IAF

The Operational Environment: Possible Escalation to an Unwanted War | by Itai Brun and Gal Perl Finkel

רשומה רגילה

Israel’s enemies are deterred from large-scale conflict • Possible unwanted escalation in the north and south • In a war Israel will sustain a severe attack on the home front, an incursion into its territory, and a cognitive campaign

The complex and challenging operational environment where Israel employs its military force (along with other measures) represents the convergence of technological, military, social, and political developments that emerged over recent decades. These developments include: deep, global changes in the nature of war; geostrategic changes in the Middle East, most of which are connected to the consequences of the regional upheaval and the ensuing events (including the arrival of Russian and US military forces in the region); substantial changes in the operational doctrine and weapons of Israel’s enemies, especially those that belong to the radical Shiite axis; changes in how Israeli military force is employed, and the preference for firepower (based on precise intelligence) over ground force maneuvers; and the consequences of the information revolution that has shaken the world, including the military institutions.

From Isolated Battle Days to Escalation?

In 2020 Israeli deterrence of large-scale conflict and war remained clearly in force, and even seems to have grown stronger. Israel’s enemies recognize its strength, and they are preoccupied with their domestic problems, including the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of war games held by INSS in late 2019 and early 2020, before the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis, led to the conclusion that all of the actors in the northern arena wish to avoid escalation. The year 2020 validated this assessment, and indeed, escalation did not occur. The experience of the last few years shows that this is also the case with regard to forces in the Gaza Strip.

However, since last July, the Northern Command has been on a higher level of alert with respect to Hezbollah, following Hezbollah’s threat to respond to the strike attributed to Israel in Syria in which one of the organization’s operatives was killed. The organization tried several times to settle the score with Israel, but was unsuccessful. The IDF repelled all of the attempts and even continued its attacks in Syria, in a way that made it clear that it does not accept the deterrence equations composed by Hezbollah.

In Israel, as in the ranks of Hamas and Hezbollah, there is an awareness of the danger inherent in an escalation dynamic, but it seems that all of the sides expect that they can end it after a few days of battle, similar to the short conflicts in the Gaza arena in recent years. However, such a scenario could change if one or both of the sides suffers fatal losses, at which point response and counter-response could escalate and lead to large-scale conflict and even war. Such a war could occur with the Iranian-Shiite axis, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq, and perhaps even with Iran itself. Furthermore, the escalation could spill over into other arenas, in particular with the forces in the Gaza Strip.

The Enemy’s Operational Doctrine

Hezbollah and Hamas’s choice regarding their current form of warfare stems from learning processes that took place starting in the 1990s, based on an analysis of Israel’s strengths and weaknesses. Last year INSS pointed to a change in these organizations’ doctrine of warfare following lessons learned from the conflicts that developed with Israel since the Second Lebanon War (2006). The essence of this change is the transition from a victory concept based on wearing down the Israeli population (“victory via non-defeat”) to a concept that also seeks to damage, from various arenas, national infrastructure in Israel and essential military capabilities, in order to destabilize and undermine the Israeli system.

This concept is implemented by means of military buildup processes that include: increasing the number of rockets and missiles, both in order to improve the survivability of the arsenal and to saturate the Israeli air defense systems; arming with high-precision rockets and missiles that can hit vulnerable civilian facilities (electricity, gas, and other national infrastructure) and military weak points (air force bases and headquarters) in Israel; arming with drones and other unmanned aerial aircraft, including for the purposes of precision strikes.

This concept is also based on the idea of infiltrating ground forces into Israeli territory, in order to disrupt the IDF’s offensive and defensive operational capabilities and to increase the damage to the home front’s stamina. Against this backdrop, the abilities of Hezbollah and Hamas to penetrate into Israeli territory have been improved, including in the underground realm, via special raid forces (Hezbollah’s Radwan force and Hamas’s Nukhba force). These forces are intended for moving some of the fighting into Israeli territory – taking central roads, infiltrating communities and bases, and compelling the IDF to invest a significant portion of its efforts in defense – in effect preventing it from being able to go on the offensive. Hamas has invested significant efforts and resources, both material and personnel, in its offensive tunneling project. In October the IDF exposed and destroyed an especially deep border fence crossing tunnel that was located using the engineering barrier capabilities built along the border between Gaza and Israel. It seems that Hamas has not abandoned the project since the construction of the barrier, and intends to find ways to overcome the obstacle.

The IDF Operational Doctrine

An examination of public official IDF documents published during the past year reveals a great deal about the concept of the IDF operational method in the next campaign. Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi and the entire General Staff see the response as a combination of "multidimensional maneuver into enemy territory, offensive strikes using firepower and other dimensions, and strong multidimensional defense. All of these will be carried out together, will benefit from closer reciprocity, and will fully utilize their advantages in the air, on the ground, in intelligence, and in information processing in order to expose the hidden enemy and destroy it at a fast pace".

Along with investing in enemy exposure capabilities and increasing fire effort capacities (with an emphasis on precision fire), the IDF has invested efforts in the ground forces in order to make ground maneuver more lethal, faster, and more flexible. In addition, the IDF has invested in constructing an engineered barrier, both on the northern border and in the southern arena, with the aim of thwarting the offensive tunneling efforts by Hamas and Hezbollah.

Regarding firepower, with an emphasis on airpower, the IDF has developed its strike doctrine on a large scale and with great precision, with each such strike aiming to cause the enemy destruction and damage that will exceed its expectations regarding the IDF’s capabilities and intentions. These strikes will be directed toward hitting enemy systems that it defines as critical to its operational functioning and to implementation of its strategy. There are three kinds of strikes: spatial strikes, whose goal is to hit a maximum number of the enemy’s operatives, infrastructure, and weapons in a given sector; mission-oriented strikes, whose goal is to destroy a specific enemy system (long-range rockets, for example); and broad strikes, whose goal is to hit a series of systems and spaces in order to cause the enemy to suffer multi-system failure and force it to invest most of its efforts in defense and repair of the destruction it has suffered. The goal of neutralizing warfare capabilities focuses on the enemy’s rocket arsenal, with an emphasis on the precision long-range missile arsenal, along with the operatives in its penetration forces.

Regarding ground maneuvers, in recent years two main gaps have emerged according to the IDF’s assessment, both in its ability to meet the challenge of high-trajectory fire in different arenas, and in the ability to deny capabilities in the enemy’s centers of gravity quickly and continuously. Thus, the army formulated an up-to-date doctrine for ground maneuvers that aims to address these gaps and sees maneuver warfare as a multidimensional process. In the ground forces, the maneuver doctrine has been formulated emphasizing consolidation, exposure, assembly, strike, and assault, whereby the maneuvering forces will be provided with intelligence capabilities and enhanced enemy exposure capabilities. This is so that they can attack the enemy and neutralize its capabilities, through both precision fire and rapid and lethal maneuvers. The IDF prioritization of firepower remains, but it is evident that in the past five years the understanding has emerged that launching fast and aggressive maneuvers as a complementary step is essential for quickly ending the campaign, under conditions that will serve Israel’s interests. Accordingly, considerable resources have been invested in improving and strengthening the capabilities of the maneuvering forces.

The Nature of the Next War

The IDF must prepare for two main campaign scenarios that could develop from unwanted escalation following limited battle days in the northern arena: a "third Lebanon war" with only Hezbollah in Lebanon that would be much more intense and destructive than the Second Lebanon War; and a "first northern war" with Hezbollah in Lebanon, but also with forces in Syria and Iraq, and perhaps also in Iran and in additional arenas.

In a war, the IDF would employ its offensive capabilities – on the ground, in the air, and at sea – and would cause very extensive damage to its enemies, in the front and deep behind enemy lines. But in such a war Israel too is expected to face massive surface-to-surface missile fire on the home front, some of which would be precision missiles and some of which would even penetrate the air defense systems. There would be attacks on the home front by unmanned aerial vehicles and drones; the penetration of ground forces into Israeli territory on the level of thousands of fighters; and cyber and cognitive attacks intended to undermine the stamina of the Israeli public and its faith in the political and military leadership. The IDF’s offensive components would face sophisticated air and sea defense systems and complex ground defense systems, including the use of the underground realm and advanced anti-tank missiles.

The campaign could therefore take place on two different levels: on one, Israel’s enemies would attack the home front with high-trajectory fire in amounts not previously seen, and in the other Israel would attack the enemy’s forces in its territory, through firepower and through ground maneuvers. But it is possible that the impression will emerge of only a loose connection between the two levels. Given the destruction in Israel’s cities, Israel’s residents who will be under fire will not be overly impressed by the enormous destruction that the IDF will inflict on the enemy’s systems (even if they are located within a civilian population) and by the number of its operatives who are struck in the battles. Battalion commanders in the Second Lebanon War said that during the fighting, despite lapses and errors, they felt that they carried out their mission and won overall, and when they returned to Israel they discovered that the public thought that the achievement lay somewhere between a tie and a loss. Considering the expected damage in the next war, this feeling will intensify.

Furthermore, presumably the reserve forces that are called up will also be forced to organize under fire, as the recruitment bases and emergency storage units will be targeted. The army will not be able to implement its "precious time" doctrine, whereby during a conflict the reserve units go through training to increase their fitness and only then take part in the fighting, because the training areas will also be targeted (as they were in 2012, during Operation Pillar of Defense in the southern arena). Moreover, because some of the bases of reserve units are located far from the front lines, transporting the forces could be delayed due to high trajectory fire by the enemy. Hence, the safest place that the fighting forces can be is at the front and in the depths of enemy territory. While the ground forces will have to cope with the risks of fighting there, their combat capabilities and strength will address these risks.

The Israeli public expects a military victory in a short campaign with few losses. This expectation grows when it comes to a campaign based on the use of airpower. However, in future conflicts it is expected that the air force squadrons will not be able to move almost freely over enemy territory, as was demonstrated in February 2018, when, during an Israeli air strike in Syria, an F-16 fighter jet was hit and its pilots were forced to abandon the aircraft over the Jezreel Valley. Furthermore, along with its anti-aircraft systems, the enemy will seek to damage the functional continuity of the Israeli Air Force by firing rockets and missiles at air bases. The IDF will need to struggle for air superiority and freedom of operation. Moreover, the Russian presence in the northern arena could place additional limitations on the air force’s freedom of operation.

Policy Recommendations

Israel must prepare for a multi-theater war (a "northern war") as a main reference threat. This war would be characterized by a higher intensity than the campaigns that it has waged since the Second Lebanon War, both in terms of the amount of fire on the Israeli home front and in terms of the fighting front.

Given the challenges expected for airpower and the need to curtail fire on the home front quickly, it is important to prepare the ground forces for flexible, aggressive, and lethal maneuvers to destroy the enemy’s military force. In addition, it is important to narrow the gaps between public expectations regarding the nature and possible results of the war and the expected reality, and to initiate a political and military effort to prevent war and make the most of other alternatives for advancing Israel’s objectives in the northern arena. Furthermore, a multi-year plan for the IDF should be finalized and budgeted, and adapted to the budgetary constraints forced by the COVID-19 crisis. The buildup as part of the American aid should be implemented, and the IDF and the defense forces should be removed from the political struggle in Israel.

Don't 'poke the bear' in Syria | by Gal Perl Finkel

רשומה רגילה

In Syria, the Russians maintain the principle of reasonable employment

About two weeks ago, Israel Air Force planes attacked a number of targets in Latakia, the Syrian port city. In the course of the attack, the Syrian air-defense system fired a number of anti-aircraft missiles, one of which hit and knocked down a Russian intelligence plane and killed 15 crew members. The Russians quickly blamed Israel for the incident, as there was a security coordination mechanism between the two countries. The tension with Russia has forced official Israel to publicly address the issue it maintains in the space of ambiguity – the campaign between wars.

Senior officials in the political echelon, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, have been talking to their counterparts in Russia in an attempt to explain what happened, and the IDF has even uncovered an IAF investigation into the operation. According to the findings of the investigation, the plane was shot down by Syrian anti-aircraft fire, and at that time the IAF planes were in Israeli territory.

The Russians are trying to "milk" the incident as much as they can in order to establish new ground rules in the North. Their decision to provide S-300 air-defense systems to Syria is just an example of their ability to do so. Nevertheless, it appears that Israel has adopted a policy similar to that of the government headed by Shimon Peres, who announced after an incident during Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996, in which the IDF fired artillery at the UN facility in Qana village, Lebanon, that the IDF fired in order to extract an Israeli Special Forces team from the Maglan unit, under Naftali Bennett’s command, and accidentally hit the facility, killing about 100 Lebanese civilians. Peres said at the time, "We are very sorry, but we are not apologizing."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s close ties with President Vladimir Putin, as well as other senior Israeli officials with their Russian counterparts, are important, but countries are not formulating policies based on good relations but on the basis of interests. Israel has its own interests in the northern sector, including preventing Iran from establishing itself in Syria and preventing the arrival of advanced weapons to Hezbollah, which often clash with Russian interests. Russia has so far shown great understanding of Israel’s needs, which was expressed almost openly on May 10 of this year after Netanyahu returned from a parade in Moscow’s Red Square to commemorate the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.

Netanyahu’s former military secretary, Brig.-Gen. Eliezer Toledano, said in his farewell address to the prime minister that when they returned to Israel, the IDF repulsed a rocket attack fired by the Iranians on its forces in the Golan Heights, and then launched a "seven-fold strike." This retaliatory operation, Operation House of Cards, during which Israel Air Force planes attacked more than 50 Syrian targets belonging to and used by the Iranian Quds Force, was defined by Toledano, a non-sentimental paratroopers officer, as one of the two most exciting events in which he took part as the prime minister’s military secretary. On the other event, he said then, he is still not allowed to tell. 

In Syria, the Russians maintain the principle of "reasonable employment," which means deploying and operating a minimum of military force so as to facilitate the promotion of strategic goals and interests. They have no intention of investing more resources than they already have. Israel, which enjoys the advantage of domesticity, can certainly draw its red lines so that they take them seriously into account and allow it the freedom of action to protect them. 

Zvi Magen, Israel’s former ambassador to Russia and currently a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, told "Israel Hayom" that at the end of the day, "The Russians know that Israel can cause them big troubles in Syria, and the last thing they need is confrontation with us. These are just some of the reasons why I believe the changes will be minor."

Although the incident demonstrated the potential volatility and complexity of the northern front, Israel’s freedom of action in the North is likely to continue. However, there are some insights from the event.

The first, it is obvious, is that when one operates on such a large scale of attacks as Israel does in Syria, even when it tries to implement a "zero-fault" policy, failures occur. Second, it is also obvious that it is best for Israel to exercise extreme caution and avoid "poking the bear," as the saying goes, especially when it comes to the Russian bear, and not to stretch the rope unnecessarily.

The campaign between wars as became a central pillar during the tenure of Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot. Last month the IDF revealed that in the past year-and-a-half, Israel has conducted about 200 attacks against Iranian targets in Syria. But even though the concept was established and anchored in the days of the current chief of staff and his predecessor, Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel implemented it in the past, even if not at such broad scales. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Emanuel (Mano) Shaked, former head of the Paratroopers and Infantry Corps of the IDF in the early 1970s, who died last month, was responsible for what can be described as a beta version of the campaign between wars concept.

The most famous operation he commanded was Operation Spring of Youth, against terrorist targets in Beirut in April 1973. Years later Shaked, who served in the Palmah and commanded a battalion in the paratroopers, described how during the preparations for the raid in Beirut, chief of staff David Elazar visited the paratroopers force under the command of Lt.-Col. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak (later the chief of staff), who was tasked with destroying the PFLP headquarters and asked if there were gaps and problems.

One of the officers, Lt. Avida Shor, said there is "a house adjacent to the house we need to demolish, where there are civilians," and was worried they might get hurt. Shor suggested reducing the amount of explosives to reduce the risk to the civilian population. Gen. Elazar left the decision to Shaked, the commander of the operation, who decided in accordance with Shor’s proposal.

In the raid, Lipkin-Shahak’s force got into trouble. A small party led by Shor opened fire and killed the sentries at the front of the PFLP headquarters, but immediately afterwards they were fired from behind. Terrorists in a car with a machine gun, which the force did not know existed, hit them, killed Shor and another soldier and wounded a third one. Lipkin-Shahak, who maintained his composure, decided to continue with the mission, and later said that immediately after the force was exposed, "There was an exchange of fire and throwing grenades from the high floors of the building, so we shot at the building and took over its bottom, and the fire stopped."

The force evacuated the wounded and killed, prepared the headquarters for an explosion and retreated under fire. The building was destroyed and dozens of terrorists were killed. No damage was caused to the adjacent building. Even then, the Russians did not show much sympathy for Israeli policy, and in the "Pravda" newspaper the raiding forces were also described as "gangsters." But condemnations are one thing and freedom of action is another. That rule applies now as well.

The writer is founder and operator of the blog "In the Crosshairs" on military, security, strategy vision and practice.

(The article was published in "The Jerusalem Post", October 06, 2018)

Between fire and maneuver, or a combination of the two | by Gal Perl Finkel

רשומה רגילה

The damage to the enemy’s military power is achieved on land by ground forces

While Israel has invested considerably in air power and maintains its relative advantage in this field – beginning with Operation Moked in the Six Day War and more intensively in the last three decades – its enemies chose a cheap and foolish solution, but one that reduces the gap.

The first to understand this was Syrian President Hafez Assad. It was a lesson from the first Lebanon war, during which the Israel Air Force destroyed about a third of the Syrian Air Force and severely damaged its anti-aircraft forces. The Syrian president reduced and cut down the air force, which he himself commanded years earlier, and invested in acquiring a large-scale arsenal of rockets that pose a real threat to Israel’s population centers.

In the years preceding the civil war in Syria, Assad succeeded in creating a balance of deterrence against Israel. It was clear that Syria would attack Tel Aviv with precision rockets and heavy warheads, while Israel would send its planes to attack the Syrian capital. Assad received the proof that he was right during the Iraqi missile attack in the Gulf War. Israel was more or less helpless in the face of a threat on its population centers.

Hezbollah and Hamas, each according to its capabilities, also adopted the method and also have obtained an arsenal of rockets aimed directly at Israeli population centers. Also important are the Iranians, who are working to establish a similar arsenal that will threaten Israel from Syria.

In a lecture at the INSS annual conference in January 2014, the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate at the time and now the leading candidate for the post of chief of staff, Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, said the IDF defined the period as an "era of fire." He emphasized, "There are many more missiles and rockets aimed from deep enemy territory to deep into Israel’s territory. They are much more distributed. They are much more accurate. They are much more lethal. We are talking about around 170,000 rockets and missiles that threaten the State of Israel."

Part of this change can be seen in the decision of the IDF to acquire a variety of rockets of varying ranges, from 30 km. to 150 km. Over the past two decades, the Artillery Corps has become increasingly sophisticated and technologically advanced. Media reports indicate that Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman intends to establish a kind of "rocket corps."

An Israeli response to the rocket arsenal that its enemies have established will provide the IDF with a rapid, destructive and precise operational response, which is economical in relation to its air response, and eliminates the need to endanger pilots in missions above enemy territory. In future confrontations, air force pilots will be unable to operate almost freely over enemy territory. It seems that the minister wants it to be that in such a case the IDF will not remain without a real alternative.

Under Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, the IDF has invested considerable resources in improving the capabilities of its ground forces and reserves. However there is another cost for such a significant investment in standoff firepower capabilities (Israel already invests huge sums in the IAF and in tightening the connection between current intelligence and precision munitions). Every investment in a particular field comes at the expense of non-investment in another field. When one buys an airplane, he sometimes gives up buying a tank, and when one buy planes and rocket launchers, he might harm the level of readiness of ground forces.

Thus, the IDF may find itself in a future campaign in a situation in which it relies almost exclusively on its capabilities in standoff firepower from the air, sea and land. The next campaign may be a standoff-firepower confrontation between the IDF and the enemy. Such wars, as demonstrated by the German blitz on London and the thousands of bombing raids carried out by the Allies over German cities during World War II, did not shorten the war or make real achievements. The British did not surrender, they only became more determined, as did the Germans.

At a recent conference of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, former deputy chief of staff, Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan, noted that there is a deep conceptual gap regarding the use of military force in recent confrontations, which led to the public’s disappointment with the way it ended, without a clear Israeli victory. Golan stated, "Anyone who has ever dealt in this field of warfare can understand that this belief that wars can be won only with the help of accurate intelligence and precise fire is a problematic assumption. In fact, I would say, it reduces the art of war to the level of technicians. And since the techs never won wars, it is reasonable to assume that they will never win wars."

Golan, who is also a candidate to become the next chief of staff, said the IDF should be built so that when Israel chooses, "We will hit our enemies with a hard and decisive blow. And when I say hitting our enemies, it’s hitting their fighting ability."

In his view, the assumption that harming infrastructure and the civilian population can bring the enemy to despair is wrong. "If we want relatively short wars, and if we want to bring the enemy to surrender, or to ask for a cessation of hostilities, we must first and foremost hit his military strength and his fighting ability," he said.

The meaning is an attack on the enemy’s operatives, whether they are soldiers or terrorists. The only way to do this, certainly in view of the serious threat to the home front, is through the old Ben-Gurion approach of transferring the war to enemy territory, and for this, the IDF must maneuver, and quickly.

The operation of ground forces is an expensive move, which includes the risk of casualties. In his lecture in 2014, Maj.-Gen. Kochavi – who, like Golan did his service in the Paratroopers Brigade and fought in Lebanon, Judea and Samaria – said that the maneuver “is not going to be simpler." According to him, in almost every village in Lebanon, forces will operate mainly in urban areas where there are "dozens of rockets, launchers and bombs – all modern weapons, not improvisations.

Therefore, it is already a semi-military organization, not a terrorist organization in the classic sense of the term. And, he said, "Maneuvering in this space becomes much more challenging."

Nevertheless, Kochavi said that Israel has "a basic interest in shortening the duration of the war." This has never been achieved by standoff firepower. Significant firepower must support IDF land forces. But in the end, as Israeli governments have learned in all the confrontations, from "Defensive Shield" to ,Protective Edge," the damage to the enemy’s military power is achieved on land by ground forces.

The writer is founder and operator of the blog "In the Crosshairs" on military, security, strategy vision and practice.

(The article was published in "The Jerusalem Post", September 06, 2018)