‘Small and Smart’ is Leading Us to Failure

For nearly three decades, the security establishment has refashioned Israel’s military according to the doctrine of “small and smart.” To provide the necessary protection for Israel with a declining number of soldiers, the idea was to increase the army’s power by, in effect, creating a smaller army that was more powerful per capita. The key has been paradigm-busting technology such as the Iron Dome anti-missile system, the Arrow missiles 1, 2, and 3, David’s Sling, the Iron Laser, F-35 fighters, the “smart” integration technology in the tank and infantry corps, and advanced Navy corvettes and submarines, to name a few.  

Throughout world history, war has always hastened the development of new technologies, such as the machine gun in WW1, radar, jet engines, and improvements in long-range bombers and fuel consumption in WW2. However, no nation has ever diminished the size of its armed forces while under siege and active threat from enemies, all while anticipating the opening of another active front. But this is exactly what Israel’s leadership has done.

While new technology can make an army more lethal and its maneuvering units more connected, any country can be overwhelmed by sheer numbers and the requirements of dealing with a non-conventional adversary. As Hamas has learned, the Iron Dome can be overpowered by saturating the target area with missiles, a tactic that Hezbollah is now employing successfully in Israel’s north.  On the ground, Hamas has always employed civilians as human shields on the battlefield as a way to deter and confuse our ground forces.

The other disadvantage to technology is that it requires soldiers and commanders not only to collect data, but also to analyze and understand its significance in real-time. The greatest failure of October 7 was that of the intelligence bodies. For years, data was collected by soldiers manning the many cameras and sensors along the border, but the interpretation of that information at multiple levels was fatally flawed, leading to a disastrous result. Even on the evening of the October 7 attack itself, warning signs of an impending attack were shrugged off. If there had been more armed combat soldiers on the fence instead of sensors and cameras, the outcome would have been significantly different. 

As noted by Dr. Eado Hecht and Prof. Eitan Shamir in Does Israel Need a Large Army If It Has Advanced Technology?, “This does not mean the new technologies have no value; they add additional performance, but do not obviate the need for the old means.”

Instead of investing more in the Air Force, the time has come to make a serious and significant investment in our infantry, tank, and artillery core, including the following: 

1. The army needs to reassess its investment in the quality and size of its infantry forces. By adding more infantry brigades to join the existing five, the military will gain the flexibility to maneuver more broadly and with greater ease.  
2. The army needs to recreate the multiple tank brigades that have been shut down over the past two decades.  
3. A serious investment in upgrading all of the infantry equipment across both the standing and reserve forces must be made, mainly in the areas of communications equipment, night vision, and personal protective gear, rather than force individual IDF soldiers to ask for donations from abroad piecemeal which has been the case since October 7.
4. The artillery corps needs to be greatly expanded and far better trained.  While in the current war with Hamas, their performance has been extraordinary, what we will face with Hezbollah, Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq, and indeed with the Iranian army itself, will make today’s war on Hamas look like a playground fight after school. 

Let that sink in: the Iranian army.