As Israel reels from the worst terrorist attack in its history, some observers and many Israelis feel shocked, given the vaunted reputation of the Israel Defense Forces. Israel has long been considered a military superpower. In their new book, The Art of Military Innovation: Lessons from the Israel Defense Forces, Edward Luttwak and Eitan Shamir explain that Israel must be more than tough to survive. It must be smart as well.
This is not, the authors note, a history of the Israeli army nor a history of Israel’s wars. Rather, it is the “record of an investigation that started with a simple question: Why is it that the relatively small, relatively poor Israeli armed forces have long been exceptionally innovative?” Luttwak, an esteemed military historian and famed contrarian, offers an original analysis of the IDF. Shamir, the former head of the National Security Doctrine Department at the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, brings a deep familiarity with the bureaucracy that girds Israeli defense. Together, the two scholars provide a concise and cogent look at what makes the IDF different from other militaries.
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Part of the answer can be traced back to the unusual circumstances surrounding Israel’s founding. From its rebirth in 1948, the Jewish state was surrounded by those who sought its destruction. The armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and others massed to destroy the fledgling nation. Israel was vastly outnumbered and outgunned.
A persistent myth has it that Israel has always benefited from aid from the United States and the West. In fact, the U.S. and other Western powers, indeed virtually the entire world, refused to give Israel weapons. Instead, they supported an arms embargo that only benefited Israel’s better-prepared foes. Some of the Arab nations even had British weapons and advisers. Czechoslovakia alone gave Israel weapons. The rest would have to be cobbled together and sourced from various armaments, many of which predated World War II. To survive, Israel needed a high degree of adaptability. Scarcity, the authors highlight, can force innovation.
The Czech shipments did not include artillery or armored vehicles — items that were essential to resist the invading Arab forces and then go on the offensive. “That,” the authors observe, “is how Israel’s history of military research and development started, prompted by necessity rather than technological ambitions, with novel designs imposed by very severe technological limitations rather than any striving for originality for its own sake.” Israel was shaped by its unusual predicament. For the IDF, innovation and ingenuity were required to survive; they weren’t objectives to be achieved at some distant date.
The habits for military innovation formed during Israel’s wartime founding stuck. Some of the most valuable passages in The Art of Military Innovation examine the highly unorthodox approach that Israel has taken to funding and completing military projects. The Iron Dome missile defense system offers perhaps the best example. The idea for the system was first explored in October 2004. Full-scale development wasn’t initiated until November 2006. The project was launched in January 2008. By July 2010, a prototype was ready. Eight months later, Iron Dome was operational and employed along the Gaza Strip to take out rockets launched by Hamas. And not only has Iron Dome been stunningly successful, but it has also been relatively affordable. As Luttwak and Shamir point out, “The key innovation of the Iron Dome system was the low unit cost of its missiles, between U.S. $77,000 and U.S. $97,000 initially and roughly U.S. $50,000 as of 2021.”
By contrast, the F-35 fighter jet program was initiated by the U.S. in 1996. It was declared operational two decades later in 2015 for the U.S. Marines version. The Air Force version wasn’t operational until 2019, and “many inadequacies remain to be corrected.” The project was delayed and over budget.
If necessity has spurred Israeli military innovation, so too has culture. The IDF’s culture differs profoundly from its Western counterparts in important ways. The IDF’s officer corps is young. As Luttwak and Shamir observe, “As people become older, they typically become more set in their ways, less courageous, less inclined to try out what is new.” To be sure, having an older officer corps has its benefits, too; officers have more time to acquire wisdom and “prudence in place of the recklessness of youth.” But a younger officer corps has been key to fostering a culture of innovation. And it’s been part of the IDF’s history from the very beginning.
During the IDF’s formative years in the 1950s and 1960s, nearly all senior commanders were in their 30s. Indeed, the “two successive Israeli air chiefs who were the innovators of their generation were still in their early 30s when they assumed.” This, the authors note, made them “at least 20 years younger than their youngest counterparts in other air forces.” Moshe Dayan, the legendary Israeli military leader and defense minister, intentionally tried to keep the officer corps young. Dayan retired as the IDF’s chief of staff at the age of 43.
The IDF’s approach to its officer corps is also striking differently. Unlike the U.S., Great Britain, or France, there isn’t a military academy to churn out officers. Its West Point, so to speak, is in the field. The Israeli military also intentionally strives to have a scarcity of senior officers, resulting in responsibility being shifted downward. Inevitably, junior officers, many just captains in their 20s, are left with duties that are typically reserved for older, more senior officers in other nations. By fostering “innovation from below,” the IDF encourages a greater degree of risk-taking.
Another key cultural difference is the IDF’s early incorporation of women. This, too, was born out of necessity. Luttwak and Shamir are careful to note that “women have always fought alongside men in defending towns and cities under siege.” And, the scholars point out, the Soviet Red Army utilized female fighters during World War II, which the USSR routinely highlighted in wartime propaganda. However, the “IDF’s novelty was that women were not exceptions to be lionized as heroes or relegated to safely female roles.” Rather, they were simply conscripts along with the men. And after an expansion of ground forces following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the IDF discovered that, gender differences being real, there were some things that women did better than men, including in certain roles as trainers and instructors in which they “could more easily strike the right balance between discipline and sensitivity in dealing with young conscripts.”
Indeed, the very structure of the IDF is unique. From its birth, the IDF was a single service with its ground, naval, and air units all under a single command. This makes the IDF different from all its counterparts save Canada. The Israelis of 1948, the authors note, “boldly disregarded all established practice and ignored all traditions to invent their own structure.” The IDF’s service integration has made it more flexible and nimbler. This, and its reliance on reservists, many of whom hold day jobs in fields like technology that encourage innovation, has contributed to the IDF punching above its weight.
The Art of Military Innovation is a succinct look at the unique way the IDF’s leaders have adapted to their circumstances to make their country a regional military superpower. In peril, the IDF has found power — both because it has had to and because it has been willing to.
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The writer is a senior research analyst for CAMERA, the 65,000-member Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.