Ariel Center for
Policy Research

A JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND THE ARTS

 

NATIV   ■    Volume Thirteen   ■   Number 4-5  (75-76)  ■  September  2000   ■  Ariel Center for Policy Research

 

SYNOPSIS

 


Conventional Warfare and the Israeli Military Doctrine
Toward the 21st century

Ehud Eilam

Israel has always relied on conventional warfare to survive in the Middle East. The IDF’s victories in the wars enabled Israel to remain an independent state. This article examines the various aspects of conventional warfare in the Middle East during the past fifty years, focusing on the Yom Kippur War. It will attempt to demonstrate the particular importance of this war for Israel’s military doctrine, and its bearing on possible future wars.

The battlefield has gradually become more crowded with forces and weapons. This limited the ability of an army that relied on maneuver, such as the IDF, to destroy the enemy. One of the chief problems was the increase in the range and penetration of different missiles and cannons. This caused the battlefield to expand, but at the same time restricted it by complicating its advance, as the Yom Kippur War shows.

Other key factors to conventional warfare were the importance of logistics, and the improvement of the main weapon systems, in most of the armies in the area.

The direction of conventional warfare in the coming times is not clear.

Possibly firepower will neutralize attacks of an army, certainly adding to its cost. The situation of World War I may repeat itself, i.e., no side will be able to strike decisively. Wars may turn into wars of attrition, bringing the states in the Middle East to consider using non-conventional weapons, so conventional war may, paradoxically perhaps, not deteriorate. In order to prevent mass destruction in the Middle East, Israel may choose to fight “the old way”.

In this case, the lessons of the 1973 (Yom Kippur) War, along with others learned from military history and the art of war, will continue to be vital to Israel’s military doctrine.

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