April 14, 2003
SHOCK AND AWE:
Israeli military amazed, 'jealous' at U.S. war against Iraq (WORLD TRIBUNE.COM, April 14, 2003)Israeli defense officials and military commanders have expressed amazement over the capture of one of the largest and most powerful Arab countries by what they say amounted to fewer than three U.S. Army divisions.The officials said the U.S. strategy of avoiding enemy troop concentrations as well as exploiting combat air supremacy comprises methods far more advanced than those employed by the Israeli military.
"This has been a very strange and unprecedented war and it will take us awhile to learn what took place," Yuval Steinetz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said. "We will have to learn from this war and draw the conclusions."
"I am jealous of them [U.S. military]," Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, head of the Israel military's C4 directorate, said. "They have advanced in areas that we were leading in only a few years ago. They have the ability to put everything together in command and control. Our navy and air force have systems. but we have to integrate them." [...]
Steinetz, regarded as one of the most prominent Israeli strategists in government, said Israel will have to understand the significance of technology in combat. He said Israel's military must absorb the U.S. model of avoiding direct engagement with enemy troops.
Israeli officials said the military will have to learn the war strategy espoused by the late British general Basil Henry Liddell Hart. In a series of books, Liddell Hart advocated the "indirect approach" to warfare where attacking forces avoid enemy troop concentrations and focus on key targets that could result in the downfall of the regime. The approach stresses maneuver, cunning, and forces the enemy to prepare for multiple contingencies.
It's no big deal to scare the bejeezus out of Syria, Iran, and North Korea, but to astound the Israelis is really something. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 14, 2003 10:19 PM
One must understand that in spite of the respect--and appreciation--that I believe most Israelis feel for America (how could it be otherwise, really?), the Israeli armed forces, as I believe most armed forces are, have their own chauvinisms and self confidence. Once again, how could this be otherwise, as one should want one's armed forces to be confident and assured (though not cocky, to be sure).
There is (or was, perhaps) also the conception among Israel's armed forces, which prizes improvisation and spontaneity (sometimes to excess) and tends to look askance at textbook military theorizing, that the American military was just such a textbook-type organization.
Rumsfeld has smashed this conception to little pieces, and I think this is the basis of Israeli "awe" and "jealousy"--the Americans have been audacious, and successful, in ways Israel could never have imagined, and have taken a page, as it were, out of Israeli military "doctrine" (such as it is); they broke the more cautious rules of warfare with panache.
One could, of course, say that there were all kinds of reasons for the American success, not least the air dominance and/or terrain and/or military forces they encountered; but this in no way diminishes the achievement.
And one can say that in this case, that the Americans definitely did not fight the last war.
This, in general terms, I believe, is the basis for the astonishment and respect this article describes.
$400 billion a year on Defense may be a factor...
Posted by: oj at April 15, 2003 8:10 AMLiddell Hart was simply reiterating the British way of warfare as applied in numerous colonial campaigns although the Yanks have very successfully married it to integrated action from all service branches.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at April 15, 2003 9:17 AM400 b$, or 17.5% of the federal budget. Oh my God! Can we afford that while the obesity crisis grows...and grows?
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford, Ct. at April 15, 2003 6:25 PMThe chief of staff laid out the key point late
last week, but nobody I know caught it. He
said the Iraq was the "most joint" ever fought.
That's a term of art that means everybody
was supporting everybody else in real time.
Thanks to satellites and GPS. Since the GPS is
controlled by us, nobody -- Israel or anybody
else -- will ever be as joint as we are today.
(The previous holder of the "most joint" title
was the Battle of Bloody Ridge on Guadalcanal
in 1942, a small battle.)