Comprehensive Military Reform

The failure that occurred on the seventh of October is primarily a military failure, but it should not be seen as merely an isolated fault. It involves the current military leadership, the IDF culture shaped over the last decade, defense ministers of all generations, and past and present prime ministers. The repeated warnings of Major General Yitzhak Brick were only one voice among many that cautioned against the breakdown.

But Major General Brick is not alone. Tens of thousands of discharged soldiers and active servicemen have witnessed the failures: from the smallest individual to officers forced to operate within a culture of lies, cover-ups, concealment, corruption, and public fund waste. No greater proof is needed than the events of the seventh of October.

Therefore, sending those responsible home is not enough. Reprimands, committees, disgrace, or replacing commanders are insufficient. A systemic and fundamental change is required in the IDF and the entire security system. Many years of huge budgets, centralization, operational showmanship, dependence on technology, and lack of humility have created a failing organizational culture that must be uprooted.

The following main points were written before the seventh of October and completed on August 26, 2023. Therefore, they must be taken with utmost seriousness: the seventh of October did not create the IDF’s failure — it exposed it.

The reform proposed here aims to refresh the security system, restore its purpose, humility, responsibility, and competence, and establish a new security structure suited to the new reality of the land.

Background to the Reform

The military failure on the seventh of October is unprecedented. It is a great embarrassment and disgrace to the Israel Defense Forces, its commanders, and its leaders.

But the failure does not begin or end on that day. It is the result of a series of deep problems:

The military system is not prepared for total war.

There are serious, overt and covert failures in the functioning of both the regular and reserve forces.

There is excessive reliance on cutting-edge technologies, the air force, and advanced systems, which has atrophied basic units such as infantry, logistics, armor, engineering, and artillery.

The system suffers from severe logistical failures that ultimately fall on the soldier in the field.

The IDF increasingly relies on civilian entities and subcontractors, which could lead to paralysis of essential systems in a national emergency.

Prolonged dealing with terror and guerrilla threats wears down the army, limits its thinking, and habituates it to operate with restrained firepower and a narrow operational conception.

The growing use of civilian and technological means—navigation, communication, applications, and external systems—creates dangerous dependence precisely in emergencies where these systems may fail.

Alongside all these, there is a decline in morale, service values, internal trust, and the system’s ability to present a clear vision to its soldiers and commanders.

The problem is not one or two commanders. The military system’s corruption developed over years, became embedded as an organizational culture, and turned into a method. Therefore, the remedy cannot be merely technical, managerial, or isolated. It must be a profound change.

A New Security Vision

The security system must be rebuilt around three types of threats:

• Total War - A confrontation with an enemy possessing significant military capability, requiring broad force deployment, deep preparation, logistics, reserves, industry, home front, and endurance.
• Asymmetric War - Dealing with terrorist organizations, armed undergrounds, guerrilla warfare, local cells, and changing threats, requiring a small, professional, flexible, precise, and restrained force.
• Ongoing Security and Civilian Home Front - Border guarding, maintaining sectors, intelligence gathering, training, drills, preparing authorities and communities, and strengthening civilian resilience.

From this distinction, the security system should be divided into two main frameworks: a decentralized territorial army and a professional branch for changing threats.

Decentralized Territorial Army

Decentralizing the army is essential in a federal government reality. The primary purpose of the military force will be to protect its community, its territorial area, and the borders of responsibility assigned to it.

The territorial army will reconnect the regular and reserve forces. Instead of a deep separation between those currently serving and those called up occasionally, one organic unit will be built: a soldier begins his path in the unit, continues with training, service, reserves, drills, and emergencies. This unit knows its people, its commanders, its sector, and its mission.

Such a structure will create responsibility, permanence, organizational memory, mutual guarantee, and true unit pride.

The territorial army will focus on two main tasks: guarding and ongoing security during calm, and preparation for total war in emergencies. It will not be worn down by constant dealing with isolated terror threats, nor required to deploy the entire military system against small cells or underground groups.

This focus will restore the army’s purpose: preparation for real war, protecting the land, defending the citizens, deep competence, and the ability to operate under severe emergency conditions.

Principles of the Territorial Army

1. Simplicity - There must not be sole reliance on cutting-edge technologies. A return to clear orders, maps, diagrams, basic drills, reliable communication, and means that soldiers know how to operate even under failure conditions is required.
2. Independence - The army must reduce dependence on subcontractors, civilian entities, and external systems. It must train its soldiers to perform the necessary actions for its existence, maintenance, and functioning.
3. Strong Logistics - An army marches on its stomach. The logistical system is not secondary but a fundamental condition for fighting. Neither the soldier nor the commander should bear the burden of logistical failures.
4. Unit Organicity - The home bases of units will be the home for both regular and reserve forces. They will be located according to security needs, responsibility sectors, and the new territorial structure.
5. Efficiency - The army must be budgeted, simple, competent, and efficient. Not large for size’s sake, not technological for show, and not wasteful for prestige.
6. Listening to Soldiers - Army units and their commanders must be attentive to soldiers, understanding that these soldiers will continue to serve in the same unit for many years. The fighter is not a disposable tool but part of a continuing security community.
7. Preparation for Total War - The territorial army is primarily intended to deal with a national emergency against a significant enemy, not to manage ongoing small systems that wear down its strength and thinking.

Branch for Changing Threats — A Small and Smart Army

Alongside the territorial army, a professional, small, and flexible branch will be established, tasked with dealing with asymmetric threats: terror, guerrilla warfare, armed undergrounds, dispersed cells, and changing threats.

This branch will be a standing professional force, based on soldiers who have completed full service and passed appropriate selection. It will be built and dismantled according to the needs of the time, threat, and decisions of the political-security echelon.

Its uniqueness will be in its flexibility. It will not be a mass army but a skilled, precise, sophisticated, and limited force. It will know how to operate in a complex civilian environment, with restraint, legal responsibility, and understanding that the use of force in a civilian arena requires wisdom, not just power.

It will be responsible for training, integrating advanced technologies, developing appropriate drills, and confronting the enemies assigned to it. Every few years, its suitability will be reassessed, and its units will be composed or dismantled according to relevant threats.

Principles of the Branch for Changing Threats

• Principle of Limitation - Reducing force size for precise action in complex arenas. Commanders must understand the limits of power and act with creativity, responsibility, and discretion.
• Principle of Complexity - Using advanced means and professional knowledge to deal with underground units, small cells, and changing threats unlike a regular army.
• Principle of Flexibility - A modular structure, ability to build and dismantle units, rapid adaptation to changing reality, and avoidance of organizational rigidity.
• Principle of Skill - A small, professional, trained, and skilled force that does not rely on mass but on quality, training, responsibility, and discipline.

Technological Units and Federal Government

Decentralizing the army does not mean complete dismantling of national security responsibility. Advanced technological units, cyber arrays, intelligence, communications, strategic systems, and vital infrastructures will remain in a central structure under the responsibility of the federal government.

This will allow combining two needs: on the one hand, local territorial responsibility close to the individual and community; and on the other hand, maintaining qualitative advantage, national coordination, central command, and broad operational capability in emergencies.

Between Army and Policy

"War is merely the continuation of policy by other means."

The statement of von Clausewitz teaches that beyond the military failure on the seventh of October, there was also a deep political failure. An army cannot alone correct faulty policy. It cannot replace vision, leadership, wisdom, or path.

The deterioration of the seventh of October has not ceased and will not cease for many years. But the answer cannot be only increasing budgets, purchasing new systems, replacing commanders, or yet another committee. The answer must be a change of conception.

We must build a new security system: more humble, wiser, more decentralized, more competent, more moral, and less dependent on illusions of power and technology.

A security system that knows how to protect the individual, the community, and the land—and not make itself the center of life.

A security system that serves policy and does not replace it.

A security system that remembers its purpose is not war but the preservation of life.