Summary
Israel’s military force, named in Siboni’s article only by its initials, the IDF: the actor whose response to rocket and missile threats from Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip is the article’s whole subject, and whose prescribed doctrine is a disproportionate strike against the enemy’s weak points as the primary war effort (Disproportionate Force: Israel’s Concept of Response in Light of the Second Lebanon War, lines 336-340).
Details
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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared, while visiting the IDF Home Front Command, that the IDF would face fewer limitations in future confrontations (line 334).
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On an outbreak of hostilities, Siboni prescribes, the IDF will need to act immediately, decisively, and with force disproportionate to the enemy’s actions and the threat it poses, prioritizing damaging assets over seeking out each and every launcher (line 340).
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Its effort to decrease rocket and missile attacks is secondary: the main effort is to shorten the period of fighting by striking a serious blow at the assets of the enemy (line 342).
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In the Gaza Strip the IDF should strike hard at Hamas, refrain from chasing Qassam rocket launchers, and stop rocket and missile fire by imposing a ceasefire on the enemy (line 346).
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Its primary goal, in Siboni’s closing paragraph, is to attain a ceasefire under conditions that increase Israel’s long-term deterrence, prevent a war of attrition, and leave the enemy in expensive, long-term reconstruction (line 348).
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In Inbar and Shamir’s 2014 account the IDF is the executor of Mowing the Grass: it does not respond automatically, prefers short air responses where it has escalation dominance, has perfected hunting rocket launchers and targeted killing, and mounts large-scale operations only after a series of aggressions, reserving ground invasion for grave provocations; the phrase ‘mowing the grass’ is IDF officers’ parlance that appears in no IDF doctrinal document (‘Mowing the Grass’: Israel’s Strategy for Protracted Intractable Conflict, PDF p.5, p.11-13).
Related pages
Disproportionate Force: Israel’s Concept of Response in Light of the Second Lebanon War, Disproportionate Force, Deterrence, Dahiyeh Doctrine, Israel