Is the IDF fighting a conventional or counterinsurgency war?

War fighting splits into conventional and counterinsurgency war. They appear identical in news feeds and on social media because military hardware is developed for conventional war, but used in both. However, the war aims and military operations associated with each differ significantly.

            Modern conventional war evolved to end the stalemate brought about by modern weaponry that occurred in the First World War. Initially called Blitzkrieg (lightening war) it is now called manoeuvre warfare, or Shock and Awe by the US. The objective is to disrupt the enemy’s command and control structure, rendering its force unable to respond to attack and ultimately annihilating it. The tempo is fast in order to prevent the enemy recovering and reorganising its forces. It features airpower over the front line in direct sight of advancing forces, called close air support, and further behind enemy lines to interdict the enemy and destroy its command structure. On the frontline amour, both tanks and armoured personnel carriers are used, along with indirect fire; artillery and mortars, which can be fired indirectly onto targets behind the frontline. Civilian casualties are undesirable, but unavoidable, and called collateral damage and are far worse when fighting occurs in built up areas.

            Counterinsurgency warfare evolved to counter post war insurgencies. Insurgencies aim to remove a government or, in the case of occupation, another country’s government from power when the insurgent’s force is not militarily strong enough to do so through conventional means.  The insurgent’s primary weapon is terror. The object of counterinsurgency is to separate the insurgents from the population by offering that population prospect of a better future than the insurgents narrative, then physically separating the insurgents from the population who they need to support them. Military force is only ever an adjunct to these political aims. Civilian casualties must be avoided at all costs – these align the population with insurgents, rather than counterinsurgency, and provide recruits for insurgents from a disaffected population.

            The answer to the question posed is that the IDF is fighting both. Faced with the terror attack carried out by Hamas the IDF was forced to respond with conventional means. It has to destroy Hamas, and force the release of hostages. It could not enter Gaza with the lighter touch associated with counterinsurgency operations because Hamas is militarily strong enough to punish the IDF unless it uses its full conventional arsenal; aircraft, tanks and artillery. And this has been successful: Hostages have been released, over one third of Hamas’ fighting strength destroyed, and Hamas is struggling to remain a coherent force.

            However, as the IDF achieves its conventional war aim so the objectives in its counterinsurgency aims spin in the other direction. Hamas’ aim is the complete destruction of Israel. This is unrealistic, however the IDF’s conventional operations align the Palestinian population with Hamas’ aims, and provide ample recruits for the future. The timeline for insurgents is indeterminate, and when the IDF completes the next phase of its conventional operations it will face an insurgency far stronger and better supported than at the outset. The insurgent’s battlefield is not on the battlefield, it is public opinion of both its own population, and, in the case of an occupier, the occupying country’s population. The Vietnam War, and more recently Afghan War were not lost on the battlefield, they were lost because the counterinsurgency ran out of political will to continue operations and withdrew.

The problem for both sides is that military force lacks the utility to produce the outcome either desires.