Editor's Preface
01.07.14
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“Change comes in various wavelengths. There are changes in the game, changes in the rules of the game, and changes in how the rules are changed...
Changes in the game produce the kind of changes now visible: new winners and losers. New businesses. New heroes...Changes in the rules of the game- produces new kinds of business, new sectors of the economy, new kinds of games. From this type of change comes the Microsofts and Amazon.coms. The third level of change, which we are now entering, whips up changes in how change happens. Change changes itself... Change accelerates itself. It morphs into creative destruction. It induces flux. It disperses into a field effect, so you can’t pinpoint causes.”
Kevin Kelly, “New rules for the New Economy,” 1998
"You could not step twice into the same river.” This dictum, attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, summarizes the philosophical concept according to which "everything flows" and the world is in a constant state of flux. Not only is the water flowing past one spot in a river different, but the person crossing a river for the second time has also changed. Eastern philosophy attributes to Buddha the saying, “Everything changes, nothing remains without change.”
The attention currently devoted to the constant change taking place in the world, to the acceleration of that change and to recognition of the need to adapt to change as the main challenge facing organizations, companies and nations, was well articulated in ancient philosophy. Even though military institutions are known for their relatively conservative outlook, military history has been driven by quite a few revolutionary schools of thought. Modern military philosophy is full of mavericks who recognized change in the strategic environment and the opportunities evolving within it, and initiated many conscious changes to military concepts. Figures such as Giulio Douhet, Semyon Timoshenko, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, J.F.C. Fuller, Basil Liddell-Hart, Donn Starry, Andrew Marshall, David Deptula, Robert Pape, John Warden, and others, were pioneers of military thinking and action. Some concepts are now considered erroneous, while others (such as the Deep Battle doctrine, armored Blitzkrieg and AirLand Battle) are considered historic leaps forward in military thinking.
This issue of The Dado Center Journal discusses the ways in which the military establishment in general, and the IDF in particular, tries to deal with the need to adapt, to change and to reinvent itself in a world in which the pace of change is constantly accelerating. The process of identifying new requirements and the desired changes is real and immediate. Consequently, we have chosen to present this issue based on a rationale that begins at the individual level and progresses to the operational level.
The first article, by Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, Head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, and Col. Eran Ortal, Head of the Think Tank at the Dado Center, describes one of the most significant thought and change processes to have recently taken place in the IDF–the Ma'asei Aman process.[1]
The first part of the article describes the motivation for the organizational thought process that was the result of dramatic changes identified in the operational environment of the MID Directorate, and details directions for change that were adopted as a result. In the second part, the writers share their main understandings of the conditions and principles underlying successful thought and change processes. By doing so, the authors provide a theoretical basis for shaping processes such as these.
In the second article, Dr. Ori Goldberg, a former researcher at the Dado Center, and currently a consultant to the IDF Military Colleges, presents another case study for consideration and thought. This article deals with the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), established by the US Department of Defense in February 2006, to deal with the growing threat of improvised explosive devices against troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The story of JIEDDO is fundamentally different from that of Ma’asei Aman and concerns the identification of a dramatic environmental change (in this case the threat of IEDs) and a conscious and systematic organizational effort to adapt to this change. Especially interesting is the connection made by the article between the effectiveness of an organization and its role as a place of higher learning - thinking about thinking.
Ma’asei Aman and JIEDDO are both examples of how an organization's ability to adapt to a changing environment relates to its ability to change its organizational performance. In the third article, former Head of the IDF Operations Directorate, Maj. Gen. Yoav Har-Even, who led the process of writing the IDF’s Strategy Document, presents a different approach to change processes. The IDF exists in a state of constant tension between the need to change to keep up with its dynamic environment and the need for organizational stability to facilitate readiness. To enable effective functioning within this tension, Har-Even highlights the IDF’s need to maintain a system of learning systems while maximizing the existing organizational frameworks within its strategic and operational systems. As the pace of change is very high, innovation created in these learning systems must be implemented through cross- organizational cooperation, rather than by overly frequent organizational changes. In Har-Even’s view, what links the different learning systems in the services and regional commands to a common framework is the General Staff’s conceptual-strategic document “Force Employment Concept -IDF Strategy" that provides relative conceptual stability on the one hand; and on the other, a dynamic and open mechanism, due to it being a ‘temporary' document by definition.
In the fourth article, Dr. Ohad Leslau, previously a researcher at the Dado Center and currently serving in the IDF History Department, presents a different perspective of change processes in military organizations. Leslau follows the concept of ‘encirclement,’ a generally accepted doctrinal and conceptual term in militaries even today, through military history. His research allows readers to follow the changes in the meaning and conceptual interpretations associated with this concept in different strategic and operational contexts. In so doing, Leslau highlights the need to investigate the logical sources for conventional terminology and to form our own critical awareness regarding this terminology, which continues to shape our concepts even after the strategic and operational contexts in which it was coined have changed.
The broader perspective in the debate on the changing military environment is presented by Dr. Rafi Rudnick, a former researcher at the Dado Center, in the fifth and final article in this issue. He argues that military concepts at the operational level develop in response to social, technological, and other changes taking place in the world. Rudnick sees the process as evolutionary, encompassing five generations of systemic warfare concepts since the 17thcentury: the massive maneuver generation, associated with the beginning of the mass armies phenomenon; the fire and maneuver generation, dealing with wear and attrition, associated with the industrial revolution and the phenomenon of nation states; the total war generation, related to the development of the air dimension; the asymmetrical warfare generation, related to the phenomenon of non-state actors; and the emerging fifth generation characterized by hybrid threats and the new phenomena that are emerging around us in this age.
The first three articles highlight, each from a different perspective, the conscious effort required by militaries to change and adapt to a changing environment. Furthermore, the articles reflect the complexity and difficulty involved in the learning and change efforts within military organizations. Leslau provides us with a critical perspective by asking a seemingly obvious question – Does the doctrinal use of the military encirclement concept in the present age belong in an updated and relevant conceptual framework, or is it perhaps an inherited idea whose power lies only in the context of the past? Does the military experience acquired in the past still serve us on the operational level and in the context of current challenges? Rudnick, in contrast to the other writers in this issue, stresses the evolutionary dimension of military thinking. The broad overview that he provides forces readers to examine their understanding of the act of military learning and to choose between a learning effort that is conscious, complex, non-intuitive and revolutionary by nature, and an evolutionary approach enabling organizations to place themselves in a more passive position. Which position has the IDF taken?
With best wishes for fruitful and enjoyable reading,
Col. Eran Ortal, Head of Think Tank
[1] Lit. “An Intelligence Undertaking.” The name is a Hebrew pun meaning both work of art in biblical Hebrew, and intelligence undertaking in modern military Hebrew.
