Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water | by Gal Perl Finkel

The unit has a tradition during which the soldiers are required, in a kind of courage test, to jump from a moving jeep without a helmet into thorny bushes

Recently, a series of mishaps were uncovered in the elite Maglan unit, which is part of the IDF’s new commando brigade. It turns out that the unit has a tradition, which is not part of the official training program, during which the soldiers are required, in a kind of courage test, to jump from a moving jeep without a helmet into thorny bushes. One of the soldiers who tried to accomplish the test was seriously injured in the back and may suffer disability for the rest of his life. In another case, a soldier from the unit was injured during hand-to-hand combat training (Krav Maga).

I did not serve in Maglan or one of the other units in the brigade, but the service in the paratroopers and later in reserve in an elite paratroopers brigade in the 98th Paratroopers Division has brought me together with many who served as soldiers and commanders in the unit and gave me some insights into the experience, training and operational activities of Maglan and similar units.

Since their founding, elite units like Maglan have developed such traditions to prove what seems to be clear in advance, that they are the boldest and toughest in the military. Ehud Barak’s acceptance test for Sayeret Matkal, for example, included an exam of his ability to read a map and what was defined as the ultimate test of courage – jumping from a jeep during a drive at 50 kilometers per hour. A moment before Barak (who for his courage as commander in the unit was later decorated with five citations for bravery) jumped; the driver grabbed him and stopped the vehicle. It turns out that the unit knew even then to stop in time and the test only examined whether Barak would be ready to jump.

In these units, in which high-quality personnel serve, there is a different discipline than the one practiced in the “big army.” The soldiers are educated to be self-disciplined and to take charge. The reason why commanders don’t deal with issues such as proper military appearance and dry orders is based on the perception that with such good men it is possible to deal mainly with operational activity and preparing for war, and rely on them to know to uphold those orders on themselves. Most of the time that approach proves itself, and the IDF manages to produce a great deal from its elite units, even though the soldiers are relatively young and the training period is short compared with what is customary in various Western armies. During the Second Lebanon War, for example, a Maglan unit carried out “Operation Beach Boys,” considered one of the most successful special operations in the war, in which 150 targets were destroyed, including 40 rocket launchers, in the western sector of southern Lebanon. The US military would have carried out such a raid with a much more experienced force, Delta force or the Green Berets, whose soldiers would not be 19 or 20 years old as in the IDF, but at least 25.

Nevertheless, there are those who sometimes exploit this lack of supervision by the commanders in these units in order to create such invalid traditions as that courage test. It is good that the IDF decided to conduct a thorough investigation, headed by Brig.-Gen. Itai Virob, who commanded a reserve Paratroopers brigade during the fighting in Lebanon in 2006, but one must make sure not to “throw out the baby with the bath water.” The commando brigade is still, despite the mileage it has made in exercises in Israel and abroad, as well as operational activity carried out by its units separately (two months ago, for example, a team from a Maglan unit killed eight Hamas operatives on the Gaza perimeter fence under construction). The brigade commander, Col. Avi Blut, a paratrooper who commanded Maglan and is about to serve as the military secretary of the prime minister, is constantly working on the force buildup processes that would unite these units from “a mass of units that have no common ground,” as MK Ofer Shelah, a former paratroop company commander, once defined them, to one brigade.

In the next confrontation, the IDF will need to have a high-quality, flexible and available force capable of operating quickly in order to attack Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon or other targets. The transformation of the commando brigade into such a force is the challenge of its commanders, and will continue to be such a challenge for Blut’s replacement, Col. Kobi Heller, who did most of his service in the Golani Brigade and commanded the Duvdevan unit during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. The conclusions of the examination committee led by Brig.-Gen. Virob, which will certainly lead to the tightening of supervision and control in the area of safety and discipline, should not harm the spirit of these units, since it is a critical component of their creative, daring and combative nature.

And a word about the unacceptable norm of courage tests such as the one colloquially known as “beheading” that have become common here. I know the current commander of Maglan; we served together in the same paratroopers company, where he was a squad leader and I was a young recruit. After I was discharged, I heard that he had taken command of a company whose commander had been wounded in the Second Lebanon War and that he was considered a well-respected company commander. That did not surprise me; he was always an excellent man and an excellent commander.

For the last three months, he has been in charge of the unit and is responsible for everything that happens there. Responsible, but not necessarily guilty. It is not at all certain that in this short period he was able to recognize every procedure and folly that occurs in it. This also applies to the brigade commander, who is much higher in the chain of command. The assumption that the dismissal of those responsible for failure will solve the problem turns out, more often than not, to be a mistake. More than once, the failure is far more systemic than personal and the army loses good commanders who should have continued to use their skills and lessons, learned from a difficult event. They will know how to deal with malfunctions and return the unit to proper working tracks.

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", August 09, 2018)

The IDF Exercises in Cyprus and Crete / by Gabi Siboni & Gal Perl Finkel

The Israel Defense Forces recently completed a large military exercise on the island of Cyprus, and a smaller training exercise in Crete was held several months earlier. Although the commanders of the exercise did not refer to this specifically, the topographic outline of Cyprus is clearly similar to that of the Lebanese mountains, and in general, training in unfamiliar territory, and particularly when it resembles areas beyond the border where the troops may well have to operate, is highly important. The exercise presumably created tension with Turkey; in addition, the government heads of Israel, Cyprus, and Greece met earlier this month in Greece, in yet another trilateral meeting since the leaders of the three countries met in Nicosia a year ago to establish a new geopolitical bloc in the Eastern Mediterranean, partly as a counterweight to Turkey.

The Israel Defense Forces recently completed a military exercise on the island of Cyprus. The exercise involved some 500 soldiers from the Commando Brigade, including the Egoz Unit (which specializes in operating on rough terrain, fieldcraft, camouflage, and counter-guerrilla warfare); teams of dog handling soldiers; combat engineering soldiers; and another 200 air force personnel. Reports indicated that the exercise included flying the forces from Israel's Nevatim Air Base in C-130J Super Hercules aircraft, joining up with Black Hawk helicopters in Cyprus, and from there flying to an ongoing exercise in the Trodos Mountains. The soldiers practiced incursions, land and urban warfare, taking control of areas from which rockets are fired, and tunnel warfare. The reports also stated that IDF forces were joined in the exercise by 100 fighters from the special forces of the Cypriot National Guard.

For several years the IDF has carried out joint exercises with foreign armies in friendly countries, such as the Red Flag aerial training that takes place in the United States. Most of the participants and equipment used in these exercises are from the air and marine branches. In addition, the Israeli Air Force holds a series of joint training exercises with the Greek Air Force, which enable it to practice long range missions and capabilities when facing a system of Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, such as possessed by the Syrian and Iranian armies.

Ground forces were first involved in this activity about 6 months ago, when the Maglan Unit, also part of the Commando Brigade, carried out a smaller training exercise on the Greek island of Crete. Press reports of the training in Cyprus provide a glimpse of the development of IDF training methods and the advantages of training in neighboring countries, in both military terms and strengthened regional ties.

One IDF commander told the press that the advantage of training on foreign territory was its unfamiliarity to all the solders and commanders. The commander of the Egoz elite unit said, "We landed deep in enemy territory and received our mission on the plane on the way to the destination. We had a range of enemy scenarios and many different type of terrain for fighting." The Cypriot Air Force even deployed anti-aircraft systems to simulate a real threat to the IAF helicopters.

Although the commanders of the exercise did not refer to this specifically, the topographic outline of Cyprus is clearly similar to that of the Lebanese mountains. Training in unfamiliar territory, and particularly when it resembles areas beyond the border where the troops may well have to operate, is highly important. The training areas within Israel are very limited, which makes it very difficult to create an environment that meets the IDF needs for training ground fighting against Hezbollah in the north and Hamas and jihad organizations in the south. Landing by helicopter, maneuvering, navigating, and fighting in unfamiliar territory far from home create a significant challenge for the commanders and the troops, and an opportunity to develop campaign knowledge and fighting capabilities.

The decision to strengthen the commando element of the army reflects a further understanding. MK Ofer Shelah, a former Paratroopers company commander, describes the importance of incursions as a means of dealing with the current IDF threat references in his book, Dare to Win. In his view, "Building the IDF as an attacking, initiating force in the 1950s and the pattern of the IDF’s actions led over the years to the concept of the incursion. Contrary to automatic connotations, an incursion is not just a nighttime raid by a small force that returns home at dawn. Rather, it is the whole concept of operating the force in mobile actions of various sizes, in order to undermine the enemy and create a surprise, a sense of being chased and vulnerable, after which they go back over the border."

Although there were no public statements to this effect, the exercise presumably created tension with Turkey, which chose to hold a training exercise for the Turkish Navy south of Paphos. In spite of the reconciliation agreement between Israel and Turkey signed in 2016, and the return of ambassadors to Ankara and Tel Aviv, Turkey continues to maintain close ties with Hamas. Turkey houses a headquarters of the Hamas military wing, which in 2014 was the element that instructed Hamas activists to kidnap and murder three teenagers in Gush Etzion, which ultimately led to the war in the Gaza Strip (Operation Protective Edge). Although the reconciliation agreement requires Turkey to prevent any terrorist or military activity against Israel from its territory, including fundraising, Ankara has failed to comply fully with this clause. The senior figure in the military wing, Saleh al-Arouri, has left the country, but military activists continue to operate against Israel from Turkish territory. The Erdogan government has ignored Israeli protests about this.

Israel's cooperation with Cyprus is not limited to military activities. The countries have signed an agreement to provide assistance in emergencies. Indeed, Cyprus was the first to send firefighting planes to Israel during the Carmel fire disaster in 2010. In 2016, when a giant fire broke out in the town of Paphos, Israel in turn sent an aid delegation, including three firefighting planes and an IDF transport plane. The Israel Navy has also held a number of joint exercises with the Cypriot Navy. Ties between Israel and Greece grew stronger following the deterioration of relations with Turkey, and the process accelerated after the Marmara incident in 2010, which was perceived by the Greeks and the Cypriots as an expression of Turkish assertiveness. As a result, in 2011 the Greek government stopped about a dozen ships from leaving Greek ports for another protest flotilla to the Gaza Strip.

In 2016 there was a summit meeting in Nicosia between the leaders of Greece, Israel, and Cyprus with the aim of creating a new geopolitical bloc in the Eastern Mediterranean, partly also as a counterweight to Turkey. The third trilateral meeting between the government heads took place earlier this month in Greece. At the last meeting in Saloniki, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that if the countries succeeded in implementing the idea of the East-Med pipeline (an ambitious idea to build a gas pipeline with a length of 2,000 km reaching Italy and passing through Cyprus and Greece), it would be a "revolution."

The disclosure of the joint activity to the media likely lies in the desire by Israel – as well as Cyprus, and Greece – to send messages to countries and non-state organizations in the region at this time. The first message concerns the drive to exploit the potential of the gas reserves in the Mediterranean, which is a top priority for all the countries involved and is a source of tension between Greece and Cyprus on one hand, and Turkey on the other. In addition, the close ties between Turkey and Qatar and Hamas, the tension due to the electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip, and the belligerent rhetoric from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in recent months may all have prompted Israel to publicize the exercise. This exercise joins a series of sudden exercises conducted by Israel recently in both the north and the south, including with the Galilee Division and with reserves formations, designed to strengthen the forces' readiness for unexpected escalation.

From the military aspect, the exercise highlights the importance of more intensive training in unfamiliar territory, including for additional ground units, and even for integrated fighting involving infantry, armored corps, artillery, and engineering units. There is a process in the IDF for operational thinking and building the force with the aim of returning maneuvers on the ground to the center of attention as an important tool for reaching a decisive victory in the next round of hostilities. The special operations and training of the Commando Brigade could support the main effort in the campaign, but could not replace it. Therefore it is extremely important to extend and upgrade training for the IDF's main ground troops and develop models for joint training exercises for these forces overseas, in spite of their high cost relative to the cost of training in Israel. It is these forces that bear the main burden of the effort to maneuver, whose purpose is to strike the enemy, capture territory, limit fire from captured territories into Israeli rear territory, seize and destroy military infrastructures, and undermine the survival of the enemy government.

Dr. Col. (res) Gabi Siboni, former Commanded of Sayeret Golani and head of the Military and Strategic Affairs program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

Gal Perl Finkel is the coordinator of the Military and Strategic Affairs program at the INSS.

(The article was originally published  as an "INSS Insight" No. 945, June 28, 2017)

How to win a modern war/ by Gal Perl Finkel

Israel must form a strategy at the state level (not just the military level) based on an understanding of the enemy structure, strengths and weaknesses

When US General David Petraeus, who commanded the successful Surge campaign in Iraq, was a young platoon leader in the army 509th Airborne Battalion, and made parachute jumps all over Europe, he trained with the French paratroopers. Then he read Jean Lartéguy’s novel The Centurions, a realistic novel about the wars France fought in Indochina and Algeria, a book that influenced him greatly. A passage Petraeus particularly liked, in which Lieutenant Marindelle, a French paratrooper, is explaining how the Vietnamese way of war was different from that of the French: “When we make war, we play Belote with thirty-two cards in the pack. But their game is Bridge and they have fifty-two cards: twenty more than we do. Those twenty cards short will always prevent us from getting the better of them. They’ve got nothing to do with traditional warfare, they’re marked with the sign of politics, propaganda, faith, agrarian reform.”

Indeed, since the wars in Indochina, Algeria and Vietnam there has been a dramatic change in the nature of warfare. These wars introduced the “war among the people,” as British General Sir Rupert Smith named it. Instead of wars between states with industrialized armies the Western world finds itself fighting a hybrid adversary. It can be state or non-state, and can act as a proxy for state actors but have independent agendas as well. It’s an enemy that fights among the people rather than on the battlefield, using them for cover, concealment, support and protection. It operates with both conventional and irregular tactics, such as terrorist attacks, indiscriminate violence (by launching rockets on civilian population centers). Western industrialized armies were ill-suited to this new style of warfare. These new wars required armies to develop their counter-insurgency capabilities, strategy and forces.

In his fascinating and important book War from the Ground Up, Emile Simpson, a former captain in the British Army Royal Gurkha Rifles, describe his first combat mission in Afghanistan.

“As an infantry platoon commander in 2007, my first operation was the clearance of the Upper Gereshk Valley, Helmand, in a brigade-level operation. The insurgents were engaged, cleared out, and the mission was achieved. Yet the insurgents would also have claimed it as a victory because they had inflicted some casualties on us, and we did not stay to hold the ground we had cleared. The outcome of the operation in the longer term is debatable since several similar operations in the same area have been mounted since then. Moreover, the ‘meaning’ of the battle for local people was most likely nothing to do with who ‘won’. They would be far more concerned with the battle in terms of their own safety and property.”

This description, which is familiar to anyone who served in the IDF and took part in raids in Lebanon, Gaza or the occupied territories, contains the entire problem. When the narrative of the two sides is on different levels and is shaped by perceptions of reality diametrically opposed, there is substantial difficulty in determining who won.

Simpson argues in his book that the traditional war between states, as defined by Clausewitz, still existed (as proved by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in South Ossetia in 2008), but that there is another kind of war, what he calls “armed politics.” While the old wars had two main criteria: polarity – the idea that there are two sides to every conflict – and decisive outcomes, who are the poles in the Syrian civil war? How one can achieve a decisive outcome in such a conflict? Even when the polarity principle is realized, the war is was mostly between an army and a non-state organization that fights among the people. In such conflicts, one side is rarely completely destroyed. All that can be achieved is the imposition of our will on the opponent.

So how does one win these new wars? Israel has found itself fighting such wars since 1982 war in Lebanon. In his recent book Dare to win, MK Ofer Shelah, a former Paratroopers company commander (who was wounded in the First Lebanon War) and a journalist, suggests a different way for the IDF to fight. Before a war, Israel, Shelah writes, “Must analyze and recognize the security doctrine of the enemy. The possibilities to act must be examined according to their ability to undermine it and place him in the same paradigmatic embarrassment we are at today, after the Second Lebanon War or ‘Protective Edge.’ If there is a possibility to achieve that – then, and only then, it is right to use force.”

Victory will be achieved through an integrated and simultaneous campaign in which all efforts: legal, economic, military and political, are intertwined and support each other, unlike to the way it has been done in the past. For example, the political action can’t wait for the fighting to end. In the “war among the people,” the political action must be done in parallel to the fighting.

The IDF strategy, published by IDF Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot, is a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. Israel must form a strategy at the state level (not just the military level) based on an understanding of the enemy structure, strengths and weaknesses in order to achieve its objectives in the next conflict against Hamas or Hezbollah.

The author is the coordinator of the military and strategic affairs program and cyber-security program at The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). He is 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", September 07, 2016)