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Abstract
This article studies the Israeli ‘way of war’ in counterinsurgency in the period 1987–2005 by analysing the characteristic features of Israel's approach and its ability to adapt to the challenges posed by the Palestinian and Lebanese insurgencies. It first outlines the evolution of the Israeli counterinsurgency. It subsequently examines the Israeli approach through the lens of the country's strategic culture, illuminating its features, rationales and goals, and concludes by examining to what extent Israel managed to adapt to the challenges of fighting insurgents.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Dr Dima Adamsky and Prof. Leopoldo Nuti for their insightful remarks on previous versions of this article, Dr Eitan Shamir for his precious suggestions and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
Notes
1Peter G. Tsouras (ed.), Civil War Quotations: In the Words of the Commanders (New York: Sterling Publishing 1998), 235.
2Williamson Murray, Military Adaption in War, Institute for Defense Analysis Paper P-4452 (June 2009).
3Theo Farrell, ‘Improving in War: Military Adaptation and the British in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2006–2009’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (Aug. 2010), 567–94.
4Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: OUP 1999), 131.
5Lawrence Sondhaus, Strategic Culture and Ways of War (London: Routledge 2006), 1.
6In cultural approaches to strategic studies the concept of ‘strategic culture’ is employed for the national level of analysis, that is in reference to beliefs about the use of force shared by a national community of military and civilian leaders, see Theo Farrell, ‘Culture and Military Power’, Review of International Studies 24 (1998), 407–16.
7Jeremy Black, War and The Cultural Turn (Cambridge: Polity 2012), 164; Williamson Murray, Military Adaption in War, 6.
8LIC is here defined as a ‘limited politico-military struggle to achieve political, social, economic, or psychological objectives. It is often protracted and ranges from diplomatic, economic, and psychological pressures through terrorism and insurgency.’ US Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff 1979).
9Stuart Cohen, Israel and Its Army: From Cohesion to Confusion (London: Routledge 2008), 47.
10Reuven Aharoni, ‘The Palestinian Intifada, 1987–1991’, in Mordechai Bar-On (ed.), A Never-ending Conflict: A Guide to Israeli Military History (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books 2006), 211–30; Sergio Catignani, Israeli Counterinsurgency and the Intifadas: Dilemmas of a Conventional Army (London: Routledge 2008), 83–4; Stuart Cohen, ‘Mista'arvim – IDF “Masqueraders”: The Military Unit and the Public Debate’, BESA Security and Policy Studies, No. 16, April 1994.
11Efraim Inbar, ‘Israel's Small War: The Military Response to the Intifada’, Armed Forces & Society 18/1 (1991), 29–50.
12Ibid. 32; Hillel Frisch, ‘Between Diffusion and Territorial Consolidation in Rebellion: Striking at the Hard Core of the Intifada’, Terrorism and Political Violence 3/4 (Winter 1991), 39–62.
13Eliot Cohen, Michael Eisenstadt and Andrew Bacevich, Knives, Tanks and Missiles, Israel's Security Revolution, (Washington DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy 1998) 119; Sergio Catignani, ‘Israeli Counter-Insurgency Strategy’, in Clive Jones and Sergio Catignani (eds), Israel and Hizbollah: An Asymmetric Conflict in Historical and Comparative Perspective (London: Routledge 2009), 79; W. Andrew Terrill, ‘Low Intensity Conflict in Southern Lebanon: Lessons and Dynamics of the Israeli-Shi'ite War’, Conflict Quarterly 7/3 (1987), 26.
14Boaz Zalmanovich, ‘The Establishment of Special Forces for LIC’, Ma'arachot, No. 369 (Feb. 2000), 33 (Hebrew).
15Shmuel L. Gordon, ‘The Vulture and the Snake, Counter-Guerrilla Air Warfare: The War in Southern Lebanon’, BESA Mideast Security and Policy Studies, No. 39 (1998).
16David Rudge, ‘Lubrani: No Change Likely in Lebanon Security Zone Deployment’, Jerusalem Post, 10 Nov. 1991.
17Kobi Michael, ‘Who Really Dictates What an Existential Threat Is? The Israeli Experience’, Journal of Strategic Studies 32/5 (Oct. 2009), 695.
18Yoram Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy (Washington DC: Institute for Peace Studies 2006), 34.
19Ofira Seliktar, Doomed to Failure – The Politics and Intelligence of the Oslo Peace Process (Westport, CT: Praeger 2009) 123; for the historical roots of Havlagah, see Anita Shapira, Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948 (Stanford UP 1992), 239–41.
20Author's personal interview with Maj. Gen. (res.) Daniel Rothschild, former head of the COGAT (1991–95), Herzliya, 29 Feb. 2012; author's personal interview with Col. (res.) Yonathan Fighel, former governor of Jenin, Ramallah and Tulkarem, Herzliya, 22 Feb. 2012.
21Ami Ayalon, ‘The War against Terror – Towards a New Model of Civil – Military Relations’, in Ram Erez (ed.), Civil-Military Relations in Israel: Influences and Constraints, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies Memorandum No. 82 (Oct. 2006), 63–4; Shimon Naveh, Operational Art and the IDF: A Critical Study of a Command Culture (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, 30 Sept. 2007), 1–6.
22Yehuda Wagman, ‘Israel's Security Doctrine and the Trap of Limited Conflict’, Jerusalem Viewpoints, No. 514, March 2004, <www.jcpa.org/jl/vp514.htm>.
23Avi Kober, ‘The Intellectual and Modern Focus in Israeli Military Thinking as Reflected in Ma'arachot Articles, 1948–2000’, Armed Forces & Society 30/1 (2003), 154; Stuart Cohen, Israel and Its Army, 48.
24Nadir Tsur, ‘The Test of Consciousness: The Crisis of Signification in the IDF’, INSS Military and Strategic Affairs 2/2 (2010), 11.
25Author's personal interview with IDF officers, Tel Aviv, 22 Feb. 2012; Stuart Cohen, Israel and Its Army, 48.
26Kobi Michael, ‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority: An Intellectual Challenge in the Reality of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’, Journal of Strategic Studies 30/3 (June 2007), 431–7; Shimon Naveh, ‘Asymmetric Conflicts: an Operational Critique of the Hegemonic Strategies’, in Haggai Golan and Shaul Shay (eds), The Limited Conflict (Tel Aviv: Ma'arachot 2004), 102–4 (Hebrew).
27Erez Weiner, ‘From Confusion to Sobriety: the Development of Combat Doctrine for Fighting against Irregular Forces, 1996–2004’, Ma'arachot, No. 409–410 (Dec. 2006), 4–5 (Hebrew).
28Shmuel Nir, ‘The Nature of the Limited Conflict’, in Haggai Golan and Shaul Shay (eds), The Limited Conflict, 22–3 (Hebrew) and ‘There is No Trap’, Ma'arachot, No. 387 (Jan. 2003), 68–70 (Hebrew). Interview with Moshe Ya'alon, Haaretz, 15 July 2002.
29Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room, 126.
30Yedidia Groll Ya'ari and Haim Assa, Diffused Warfare: The Concept of Virtual Mass (Haifa UP 2007).
31Gal Hirsch, ‘From “Cast Lead” to “A Different Way”: The Development of the Campaign in the Central Command, 2000–2003’, Ma'arachot, No. 393 (Feb. 2004), 28 (Hebrew).
32Avi Kober, ‘From Blitzkrieg To Attrition: Israel's Attrition Strategy and Staying Power’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 16/2 (2005), 216.
33Amos Harel and Avi Isacharoff, La Septième Guerre d'Israël: Comment Nous l'avons gagné et Pourquoi Nous l'avons Perdue (Paris: Hachette 2005), 299–380.
34Weiner, ‘From Confusion to Sobriety’, 7.
35Naveh, ‘Asymmetric Conflicts’, 144; David E. Johnson, Hard Fighting: Israel in Lebanon and Gaza (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 2011), 28.
36Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel (Stanford UP 2010), 106.
37Hirsch, ‘From “Cast Lead” to “A Different Way”’.
38Wagman, ‘Israel's Security Doctrine and the Trap of Limited Conflict’; Eitan Shamir, Transforming Command: The Pursuit of Mission Command in the US, British, and Israeli Armies (Stanford UP 2011), 143; Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room, 141–4.
39Cohen, Eisenstadt, and Bacevich, Knives, Tanks and Missiles, 50–1; Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation, 124.
40Wagman, ‘Israel's Security Doctrine and the Trap of Limited Conflict’.
41Author's personal interviews with IDF officers, Tel Aviv, 20–22 Feb. 2012. ‘Classic’ COIN thinking generally refers to the wave of literature focusing on decolonisation and revolutionary wars, see David Martin Jones and M. L.R. Smith, ‘Whose Hearts and Whose Minds? The Curious Case of Global Counter-Insurgency’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/1 (Feb. 2010), 81–121.
42David J. Kilcullen, ‘Countering Global Insurgency’, Journal of Strategic Studies 28/4 (2005), 597–617; Eitan Shamir, ‘Coping with Non-state Rivals’, Infinity Journal, No. 2 (Spring 2011), 8–11.
43Kelly M. Greenhill and Paul Staniland, ‘Ten Ways to Lose at Counterinsurgency’, Civil Wars 9/4 (2005), 403–6; David J. Kilcullen and Sebastian L. Gorka, ‘An Actor-centric Theory of War: Understanding the Difference Between COIN and Counterinsurgency’, Joint Force Quarterly 60 (2011), 14–18.
44Michael Boyle, ‘Do Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency Go Together?’, International Affairs 86/2 (2010), 336.
45Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘Towards a Paradigm Shift in Israel's National Security Conception’, Israel Affairs 6/3 (2000), 99–102; Avi Kober ‘Israeli War Objectives into an Era of Negativism’, in Uri Bar-Joseph (ed.), Israel's National Security Towards the 21st Century (London: Frank Cass 2001), 197; Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room, 137–53; for an historical perspective, see Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (New York: Allen Lane 2000), 599.
46Gil-li Vardi, ‘Pounding Their Feet”: Israeli Military Culture as Reflected in Early IDF Combat History’, Journal of Strategic Studies 31/2 (April 2008), 295–324; Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘Variations on a Theme: The Conceptualization of Deterrence in Israeli Strategic Thinking’, Security Studies 7/3 (1998), 151.
47Thomas Rid, ‘Deterrence Beyond the State: The Israeli Experience’, Contemporary Security Policy 33/1 (2012), 141.
48Elli Lieberman, ‘Deterrence Theory: Success or Failure in Arab-Israeli Wars?’ NDU McNair Papers, No.45 (Oct. 1995), 63.
49Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘Variations on a Theme’, 148; Gabriel Ben-Dor, ‘Responding to the Threat’, in Daniel Bar-Tal, Dan Jacobson and Aharon Klieman (eds), Security Concerns: Insights from the Israeli Experience (London: Jai Press 1998), 111–14.
50Bar-Joseph, Israel's National Security Towards the 21st Century, 2–5; Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel's Security and Foreign Policy (Ann Arbor: Michigan UP 2006).
51Michael I. Handel, ‘The Evolution of Israeli Strategy: The Psychology of Insecurity and the Quest for Absolute Security’, in Williamson Murray, McGregor Knox and Alvin Bernstein (eds), The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States and War (New York: Cambridge UP 1994), 564.
52Martin van Creveld, Tsahal: Histoire Critique de la Force Israelienne de Defense (Monaco: Rocher 1998), 70–3; Vardi, ‘“Pounding Their Feet”: Israeli Military Culture as Reflected in Early IDF Combat History’.
53Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation, 115; Wagman, ‘Israel's Security Doctrine and the Trap of Limited Conflict’.
54Avi Kober, Israel's Wars of Attrition (London: Routledge 2009), 47–8.
55Zeev Schiff, ‘On the Origins of Targeted Assassinations’, Haaretz, 5 June 2006; David Rodman, ‘Regime-Targeting: A Strategy for Israel’, Israel Affairs 2/1 (1995), 153–67; Kober, Israel's Wars of Attrition, 146–50.
56Author's personal interview with IDF officers, 27 Feb. 2012.
57Shlaim, The Iron Wall, 96, 106.
58Robert L. Rothstein, ‘Oslo and the Ambiguities of Peace’, in Joseph Ginat, Edward Perkins and Edwin Corr, The Middle East Peace Process: Vision vs. Reality (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press 2002), 25.
59Patrick Porter, Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes (New York: Columbia UP 2009), 172.
60Eyal Ben-Ari et al., Rethinking Contemporary Warfare: A Sociological View of the al-Aqsa Intifada (Albany: SUNY 2010), 56; Tsur, ‘The Test of Consciousness’, 11–12.
61Avi Kober, ‘What Happened to Israeli Military Thought?’, Journal of Strategic Studies 34/5 (Oct. 2011), 707–32; Meir Finkel, ‘IDF's Qualitative Edge – Not on Technology Alone’, Ma'arachot, No. 439 (Oct. 2011), 37 (Hebrew).
62Michael Fitzsimmons, ‘Hard Hearts and Open Minds? Governance, Identity and the Intellectual Foundations of Counterinsurgency Strategy’, Journal of Strategic Studies 31/3 (June 2008), 342–47; author's personal interview with Col. (res.) Yonathan Fighel.
63Moshe Ya'alon, ‘Preparing the Forces for Limited Conflict’, Maarachot, No. 380–381 (Dec. 2001), 27 (Hebrew).
64Ya'akov Amidror, ‘Principles of War in Asymmetric Conflicts’, Ma'arachot, No. 416 (Dec. 2007), 9 (Hebrew); Avriel Bar-Joseph and Avner Simhoni, ‘Asymmetric Warfare and Israel Security Strategy’, Ma'arachot, No. 429 (Feb. 2010), 6 (Hebrew).
65Creveld, Tsahal, 73; Arieh O'Sullivan, ‘What a Riot’, Jerusalem Post, 2 Jan. 2004.
66Avner Yaniv, ‘Special Operations: The Israeli Experience’, in Loren B. Thompson, Low-Intensity Conflict: The Pattern of Warfare in the Modern World (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books 1989), 115.
67Gil Ariely, ‘Learning to Digest During Fighting – Real Time Knowledge Management’, ICT Papers (Sept. 2006).
68Robert Thompson, ‘Fundamental Principles of Civil Disturbances' Prevention’, Maarachot, No. 312–313 (Sept. 1988), 31–4 (Hebrew); Terrill, ‘Low-Intensity Conflict in Southern Lebanon’, 25.
69Daniel Byman, A High Price: the Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (New York: OUP 2011), 307–23.
70Gal Luft, Urban Operations in the Jenin Refugee Camp: The Israeli Experience, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy Working Paper, 2002.
71Thomas A. Marks, ‘Counterinsurgency and Operational Art’, Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement 13/3 (2005), 168; David J. Kilcullen, ‘Counter-insurgency Redux’, Survival 48/4 (2006), 117.
72Yagil Levy, Israel's Materialist Militarism (Madison, WI: Lexington Books 2007); Raymond Cohen, ‘Living and Teaching across Cultures’, International Studies Perspectives 2 (2001), 151–60; Beatrice Heuser, ‘The Cultural Revolution in Counter-Insurgency’, Journal of Strategic Studies 30/1 (Feb. 2007), 156.
73Uri Bar Joseph, ‘The Paradox of Israeli Power’, Survival 46/4 (2004–05), 139–41, 151.
74Itai Brun, ‘Where has the Manoeuvre Gone?’ Ma'arachot, No. 420–421 (Sept. 2008), 8–9 (Hebrew).
75Brun, ‘Where has the Manoeuvre Gone?’, 7; Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘Towards a Paradigm Shift in Israel's National Security Conception’, 106; Avi Kober, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Israeli Operational Art, 1948–2008’, in John Andreas Olsen and Martin Van Creveld (eds), The Evolution of Operational Art from Napoleon to the Present (New York: OUP 2010), 183.
76Naveh, ‘Asymmetric Conflicts’, 125.
77Erez Weiner, ‘The Struggle against Terrorism: Direct Contact or Fighting from Afar?’, Ma'arachot, No. 406 (April 2006), 22–8 (Hebrew); Hirsch, ‘From “Cast Lead” to “A Different Way”’, 30.
78Author's personal interview with IDF officers.
79Clive Jones, ‘Israeli Counter-insurgency Strategy and the War in South Lebanon, 1985–1997’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 8/3 (1997), 86; Ben-Ari et al., Rethinking Contemporary Warfare, 56–63.
80Shamir, ‘Coping with Non-state Rivals’, 11; Byman, A High Price, 185–200; 233–39; Michael L. Gross, ‘Killing Civilians Intentionally: Double Effect, Reprisal, and Necessity in the Middle East’, Political Science Quarterly 120/4 (2005–2006), 557.
81Michael, ‘The Israel Defense Forces as an Epistemic Authority’; Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room.
82Harel and Isacharoff, La Septième Guerre d'Israël, 51–132.
83Interview with Moshe Ya'alon, Haaretz.
84Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation, 127; Author's personal interview with IDF officers, Tel Aviv, 22 February 2012.
85Gil Merom, ‘Israel's National Security and the Myth of Exceptionalism’, Political Science Quarterly 114/3 (1999), 409–34.
86Dima Adamsky, ‘The Impact of the Cold War's End on the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A View from Israel’, in Artemy Kalinovsky and Sergey Radchenko (eds), The End of the Cold War and the Third World: New Perspectives on Regional Conflict (London: Routledge 2011), 127.
87Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room, 95.
88Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, As the Generals See It: The Collapse of the Oslo Process and the Violent Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (The Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem 2004).
89Moshe Bar-Kochba, ‘Strategic Decision on the Terms of the State of Israel’, Ma'arachot, No. 317 (Nov. 1989), 6 (Hebrew).
90Gray, Modern Strategy, 17; Richard K. Betts, ‘The Trouble with Strategy: Bridging Policy and Operations’, Joint Force Quarterly (Autumn/Winter 2001–02), 23.
91Author's personal interview with IDF officers, Tel Aviv, 22 Feb. 2012.
92Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, ‘The Nature of Asymmetric Warfare’, Presentation at the ‘Land Warfare in the 21st Century Conference’, Latrun, Israel, 16 Sept. 2008.
93Remarks by Moshe Ya'alon at the ‘Land Warfare in the 21st Century’ Conference, Latrun, Israel, 16 Sept. 2008; Moshe Levy, ‘The Palestinian Civilian Population: A Key Component in Deciding Limited Conflict’, Ma'arachot, No. 395 (Aug. 2004), 22–9 (Hebrew).
94Ya'alon, ‘Preparing the Forces for Limited Conflict’, 25–6; Miri Eisin, ‘The Struggle over Consciousness in Post-Modern War’, in Golan and Shay, The Limited Conflict, 347–76 (Hebrew); Yossi Kuperwasser, ‘Battling for Consciousness’, INSS Strategic Assessment 12/2 (2009), 41–50.
95Lawrence Freedman, A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East (London: Public Affairs 2008), 452–3; Ya'alon, ‘Preparing the Forces for Limited Conflict’, 27.
96Author's personal interview with IDF officers, Tel Aviv, 22 Feb. 2012; Zvi Lanir, ‘The Failure of Military Thought in Low-Intensity Conflict’, Ma'arachot, No. 365 (Sept. 1999), 12 (Hebrew); Naveh, ‘Asymmetric Conflicts, 104.
97Eado Hecht, ‘Low-Intensity Wars: Some Characteristics of a Unique Form of War’, in Golan and Shay, The Limited Conflict, 45–68.
98Zvi Lanir, Doctrines and Systems of Conceptualisation and Interpretation’, Ma'arachot, No. 355 (Jan. 1998), 59 (Hebrew); Shimon Naveh, ‘Israel's Defense in the 21st Century’, Ma'arachot, No. 355 (Jan. 1998), 50–1; Austin Long, ‘First War Syndrome: Military Culture, Professionalization and Counterinsurgency Doctrine’ (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PhD Dissertation 2010), 51–63.
99Nir, ‘The Nature of the Limited Conflict’, 27; Nir, ‘There is No Trap’, 69.
100Bar-Kochba, ‘Strategic Decision on the Terms of the State of Israel’; Munir Daher, ‘Cumulative Deterrence Model to Deter Low-Intensity Conflict’, Ma'arachot, No. 388 (Feb. 2003), 12–17 (Hebrew); Yaakov Amidror, ‘Winning Counterinsurgency War: The Israeli Experience’, undated, The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, <www.jcpa.org/text/Amidror-perspectives-2.pdf>; Doron Almog, ‘Cumulative Deterrence and the War on Terrorism’, Parameters 34/4 (2004), 4–19.
101Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. and ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton UP 1984), 605.