Brigadier General Eran Ortal

Brigadier general Eran Ortal is the current commander of The Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies. Ortal is also the founder of the Israel Defense Force Dado Center journal, dedicated to Operational art and military transformation.

Ortal was born in Bat Yam, Israel. He was drafted into the IDF's Nahal Brigade in 1989, and served in southern Lebanon and the west Bank in the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps. In 1993, he completed his active service and studied history and political science, He then earned a master's degree in security studies at Tel Aviv University.

In 1999, Ortal returned to the IDF as an operations researcher in the Planning Branch (J-5) of the IDF General Staff. In 2004, he transferred to the Operations Division of the IDF's Operations Directorate, where he served in a variety of positions as operational planner during the Israeli disengagement from Gaza (2005), the Second Lebanon War (2006), the Airstrike that destroyed the Syrian nuclear reactor (2007) and Operation Cast Lead (2008).

Ortal attended the IDF brigade commanders course in 2012, and the next year began studying in the National Security College while also serving as a research fellow. In 2013, Ortal was promoted to the rank of colonel and became the Dado Center’s deputy commander and head of think tank. He was promoted to brigadier general in 2019 and replaced BG Dr. Meir Finkel as commander of the Dado Center.

Ortal’s published work focuses on operational planning and IDF force design at the general staff level. For instance, Ortal, along with Gen. Tamir Yadai, argued that since Operation Accountability in 1993, the IDF has pursued a de facto doctrine they call the “deterrence operations paradigm.” They wrote that the reasons for the emergence of this paradigm are the rise of stand־off fires capabilities, a perceived reduction in the relevance of the battlefield victory idea, and a parallel rise in the belief of the coercion and punishment approach against state actors. Ortal and Yadai claim that this paradigm has been shown to be a failure that does not achieve its aims. They propose a conceptual and practical framework to restore the battlefield victory approach in the IDF.

In recent years, Ortal adapted that approach to deal with the challenge of “missile־based terror armies,” like Hezbollah and Hamas. In a series of articles, he stressed the strategic significance of the rocket threat on Israel, and the imperative of developing a new offensive approach to defeat the new threat. Ortal has also analyzed other core issues the IDF has dealt with in recent years, including ground maneuver, subterranean threats, the rocket threat, and the IDF’s learning and transformation system.

His critique of the IDF’s General Staff force design system and strategic learning system led to practical change in the General staff including the formation of new organizations. Ortal played a role in strategic thought processes in the Military Intelligence Directorate (Ma’aseh Aman) and in the Ground Forces (Land Ahead). Both processes describe a critical evaluation of the performance of these arrays considering change, and offer a solution based on the potential in the changing world, especially in technological development.