Security and Defense: ‘We will know how to smash them’

IDF commanders this week reviewed lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War and military readiness for future wars.

Israel and ‘Hizbullah’ waged war this week. Columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers surrounded positions on a ‘southern Lebanon’ battlefield, simulated in the northern Golan Heights.

The exercise, one of the largest the IDF has held over the past decade, included the Infantry Corps’ Nahal Brigade and the Armored Corps’ 401st Brigade, which with its advanced Merkava tanks, some equipped with Trophy active-protection systems to intercept enemy missiles, is being dubbed “Israel’s gatekeeper to Lebanon.”

What made the exercise unique was its size. Held in a plateau just under Mount Shifon with the snowcapped Hermon in the background, thousands of soldiers practiced war alongside one another, then against one another.

Some of the scenarios were conventional, to sharpen skills for a possible confrontation with Syria, but most were a combination of guerrilla and urban warfare with terrain similar to Lebanon’s open forests and densely populated villages.

Exercises like this clearly demonstrate the change that has overtaken the military in the four years since the Second Lebanon War andOperation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in 2009.

There to watch was Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, who explained his seemingly simplistic perspective.

“A military is either preparing for war or is fighting a war,” he said, pointing out that since he took over in 2007, the IDF has held more than 100 brigadelevel exercises. This makes one thing sure: The next post-war commission of inquiry will not be able to say that the IDF did not train enough.

WITH ARTILLERY shells exploding below, Brig.-Gen. Agai Yehezkel, the new commander of Division 162, the organic home of both the Nahal and 401st Brigades, briefed his officers on their objectives and missions.

One of the IDF’s superior mobilized divisions, 162 participated in the Second Lebanon War and was harshly criticized for not being prepared and for hesitating and moving slowly when maneuvering in southern Lebanon.

One of the deficiencies that was made plain by the post-war inquiries was the lack of coordination between the division’s two main brigades – Nahal and 401.