wars. Retired colonel Douglas A. Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran who has spent most of his career in the US Army Armored Branch, and like his comrade in arms Lt.-Gen. “H. R.” McMaster (the new national security adviser) fought in the Battle of 73 Easting during the Gulf War. While he was in uniform, and even more so after his retirement, he published several books about the much needed reform in the US ground forces.

In his book Transformation under Fire (Praeger, 2003), he stated that the way the US military prepares for its present challenges reminds him of “the attitudes prevalent in the post-Civil War army. Instead of adapting tactics, equipment, and organization to cope with the Native American enemy, each Indian campaign was treated as though it were the last because the army wanted to refight the Civil War, not fight Native Americans on the western frontier. Ironically, when the Spanish-American war broke out, the US army was no more ready than it had been to fight the Confederate Army at Bull Run” (Page 14). Much the same thing can also be said about the IDF land forces’ readiness for the Second Lebanon War and operations in the Gaza Strip.

In a recent testimony he gave to the Air-Land Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Macgregor said that in order “to terminate future conflicts on terms that favor the United States and avoid long, destructive wars of attrition, the US armed forces must combine the concentration of massive firepower across service lines with the near-simultaneous attack of ground maneuver forces in time and space to achieve decisive effects against opposing forces.” That statement sounded like it was taken from the IDF strategy published by IDF Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot in 2015.

In a war, Macgregor emphasized, one cannot conduct the fighting from afar, using only air power, artillery and precision-guided munitions. To achieve a decisive outcome, or at least a more clear and concrete achievement, one must maintain presence on the ground. In his book, Macgregor cites former IDF general Doron Almog, who said that if one loses “the close fight… the rest is irrelevant” (Page 227). Almog, who in 1982 led the 35th Paratroopers Brigade’s reconnaissance battalion through heavy fighting against PLO insurgents and the Syrian army in Lebanon, knew what he was talking about.

Macgregor wondered if the strategic impact would have been different if the US had chosen to deploy ground forces on several occasions.

“Would the introduction of a robust strike force of Army Rangers into the target area where [al-Qaida] forces were identified in 1998 have enticed [al-Qaida] into a fight with US forces that they could not have possibly won?” (Page 66). Such an attack was carried out on October 2001, when 200 Rangers of 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, the army’s elite light infantry, led by then-colonel Joseph Votel, parachuted toward an airfield south of Kandahar and attacked several Taliban targets. The purpose, according to Votel, was “to go in there and basically conduct an airfield assessment, to destroy the Taliban forces that were operating in that area and to gather information for intelligence use.” During the raid, as Macgregor predicted, the forces hardly encountered any resistance.

Votel is now commander of US Central Command. As such, he is the general who commands US troops in the war against ISIS, under which Ranger and Marine units were recently deployed to Syria to support preparations for the fight for Raqqa. Therefore he must, as Bolger warned, make sure that the enemy’s logic and formations are clear, and form a plan that includes boots on the ground. It should be very similar to what Macgregor suggested, and in accordance with IDF strategy, that states: “A combined, immediate and simultaneous strike, using two basic components: the first – immediate maneuver, to harm the enemy, conquer territory, reduce the use of fire from the conquered area, seize and destroy military infrastructure, and affect the enemy’s regime survivability. The second – extensive strategic-fire campaign, based on aerial freedom of action and high-quality intelligence.” US forces, along with the local Syrian forces, cannot afford to lose the close fight on the ground.

The author is the coordinator of the Military and Strategic Affairs program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and the founder and operator of the blog “In the Crosshairs” on military, security vision, strategy and practice.

(The article was published in "The Jerusalem Post", March 21, 2017)