Vol. 11-12: Airpower - 50 Years Since Operation Focus

DCJ 11-12 Volume is a special double issue dedicated to the fifty anniversary of Operation Focus and opens with IAF Commander's preface, General Amir Eshel. Part I focuses on the question of the relevance and effectiveness of airpower. Colonel (res.) Prof. Alon Kadish claims that Operation Focus was over-appreciated in the analysis of victory in the Six-Day War and General Kobi Barak critiques the relationship between the Ground Forces and the Air Force. As for Brigadier General (res.) Dr. Meir Finkel, Commander of the Dado Center, the concept of a “preliminary air campaign” has passed its peak relevance. Major A., an Air Force fighter pilot, offers an opposite view in the fourth article as it presents an obscure, yet powerful, line of thought concerning contemporary Israeli perception on the advantages of airpower. Another pilot, Lt. Colonel Y., discerns between a number of paradoxes that prevent Israel's basic air capabilities from being translated into strategical effectiveness. The sixth article, written by Lt. Colonel (res.) Ron Tira, concludes Part I and presents a different approach that deals with the relevance of airpower in a new strategic environment.

Part II examines the way the IDF designs and employs airpower. Following Operation Focus. The first four articles in this section deal, from several perspectives, with the idea of air superiority that was awarded unique status in the IDF’s concept of airpower. Brigadier General (res.) Ephraim Segoli and Lt. Colonel (res.) Dr. Rafi Rudnik claim that Operation Focus was so formative for the Air Force, that the desire to recreate prevents creating a more relevant concept for airpower in changing contexts. In the issue’s seventh article, Segoli and Rudnik claim that Operation Focus is what may have led to the Air Force’s fixation on air strikes as “preliminary attacks.” In the eight article, Brigadier General Ori Oron describes the learning process and organizational changes in the Air Forces. The next two articles serve as a historical warning. The ninth article, written by Mr. Saul Bronfeld, deals with the IDF’s learning challenges in the three-year period between the War of Attrition and the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War and in the tenth article, Major Dan Barak reviews the roots of the American failure to achieve air superiority in the Vietnam War. The eleventh article by Colonel (res.) Gideon Hoshen deals with the power of the Air Force as a learning organization. The next two articles question the ability of the Air Force to remain the same organization familiar to Gideon Hoshen. Major Ophir Cherniak asks how will an organization that was built on the ethos of “the best go to Air Force” adapt. Colonel Nurit Cohen-Unger and Captain Lior Zichron conclude this special issue introducing a new variable into the equation of the traditional discussion of airpower – artificial intelligence. They close this special issue with a question: is the essence of the age of technology, such as AI, an additional technological advancement to the classic employment of airpower, or do they represent a change of a completely different magnitude?