As of: January 21, 2024, 7:40 p.m
From: Foreign Policy
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Israelis have a particularly close relationship with their military, but October 7 shook their trust to the core.
The IDF has a unique relationship with society, it was idolized and believed to be invincible.
Even though the IDF fights with US weapons, it is not the US army - it is fighting a completely different fight.
After the war, the IDF must learn to win the peace that follows.
This article is available for the first time in German - it was first published by
Foreign Policy
magazine on January 13, 2024 .
Jerusalem - Since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, a number of US defense officials, politicians, former generals and defense policymakers have offered advice - largely unsolicited - on how Israel should conduct its offensive in Gaza, based on lessons learned from the United States pulled out of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most of these recommendations focused on the need to protect civilians during ongoing fighting and to plan for the day the war ends, if only to prevent a power vacuum and subsequent insurgency.
Much to this group's growing frustration, much of this advice has gone unheeded.
Israel has a special relationship with its armed forces.
© IMAGO/IDF/Chameleons Eye
There are many reasons why Israel has so far ignored these recommendations.
First of all, Iraq and Afghanistan were much larger and half a world away;
Gaza is much smaller, more compact and is right next to Israel.
The war between Israel and Hamas is also embedded in the long and difficult history of Israeli-Palestinian relations.
And then, of course, there is the fact that most Americans leave unsaid: The United States lost the war in Afghanistan and had, at best, a mixed record in Iraq.
Neither war makes a good case for the U.S. model of fighting an insurgency or group like Hamas.
Idolization and belief in invincibility - IDF has a unique relationship with society
However, beyond these military strategic and tactical considerations, there is another important factor that lies just beneath the surface.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is fundamentally different from the US military.
Their relationship to society, their cultural preferences and their individual behavioral norms are unique.
Therefore, despite advice and pressure from outsiders to the contrary, the way it fights in Gaza is - and will continue to be - different.
In the gift shop at Ben-Gurion Airport there are T-shirts depicting a tank, an attack helicopter and a fighter jet, along with the slogan "America Don't Worry-Israel Is Behind You."
The motto is steeped in irony.
After all, Israel receives more than $3 billion in aid annually from the United States, and the F-16 fighter jet and AH-64 Apache helicopter emblazoned on the T-shirt are both American-made.
But the shirts also reflect the prewar idolization of the Israeli military - a mix of nationalism and a deep-rooted, if misplaced, belief in the invincibility of one's own military prowess.
Before this war, there was an unspoken contract: despite all the turmoil and chaos in Israeli society and politics, the military would always be there to keep its citizens safe.
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The IDF and the US Army are fundamentally different - a conscript army, not a professional army
The Israelis' relationship with their military is different from the Americans' relationship with U.S. forces.
Much of Americans' reverence for their military stems from their isolation from it.
Less than 1 percent of Americans serve on active duty - often from military families - and all do so of their own free will.
Since the abolition of conscription in 1973, the U.S. military has increasingly become a warrior caste separate from society.
Paradoxically, the military's popularity has increased as fewer and fewer Americans have a direct connection to their military.
In contrast, the IDF is, at its core, a conscript army, not a professional army.
Although experts often acknowledge this fact, few realize what it means.
The IDF was consciously conceived as what Israel's founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion called a "people's army," both a reflection of society and the glue that holds the people together.
While there has been lively debate over whether the IDF should become a purely professional army, and tensions over the exemption of the ultra-Orthodox from conscription, the IDF remains a part of Israeli society across all ethnic and ethnic backgrounds Religious boundaries: Druze, Bedouins and other non-Jewish Israelis also serve in the IDF.
Israeli army enjoys special status - Hamas attack shakes trust
But despite the conscription - or perhaps because of it - the IDF enjoys a special status in Israeli society.
While trust in the military has declined recently (just as it has in the United States), in 2021 more than three-quarters of Jewish Israelis still expressed “a great deal or a fair amount” of trust in the IDF.
The IDF's senior officers are well-known in Israel, and they often enter politics after leaving the service.
Military funerals are broadcast live on television.
On their memorial day, Israelis observe a moment of silence to remember the fallen, rather than a day for barbecues and store sales, as in the United States.
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The terrorist attack on October 7th shook the Israelis' relationship with the IDF to its foundations.
That morning, the IDF failed not only to protect the Israeli public in one of the greatest losses of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust, but also to protect its own people: at least 274 Israeli soldiers, as well as dozens of local security officers, were killed at one of the bloodiest days in Israeli military history.
Some of these soldiers - like the ill-fated female soldiers assigned to patrol the Gaza border - were unarmed when they were slaughtered by Hamas attackers.
In the course of a single morning, Hamas shattered Israelis' sense of security and their trust in the IDF's omnipotence.
Feeling of personal failure - Also due to preference for military solutions
The sense of personal failure, even shame, that the IDF has broken its fundamental contract with the Israeli public weighs heavily on the minds of Israeli officers today.
In my conversations with them, current and recently retired IDF officers often spoke of the need to restore “confidence” in the IDF, not only as an institution but also as one of the cornerstones of national unity.
And these concerns shape the way officers approach the war in Gaza.
Their fight is about more than restoring professional honor.
It's about more than just restoring security to their fellow citizens.
In the eyes of these officers, it is about restoring a pillar of national unity.
After October 7, the IDF leadership wanted to rush headlong into a ground offensive in Gaza.
This move is all the more remarkable in retrospect because, according to several current and former Israeli security officials I spoke with, the IDF never expected they would ever have to retake the Gaza Strip.
Consequently, she had not spent much time planning for such an eventuality before October 7th.
Ultimately, the ground offensive was delayed for weeks, in part because of international pressure for a slower, more methodical approach.
However, this initial push for a rapid response is indicative of Israel's overall strategic approach, which is characterized by a preference for military solutions, including a preference for short-term action over a longer-term strategy.
Israel's approach to terrorism has long been characterized by a penchant for action - until October 7th
This penchant for action has long characterized Israel's approach to terrorism.
Until October 6, 2023, Israel's general strategic approach to Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups was euphemistically described as "cutting the grass" - continually targeting senior militant leaders without addressing the root causes of terrorism in order to weaken these organizations and keeping the threat of terrorism at bay.
This approach was more of a short-term tactic than a long-term strategy.
Nonetheless, it has long served the need for an immediate solution.
The tendency to act shows up in other ways too.
After the October 7 attacks, Israel mobilized around 360,000 reservists - about 4 percent of the country's total population - tripling the size of its armed forces.
Within days these forces were on the front lines, and within weeks some of them were fighting in the Gaza Strip.
It is all the more remarkable that Israel's reserve component suffered from systematic underinvestment and readiness problems before the war.
For example, the Israel Institute for National Security Studies found in a January 2023 report that only 6 percent of soldiers who completed their mandatory service met the reserve requirement of serving at least 20 days within three years.
During the height of Israel-wide protests against judicial reform last year, some elite reserve units were missing more than 40 percent of participants in training exercises.
Higher readiness for military service - reservists train 38 days a year
Compare this rapid readiness with the US system.
Like Israel, the United States relies on its reserve components to provide a significant percentage of its workforce.
However, unlike Israel, the reservists train longer - at least 38 days per year and often longer.
Even then, mobilized U.S. reservists are expected to require several months of additional training before a reserve unit is operational.
Admittedly, Israel's small size and precarious strategic location probably prohibit such methodical deployment of its reserves.
Nonetheless, this means that the IDF is entrusting a lot of firepower to soldiers who have been out of uniform for a while.
Furthermore, Israel's reserve-heavy force structure reinforces the already existing tendency to act.
By withdrawing so many reservists from the civilian sector - an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the country's technical workforce alone - Israel has a strong incentive to fight and win quickly, if only to avoid significant economic disruption .
Once the war begins, the clock begins ticking as pressure increases on the IDF to demobilize much of its forces.
So the IDF is culturally and structurally incentivized to fight and win as quickly as possible.
While the IDF as an institution failed on October 7, there are also many stories of incredible personal bravery that day.
For example, there is the retired major general who, after news of the attack, took his pistol and headed south to rescue his son's family, but then delayed his one-man rescue mission for hours to save other Israelis along the way .
At least two other long-retired generals - both in their 60s - also donned their old uniforms to help.
Also worth mentioning are the all-female tank crews who, almost without any direction, went into action, attacking dozens of Hamas fighters and rescuing some of the southern kibbutzim.
There are countless other similar stories of heroism, all of which reflect one of the most admirable aspects of Israeli military culture: time and time again, soldiers run toward the sound of guns - regardless of rank or age, sometimes without orders and often at enormous personal risk.
The US system doesn't want overzealous soldiers - the IDF is young and partly unconventional
The American system also promotes personal initiative, but in a different structural context.
Infantry officers are drilled in the Ranger creed of never leaving a fallen comrade behind, and they train near the giant "Follow Me" statue near the Infantry School at Fort Moore.
But unlike the IDF, the US military also builds guard rails against overzealousness.
One such guardrail is the noncommissioned officer corps - the so-called backbone of the US military.
These officers spend the majority of their careers at the tactical level, instilling discipline in the force and, most importantly, moderate youthful exuberance with experience.
And so in every platoon, with every eager, newly qualified 22-year-old officer, there is also the seasoned 30-year-old sergeant at his side.
In contrast, Israel does not have the same structural constraints as the United States and other Western countries.
Although the IDF retains the rank of sergeant, it is primarily an officer-led military, and due to conscription, officers tend to be younger than their American counterparts, so 20-year-olds lead the draftees in their late teens.
Perhaps it is no wonder, then, that U.S. military observers of IDF units are often surprised by the informality and apparent inattention to basic military protocol.
High losses among the officers - sometimes the soldiers' baser instincts get the better of them
And this inattention is also noticeable in combat.
Israelis will proudly tell you that their officers are fighting on the front lines.
But this bravery comes at a price, and the data from the current Gaza war bears this out: officers - from lieutenants to colonels - account for about a quarter of all combat casualties the IDF has suffered so far in this war.
Any soldier will tell you that removing leaders from combat takes a heavy toll on the unit and creates a system where bravery can turn into bravado.
Looking at the alleged abuses reported by IDF whistleblowers, many involve incidents in which soldiers' baser instincts were not controlled.
One can't help but wonder whether a larger number of older NCOs - and fewer officer casualties - would have resulted in a more disciplined force and ultimately avoided some of these problems.
This lack of discipline among soldiers is important in warfare today, particularly as the IDF clears Hamas strongholds in Khan Younis, the central refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.
But it will become even more important as the war comes to an end and the conflict moves into a reconstruction phase.
In a sense, decisions about when to pull the trigger and when not to pull the trigger become even more important once the main fighting is over, because a single incident can derail months of stabilization efforts.
Unfortunately, the IDF is currently not well structured for this task.
The IDF wages a different kind of war - existential, society-wide struggle
What many American observers essentially miss - or choose to ignore - is that the IDF is not the US military.
Sure, the IDF may be largely equipped with U.S. weapons, and many of its officers speak English.
Their leaders even read US military doctrines and write in US defense publications.
Despite this apparent familiarity, however, the IDF emerged from a very different social context and is culturally and structurally different from its U.S. counterpart.
Since the IDF is a very different kind of military, they will also fight a very different kind of war.
The United States wants Israel to go slow, while the IDF is culturally and structurally designed to fight fast and hard.
The United States wants Israel to be restrained and disciplined, while the IDF is institutionally designed to be the opposite.
The United States may want Israel's strategy to be cold and distant, but for the military and its leaders charged with waging this war, the fight is deeply personal.
In other words, the United States may want Israel to fight the way the U.S. military fought in Iraq.
Israel, however, views its war as an existential, society-wide struggle, more comparable to World War II than to the Iraq War, which was a war of choice waged by experts half a world away.
With rockets still falling on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, active fighting in Gaza, Lebanon, the Red Sea and beyond, and anti-Israel sentiment rising worldwide, the IDF finds itself fighting on all fronts.
That's a mindset the U.S. military hasn't had to contend with in at least three-quarters of a century.
The analogy to World War II suggests how American observers can best frame the situation to better address the longer-term challenges that lie ahead.
The war against Hamas will transform the IDF as an institution in much the same way that World War II created a new U.S. military.
Israel has already announced that it expects the war to last until 2024, making it one of the longest in Israeli history.
War follows peace - the IDF then faces a major challenge
The outpouring of volunteers from all parts of Israeli society - from ultra-Orthodox Jews to retirees - suggests that Israel will at least restore the social contract with its military, if not create an entirely new one.
However, what this new force will look like remains an open question.
One of the less noted but perhaps more impressive achievements of the United States in World War II was that it built a military force that would not only win the war, but also be able to win the peace that followed.
Washington began planning and building the various military forces it would need for postwar administration and reconstruction years in advance.
And, just as important, the United States changed the mindset of its military from one focused on defeating Germany and Japan to helping rebuild those societies.
Israel faces a similar but even more difficult challenge, given Israel's difficult history with the Palestinians, not only during the current conflict but also in the 75 years since its founding.
If the United States can help the IDF win this crucial next battle - a battle fought largely without bombs and bullets - then Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region will benefit.
To the author
Raphael S. Cohen
is director of the Strategy and Doctrine Program in Project Air Force at Rand Corporation.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com” on January 13, 2024 - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.