Experience-based generalship and a decentralized command system
Faithful to the IDF’s traditional performance-oriented approach, common sense,
and improvisation skills, most IDF commanders would enthusiastically agree with
the editor of this volume that carrying out operations is something commanders
must have at their fingertips, which both contemporary and classical military
thinkers have referred to as creativity,coup d’il,orgenius. 25 The fact that, during
Israel’s early wars, up until the late 1960s/early 1970s, IDF commanders often
demonstrated exceptional skills in operational art cannot be ignored. Being ‘practi-
cal soldiers’, 26 however, they put their faith in experience and experience-based
intuition rather than any intellectually acquired knowledge, 27 taking advantage of
battlefield conditions that were favourable to manoeuvre in order to carry out a
series of manoeuvre-based force multipliers. The IDF also proved that compensating
forquantitative inferiority isnot confined tothe operationallevel, but rathercan and
should take place at every level of war, including tactical-level confrontations, which
are often referred to by operational-art adherents as ‘attrition’. 28
During Israel’s early decades, the IDF developed a decentralized mission-
oriented command system without explicit reference to foreign models. Accord-
ing to Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld, even if it had been inspired by
the GermanAuftragstaktik, this could not be acknowledged due to the sensitiv-
ities entailed in referring to any German system. 29 Two dominant figures were the
command system’s spiritual fathers—Chief of Staff Dayan in the mid-1950s and
Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin in the pre-1967 years. 30
Since in 1956 it was imperative that the IDF reached the Suez Canal zone as
quickly as possible, Dayan shaped the operational efforts as separate campaigns,
trusting field commanders at all levels that they would understand what had to be
done and how and when to do it, in order to achieve the strategic and operational
objectives without further instructions. Commanders were allotted free rein in
making their own operational and tactical decisions with maximum flexibility, as
long as they adhered to the assigned objectives and missions, 31 and maintained
the unity of command. Indeed, Dayan preferred commanders who pushed
forward, even if this sometimes entailed unauthorized actions, such as the
advance of the 7th Armoured Brigade or the advance of paratroopers led by
Ariel Sharon into the Mitla Pass, both in 1956, or the advance of forces from Israel
Tal’s division to the Suez Canal in 1967 despite an explicit order by Defence
Minister Dayan to stop a few kilometres away from the canal. Likewise, the 1967
blitzkrieg would not have been possible had each operational effort been closely
controlled from above and constrained by advanced planning.
THE FALL OF ISRAELI OPERATIONAL ARTAffected by the ‘aura of prestige’ that surrounded the IDF after the 1967 war, the
Israeli sense of severe threat was replaced by complacency to the point of hubris.
As a result of the 1973 October War, the IDF undertook a major quantitative
The Rise and Fall of Israeli Operational Art, 1948–2008 177