Catch-99

Israel Defense Forces Re-structure For Short War

By Amir Oren

Earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces unveiled a new fighting formation – its 99th Division, or as Israelis prefer to call it, Division 99. It does not, of course, mean that Israel’s Army is only one Division – a force of some 10,000 troops – short of a hundred. Very far from it. But the designation is significant, precisely because the figure was not plucked out of a hat.

Division 99 is the culmination of innovative ideas, research and development efforts and operational concepts, geared towards notional wars later this decade and beyond. They combine intelligence, communications, firepower and maneuver in such a way that the enemy is subdued at his centers of gravity and points of decision, be they near the front or deep inside his territory.

This may sound obvious, but in practice involves difficult choices. Resources – money, manpower, materiel – are limited. Millions spent on buying and maintaining tanks and on training Armor crews and honing their skills with a certain scenario in mind have to be cut from Air Force procurement and the retirement package deemed necessary to lure officers and technicians to make the military their careers.

There are several Catch-22’s, or -99’s, involved. Once a path is chosen, the defense bureaucracy is reluctant to deviate from it, even when obsolescent. The more successful it seems, the less relevant it could become, as the enemy will stop trying to match it in kind and look for ways around it – the unequivocal victory of Israel’s fighter-planes and tanks in 1973 led the Egyptians and Syrians to focus on surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank weapons negating Israel’s battlefield superiority. And the longer Israeli deterrence holds, the less urgent modernization initiatives would be perceived by the public asked to support budget requests and appeals to reserve soldiers to serve on active duty.

The General Staff of the IDF, charged with preparing the military for the next war and supervising the eight main headquarters (Air, Naval, Intelligence, Logistics, Home Front, Northern, Central, Southern) conducting it, had to break away from the old realities of Middle East conflicts. In 1948, Israel had Brigades or Regiments of several Battalions each, usually spread thin along routes or sectors in defense of sovereign territoru from invasion. They were infantry-intensive, rifle-carrying youth with minimum training and hardly any Air, Armor or Artillery cover. Only rarely, such as in the bold incursion into Northern Sinai under Southern Front Commanding General (Colonel, actually) Yigal Allon, were two Brigades included in a common de-facto Division.

The debate in the 1950’s centered on the location of support elements, such as engineering and reconnaissance, and on flexibility versus commitment. Higher headquartets wished to keep control over precious assets, rather than allocate them beforehand. The compromise in effect up to and until the 1967 war was to enshrine the Brigades as the basic building blocks which could come under any of the four Divisional commands as plans and missions change according to circumstances. No Division commander had this job exclusively – it was a wartime appointment secondary to a Major General’s day job in charge of Armor, Training or the National Security College, plus one reservist who headed the government’s Wildlife Authority.

It was only after the Sinai desert was occupied and a Suez Canal defense system had to be devised that the first permanent Division came into being, and it took another war, in 1973, for the IDF to conclude that it must move the dial from Brigade to Division. The new Divisional commanders were downgraded to Brigadier Generals, as they did not have a higher-ranking additional appointment, one bitter lesson being that the Southern Front Commander could not impose his authority on his elders who held equal rank and served under him.

Badly shaken by 1973, the IDF grew – even became bloated – to a dozen Divisions. The economic burdem could not have been sustained for long. Israel was saved from sinking under this ballast by Anwar Sadat’s peace initiative. Without Egypt, no Arab country could pose a conventional existential threat to Israel. It could cautiously let go, doing with a smaller number of Army formations as it shifted its focus to stand-off warfare, mostly by the Air Force, and had little use for its heavier, Armor-centered Divisions in police, guerrilla and counter-terrorism duties in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

Over the last decade, the problem became clear. Israel does not want to re-enter Gaza or Lebanon with large ground formations, leading to casualties, public impatience, civilian devestation and international pressure to stop in mid-campaign. Yet its well-known reluctance to roll into Hezbollah and HAMAS territories emboldens them to provoke Israel by raids and rockets. The IDF had to counter by formulating a new doctrine which would be effective if needed and credible enough to help avoid this need by convincing the other side that Israel would be unshackled from its own doubts.

The heavy blanket of censorship was swept aside to expose Israel’s massive might – three regulat Army Divisions poised to go into battle as soon as called upon. They are the armored 36th and 162th Divisions of Yom Kippur War fame and the lighter, paratroop-based 98th. Don’t test us, Israel’s enemies are being warned – these three juggernauts could spring into action immediately.

Faced with limits and constraints, the IDF’s Chiefs-of-Staff over the last decade – Benny Gantz (now Defense Minister), Gadi Eisenkot and Aviv Kochavi – emphasized quality over quantity, or more precisely quality within quantity. Rather than spread meager assets equally among all Divisions, regular and reserves, so that during war all would be similarly capable but risk the mediocrity of the average (and overage, in the csse of many reservists) they decided to discriminate. 36, 162 and 98 would get top priority at the expense of other Divisions. When war starts, the three “spear” formations would be available and ready for their missions. While they cross the border, or perhaps sneak behind the line and into the rear, second-echelon Divisions could be called up for quick refreshers. Hopefully, the campaign would be over before the High Command uses them to reinforce the first three, or sends them to new sectors if the war broadens. These Divisions would be an insurance policy, funded in order to avoid a catastrophy but not so much as to starve one.

Enter Division 99. It is the younger sister of 98, among whose past commanders, and most original thinkers, is Lt. Gen. Kochavi. His idea was to take one of the lesser Divisions, endow it with the best and boldest officers and ideas and transform it into a first-rate formations. Indeed, one could envision a war in which the heavier 36 and 162 stay behind for any eventuality while 98 – with the regular paratroopers and commando brigades – and the multi-dimensional “lightning” 99 lead the way.

Kochavi, following up on his predecessors and using the opportunity to experiment with his own fertile suggestions, has updated the traditional distinction between “combat” and “combat support”. The common reference is to all Divisions as combat units. Support is for those helping their comrades at arms but out of harm’s way. Not so in Kochavi’s book. If combat ends quickly, before your Division had a chance to take part in it, through no fault of its leaders and men, then it was relegated to combat support. Combat, because it was swift and successful, was the domain of only up to four Divisions, ground-wise.

If that approach proves prophetic and fruitful, Kochavi will have bolstered the IDF’s tip of the spear by one third, or narrowing it to 99 joining 98, doubled it. If this, by being advertised, helps deterrence and averts war, it is already beneficial. Should fighting flare up anyway and Israel’s government – which now includes retired General Gantz as a civilian decision maker, confident of his younger former colleague’s ability – orders contingency plans executed, the wisest insights on paper would be tested by fire.