missiles within a short period of time, they also dealt with the challenge in an inter-
corps effort. Once they were joined by infantry and artillery, the problem was
solved. 49 All this would have been unnecessary had the military and political
echelons accepted Defence Minister Dayan’s advice to retreat to the Gidi and
Mitla Passes, and defend from there with small forces, until conditions were ripe to
counter-attack in an organized and orderly manner. 50
The traditional reason for battlefield density, that is, force-to-space ratio,
continued to play a role as well. In 1973, density on the Southern Front was
created as a result of the fact that the fighting took place along the 160-kilometre-
long Suez Canal zone, where some 80 per cent of the Egyptian tanks were
concentrated. And in Lebanon, in 1982, Israel concentrated a huge number of
forces relative to space: two armoured divisions in a 160-by-30-kilometre terrain
compartment in the Lebanon Mountains and two-and-a-half armoured divisions
in a compartment of 30-by-10 kilometres in the Beka Valley. 51 The combination
of high force-to-space ratios and mobility constraints due to the mountainous
terrain created density that hardly enabled manoeuvring or employing great
portions of the force. Whereas in 1956 and 1967 IDF troops advanced hundreds
of kilometres a day, in 1973 and 1982 their advance could be measured by a few
kilometres or dozens at most.
A second negative repercussion of the ascendancy of firepower has already been
referred to: that is, the lesser effectiveness vis-a`-vis LIC challenges. Firepower’s
destruction effect is usually more limited against an insurgency than against a
regular army or a national infrastructure due to guerrillas’ low signature. This was
amply demonstrated during the Second Lebanon War, when both air power and
artillery failed to deliver, 52 and Israel was forced by the United States to refrain
from attacking Lebanese infrastructure targets, since the US administration
considered Lebanon’s pro-Western government one of its greatest achievements
in the quest for democratization of the Middle East.
A third negative aspect of the ascendancy of firepower has been the temptation
to conduct battles from headquarters and/or via plasma screens. Following the
Second Lebanon War, both Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and former deputy chief of
staff Matan Vilnai pointed to one of the reasons for the difficulties the IDF faced
on the battlefield—the tendency of senior commanders to manage the battle not
by leading their troops on the battlefield, but from their headquarters. 53 (For
further discussion, see below.)
At the same time, the ascendancy of firepower has also had three positive
aspects. First, it has the ability to transfer the war to the enemy’s territory via fire
(see discussion of offence below). Second, given the constraints on manoeuvre, it
is no longer unimaginable to think in terms of firepower-facilitated manoeuvre,
something that had previously been confined to the tactical level. And, indeed, as
was proved by the IAF’s attack on the Syrian SAM missiles in the Beka Valley in
1982, precision technology can effectively pave the way for ground manoeuvre.
Third, technology can be mobilized for counter-terror missions, as was proven by
Israeli-targeted killings during the second intifada. 54
182 The Evolution of Operational Art