Posted 01/22/07 10:52 Print this story War’s Fallout Fells Tech-Savvy Israeli Military Chief But Digital Networking Saves Lives When Command Trumps Control By BARBARA OPALL-ROME , TEL AVIV

The Israel military’s first ground war as a digitized force revealed that networked warfare can be a double-edged sword. When employed in support of sound strategy by strong leaders who firmly manage the command chain, it boosts battlefield effectiveness while reducing the danger from enemy attack and friendly fire. But in the faltering, indecisive Summer 2006 Lebanon War, it was used as a risk-aversion tool, and as a substitute for clear communication and understanding of what was happening on the ground. On Jan. 17, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, Israel’s highly respected, tech-savvy chief of General Staff, became the first military chief in Israeli history to voluntarily step down over wartime performance, having lost the confidence of a large portion of the public and the troops he was charged to lead. When the war broke out, Halutz and his Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had overwhelming military superiority and favorable political conditions. But undue reliance on surgical strikes, command failings and improper exploitation undercut the promise of the digital network. Halutz’s resignation is “sad, but it was necessary,” said Udi Shani, the recently retired major general who headed the IDF’s C4I directorate. Shani, who led a critical probe into the IDF’s wartime leadership performance, praised Halutz’s devotion to duty and his demonstration of personal accountability for wartime failings, particularly in the way decisions were made, translated and implemented throughout the chain of command. But he said the resignation would speed rehabilitation of the IDF and set a positive example for future wartime leaders. One former head of IDF military intelligence cautioned, however, that some were wrongly discrediting the value of air power and network operations championed by Halutz. “The last war pushed us to extremism, where people think the answer is either a return to classic warfare or an embrace of a technological Toys R’ Us,” Amos Malka, a retired major general, said at a Tel Aviv University symposium on Future Ground War. “The key is to deploy the correct balance between classic maneuvering warfare and standoff precision attack, and to have the correct command qualities to extract the best that digitization has to offer.” Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Giora Romm, a friend and former flight instructor of the IDF chief, said Halutz had to resign not because of the technology-oriented methods he used to control his forces, but the way he demonstrated leadership and command. “The presence or absence of high technology was not the issue,” Romm said. “The issue was that the IDF, under Halutz’s command, went into an open-ended war with neither clearly defined aims nor an exit strategy.” Similarly, said Romm, the IDF chief — the first fighter pilot to command the military — did not fully comprehend the cultural differences between the Air Force and ground forces. “In the Israel Air Force, when an order is given, the person who gives it can be pretty sure that it will be carried out to the spirit and the letter. In the ground forces, as this war proved yet again, this may not always be true. Commanders must follow through to ensure that their orders are fully implemented,” Romm said. While Halutz may have been shot down by his own people, it wasn’t a case of friendly fire, Romm said. “Friendly fire connotes mistaken attack,” he added. “But in Dan’s case, the public — and even more so, the media — looked him straight in the eye and pulled the trigger. I don’t remember any appointed civil servant in Israel ever being subject to such hostility.” Jacob Amidror, a retired major general and former commandant of the IDF’s Command and Staff Colleges, agreed with Romm that wartime failings had less to do with the way Halutz chose to control his force, and more with the manner in which he commanded. “Command and control must not be viewed as a single discipline,” Amidror said. “Command requires leadership, authority, legitimacy and vision. It ought to be viewed as being distinct from control, which in most cases can be rendered more effective through networked operations.” Despite the many performance gaps revealed during the war, Maj. Gen. Beni Gantz, commander of the IDF’s Land Forces Command, said the Israeli Army remains firmly on its path toward digitized, networked operations. “Certainly, there are areas that must be improved. But the fact is that units linked into the network fought much more effectively,” Gantz said. Gantz said casualties from friendly fire were at an all-time low. According to an IDF safety officer, Israel lost four soldiers to so-called friendly fire, a small fraction of the fatalities suffered in previous wars. He cited the example of a digitally equipped brigade commander who saw a company of soldiers heading into a heavily mined area in the western sector of southern Lebanon. “The brigade commander instantly alerted the battalion commander, who ordered those guys to approach from a different direction. Simply put, in places where there was friendly fire, we had no plasma,” said the officer, using a popular, often pejorative reference to digital, networked operations. In a mid-January interview, the officer said the Army expects the percentage of friendly fire incidents to fall even further. “First and foremost, leadership is everything. Then comes command and then comes control,” he said. “And you can be assured that with the increased training we’ve instituted in response to this war, we’re going to pound these distinctions into our people at all levels of command.” • E-mail: [email protected] .