Nature of War: Conflicting Paradigms & Israeli Military Effectiveness Reprint Edition by Ron Tira ( Sussex Academic Press)

“Tira’s book is a most valuable contribution to the burgeoning literature on asymmetrical conflicts. These have become a major strategic challenge facing economically and technologically advanced countries, which often struggle to achieve victory against far weaker rivals that eschew direct military confrontation. Tira offers a keen analysis of various forms of asymmetry, vis-à-vis both state and non-state rivals, and illuminates them with well-chosen examples from military history. While his perspective is universal, his focus is on the Arab–Israeli conflict, whose various wars he analyzes very perceptively, down to Israel’s clash with Hezbollah in Lebanon 2006. This book offers decision-makers and students of war important lessons for the future.”  —

“The Nature of War is a valuable, pioneering study of the essence of war. In this readable and engaging book, Ron Tira succeeds in analyzing the differences between different types of wars and formulating new, insightful criteria for understanding the wars of the past, and even more important – the wars of the future. Using examples from classical and modern warfare, the author expands the theoretical basis essential to academics, decision makers, and military planners.”  —

“This book begins with a dismissal of the Clausewitzian doctrine of war, other aspects of classical war theory, and of the ‘American way of war’ identified with the revolution in military affairs (RMA). RMA has clearly influenced Israel’s war planners (as has Clausewitz) in their preference for air power and briefer but punitive forays that successfully deliver military decision. But nations and their strategic planners do not always choose the pattern or outcome of wars. This book suggests that they can do more to influence these outcomes by drawing the proper lessons from war. The author’s assertion of Israeli particularism, ventures into the broader theoretical discussion of war, literal interpretations of ‘center of gravity,’ and sometimes unsupported assertions and characterizations of particular wars were frustrating to this reviewer. However, Tira peppers the work with some keen and useful, even brilliant insights about the intent of war-planners and the need to see situations ‘as a whole.’ If guerrilla or conventional warfare prevails in the future, then Tira urges further Israeli definition of war’s terms, nature, and swift assumption of control. Recommended to those in strategic, military, and conflict studies.”

Israel's Defense Doctrine 

Strategic doctrine

Israel's military doctrine is formed by its small size and lack of strategic depth. To compensate, it relies on deterrence, including through a presumed nuclear weapons arsenal. It tries to overcome its quantitative disadvantage by staying qualitatively superior. Its doctrine is based on a strategy of defense but is operationally offensive, by pre-empting enemy threats and securing a quick, decisive victory if deterrence fails. Israel maintains a heightened state of readiness, advanced early warning systems, and a robust military intelligence capability to ensure attackers cannot take advantage of Israel's lack of strategic depth. Early warning and speedy victory is also desired because the Israel Defense Forces rely heavily on reservists during major wars; lengthy mobilization of reservists is costly to the Israeli economy.^[18] Israeli doctrine is constructed with the assumption that Israel would be largely self-sufficient in its war-fighting, without nearby allies to assist.

Israel's emphasis on operational offense was espoused by its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as early as 1948 (during Israel's war of Independence):

If [the Arabs] attack us as they did this time, we shall transfer the war to the gates of their country. ... We do not intend to conduct ... a static defensive war at the venue where we were attacked. If they attack us again, in the future, we want the war to be waged not in our country, but in the enemy's country, and we want to be not on the defensive but on the attack.

Yitzhak Rabin, who was Chief of the IDF Staff during the Six-Day War, offered a similar explanation for Israel's pre-emptive beginning to the war:

The basic philosophy of Israel was not to initiate war, unless an act of war was carried out against us. We then lived within the lines prior to the Six-Day War, lines that gave no depth to Israel—and therefore, Israel was in a need, whenever there would be a war, to go immediately on the offensive—to carry the war to the enemy's land.

Tactical doctrine

IDF command has been decentralized since the early days of the state, with junior commanders receiving broad authority within the context of mission-type orders. Israeli junior officer training has emphasized the need to make quick decisions in battle to prepare them appropriately for maneuver warfare.