Editor's Preface

On the cover of this issue is a picture from Charlie Chaplin’s acclaimed film, Modern Times. Chaplin, playing a factory-line worker, is working on an industrial machine – and the viewer is not sure if he is fixing it or fighting it. Very quickly the large wheels seem to swallow him into the machine's dark recesses.

Who is the leading actor in this scene? The man? The machine? Who is serving whom? Are humans the masters of their own method, which they forged for their own needs, or has the method become stronger than those who created it?

The third issue in the series on force design opens with an article by General Aharon Haliva, Commander of the Technology and Logistics Directorate. The article addresses the eternal question presented by Chaplin, but from a perspective relevant to the IDF. The author claims we are caught in a vicious cycle that demands ever-increasing resources, while the outputs decrease in parallel. The syndrome of more of the same, as the article is titled, obligates readers to ask themselves if the IDF's force design system really controls the fate of the IDF, or is it an unwitting victim of the method it itself has created? This question echoes throughout the entire issue and provides a framework for more systemic discourse. In addition, Haliva also offers an innovative solution – an idea whose essence is the design of the new generation of network- based ground warfare by utilizing the newly discovered potential of drones, automated technology, data processing and artificial intelligence.

Haliva proposes a definition of the problem and offers a solution, from the field of force design, as a framework for continued discourse. In comparison, Mr. Lazar Berman, a researcher at the Dado Center, offers a theoretical framework for discussion. In the second article of the issue, Berman proposes innovation and disruptive innovation as organizing terms for a critical review of our force design system. The theory of disruptive innovation could provide us the structure to understand the enemy’s actions against the IDF in recent decades. Moreover, the article creates an outline for discourse concerning the challenges facing force design. The challenge, as it appears in Berman’s article, is the challenge of creating innovation in the system.

The subsequent articles in this issue enrich the discussion presented by the complimentary positions of Haliva and Berman.

The third article, written by Brigadier General (Res.) Dr. Meir Finkel and Mr. Yaniv Friedman, presents a history of “qualitative advantage,” a key term in Israeli security thought. Finkel, Commander of the Dado Center, and Friedman, a Dado Center researcher, argue that the term “qualitative advantage” focused on the human dimension in the first decades of Israel’s existence, and later Israeli thought focused on technological meanings. The authors claim that the magnitude of the challenge facing us today stems from the fact that social and historical circumstances have dulled the sword of Israel’s qualitative advantage in these two dimensions. Finkel and Friedman leave the readers with the challenge of reinterpreting the qualitative advantage required by Israel in general, and the IDF specifically, so it will be relevant today.

The fourth article, by Colonel (Res.) Yuval Bazak, reviews the development of the IDF General Staff's involvement with force design. The article presents the way the prevailing relative weakness in the IDF’s force design system, according to Bazak, originally developed. Bazak, who currently serves as the head of the Operations Directorate’s Conceptual Laboratory, claims the explanation lies in the weakening of the General Staff as a conceptual body over time. The article provides an organizational interpretation to the riddle presented by Berman – Why does the IDF find it so difficult to create ideas of disruptive innovation for itself?

Major (Res.) Erez Ne’eman, in the issue’s fifth article, discusses the force design system from the internal organizational perspective. Ne’eman reviews the complex picture of processes and procedures that in many ways define how the weapons development departments, and the organizations associated with them, operate. The article outlines the development of these processes and procedures in the organization, offers their sources of logic, including considerations of good governance that have become dominant following the Rami Dotan affair,[1] in addition to other considerations.

While the explanation of the development of differing procedures makes logical sense, it seems their results, as presented in the article, are less reasonable. The system is slow, cumbersome, and makes it difficult to create substantial and effective innovation similar to organizations that deal with comparable content in the business world.

The sixth article in the issue, by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Bomendil deals with autonomous and unmanned systems. Bomendil, an officer in the Education Corps, presents the Israeli reader fascinating insight of the world of social, moral, ethical, organizational and personal dilemmas that technological trends, and their military applications, are creating around the world. Bomendil's efforts contribute to the overall discussion of the issue in two ways. The first directly addresses the technological potential that Haliva points out as a potential for the IDF's transformation, and sheds light on them from an additional perspective. The second is the ethical and moral discourse raised around force design and how Bomendil obligates us to be critical towards ourselves. This leads to an even more challenging question: Is this issue being sufficiently discussed in the IDF?

Major Shai Kivity closes the issue with an article that almost seems to be written as an instruction manual for organizational change. Kiviti, who currently commands a reserve company and has served as an officer in the Ground Forces' Weapons Development Department, deals with the question of how to lead change in complex organizations that inherently oppose change. Although the article is based on extensive literary research on the subject, the author boldly presents his personal experience and the challenges he himself faced while attempting to create meaningful changes in the IDF's force design system.

Kivity brings us back to the question inspired by Chaplin's antics. Does the “machine” - the institutional system that designs forces in security organizations and the IDF - work for us, or are we indentured to it? Is inertial energy dominant and determining in our system, or does the power of new ideas and dedicated people surpass them? Are we trapped in the symptom of “more of the same,” as Haliva claims?

If so, does the reason lie in the micro processes described by Ne'eman, or in the macro processes presented by Bazak? And what adjustments do we need to make? What is the place of potential breakthroughs, such as rapid communication networks, artificial intelligence and automation in the modifications of our military power? What is the relationship between the force design “machine” and the world of human spirit and values?

The good news for our readers is that the IDF of recent years is becoming increasingly more involved with these questions, and many others. They are being discussed at the most senior echelons, driven by real awareness of responsibility and needs.

So, what, if at all, can be done to promote the relevant knowledge for military force design? Does the process taking place in the IDF advance us in a better direction?

As usual, we close the introduction with these questions unanswered...

With best wishes for fruitful and enjoyable reading,

Col. Eran Ortal Head of Think Tank

[1] Rami Dotan was a brigadier general and the head of IAF procurement. In 1989, he was convicted of embezzling more than $10 million after purchasing inferior equipment and pocketing the difference. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison and demoted to the rank of private. He was released in 2002.