Offence/defence
Once manoeuvre became limited after 1967, a gap arose between the IDF’s
traditional unequivocal commitment to offence and its feasibility. In 1973, the
strategic surprise by which Israel was caught, the saturation of the battlefield with
forces and firepower, and the constraints on mobility as a result of the nature of
the terrain, particularly the sandy Sinai Desert, caused great difficulty for air and
ground offensives. At the same time, at least in principle, offence could benefit
from improved firepower, particularly if the attacker—in this case, Israel—
enjoyed dominance in battlefield knowledge (DBK), which could dramatically
increase the level of attrition inflicted upon the Arab enemy while ensuring
greater survivability for Israel’s own troops. 70 Another positive option that
emerged was the ability to transfer the war to the enemy’s territory, attacking it
via fire. These benefits, however, seemed to apply to HICs rather than LICs, as was
proved in 2006, when the IDF’s firepower superiority was not translated into
battlefield success. But Israel has not waged pure HICs for more than thirty-five
years now, so this has become much more than a temporary or one-off problem.
For the defender, the ascendancy of firepower has become an asset, again, first
and foremost, if not only in HIC situations. As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
stated, ‘once upon a time we were frightened by the idea that Syrian armoured
divisions could just roll onto Israeli territory. Now we live in a new reality, having
the tools for containing ground attack without capturing even one inch of Syrian
land, and...capable of deciding such a campaign...from a distance’. 71
Remnants of indirect approach
After the early 1970s, only little was left of the traditional Israeli indirect ap-
proach, which had been the jewel in the crown of its operational art. Its spirit,
however, could occasionally still be found, particularly among the older genera-
tion of IDF commanders. It is no wonder, therefore, that two of the three
following examples of the indirect approach—two successes and one failure—
were connected to Ariel Sharon, who belonged to this generation. The first
example is the crossing of the Suez Canal in October 1973. From a geographical/
physical point of view, breaking through the Egyptians’ deployment at a point
where 80 per cent of their tanks were concentrated rather than operating in the
empty spaces in their flanks and rear constituted a direct approach. The reason
for the IDF crossing at the enemy’s strongest point was a lack of sufficient
crossing equipment, which made the outflanking of the Egyptian forces via the
Red Sea unfeasible. Psychologically, though, the Israelis took advantage of the
Egyptian failure to live up to Napoleon’s thirty-fourth maxim, in which he
warned against leaving ‘intervals by which the enemy can penetrate between
corps [...] unless it be to draw him into a snare’. 72 Attacking between the 2nd
and 3rd Egyptian Armies—where the enemy was not expecting an attack—was
compatible with the notion of the indirect approach. Once Israeli forces crossed
the canal, taking advantage of the failure of the Egyptian 14 October offensive
The Rise and Fall of Israeli Operational Art, 1948–2008 185