Military Agility. Meir Finkel
Third, in the oversaturated media environment that armies fight in, first impressions—on all sides—are more important than ever. Two decades ago, news reports on war would encompass a combination of initial failures and follow-up successes in a way that softened the former and highlighted the latter. Today, online news of initial failures might bring the war to an immediate halt.
Fourth, the growing ambiguity surrounding the political definition of conflict and the determination of success makes the transition from peace to war more difficult. In the Yom Kippur War, for instance, it was quite clear that the situation at hand was war. It was much harder to define the situation at the beginning of the Vietnam War or Israel’s military engagement in July 2006 that, a year later, would officially be called the Second Lebanon War. The growing military literature on “understanding” attests to this challenge.13 One could claim that in the Vietnam War or the Second Lebanon War the problem was not that the war was unrecognizable as such or that its character was unexpected but that the political and military leadership failed to sustain the readiness of the force. Be that as it may, in the end the challenge fell—and, due to the inherent political difficulties of declaring war, will probably continue to fall—on the shoulders of the military commanders who had to make the quick shift to war. These commanders are the target audience for this book.
Framing the Issue
Just as the professional conduct of war requires many kinds of transitions, success in first battles depends on many conditions. A short discussion of both issues will clarify this book’s focus.
The ability to identify and adapt to a new situation is the basic and essential test of competency of every commander and every unit. The classic mode of transition is a switch between offensive and defensive operations and vice versa. This kind of transition involves changes in almost every aspect of warfare—different methods of combat, organization, mindset, and so forth.14 Another set of transitions is implied by the American concept of “phasing”—that is, the shift from “shape” (phase 0) through “stabilization” (phase IV).15 For example, the challenge of identifying the need to adapt to changing circumstances at the end of the successful ground invasion of Iraq in 2003 can be described as a “failed transition” between phases III and IV.16 This book addresses a specific kind of transition—the rapid shift from peace or LIC to HIC (war).
A successful transition depends on many variables that are usually covered by the term “readiness.” During the Cold War, discussions about readiness were based mostly on the American experience in the two world wars and, later, the Korean War. Planners drew on the lessons learned in those wars to prepare a force buildup strategy for American and allied mobilization in the event of war between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe. The literature dealing with readiness for the transition from peace to war focused on the size, organization, and mobilization of forces and their training. The outcome of this effort was research-based decisions on factors such as the industrial infrastructure needed to accelerate the production of weapons and ammunition, the ratio between regular and reserve units, the reserve component’s level of competency, the time required for mobilization in Europe and the United States and deployment from the United States to Europe, and so forth. The creation of the Mobilization Concept Development Center and the publication of books such as NATO–Warsaw Pact Force Mobilization exemplify the response to such needs at the time.17 Probably the best analysis of readiness is Richard Betts’s 1995 book Military Readiness.18 Betts surveys the readiness traditions up to and during the Cold War, praises the readiness that enabled the relatively short (in American terms) force buildup that led to victory in Iraq in 1991, and provides guidelines for the future. After the Cold War, attention shifted to quick-reaction forces or rapid-deployment forces that could deploy worldwide as an initial force for a larger, heavier presence. In these scenarios, the main issues were (and still are) transportation assets for rapid deployment and the integration of multinational coalition forces, or the numbers and types of forces stationed around the world.
Although these are essential issues, this book does not deal with the size of armed forces, their level of training, transportation assets for deployment, or the stationing of units around the globe for immediate intervention. Assuming that all this has been accomplished, I argue that to conduct a successful transition from peace to war, other “softer” aspects of readiness, such as cognitive and mental flexibility, must be addressed.
The concept of “adaptation” is usually related to change during war, as discussed in the growing literature on the subject, which includes Williamson Murray’s Military Adaptation in War, with Fear of Change and my own On Flexibility: Recovery from Technological and Doctrinal Surprise on the Battlefield.19 The rapid transition from peace to war generally requires a much faster recognition of the new situation and a much more extensive change in force employment compared with adaptation during war. This aspect of adaptation is not part of the current literature. As Murray points out, adaptation “is a phenomenon of indeterminate length, which presents the opportunity for the contestants to adapt to their enemy’s strategy, operations and tactical approach.”20 In the case of the transition from peace to war, the interval is much shorter compared with the case studies presented in the literature. For example, in his book on the US military in Iraq, Chad Serena describes an adaptation that took years.21
In addition to the short time available to adjust, another difference between battlefield adaptation and the rapid transition from peace to war involves the unique combination of changing one’s mindset (peace versus war), which is a cognitive-mental process, and dealing with the professional challenges of improvisation, such as assimilating new weapons or tactics or consolidating an unvalidated concept. Probably the worst case is encountering the combination of both challenges in the event of a surprise attack, as occurred in the Yom Kippur War.
A few other cognitive-mental challenges exist when making the rapid switch from peace to war, as opposed to battlefield adaptation. For example, there is the need to define the new situation as war (which sounds easy but is not), the need to persuade one’s superiors in the rear that there is a war on the front, and the need to revise the basic mode of action from the one used and assimilated in peacetime and routine security missions.
This book’s aim is to fill the existing gaps in the literature. To that end, I identify four main challenges when making a successful transition from peacetime to wartime. First, there must be a successful mental transition from peacetime or routine security activities to a higher-intensity mode of action for combat. This is an enduring human and organizational challenge that stems from the need for preconceptions and organizational stability.
Second, if prewar debates over concepts and doctrine are still unresolved when war breaks out, these issues must be quickly resolved. Peacetime conceptual and doctrinal debates are essential for the healthy development of a military force’s fighting ability. As General Donn Starry, commander of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), noted in the 1970s: “Operational concepts are the stuff on which armies feed and nurture themselves. And so a dialogue about them is essential to the Army’s well-being.”22 But continuing the debate into actual combat operations can be disastrous. This is mainly a leadership challenge. The ambiguity concerning where, when, and against whom the next conflict will take place, as well as that conflict’s shape and form, is becoming a prominent challenge.
Third, new weapons systems—those delivered at the last minute before hostilities begin or even while the conflict is ongoing—must be integrated and employed. This challenge increases as the pace of technological change creates more opportunities.
Fourth, there must be a balance between the need to win every tactical engagement in LICs (which often call for mindsets, organization, and doctrines different from those needed in HICs) and the preparation of forces for a war scenario.
Why Does Israel’s Experience Matter?
In World War I, World War II, and the Gulf Wars, the United States had remarkable strategic depth in time and space. In Israel, neither exists. For most of its modern history, the major threat to Israel has been land invasion, similar to the situation of other countries