A Policy-Oriented Think Tank Addressing Foreign Policy and National Security Issues for a Safe Israel

Has the IDF and Israel’s security concept relied too much on innovation and technology at the expense of basic military principles?

The answer to this question is multi-faceted and will only become clear if a full investigation into the events of October 7, 2023, is conducted. However, we can already say that the IDF overly relied on SIGINT and that it ignored one fundamental military principle: never underestimate the enemy.
Iron Dome

Author’s Note

This is the English version of an article published by JISS shortly after the outbreak of the current war on October 7, 2023. The author believes that its message is as pertinent today as it was when first published in Hebrew 14 months ago.

Synopsis

Critics argue that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is “hypnotized” by innovative technologies and deploys them at the expense of military professionalism. The acquisition of high technologies – particularly defensive – has frequently been blamed for diverting the IDF from sound military practices. These complaints continue to surface, especially in response to investments in defense technologies. [IE1] Yet. What these critics often have in common is a lack of clarity regarding alternatives. Should successive Israeli governments not have invested in aerial defense systems and abandoned Israeli citizens to rocket fire from Gaza? Should Israel have accepted mass casualties in its cities while waging perpetual preventive wars, at the expense of the nation’s economy and the well-being of its people?

Introduction

Every military and political defeat prompts a wave of self-criticism, asking, “What went wrong?” This was the case following the Yom Kippur War, and it was true also for less devastating defeats, such as the Second Lebanon War. The severe blow that Hamas inflicted on Israel on the “Bloody Saturday” of October 7, 2023 – an almost inconceivable defeat dealt by a militia that was seen by Israel’s political and military leadership, and no less so by Israel’s public, as an irritant rather than a formidable enemy – immediately triggered (and rightly so) a wave of self-criticism with an intensity that we have not seen before.

At the time of writing, the war that Hamas launched on October 7 is far from over, and it likely has not yet reached its climax. Its outcome will shape Israel for generations, influencing political, military, economic, and social aspects of the country’s future. At this point in time, about three weeks into the war, we are far from fully comprehending “where we went wrong.” [IE2] The self-criticism ranges from blaming the policies and actions of the current Netanyahu government and its predecessors, to blaming the intelligence organizations and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military doctrine and force structure. This article, as its title indicates, focuses on the latter issue: Namely, did the IDF military doctrine rely too heavily on technology at the expense of fundamental military skills?

The Gaza Border Defenses

As far as we know from open sources, the defense of the Gaza Strip border relied on a combination of physical barriers, warning devices and communication with headquarters and forces deeper within Israeli territory. The physical barrier system consisted of two components: one underground and the other above-ground. The underground component is deep and rigid, incorporating sensors apparently designed to detect the acoustic signature of tunneling excavations. This component was constructed as a lesson from Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Its purpose was to thwart Hamas’ ability to create a system of tunnels penetrating Israeli territory and using them to infiltrate commando units to raid Gaza Envelope communities.

The above-ground component consisted of a relatively light barrier, and a system of observation and firing positions on the Israeli side. It appears that the purpose of the above-ground system was to prevent mass infiltrations by unarmed protesters, as was the case during the “March of Return” protests, and perhaps also to prevent small armed commando units from breaching the border.

It therefore seems that the reference threat employed in planning the Gaza border defenses was an underground or above ground infiltration by small Hamas commando units. It is likely that the possibility of a synchronized mass ground incursion by several thousand well-trained and armed combatants was not considered in the design of the Gaza border defenses. The issue of border defense has occupied the IDF General Staff for decades. Notably, three years before the October 7 debacle, in October 2020, the then Head of Israel’s Southern Command, Major General Herzi Halevi (now IDF Chief of Staff) published an article entitled “Multidimensional Defense” in which he wrote:

These days our enemies, with an emphasis on Hamas and Hezbollah, are planning ground offensives into our territory. These are not aimed at holding territory for a long time, but at causing damage, taking prisoners, and more importantly, creating a serious cognitive effect among the Israeli public and resonating in the media that something unprecedented has happened. Terrorism seeks to intimidate, it does not strive to win in the classic sense of the word but rather to demonstrate Israel’s loss of control of parts of its homeland, sowing fear and instability – this is its desired achievement[i]

Although Halevi mentioned both Hezbollah and Hamas in his threat assessment, it is likely that at the time he was still influenced by the discovery of Hezbollah tunnels along the Lebanese border a year earlier. Moreover, while the Hezbollah leader repeatedly expressed that the organization’s goal for the next war would be the “conquest of Galilee,” the Hamas leadership has not openly threatened to seize Israeli territory. It is thus reasonable to assume that General Halevi’s remarks were directed primarily at the threat posed by Hezbollah.

On the one hand, Major General Halevi’s words were astonishingly prophetic – akin to the commander of the American Navy predicting the attack on Pearl Harbor three years before it occurred. On the other hand, no less significant is what the general failed to say: How would such an offensive be executed: Through underground tunnels? Above ground? From the air? There is no way to guess what the General foresaw, but it is reasonable to assume that he consciously or unconsciously assumed an invasion through cross border tunnels, simply because both Hamas and Hezbollah invested a great deal of effort in constructing tunnels large and numerous enough to enable significant forces to invade Israeli territory.

Despite Halevi’s brilliant analysis and prophetic ability, the IDF high command was unable to take the next step: analyzing the methods by which Hamas and Hezbollah could realize their vision of conquering Israeli territory.

Hamas’ attack plan

The core plan of ​​Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” was a mass overland incursion across the Gaza border by about three brigades of the Nuhba forces, Hamas’ elite troops. The plan relied on a combination of strategic deception, and surprises at both the strategic and tactical levels. The key elements of this strategy included:

  1. Strategic deception: Hamas sought to lead Israel’s military and civilian leadership to believe that it had “gone soft.” After failing to secure any significant achievement in past rounds of escalation (such as Operation Guardian of the Walls) or in its “civilian” actions (such as the “March of Return” protests), Hamas was perceived as content with governing the Gaza Strip and encouraging actions against Israel in Judea and Samaria. Every con artist knows that the key to deceiving their victim is telling them what they want to hear. Israel’s military and civilian leadership – and the media, including the most vocal critics of the current government – fell for this narrative. Hamas’ non-participation in the last two rounds of conflict with Islamic Jihad was seen as “proof” of Hamas’ softening. Hamas was broadcasting moderation and almost the entire Israeli leadership and public bought into this reassuring story.[ii]

  1. Strategic surprise: Hamas successfully guarded the secrecy of its operation until the very last moment, both by preventing information leaks and by disguising its visible preparations on the ground as routine exercises or as preparations for renewed March of Return protests.

  1. Tactical surprise: The observation systems deployed by the IDF along the Gaza border could probably have provided timely warning of major Hamas force movements while they were still deep inside Gaza. If the movement of the Nuhba units had been detected early enough, the IDF might have been able to raise alert levels and thwart at least part of the attack. To ensure as short a time as possible between the detection of the invading force’s movement and the activation of an alert, Hamas used tunnels that reached as close as possible to the border fence – without crossing it – so that even in if the forces were detected, the IDF would have little to no time to alert the defending troops. No less important, Hamas disabled border detection, automatic fire, and communication systems with the help of commercial drones that dropped explosive charges.

 The enemy should be given the credit it deserves: this plan was brilliant in that it leveraged Israel’s inherent weakness as a “satisfied power,” [iii] which manifested in the desire to interpret reality in a way that was convenient for it – an aspiration to see reality in a way that aligned with its “comfort zone” and did not necessitate changes. This aspiration – essentially a form of self-hypnosis – was shared by the public, the government, and the IDF. Hamas’ plan was no less brilliant in its ability to both maintain secrecy until the last moment and in the tactical surprise it inflicted by shortening the duration of the raiding forces’ exposure to IDF observation.

However, of the three components of the plan, the most critical was maintaining the secrecy of the operation until the very last moment. The Hamas military force that stormed into Israel on October 7 was not an armored force, and was vulnerable to small-arms fire, not to mention artillery and aerial fire. It is reasonable to assume that if the plan had been discovered even a few days in advance, an appropriate IDF force would have been waiting in ambush for the Nuhba and would have swiftly destroyed them. It should be noted that in the communities where community alert teams managed to organize themselves in time and fight back, they limited the number of casualties, and even managed to drive the attacking forces away.[iv] With hindsight, it can be assumed that if even a few hours’ notice had been given, the alert teams could have been deployed optimally, thereby somewhat blunting the sting of the Hamas attack.

How did Israel Fail?

Israel’s failure was first and foremost an intelligence failure. Had intelligence correctly predicted the forthcoming attack even a few days in advance, both the strategic deception and the tactical surprise would likely have been thwarted. In an article published after the attack, former Shin Bet director, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Ami Ayalon, wrote:

“I think all the intelligence agencies failed. I believe that the Human Intelligence (HUMINT) sources did not deliver the goods. We were probably not deep enough inside Hamas’ military wing, in the places we needed to be, to understand what was happening. And as for SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) – which includes Internet, telephones and everything that goes on the network – we must give those guys their due and appreciate their ability to keep a secret.”

He further added: “We must note that we perceived some of the features (of the forthcoming offensive). We talked about a scenario of raids on kibbutzim and taking of prisoners. We discussed each script separately, but we didn’t see the big picture. We weren’t aware of the planning, and we certainly didn’t understand the timing, since they probably did it without any use of electronic signals. It was a surprise.” [v]

Did the failure of October 7 stem from the IDF’s overreliance on technological innovation at the expense of basic military principles? Based on the analysis above, the answer appears to be negative. The defeat did not result from technological failures of the physical barrier nor of remote observation or automated precision fire, but rather from an almost incomprehensible intelligence breakdown. The technologies in place along the physical barriers on the Gaza border were designed to protect against small-scale raids by commando squads. Those technologies failed in the face of an entirely different threat – one that we failed to foresee. This failure was not a technical failure, but a failure of our creative imagination and predictive abilities.

We can, I believe, assume that if the threat of a mass above-ground offensive had been foreseen, the response would not have been to enhance the physical barrier or refine its technology, but to reinforce the border with a stronger military presence to confront the Nuhba forces that eventually penetrated Israel in their masses.

The failure, therefore, was twofold: First, there was a failure to predict how the assault would be carried out, i.e. the above-ground offensive that Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi did not manage to anticipate. Second, there was the massive intelligence failure highlighted by Maj. Gen. (ret.) Ami Ayalon. If technology played any role in the failure of October 7, it is that Israeli intelligence relied entirely on SIGINT and did not consider that Hamas (and not only Hamas) was capable of planning, preparing and launching a large-scale military operation without the use of electronic signals. It is likely that the IDF, which relies entirely on electronic communications, is incapable of this, and has projected its own limitations onto the enemy.

As for the second part of the question – did the IDF neglect basic military principles – the answer to this question is yes. The IDF – or at least its ground forces – has never excelled in discipline and punctuality, as anyone who has served in the reserve knows well from personal experience. We are all also familiar with the sharp criticism voiced by Maj. Gen. (res) Yitzhak Brik, who has on numerous occasions described in detail the chain of erroneous actions in preparing the IDF’s emergency logistics. However, until the events of October 7 are reviewed by an independent investigative committee, it will remain difficult to identify exactly which military principles were neglected. In general, the slow deterioration of IDF forces from an army to a militia (at least at field levels) has been evident for some time, but it is still too early to identify specific faults that underpinned the blunder of October 7. It is reasonable to assume that if and when a thorough investigation of the events of October 7 is conducted, it will be possible to more precisely identify the military principles that were neglected or violated. One fundamental military principle that we can already identify as having been violated is that that one must never underestimate the enemy.

Complaints that the IDF is “hypnotized” by innovative technologies and employs them at the expense of military professionalism are not new. Accusations of “enslavement to plasma screens” were already widespread during the 2006 Second Lebanon War. The acquisition of advanced technologies, particularly defensive technologies, has repeatedly been blamed for degrading the IDF’s soldiering skills. Such complaints continue to be aired, especially regarding investments in defensive technologies. Numerous critics have opined that the preoccupation with defense – and the very success of defense until the failure of October 7 – dulled the IDF’s fighting spirit and absolved the political leadership of its duty to find “real solutions” to the threat from Gaza. The military correspondent of one of Israel’s leading newspapers put it as follows: “Under the umbrella of the safety provided by Iron Dome, the political leadership… has lost any sense of urgency to shape a policy toward Gaza based on commitments to long-term arrangements (with Hamas).”[vi]  An engineer from the Iron Dome development team remarked, “We have become addicted not only to Iron Dome, but to the entire concept of defense – ​​basing it on fences and cameras and high-tech,”[vii] while a well-known political commentators said a few months ago following Operation Shield and Arrow: “Under the umbrella of Iron Dome, the State of Israel has lost the aspiration for victory.” [viii]

What all these critics have in common is their ambiguity regarding the alternatives. Has there ever been a “real solution” to the threat from Gaza? Can we realistically expect to reach “long-term arrangements” with Hamas? Should Israel’s governments have abandoned Israel’s population to the tender mercies of Hamas’ rockets? Should they have forced Israeli civilians to get used to daily mass funerals in our towns and cities? And all of this while conducting a permanent preventive war at the expense of the economy and the well-being of Israel’s citizens?

Technology shapes the battlefield and wins wars. This has been true since the invention of the bow and the arrow, gunpowder, radar, and nuclear weapons. An army that clings to outdated technologies instead of adopting advanced ones will find itself as obsolete as the Polish cavalry which, according to legend, charged Germany’s panzer divisions The integration of new technologies in any army inevitably involves teething pains due to the need to adopt new combat doctrines and the emotional stress resulting from the retirement of cherished weapon systems hallowed by past victories. This can be especially stressful for veteran commanders who led victorious armies decades ago. Is it conceivable that today’s IDF would continue to operate Sherman, Patton, and Centurion tanks from the Six-Day War era? Could primitive radios from that era be as effective as today’s “Tsayad” digitized command and control system? The question posed at the beginning of this article – “Has the IDF and Israel’s security concept relied excessively on innovation and technology at the expense of basic military principles” – is a trick question. There is no contradiction between relying on technology and upholding basic military principles. Discipline, organizational order, basic soldiering skilled and well-trained command echelons, initiative, creative imagination, and not underestimating the enemy are not related to any technology. They form the foundation upon which the effectiveness of any armed force relies. Without them, an armed force is no more than an armed mob. Victory, in the end, depends on the human spirit – and so


[i]  Major General Halevi, H: Multidimensional Defense, Dado Center October 1, 2020 (In Hebrew)

https://www.idf.il/%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%99-%D7%99%D7%97%D7%99%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%96-%D7%93%D7%93%D7%95/%D7%92%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F-28-30-%D7%A2%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%A8-%D7%A9/%D7%94%D7%92%D7%A0%D7%94-%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%9E%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A3-%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%99

[ii] One exception was Avigdor Lieberman, a veteran Israeli politician and strong political opponent of Benjamin Netanyahu, who consistently called for the destruction of Hamas. His views were perceived by most observers as stemming from his antagonism to Netanyahu rather than from a strategic insight.

[iii] International relations theory offers the concept of “satisfied powers” and “dissatisfied powers” following wars. The victors become “satisfied powers” who are comfortable with the new order that has emerged in the wake of the war, while the “dissatisfied powers” rebel against the new order and do everything they can to undermine it. The “satisfied powers” are content with the new status quo, pursue conservative policies, and are reluctant to act when the “dissatisfied powers” undermine the status quo. An excellent example of this is the indifference of the victorious powers of World War I (Britain and France) to Hitler’s moves to undermine the Treaty of Versailles, and the avoidance of action when he invaded the Rhineland and then annexed Austria.

[iv] The story of the heroism and self sacrifice of the alert teams in many of the communities attacked on October 7 will surely be told and extolled in the future. At this time, see “The terrorists stormed, the alert teams fought for their homes: all the heroic battles” YNET October 12, 2023 (Hebrew) https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/yokra13627562

[v] Vitman, A. Former Shin Bet chief reveals: “We warned the political leadership all along” Globes, October 27, 2023(Hebrew)

https://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1001460912

[vi] Azulai, Y. Robots Instead of Brains and Bravery: How the IDF Lost Touch With Reality, Globes October 10, 2023 (Hebrew)

https://www.calcalist.co.il/local_news/article/ryhokd4za

[vii] Aretz, I: The Engineer from the Iron Dome Development Team Explains Why We Should Be Glad When We Hear a Big Boom, Globes October 26, 2023 (Hebrew)

https://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1001460985

[viii] Libskind K. Under the Umbrella of Iron Dome, Israel Lost the Need to Win, Maariv October 25, 2023 (Hebrew)

https://www.maariv.co.il/journalists/Article-1008044

 [IE1]This sentence basically repeats the previous. What’s the difference

 [IE2]I would consider rewriting this section, “When this article was originally written etc


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Photo: IMAGO / Sipa USA

Picture of Dr. Uzi Rubin

Dr. Uzi Rubin

Dr. Rubin was founder and first director (1991-1999) of the Israel Missile Defense Organization in the Israel Ministry of Defense, which developed, produced and deployed the country’s first national defense shield – the Arrow missile. He subsequently served as Senior Director for Proliferation and Technology in the National Security Council (1999-2001), and directed several defense programs at the Israel Aerospace Industries and in the defense ministry. He was twice awarded the Israel Defense Prize (1996 and 2003). He was also awarded the US Missile Defense Agency “David Israel” Prize (2000). He has been a visiting scholar at the Stanford Center for International Security and Arms Control, where he directed a study on missile proliferation.

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