Assessing Israeli military effectiveness

Abstract

At face value, one could look at the results achieved by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) over time, dating back from 1967 to present, and make the assumption that the IDF has not been able to consistently sustain the ability to achieve decisive military success as it did during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. If this is the case, is it due to a decline in IDF military effectiveness? If so, what are the factors that led to this development? This thesis argues that the presence or absence of effective combined-arms, maneuver warfare determined whether the IDF achieved military effectiveness during the varying types of conflict in which it has been a participant over the past five decades. This is an important lesson for the United States military as it confronts a similarly uncertain threat environment that may include a range of challenges spanning high-intensity warfare, hybrid warfare, cyber conflict and other low-intensity conflicts. Understanding how a single organization can maintain effectiveness across a range of missions by maintaining combined-arms maneuver warfare at both the operational and tactical levels may prove crucial to understanding how U.S. forces should train and equip for the future.