A new ceasefire in Lebanon and talk of Israel withdrawing from some areas has raised questions about the current Israeli war-fighting doctrine.
Israel has been fighting a war for 989 days since the October 7 massacre in 2023. While the war was imposed on Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist attacks, the IDF has had a duty to change the situation and fight the war on its own terms.
During the first months of war, the IDF had to respond and recuperate. With more than 1,000 Israelis killed, 250 taken hostage, and the IDF scrambling to call up and train some 500,000 reservists, there were unprecedented strains.
By the time the IDF began to go on the offensive against Hezbollah in September 2024, however, the situation had changed. Israel was now dictating the tempo on various fronts, and it has been making its own decisions since then.
The recent ceasefire in Lebanon and pressure on Israel to halt its offensive operations, however, has posed many questions about what comes next. Hezbollah is still in Lebanon. It is not only present in the Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighborhood, it is also present near Israel’s border.
“The IDF is currently conducting ground operations on the Ali al-Taher ridge against the Badr Unit’s primary underground infrastructure, located approximately 10 kilometers from the Israeli border near Metula,” the Alma Research and Education Center recently reported. “This facility serves as the main headquarters of the Badr Unit and, in all likelihood, can be used to launch weapons and conduct attacks into Israeli territory. The infrastructure includes several underground sub-complexes, the largest of which extends for more than one kilometer.”
Other reports have painted a concerning picture of this ridgeline. It also raises questions about why Israel waited some 900 days to take the Beaufort ridge and then strike at this area.
The IDF took the Beaufort ridge within two days of launching operations in 1982. Why did it take years this time? The reason is because of a new IDF doctrine of tactics that emerged in Gaza in response to the Hamas terrorist attack.
Why did it take years this time?
Rather than fighting a war of maneuver and combining firepower the way the “Momentum” plan had called for, the IDF has preferred very slow, incremental advances. These advances have a pace similar to a World War I battlefield, albeit without the high casualties.
Some may argue that it is this concern for casualties that guides the current war. The evidence in Lebanon, however, is that even a slow pace still comes with dangers.
Hezbollah will innovate, and the IDF is suffering casualties. There is no way to run a war in which there are no losses. As such, it’s not clear why it would be preferable to fight for more than 900 days rather than six days, as in the Six Day War, if in the end the casualties will be the same.
In terms of how it affects the country, short wars are generally better. Israeli leaders knew this in the early decades of the state. They preferred rapid advance.
They also knew that a long war would come up against a clock. The international community and other factors mean that one cannot fight a war forever.
Israeli officials have boasted that the IDF will remain in southern Lebanon, and that the more than 200,000 Lebanese forced to evacuate will not return. Nevertheless, there is pressure on Israel to begin some type of withdrawal.
What to make of the current situation?
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the JNS International Policy Summit: “We decimated Hezbollah’s military machine. We prevented the Radwan Force from invading the Galilee. We destroyed over 90% of the 150,000 rockets and missiles Hezbollah amassed against us.”
Israel has established security zones in Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon, he said. This is the new doctrine: carving out buffer zones, razing the homes in the zone, and then staying. This puts a long-term burden on the IDF to stay in static positions in these zones and patrol them.
While the war in Lebanon is presented as a success, it raises questions. Hezbollah is a terrorist group. It should never have become so strong as to possess 150,000 rockets and have a conventional force capable of invading Israel.
In fact, in all of Israel’s history, there was never a force in Lebanon capable of invading Israel. Not since 1948 was Israel invaded.
Israel’s great leaders of the past prided themselves on preventing Israel from being invaded, and they took the fight to the enemy in rapid wars, such as in 1956, 1967, and even 1973 and 1982.
Although the Yom Kippur War in 1973 was initially a setback, the IDF quickly took the fight to the enemy, crossing the Suez Canal in two weeks of fighting – not 900 days, but two weeks. That was the doctrine of fighters such as Moshe Dayan, Ariel Sharon, Yitzhak Rabin, and others.
During the First Lebanon War in 1982, even though it became a quagmire, the initial advance covered more ground in two days than the entire 989-day war in Lebanon this time.
In fact, the negative aspects of the war all began when Israel decided to stay for 18 years, which is the policy Israel has adopted again. Will the result be the same?
In 1978, the Litani offensive also covered more ground in Lebanon in a few days than the entire war this time.
One argument for why it is taking so long is because Hezbollah is so strong. But again, that is because Hezbollah was allowed to get so strong.
Why was it allowed to build a mountain base about 10 km. from the border? And why is Hezbollah’s bunker and tunnel system still there with the IDF apparently being told it needs to hold its fire?
The slow war in Lebanon, based on a doctrine from Gaza, has resulted in leaving Hezbollah in the field just kilometers from the border. This raises questions about why the IDF adopted a slow-war concept from Gaza and tried to apply it to Lebanon.
One reason for the slow war is the concept of new buffer zones along the border. Israel now wants buffer zones, which means patrolling them. Of interest, this means a return to the Bar-Lev Line concepts of an earlier era.
Those static forts, however, were seen as problematic in 1973. The question is: Why is Israel returning to concepts from the 1990s and before that appear to have failed?
Israel’s technological superiority generally means it can choose the time and place to carry out precision attacks. With all this superiority, it’s unclear why the policy has led back to WWI-style methods.
Israeli technology is better suited to fast wars in which the enemy is never allowed to regroup, and it is always kept off-balance.
Today, Hezbollah apparently can regroup under the ceasefire. That it is still so close to the border will mean, as with Hamas, the terrorist group might remain, leading to more wars in the future.