Learning ‘Under Fire’: Israel’s improvised military adaptation to Hamas tunnel warfare

What organisational attributes enhance a military’s ability to effectively adapt on the battlefield? Upon the outbreak of war in July 2014 between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) encountered an expansive network of tunnels from which Hamas was launching large-scale assaults into Israel. This article illustrates that the IDF’s ability to successfully adapt ‘under fire’ to this battlefield surprise was facilitated by several important attributes related to its organisational learning capacity: a dynamic, action-oriented organisational culture, a flexible leadership and command style, specialised commando units which acted as ‘incubators’ for learning and innovation, and a formal system to institutionalise and disseminate lessons learned.     

Military Innovation and Tactical Adaptation in the Israel–Hizballah Conflict: The Institutionalization of Lesson-Learning in the IDF

This article highlights a pattern of military adaptation and tactical problem-solving utilized by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while engaged in protracted conflict with the Lebanese militant group Hizballah. It discusses the IDF’s recent attempts to institutionalize their historically intuitive process of ad-hoc learning by developing a formal tactical-level mechanism for ‘knowledge management’. The diffusion of this battlefield lesson-learning system that originated at lower-levels of the organization is examined, as well as its implementation and effectiveness during the 2006 Lebanon War. A nuanced analysis of IDF adaptation illustrates the dynamic interplay between both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ processes of military innovation.     

‘Blackmailing the army’ – ‘Strategic Military Refusal’ as policy and doctrine enforcement: the formation of a new security agent

The study shows how ‘strategic military refusal’ in Israel developed as a rational and institutional means to influence security policies. As opposed to the perspective that sees military refusal as a spontaneous individual act, the study illustrates how organizations operate to distribute military refusal in order to pressure decision-makers to change their military policies. This strategy has proven to be effective when the military is involved with groups that threaten it with refusal – which threatens the military's operational ability and its official and apolitical image. These include soldiers whose civilian authorities, rather than their military commanders, are perceived as an epistemic authority regarding security issues. The case study refers to the impact of strategic military refusal in Israel on security policies and the military doctrine. This was influenced by leftist groups, which, although they belonged to the parliamentary opposition, had dominant presence in the military ranks. Furthermore, the study examines the effect of the use of strategic military refusal on the model of military recruitment.     

新体制下军队院校教育实战化

加强军队院校教育实战化改革，提高基层指挥员实战化素养，是推动部队实战化训练末端落实的有效途径。在军队院校改革重组的背景下，应改善实战化教学条件，强化军队院校师资力量与部队接轨，创新实战化教学内容构建，提高军队院校教育实战化水平，实现人才培养与未来作战需求的最佳融合。     

From the people's army to the Jewish people's army: the IDF's force structure between professionalization and militarization

The article discusses processes of “religionization” within the institutional identity and ethos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the connection of these processes with the significant structural changes the IDF has undergone in recent decades. The main argument presented is that since the late 1980s, the IDF has been in a culture conflict, torn between soldiers and civilians who advocate turning the IDF into a professional army “military professionalization,” and others who wish to preserve, and even strengthen, the “people's army” model. The present article shows that the meaning of the term “people” in this phrase has shifted to refer strictly to the Jewish people, and that a national-ethnic perception strongly influenced by religious-national ideology has been adopted.     

What Happened to Israeli Military Thought?

Abstract

This article addresses the following question: how can one explain the neglect of the intellectual aspects of the profession on the part of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)? The explanations offered for that neglect are a mixture of cultural and societal factors. The cultural explanation focuses on Israeli strategic culture; the traditional Israeli perception of the combination of rich experience and experience-based intuition as a winning ticket; the tendency to extol improvisation; a cult of material strength; and a strong belief in technology. The social explanation stresses the declining attractiveness of a military career for qualitative young Israelis. The article contends that change can take place only if the IDF undergoes a process of institutional intellectualism – if not willingly then one imposed by the political echelon.     

‘Pounding Their Feet’: Israeli Military Culture as Reflected in Early IDF Combat History

Abstract

How did the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) organisational and military culture shape their understanding of security threats, perceptions of warfare, and instinctive responses to security challenges? Israel's early military history is marked by the stubborn persistence of accepted patterns of thought and action. In the first twenty years of its existence, the IDF habitually came to sacrifice both political and military long-term and medium-term considerations in favour of the superficial, short-term satisfaction of its drive for action. The Israeli Army as an institution separated military actions from their political implications, and all too often, granted itself freedom of action at all levels of command. That myopic pattern led to recurring raids and minor operations during the 1950s, and contributed notably to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967.     

关于军事技术创新主体的思考

介绍了主体概念并对军事技术创新主体的概念进行了探讨,分析了军事技术创新主体的2个特征,①战争需求与经济条件约束下的创新:②阶段创新与过程创新的协同性.在此基础上,提出了军事技术创新主体系统是耗散结构系统的论断.     

军用决策支持系统中评估主攻方向符合上级意图的建模研究

依据相应的军事原则,对如何评估主攻方向符合上级意图进行了定量化分析研究,构建了多个评估模型,为辅助指挥员更加迅速、准确地判定主攻方向提供了一种有效的解决途径。     

Threats and civil–military relations: explaining Singapore’s “trickle down” military innovation

This article explains why Singapore, despite its small size and semi-authoritarian regime, retains one of the best military forces in the Indo-Pacific. It unpacks Singapore’s ability to continuously innovate since the 1960s – technologically, organizationally, and conceptually – and even recently joined the Revolution in Military Affairs bandwagon. Drawing from the broader military innovation studies literature, this article argues evolutionary peacetime military innovation is more likely to occur in a state with a unified civil–military relation and whose military faces a high-level diverse set of threats. This argument explains how the civil–military fusion under the People’s Action Party-led government since Singapore’s founding moment has been providing coherent and consistent strategic guidance, political support, and financial capital, allowing the Singapore Armed Forces to continuously innovate in response to high levels and diversity of threats.     

Chief of staff in quest of a war: Moshe Dayan leads Israel into war

That Dayan was a central figure in Israel's formative years during the 1950s is beyond dispute. His star blazed particularly bright in the Sinai War of October‐November 1956. However, the roots of Dayan's extraordinary influence are to found in the period leading up to the Sinai War rather than in the war itself.

It is impossible to understand the Sinai War, particularly its Israeli aspect, without understanding the central role played by the army and its chief in the preparations and in lobbying for its execution. For the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the idea of an Israeli‐initiated war was neither a theoretical or a practical surprise. The IDF was prepared to launch an offensive against Egypt, and that fact was of major importance far beyond the Israeli government's decision to launch a war against Egypt.

It was Dayan who ensured full coordination between progress in the military preparations and progress in the diplomatic process (the negotiations with France and Britain), as he himself was at the center of events in both spheres of activity.     

军事技术创新主体的创新特征及其历史性分析

分析了军事技术创新主体的含义,指出了军事技术创新主体的创新特征,即经济条件约束下的创新;战争需求影响下的创新;科技发展推动的创新;阶段与过程相协同的创新,并对军事技术创新主体的历史性从4个不同历史阶段进行了分析。     

以军事技术创新探索我军发展新模式

提出建立以军事技术创新为内在机制的新的军事发展模式,论述了这个发展模式的要点和特点以及为转向创新应注意解决的几个关键性问题.     

Peacetime military innovation through inter-service cooperation: The unique case of the U.S. Air Force and Battlefield Air Interdiction

ABSTRACT

Military doctrine assures a nation’s survival. Yet even when faced with a security threat that requires change, militaries rarely innovate but instead adhere to old doctrines that enhance autonomy, reduce uncertainty and claim resources. Existing theories cannot explain an important case of peacetime military innovation when the U.S. Air Force adopted Battlefield Air Interdiction to support the Army’s AirLand Battle doctrine. A revised theory of peacetime military innovation through inter-service cooperation resulting from external and internal threats explains not only why innovation occurred with Battlefield Air Interdiction but also why such successful cases are so rare.     

Visions of the Enemy from the Field and from Abroad: Revisiting CIA and Military Expectations of the Tet Offensive

As the January 1968 Tet holiday approached, CIA analysts and American commanders in South Vietnam developed more accurate conclusions about communist military strategy than did intelligence analysts at CIA headquarters. Besides valuing different types of intelligence, General William Westmoreland, Lieutenant General Frederick Weyand, and CIA analysts in Saigon also placed greater emphasis on new information about communist military strategy than did CIA analysts at Langley. These different reactions to information highlight reasons why military commanders and intelligence analysts stationed in the theater of operations might develop more accurate conclusions about enemy military strategy than intelligence analysts stationed at their national headquarters.     

The Strategic Impasse in Low-Intensity Conflicts: The Gap Between Israeli Counter-Insurgency Strategy and Tactics During the Al-Aqsa Intifada

Over the past 15 years Israel has been involved in a bitter counter-insurgency campaign against the Palestinians. Palestinian insurgency, particularly during the current Al-Aqsa Intifada, has posed serious challenges to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Whilst being able to adapt successfully its tactics to Palestinian terror and urban guerrilla warfare in order to reduce the level of Palestinian violence, the IDF has not been able to achieve a battlefield decision or victory. This has been due to the nature of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which ultimately necessitates the provision of a political solution by the Israeli political leadership, which has relied too often on the IDF as a panacea for its own strategic and political indecisiveness vis-à-vis the Palestinian national question.     

THE EFFECTS OF THE WORLD DEFENSE INDUSTRY AND US MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL ON THE ISRAELI DEFENSE INDUSTRY: A DIFFERENTIATED PRODUCTS MODEL

This paper models the interactions between the defense industry market structure and the defense needs of Israel, the USA and Western Europe, which produce several heterogeneous defense goods. The model specifies that the defense industries of the US and Europe are ‘large’ while that of Israel is ‘small’. The US military aid to Israel is also an integral part of the model. The results show that net defense costs of Israel are minimal when the number of its defense firms is one. The model predicts that an increase in US military aid reduces Israel’s government expenditure, its defense industry’s profits and its net defense costs.     

兵力编成结构裁剪中指挥关系优化研究

由于决策个体控制战场作战平台资源实体,通过平台资源实体执行作战任务,作战平台资源实体在任务上的聚集导致决策个体间需要复杂的交互协作与交流,兵力编成需要为任务的执行创造良好的交互结构。基于任务执行的兵力编成包括两方面的内容:一是指控决策结点间的协作关系;二是指控决策结点间的指挥关系。本文基于决策个体在任务上的协作关系设计兵力编成的指挥关系,以最小化编成中总的协作工作负载为目标,并描述了编成指挥决策关系的生成过程,对生成过程的求解采用了优化协作树算法。     

军事领域细粒度识别技术与应用

战争的信息化程度不断加深对军事侦察提出了更高要求。军事目标识别作为军事侦察的主要任务之一,需要能够处理细粒度军事目标,为人员提供更加详细的目标信息。但传统的粗粒度目标识别方法无法得到目标的细粒度信息。因此,如何识别细粒度目标成为目前军事侦察亟需解决的问题。针对该问题,本文结合军事领域的实际需求,对细粒度识别技术的发展现状进行了分析,提出了军事领域细粒度识别技术应用流程的数据集构建、模型设计和终端部署三个阶段,同时,从无人机侦察、遥感侦察和单兵侦察三个方向分析了细粒度识别的应用前景。经过分析,军事领域细粒度识别技术已经具备实际运用条件,具备良好的应用价值。     

新形势下学员思想政治教育创新研究

推动学员思想政治教育创新发展，必须找准切入点和结合点，强化首位意识、主导意识、主体意识、政治意识、德育意识、创新意识、法规意识、责任意识、军校意识、人本意识，树牢育人为本、德育为先的理念，改进学员思想政治教育的方式方法，健全学员思想政治教育的制度机制，切实增强思想政治教育的主动性、针对性和有效性。