Infantry soldiers from the Givati brigade of the Israel Defense Forces train with new, high-tech weapons and computers at the army's urban warfare training base on March 22, 2005, in southern Israel. (Photo by Yael Bar Hillal/IDF via Getty Images)

The October 7 massacre and the ensuing war to eliminate Hamas surprised many by demonstrating that Israel’s military, generally regarded as one of the world’s most technologically advanced, is ill-suited for twenty-first-century warfare.

Can Kasapoğlu and Michael Doran explain how high-tech forces may be unready for the contemporary battlefield in Tablet. Read their key points below.

Key Insights

1. It’s a case of Star Wars versus Mad Max—two rival military paradigms.

The Israelis built a military according to the Star Wars paradigm, which assumes that technologically advantaged powers would deter technologically disadvantaged actors and that a technological edge alone can win wars. Israel built a small and smart military that was overly reliant on precision airpower, special forces, and technology-centric intelligence. It operated under the assumption that long and bulky wars were a thing of the past.

But we live in a Mad Max world. Ukraine and Gaza reveal the face of contemporary warfare: wars will be long, expensive, and bulky, involving large mechanized formations.

The Star Wars versus Mad Max formulation has implications that go beyond the current conflict in the Middle East. Almost every North Atlantic Treaty Organization military, with the sole exception of Turkey, bought into the Star Wars concept to a significant degree.

2. Iran is better prepared for a Mad Max world than Israel. 

Although Iran’s conventional military is small and ill-equipped, it has invested heavily in disruptive military capabilities such as drones and missiles. This investment has created an offense-dominant regime in the Middle East: a balance of power that strongly favors offensive action by Iran. There is no way to deter Iranian attacks, whether conducted through proxies or directly from Iran, other than by taking offensive countermeasures against the Islamic Republic.

In addition, Iran’s completely independent defense industrial and technological base affords Tehran operational sovereignty. Iran’s rivals cannot appeal to a greater power that is capable of restraining Tehran by withholding arms supplies.

By contrast, Israel’s defense industrial and technological base is completely dependent on the United States. Washington is using Jerusalem’s dependence on US arms to restrain Israel—not just in Gaza but also against Iran. As a result of this restraint, Iran, not Israel, won the recent direct exchange of blows.

3. The Israelis were not prepared for the kind of war they are fighting: a seven-theater conflict with Iran that includes a ground war in Gaza and the threat of a ground war in Lebanon.

Primarily, Israel was not prepared for the political pressure from the United States. Retooling for this kind of war will require Israel to build a military in the Mad Max paradigm.

This monumental effort will require Israel to revamp its defense industrial and technological base, the size of its force, and the relative balance between twenty-first-century assets like F-35s and high-tech intelligence capabilities and the mainstays of twentieth-century warfare like tanks and artillery.

Quotes may be edited for clarity and length. 

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