Start-up Nation

This rigorous review and national debrief was in full public display as recently as the 2006 Lebanon war. Initially, there was almost unanimous public backing for the government’s decision to respond massively to the attack by Hezbollah from across Israel’s northern border on July 12, 2006. This public support continued even when civilians in northern Israel came under indiscriminate missile attack, forcing one out of seven Israelis to leave their homes during the war.

Support for continuing the offensive was even higher among those living under the missile barrage than in the rest of Israel. This support presumably came from an Israeli willingness to suffer in order to see Hezbollah destroyed for good.

But Israel failed to destroy Hezbollah in 2006, and was unable to weaken Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon and to force the return of kidnapped soldiers. The reaction against the political and military leadership was harsh, with calls for the defense minister, IDF chief of staff, and prime minister to step down. Six companies of troops (roughly six hundred soldiers) were able to kill some four hundred Hezbollah fighters in face-to-face combat while suffering only thirty casualties, but the war was considered a failure of Israeli strategy and training, and seemed to signal to the public a dangerous departure from the IDF’s core ethos.

Indeed, the 2006 Lebanon war was a case study in deviation from the Israeli entrepreneurial model that had succeeded in previous wars. According to retired general Giora Eiland, who has headed both the prestigious IDF Planning Branch and the National Security Council, the war underscored four principal IDF failures: “Poor performance by the combat units, particularly on land; weakness in the high command; poor command and control processes; and problematic norms, including traditional values.” In particular, Eiland said, “open-minded thought, necessary to reduce the risk of sticking to preconceived ideas and relying on unquestioned assumptions, was far too rare.”

In other words, Israel suffered from a lack of organization and a lack of improvisation. Eiland also noted that soldiers were not sufficiently instilled with “the sense that ‘the fate of the war is on our shoulders.’ ” Commanders “relied too much on technology, which created the impression that it was possible to wage a tactical land battle without actually being in the field.”

Finally, Eiland leveled a criticism that is perhaps quintessentially Israeli and hardly imaginable within any other military apparatus: “One of the problems of the Second Lebanon War was the exaggerated adherence of senior officers to the chief of staff’s decisions. There is no question that the final word rests with the chief of staff, and once decisions have been made, all must demonstrate complete commitment to their implementation. However, it is the senior officers’ job to argue with the chief of staff when they feel he is wrong, and this should be done assertively on the basis of professional truth as they see it” (emphasis added).

Large organizations, whether military or corporate, must be constantly wary of kowtowing and groupthink, or the entire apparatus can rush headlong into terrible mistakes. Yet most militaries, and many corporations, seem willing to sacrifice flexibility for discipline, initiative for organization, and innovation for predictability. This, at least in principle, is not the Israeli way.

Eiland suggested that the IDF should consider drastic measures to reinforce its classic antihierarchical, innovative, and enterprising ethos. “Is it correct or even possible,” he asked, “to allow lower-ranking officers to plan and lead current security operations with less control from above in order to prepare them better for a conventional war?” (emphasis added).¹⁸

The 2006 war was a very costly wake-up call for the IDF. It was suffering from an ossification and hollowing out that is common among militaries that have not been tested in battle in a long time. In Israel’s case, the IDF had shifted its focus to commando-style warfare, which is appropriate when pursuing terrorist groups, but had neglected the skills and capabilities needed for conventional warfare.

Yet the Israeli reaction was not so much a call to tighten the ranks as it was to loosen them: to work harder at devolving authority and responsibility to lower levels and to do more to encourage junior officers to challenge their higher-ups. This radical push, moreover, was seen as one of restoring the “core values,” not liberalizing them.