Event Summary Searching for New Strategies: Change and Continuity in Israel’s Security Conceptions 10 March 2011 By Michael Raska & Mary E. Stonaker

In his presentation at the Middle East Institute, Mr. Michael Raska, PhD Candidate at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, captured the trajectory of Israeli conceptual adaptation of the Revolution in Military Affairs through the lens of the change and continuity of its national security conceptions and operational experience of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He noted that Israel has never officially published a formal or comprehensive version of its national security strategy or military doctrine. Instead of a formal comprehensive doctrine, Israel has institutionalized a distinct set of principles – national security conceptions – that have subsequently guided the character and direction of Israel‟s defense strategies, operational use of force, and strategic culture. Its three core principles – deterrence, early warning, and rapid maneuver, have shaped the patterns in IDF‟s operational conduct and use of force – offensive ethos, preemption, and rapid maneuver.

Mr. Raska argued that over the past two decades, Israel has experienced profound shifts in its security environment and threat spectrum, predominantly as a result of the geostrategic changes in the global and regional security environment of the post-Cold War era, which have in turn changed the character of conflict and propelled the necessity for rethinking Israel‟s national security concepts both at the strategic and operational levels.

In this context, he identified key sources of change in Israeli military thought and development of RMA-oriented operational concepts. He examined four phases that shaped the Israeli RMA: (1) the Yom Kippur War; (2) the „offense-defense‟ debate and „saturated battlefield‟ concepts of the 1980s; (3) future battlefield concepts and the emergence of systemic operational design in the 1990s; and (4) new concepts of operations in the 2000s.

Mr. Raska argued that since the early 1990s, the salience of conventional threats facing Israel has relatively declined, while the proliferation of asymmetric forms of warfare – WMDs, long-range delivery systems, coupled with the increasing low-intensity conflicts and non-linear threats have increased, changing Israel‟s strategic assessments and military commitments.

Accordingly, the development of Israeli RMA-oriented concepts in the mid-1990s can be seen in the a broader framework of Israel‟s national security debate on how to respond to the progressive complexity of security challenges – both from the current operational and long-term strategic perspective. In this dimension, according to Mr. Raska, Israel‟s RMA discourse has reflected a continuous debate between two camps: the proponents of the traditional concept and those arguing for new military thinking within the IDF.

Specifically, the traditionalist camp argue that the increasing reliance on advanced weapons technologies will not ensure that Israel will use them effectively. In this line of thought, the political and geostrategic circumstances by which Israel‟s security dilemmas are bound remains largely intact – Israel cannot force its enemies to end the conflict through military means and decision alone. Moreover, the RMA as a theory has been largely irrelevant for Israel, as the IDF has used RMA concepts and technologies long-before they have even presented as a paradigm shift in strategic discourse. Indeed, according to this school of thought, the IDF had a greater impact on the development of RMA-concepts itself through its warfighting experience, rather than vice versa. Therefore, conceptualizing change within the IDF is not bound to the emergence of the RMA paradigm per se as in the Western strategic thought, but can be attributed to the continuous search for relevant solutions and responses to Israel‟s changing strategic realities and unique operational needs.

On the other hand, proponents of the Israeli RMA have emphasized that Israel‟s traditional security concepts are obsolete, and need to be re-adjusted in response to asymmetric or “hybrid” forms of warfare. In this view, the RMA is not so much about acquiring military-technological capabilities, but developing relevant operational concepts and organizational structures that may effectively utilize these technologies to deal with the progressive complexity of security challenges facing Israel.

Accordingly, the IDF should take advantage of the “best technologies” offered by the RMA together with the “best of Israel‟s human capital” in order to ensure its qualitative military superiority in the 21st century. Ultimately, an RMA-oriented military modernization is imperative for Israel, as it faces persisting, imminent, and constantly evolving security challenges that require continuous adaptation. In other words, taking an advantage of the RMA-oriented technologies and concepts is not a question of choice, but a necessity.

In the final analysis, Mr. Raska noted that throughout the 1990‟s, much of the Israeli RMA debate reflected a continuous, phased, and relatively balanced approach. However, from the late 1990s to mid-2000s, the IDF increasingly attempted to align its operational conduct based on innovative RMA-oriented concepts such as the Systemic Operational Design (SOD), which shaped the IDF Concepts of Operations (CONOP) doctrine of 2006. However, its relative complexity in language, tactics, methods, and procedures generated heated debates on its utility and applicability in practice. The debate culminated following the Second Lebanon War in 2006, which propelled the IDF to rethink its operational doctrine.

Currently, according to Mr. Raska, the IDF is focusing on a new firepower and combined arms concept that will provide a baseline for future IDF strategy, force structure, and operational conduct. The new concept departs sharply from the traditional notions and rules governing high-intensity or low-intensity conflict, air power, ground and sea-based strikes. It does not distinguish between state or non-state actors, and does not acknowledge the notion of “hybrid” or “mosaic” wars. Instead, Israeli defense planners now conceptualize firepower regardless of its source, range or launching platform. The implementation of firepower is target driven and network-enabled, and precision-driven which inherently blurs the traditional service-specific roles, missions, weapon categories, and capabilities.

Mr. Michael Raska is a PhD Candidate at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He may be contacted at michaelrasksa@nus.edu.sg Mary E. Stonaker is a writer with the Middle East Institute.