“Donkey burial is a term for the humiliating burial of the deceased as a punishment for his behavior in life,” Hanina Ben Menachem writes in an article entitled “Donkey Burial: Humiliation of the Dead as Punishment”. In this article I will argue that the Air Force, through the concept of the target bank and the Air Force, succeeds in leading the land arm on the way to a grave burial.
The basics of combat: accuracy and range
What did the land arm do to deserve this? Threatened to start using precise, long-range weaponry routinely and not only in special units or a war situation, as has been done so far. Such a move would reduce the Air Force’s need for deep attack missions, at ranges of up to 300 km.
Precision shells with RamJet engines, rockets, missiles and drones. All of these can do a variety of the tasks that are currently the exclusive domain of the Air Force. True, not every mission is suitable for precision ground weaponry and sometimes a fighter plane is required. However, some of the attack missions that the Air Force carries out in BBM, in Syria, Gaza or Lebanon, the ground arm can carry out on its own. If someone wants an example, you can see the war in Ukraine in recent months.
In Israel, an unwritten law has taken root in the IDF that an attack at a distance of over 100 km is carried out exclusively by the Air Force. The reality shows that over the years, the air force has appropriated much shorter ranges, even tactical ones. Those that were previously under the responsibility of the land arm. An example of this can be seen in the rounds of fighting over the years in Gaza, as well as in the last round known as Operation Dawn.
If you look at the geography of Gaza, you see that the distance from Israeli territory to the Mediterranean Sea, a distance that covers the entire depth of Gaza, amounts to about 13 km in the widest part of the Gaza Strip, in its southern area. A range of action that is considered tactical in professional parlance. The combat frames of the land arm are able to operate independently and control much larger ranges.
The Air Force as a monopoly
However, the IDF chooses to use the Air Force for precision strike missions, instead of using precision ground-based weaponry. In the latest operation, as in those before it, the Air Force carried out almost 100 percent of the attacks during the fighting and pushed the ground arm out of any combat description that goes beyond the arrest of detainees in the US or the seizure of drugs at the borders of Egypt or Lebanon.
In the past, there was a joke that the land arm became an MP with green uniforms. This is because all the arm does in practice, apart from training, is disperse demonstrations, make arrests and catch drugs and infiltrators. Maneuvering is something that has been talked about for decades, mainly in conferences and press interviews.
The last ground maneuver was in 2006, and it was also limited to a few kilometers inside Lebanon. Such a maneuver tests the ability of the land arm to function effectively when the supply and telecommunications lines are stretched far from the Israeli border. The only alternative left for the land arm to “stretch its muscles” is mini maneuvers into Gaza or Israel.
Although these are carried out without the stretching of logistics lines and with a continuous bandwidth that provides support for the networked warfare that allows between arms, at least the ranks of command in the land arm are practiced in real friction with the enemy. Maneuvering into Gaza and Israel is not training in Tzalim or the Golan Heights against a simulated enemy.
Everything is possible from the air
As mentioned, even the little friction that still remained for the land arm was eliminated by the Air Force by pushing the idea of an aerial target bank and BVM. The Air Force and IDF have invested a lot of resources in recent years in creating a bank of targets suitable for airstrikes. This, at a time when the investment in the dry arm was neglected. The concept of the target bank projects a narrative that all types of threats can be dealt with, air defense or war, using aerial tools.
The Air Force has also appropriated the air defense, thus it “closes a circle” as a monopoly of firing. It creates synchronization between air attack management and air defense, under one roof. One Stop Shop. For the General Staff who is running the war, it is easier to work with an executive contractor who gives you the entire solution, end to end.
This, when in the world there are other operating concepts of air defense, as an example of the SHORAD systems operated by the land force. In the USA, for example, there was thinking to operate the Iron Dome as such a system. The Rafael company, in a publication on the company’s website, also describes the Iron Dome’s ability to be used as a SHORAD system.
The result of the positioning of the air force as a power exercise monopoly contributes to an increase in the effectiveness of the air force compared to a decline in the effectiveness of the land arm. In the absence of competition for accuracy and range from the ground arm, the Air Force managed to stabilize a narrative that only it is capable of operating an offensive operation that includes handling a multitude of targets, with great precision and with almost no casualties in the Israeli rear and uninvolved in enemy territory. Which is, roughly, the wet dream of every politician who gives instructions to the army.
“Dawn” – further reinforcement of the narrative led by the Air Force
In the “Dawn” operation, the Air Force attacked continuously in Gaza for three days, managed to eliminate senior Jihad commanders through the window of their apartment, hit traffic dispatch squads and rocket launchers. If necessary, the Air Force also knows how to take down a building.
The possibility of achieving a full range of goals, from eliminating a single person in an apartment to bringing down an entire building, raises the question, why do you need the land arm? Contrary to the Air Force marketing a “clean” and “surgical” narrative, the narrative surrounding the ground maneuver has become negative. It includes arguments such as many deaths for all sides, escalation of the conflict, risk to IDF soldiers, political risk to the decision makers (public sentiment) and the creation of unnecessary political friction with the USA, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf countries.
This is how the Air Force managed over the years to turn the image of ground maneuver into something negative and scary, while the use of air power as something clean, surgical and fast. Almost no friction with the enemy. Now imagine a round in Gaza with few strikes by the Air Force, when the ground arm leads the event and activates a combination of mini-maneuver with massive use of precision weaponry at different ranges in Gaza. including thwarting senior officials in the apartments.
What would have happened in public and political thought in Israel if such a round had ended, in terms of dead, wounded and politically, in a manner similar to the round about the purity of air power? In this alternative reality, the decision makers would be less afraid to activate the land arm also in the Air Force, sometimes instead of the Air Force. The public would get used to it and the narrative surrounding the activation of the land arm would change.
For the Air Force, such an alternative reality creates a challenge in maintaining the monopoly it has in exercising force within the IDF. For the land arm, this alternative reality could have produced a more skilled command echelon, more appropriate and up-to-date military systems, and more. If this were the reality, we would think differently about the land arm and the desired balance between air and ground power.
Let’s get back to real reality.
Some of those who fought in 2006 and have since remained in the army and today hold high command ranks, have not yet experienced a large-scale maneuver, far from Israel’s borders. They received this information in studies, trainings and Mor’ak lectures.
And what will happen in a symmetrical war?
In light of this reality, the land arm’s complaints against the government are justified. Without a maneuver every few years, the quality of the IDF’s ground forces fades in the face of threats of symmetrical war. And this is another point. The narrative that air power is capable of anything has not yet encountered a real symmetrical war between Israel and a country like Egypt, let’s say. In some of the previous symmetrical wars of the State of Israel, the Air Force failed to support the ground arm and certainly to decide the war by itself – the decision in the field came only through “boots on the ground”.
The marketing of the narrative that there will be no more major wars to justify not using the land arm, can end in a depressing if a major war breaks out. Some of us still remember the rule of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. And that was not long ago, between the years 2012-2013. For the IDF and the Israeli public, it was a tense year with thoughts about the possibility that Morsi would use the Egyptian army against Israel for internal political needs.
It is true that someone will claim that today this is not the case. Syria is dismantled, Iraq is dismantled. There is a stable and prosperous peace agreement with Egypt. And a tank-to-tank war with Iran, a distance of 1600 km from Israel’s border, probably exists with zero probability. The only enemy remains in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon, and that the Air Force can “eat” alone. No ground maneuver. A little MBM, a few rounds in Gaza and we’ll be fine. There is no point in a dry arm.
Risk Management Vs War on Resources
The fundamental question in this discussion is how the IDF manages risks on the scale between symmetrical war and countering terrorism. The more the pendulum tilts towards symmetrical warfare, the more ground maneuver is needed. The more it is inclined to counter-terrorism, the less is needed. The pendulum dictates the resources that each branch receives from the budget pie. The budget dictates the investment in labor and human capital in each arm.
The pendulum also dictates the lobby that each branch has in the meetings of the General Staff. Who sets the tone in the army? The chiefs of staff can come from the land arm, but the air force dictates the tone. Rounds like “Dawn” will probably continue to be carried out with a slight probability of triggering a land maneuver. The tanks, artillery and infantry units will continue to be a showcase in Gaza and the US, which aims only at the islands, while the actual work will be done by the Air Force.
Is the Air Force right? Well, as of today, when no major war is on the horizon and the maximum threat amounts to a war in Lebanon, yes. The Air Force will claim, and rightly so, that here, even in Second Lebanon, the Air Force did almost all the work, the maneuver was marginal to the results of the war, and the damage was so great from the air, that Hezbollah has been sitting quietly for 16 years.
The more the Air Force proves its case before the General Staff and the government, the more budgets will be allocated to strengthening the air force at the expense of the land. This process of strengthening the air force at the expense of the land arm, results in the slow death of the land arm.
In another two or three decades and a few more rounds in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon that will all be carried out from the air, there will be no maneuverability left at all in the land arm. The burial of the donkey will be completed. As long as we don’t wake up, like the European countries, in front of an unexpected symmetrical threat, and it seems that what we have is not enough.