Present sophisticated
conventional warfare enables killing at distance by precision and
non-precision fire. In the frontline, war killing at distance
capability will lead to fire dominance and to the decline of mobility.
In the rear, ballistic missiles attacks will cause substantial damage
and casualties, leading to considerable delays in reserves call-up,
despite all active and passive defenses.
Thus, the
critical first stage of a surprise frontline war will have to be fought
with regular units in place. Simultaneously, the campaign depth fire
battle will weaken and fragment enemy forces. These combined frontline
and in depth fire battles will be followed by a mobile ground maneuver,
intended to force a political decision to end the war.
Unfortunately, the opportunities for open area warfare are decreasing.
Urbanization around Israel is increasing rapidly; at the same time, the
range and lethality of anti-tank weapons are also increasing.
Consequently, the Arabs may adopt a defense strategy based on infantry
anchored on built up areas. Hence, a direct reduction of some built up
areas by infantry attacks may be unavoidable. Consequently,
high-quality volunteer close-combat infantry will be indispensable.
The shape
of large scale conventional war and the IDF force structure will be
influenced by three factors: The increasing dominance of fire over
maneuver, the war on the rear and its effect on reserves call-up and the
growing urbanization around Israel. All of these changes and the
increasing population have reached the point where Israel may have to
and can defend itself in a full scale war with a professional volunteer
army, aided perhaps by some reserves. This would apply both for the
fire heavy technological force component and the elite infantry
component.
In the
rear a large scale civil defense system is required. Also, the
Palestinian threat must be contained. Hence, considerable manpower would
be required to handle the war in the rear. Paradoxically, the external
technological war against enemy forces may perhaps be carried out mostly
by professional volunteers; on the other hand, it may be necessary to
call up a lot of reserves to deal with the intensive and extensive
internal war. This is a paradigm change from the present IDF.
The
paper also discusses some other types of war. The increasing threat of
weapons of mass destruction requires specific technological force
components for defense and credible deterrence. The availability of
various types of weapons of mass destruction raises the problem of cross
deterrence. In South Lebanon our soldiers in the wide security zone
suffer painful casualties both by killing at distance means and by close
combat. These casualties may be reduced by changing our strategy to one
of static defense using a narrow, sophisticated blocking strip on the
international border.
