Israel’s traditional security concept consisted of a defensive strategy based on mainly offensive tactics. After the Yom Kippur War, the IDF was criticized for focusing too much on its offensive ethos and making poor defensive preparations. The October 7 attack naturally raised the issue of defense to the top of Israel’s list of priorities, but behind the obvious need to strengthen our defense lies an important discussion of principle. Before billions are poured into concrete molds to beef up the border obstacles, this discussion needs to be held consciously and methodically.

The key question is this: What is the main lesson we should learn from the October 7 attack?

The first possibility is that the main failure was in the defense concept. This begins with the wrong early warning assumption and continues with poorly designed defensive positions. If this is indeed the main lesson, the fix is ​​relatively simple. Better defensive infrastructures should be built, the border should be better manned, and the dependence on warning should be reduced. A huge investment in rebuilding the border defense infrastructure will be required, as well as another huge investment in stationing large forces on the borders for years. This appears at first glance to be a direct, clear, and necessary lesson from October 7.

But there is a fly in the ointment. When we examine the development of Israel’s defense concept in recent decades, we find that this is precisely the lesson Israel has drawn again and again from its conflicts. After the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, we invested enormously in strengthening the northern border with a barrier, outposts, technologies, and new roads. We did it again after the Second Lebanon War, drawing operational lessons from the previous obstacle such as the need to pave more rear axes for movement hidden from the eyes of the enemy. But it soon became clear that behind the border fence, Hezbollah had become a real army. So once again, the IDF embarked a few years ago on a refortification plan for the northern border, known as the “Integrating Stone” project. Yet more billions were poured into refortifications. The decision to evacuate the northern settlements at the beginning of the Iron Swords War shows that even that enormous and expensive defense infrastructure did not provide enough protection, at least in the eyes of the decision makers.

The story of the Gaza border is no different. A modern and sophisticated defense system was established upon the Israeli withdrawal in 2005. Less than a decade later, during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, it became clear that the enemy had spent the interim digging over 30 axes of tunnels into our territory, bypassing the new and advanced defense system.

The IDF “learned its lesson” from this discovery and embarked on yet another vast new border project, this time including an underground barrier and a major renewal of the defense infrastructure on the ground. We all saw the failure of this project on October 7.

Strengthening border obstacles and reinforcing them with additional units is of course not a wrong step to take. The danger is that we will once again be satisfied with learning technical lessons and miss the more essential ones. The key lesson to be learned from October is the failure of the defensive strategy that allowed the terrorist armies to build up major strength on our borders without hindrance.

Israel’s flawed border strategy rested on two false assumptions. The first was that Hamas and Hezbollah could be tamed through withdrawals and understandings. The second was that they could be deterred by the threat of Israeli air power, since they had both assumed “state responsibility.” According to this logic, the organizations should have been reluctant to use their forces against us because of the price Israel would likely exact from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

By relying on these two false assumptions, Israel allowed the threat on its borders to build up without interruption. Every military expert knows that “the first line will be breached.” This means there is no chance of stopping a significant attack on a border line that has no depth. Under conditions in which an enemy is constantly present and ready, there is no chance for early warning. The defense forces will always be surprised.

As we know, the State of Israel lacks operational depth. The settlements mark the border line. That is why we implemented a defensive strategy for most of our history that entailed an offensive tactical approach. In other words, the other lesson to be learned is that a defensive deployment that is not supported by an offensive initiative in enemy territory will not be enough.

In the decades during which we adopted a strategy of defense and deterrence from the air, the border turned from an imaginary line drawn on maps into an actual barrier in military thinking, with very practical consequences. For example, when the IDF chose to establish new units, it established them mainly for defensive needs (border patrol units, for instance, and air defense battalions). The IDF now finds itself with no choice but to put some of those units into combat in Gaza.

In 2020, the Border Patrol Corps was established in the ground forces. Apparently, the IDF had adapted itself to the challenges of the hour. In practice, the new corps was established on the ruins of the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps, which was responsible for army reconnaissance. This happened at the exact moment when the IDF’s operating concept stated that “uncovering a stealthy enemy” within the framework of land warfare is the key to battlefield success. While the operating concept strove to restore military decisiveness and gave critical weight to combat intelligence collection, the IDF’s practical decisions ran in the opposite direction. The collapse of the line in Gaza and the destruction of the means of collection on the borders of Gaza and Lebanon – failures forced on Israel by the enemy within mere hours – indicates that the cancellation of combat collection retroactively harmed the defense mission as well. The establishment of the Border Defense Corps did not strengthen our defense. What happened to us?

This is what happened: The border turned from a political line into a military conceptual fixation. Gradually, military thought became enslaved to the division between “our territory” and “their territory.” Only intelligence and the Air Force are to operate in “their territory.” “Our territory” is where defense takes place, but as “our territory” is protected and safe, there is no point in making strict preparations there that meet basic tactical rules. “Maneuver” is the act in which ground forces cross the fence into enemy territory. The ground forces are to prepare for this, but the strategy is to avoid it.

But the simple truth is that “maneuvering” is not defined by enemy territory. Freeing Kibbutz Beeri and the Nahal Oz outpost from Hamas occupation required offensive battles – maneuvers that were no less and perhaps even more challenging than the occupation of Gaza. In general, “defense” turned out to be the more difficult tactical scenario, not the easier one. The reality is that even when defense is conducted in our territory as it is conducted today in the north, and not in a surprise scenario, threats to our forces are still significant. The Air Force’s air defense is not as effective at the front as it is on the home front. The front is more loaded with enemy threats and forces that need to be defended against. It is also constantly changing.

The distinction between “front” and “home front” is more suitable for military thinking than the political definitions of “our territory” and “their territory.” At the “front,” which is on both sides of the border, defensive and offensive battles take place. They are all a form of maneuver. At the front, there is a reality of tactical dynamism and great many threats. It requires not only intelligence but also combat reconnaissance and monitoring at the unit level. It requires not only the national air defense umbrella but its own tactical defense umbrella. The months of attrition in the north in the face of anti-tank missiles and UAV launches make this clear. The defensive battle is required not only to prevent enemy achievements but also to create the conditions for retaking the initiative and attack, which includes taking advantage of opportunities. The defense divisions have to know what is happening across the border and must be able to prevent evolving threats. That is why they were previously called “territorial divisions” and not “defense divisions.” This principle, by the way, is called “forward-depth.”

We must not be naive. An exercise in military thinking will not immediately change political strategy. It is possible that the reality after the current war will not yet allow the Northern Command to enjoy offensive and preventive freedom of action into Lebanese territory. If so, we will have to strive for this as a strategic result in the next round. But even if this is the case, it is still correct that we build the force in a way that suits reality, not in a way that repeats the mistakes of the past – spending billions to sanctify the border line with barriers that will eventually fail.

Instead of thinking “defense” versus “maneuvering,” “our territory” versus “their territory,” we must think “front” versus “rear.” The forces at the front are required to be capable of defensive and offensive battles in the most difficult conditions. The front should benefit from good intelligence and air support but should not be dependent on them, especially not in surprise scenarios. We learned that the hard way. Defense needs its own intelligence assessment, one that relies more on combat gathering. We have learned that such collection should rely on mobile capabilities and unmanned aircraft, because cameras mounted on masts do not meet the definition of tactical combat collection. They are too easy a target.

I am not the only person to make these arguments. IDF senior officials have previously recognized the danger of establishing a “defensive army” versus an “attack army” and the conceptual obstacle that the fence poses to our military thinking.

As always, in the future, there will be operational constraints and sectors that will have to be reduced to strengthen others. Sustainable defense cannot be based on an obstacle, light forces and assistance from Tel Aviv alone, nor on a premise of a constant large standing force. It should be built from the presence of significant reserve forces at the front. Training facilities close to the border will allow this without harming the IDF’s ability to prepare. The front should maintain independence in the areas of combat gathering, available fire support and tactical air defense. The border obstacle should be perceived not as the center but as a supporting factor.

On the way towards the restoration of Israel’s traditional defense strategy, defense through preventive and decisive attacks, it is also necessary to remove the misperception of the border. From now on, call it a front. 

Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal recently retired from military service as commander of the Dado Center for Multidisciplinary Military Thinking. He is a well-known military thinker both in Israel and abroad. His works have been published in The Military Review, War on the Rocks, Small Wars Journal, at the Hoover Institution, at Stanford, and elsewhere. His book The Battle Before the War (MOD 2022, in Hebrew) dealt with the IDF’s need to change, innovate and renew a decisive war approach. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.

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