Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
...and do not be lulled into the simplistic idea that somehow the IDF performance in the August War was because of a lack or operational or tactical skill as a product of over investment in COIN doctrine. The failure of the IDF was purely to do with Effects Based Operations, driven by airpower doctrine.
Don't get me wrong--I'm not at all arguing that the IDF lacks operational or tactical skill (although I do think that there were a number of tactical and operational weaknesses evident in 2006). Rather, I'm arguing that tactical and operational successes have not always resulted in strategic success--which, in the end, is the purpose of military force. Indeed, they might mask and ultimately exacerbate shortcomings in fundamental political strategy.

The Israel's failure in 2006 was only partially the consequence of airpower doctrine. A shorter and more closely focused set of air strikes, and/or a limited, successful set-piece ground strike, might have delivered more political and strategic gains. An air/EBO campaign with only a belated and half-hearted ground campaign clearly was a strategic failure. A more substantial ground campaign could have been more successful, but at very high risk (and with good chance of also being a strategic failure).

The IDF's major failure COIN in Lebanon--in 1983-2000, following its impressive conventional and semi-conventional victory in 1982--was not the consequence of a reliance on air power, which played little role. It was a conventional COIN military campaign, in which the IDF won almost every small unit head-to-head engagement against Hizballah and other Lebanese resistance groups, but ultimately withdrew under fire and was therefore seen as having been dealt a defeat. (If you've seen the loss ratios from engagements during this period, you'll also know that Hizballah steadily narrowed the gap.)

In the case of the WBG, although neither would put it in these terms, the disengagement strategy of Sharon, as well as Olmert's current diplomatic position, are in many ways based on the notion that Israel was too good at "operational" occupation/COIN, delayed adopting appropriate diplomatic strategies, and as a consequence has placed itself in a position of grave strategic peril (with Olmert in particular pointing to the demographic and political challenges of ruling over a growing non-Jewish population).