based on smart doctrines and plans, which usually needs more abstract and
paradoxical thinking. Commanders have tended to believe that on a battlefield
where enemy forces can be destroyed by stand-off precision fire, optimal com-
mand and control is achieved from control centres, and operations and battles
can be conducted via plasma screens.
More and more experts have claimed that classical war is over, accusing the older
generation of IDF commanders of thinking as if they lived ‘in the time of the War of
Independence or the Sinai War’, and ‘in terms of tanks and ground operations...
and all these worthless things’. 82 It is now clear that over-reliance on precision
technology was one of the major reasons for the IDF malfunctioning in the Second
Lebanon War, second only to the impact of policing missions in the territories. 83
Former deputy chief of staff Matan Vilnai rightly said that one could run McDo-
nald’s using plasma screens, but not a battle. 84 And General (ret.) Yossi Peled
expressed a similar view, saying that ‘a golden calf was created [before the Second
Lebanon War] and named technology; many believed it could win the war’. 85
IDF commanders have long been sympathetic to technology, but never to the
degree of recent years. According to theMaarachotsurvey, the technological
dimension of strategy was the most prevalent amongMaarachotarticles between
1948 and 2000, with 9.5 per cent of the articles. Other dimensions of war lagged
behind—the operational with 2.5 per cent, the logistical with 3.5 per cent, and the
societal with 1.5 per cent. 86
The second problem IDF commanders have been suffering from in recent years
stems from the tendency since the 1990s to equip commanders with managerial
skills rather than grooming them to become great captains. This trend is alien to
operational art’s focus on generalship, and it reflects a misunderstanding of the
difference between the non-linear, often paradoxical nature of military operations 87
and the more linear logic applied in a civilian environment. One of the expressions
of the new trend was the general staff’s reform called ‘Aviv Neurim’ (Spring of
Youth) launched in the late 1990s. This was supposed to ensure greater efficiency in
the organization, but in fact it paid relatively little attention to operational art. At
the heart of that reform was greater authority to the arms and field units, unifica-
tion of the command and budgetary authorities, the creation of a unitary body in
charge of building up the ground forces, and a commitment to provide ‘more
security for each shekel spent’. In the late 1990s, Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz
distributed to IDF commanders Spencer Johnson’s book,Who Moved My Cheese?
whose natural target audience was managers, not military commanders. The
intention was supposedly good; that is, helping commanders cope with changing
realities. It, nevertheless, constituted a huge change from the past, when IDF
commanders received a more traditional education and training.
CONCLUSIONA combination of reasons accounts for the fall of Israeli operational art after years
of strong performance that was not based on formal education, but that mani-
fested itself throughout three decades in the successful application of a series of
The Rise and Fall of Israeli Operational Art, 1948–2008 189