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“Tira’s book is a most valuable
contribution to the burgeoning literature on asymmetrical
conflicts. These have become a major strategic challenge facing
economically and technologically advanced countries, which
often struggle to achieve victory against far weaker rivals
that eschew direct military confrontation. Tira offers a keen
analysis of various forms of asymmetry, vis-à-vis both
state and non-state rivals, and illuminates them with well-chosen
examples from military history. While his perspective is universal,
his focus is on the Arab–Israeli conflict, whose various
wars he analyzes very perceptively, down to Israel’s
clash with Hezbollah in Lebanon 2006. This book offers decision-makers
and students of war important lessons for the future.”
Azar Gat, Ezer Weitzman Professor of National Security,
Tel Aviv University
“The Nature of War is a valuable, pioneering
study of the essence of war. In this readable and engaging book,
Ron Tira succeeds in analyzing the differences between different
types of wars and formulating new, insightful criteria for understanding
the wars of the past, and even more important – the wars of
the future. Using examples from classical and modern warfare, the
author expands the theoretical basis essential to academics, decision
makers, and military planners.” Maj. Gen. (ret.) Giora
Eiland, former head of Israel’s National Security Council
“This book begins with a dismissal of the Clausewitzian
doctrine of war, other aspects of classical war theory, and of the
‘American way of war’ identified with the revolution
in military affairs (RMA). RMA has clearly influenced Israel’s
war planners (as has Clausewitz) in their preference for air power
and briefer but punitive forays that successfully deliver military
decision. But nations and their strategic planners do not always
choose the pattern or outcome of wars. This book suggests that they
can do more to influence these outcomes by drawing the proper lessons
from war. The author’s assertion of Israeli particularism,
ventures into the broader theoretical discussion of war, literal
interpretations of ‘center of gravity,’ and sometimes
unsupported assertions and characterizations of particular wars
were frustrating to this reviewer. However, Tira peppers the work
with some keen and useful, even brilliant insights about the intent
of war-planners and the need to see situations ‘as a whole.’
If guerrilla or conventional warfare prevails in the future, then
Tira urges further Israeli definition of war’s terms, nature,
and swift assumption of control. Recommended to those in strategic,
military, and conflict studies.” Choice
“The 2006 Lebanon War (known as the Second Lebanon War in
Israel) inspired the Israeli and other militaries to re-evaluate
the assumptions on which they had based war-fighting doctrines and
modernisation programmes. In The Nature of War, Ron Tira,
a former Israeli Air Force pilot, argues that the ‘classical
doctrine of war’ – which he says defines victory as
a ‘military decision’ deriving from an
‘essential blow to the enemy’s capability of acting
effectively’ (p. 6) – is becoming less relevant. While
some readers may regard this definition as a straw man and
feel that the author’s use of history is simplistic, his observation
that achieving decisive military outcomes may be impossible in contemporary
conflicts seems accurate enough. The author argues that victory
may be best achieved through ‘denying the enemy the strategic
freedom of action to fight, in upsetting the enemy’s war paradigm
and imposing a different type of war, and in attacking centers of
gravity different from those known to us from the ‘simple’
wars of the past’ (pp. 8–9). In the first part of the
book, Tira looks at how the idea of decisive war, which he traces
to the writings of Prussian war philosopher Carl von Clausewitz,
influenced the development of Israeli, German and US military doctrines,
noting that the applicability of the concept has always varied according
to a country’s ‘relative strengths and weaknesses in
comparison with the enemy’s and the circumstances of the particular
conflict’ (p. 29). He goes on to argue that symmetrical wars,
or wars in which both sides seek major battles to attack what they
perceive as the enemy military’s centre of gravity, are generally
consistent with classical doctrine as he defines it. Wars against
regular opponents become more complex and asymmetrical, he says,
when adversaries attempt to prolong the conflict and erode the domestic
and international political support to sustain the war effort. In
these wars, military actions ‘provide only the catalyst to
move towards the political end state, but [do] not create it directly’
(p. 65). He also introduces the category of asymmetrical wars against
non-state forces (Hizbullah, Hamas) and argues that rather than
achieving victory through military decision, these forces seek to
exhaust the ‘state’s civilian-political will to fight’
(p. 76).
… Tira’s analysis of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and
of Israel’s 2008–9 operation against Hamas in Gaza (Operation
Cast Lead), is perhaps the most valuable portion of the book. The
author develops the idea of ‘parallel wars against nonstate
opponents’, or wars in which the opponents attack each other’s
strategies without direct military confrontation (p. 85). Ultimately,
Tira argues, Israel and ‘similar nations’ are likely
to face state-based enemies that ‘adopt a guerrilla paradigm’
to evade Western military capabilities (p. 109). In future, enemies
are likely to weaken a state’s resolve ‘by undermining
the trust and cohesion between the government, the civilians, and
the military’ (p. 112). Enemy efforts are also likely to include
attacks on the homefront, efforts to protract the conflict, and
the use of decentralised networks of autonomous cells. To contend
with this ‘guerrilla paradigm’, Tira emphasises strategic
and operational manoeuvres that force the enemy to concentrate forces.
He advocates attacking physical centres of gravity to reduce the
enemy’s military capabilities and other assets in a way that
constrains its freedom of action. He also advocates military operations
designed to ‘undermine the enemy’s war paradigm’
such as manoeuvring to open a new theatre or expanding the existing
theatre in an unexpected way (p. 117).
… Tira’s argument that land-forces manoeuvres can compel
the enemy to expose itself, rendering it vulnerable to firepower,
stands in contrast to much of the literature associated with the
so-called ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ that came
to dominate thinking in key portions of the Israeli Defense Force
prior to the 2006 Lebanon War. The author argues that operations
that rely too heavily on firepower can prolong wars and create opportunities
for asymmetrical enemies, while ground approaches toward the enemy’s
strategic centres of gravity create an acute threat that stand-off
fire alone is incapable of producing (p. 119). He suggests that
his argument extends beyond Israel’s strategic situation because
of the proliferation of long-range, precision-strike capabilities
and of chemical,
biological and even nuclear weapons, which creates an ‘asymmetry
of vulnerability’ between industrialised democracies and less-developed
countries that possess those capabilities. Although the author argues
that the decisiveness of military action is waning, he also rejects
the gradual escalation of military action and emphasises seizing
and retaining the initiative. He contends that, ‘from
the moment a conflict breaks out, [a country] must take control
of the conflict’s outline, redefine its geography and its
intensity, and apply a maximum of force in a minimum amount of time
in order to attain a decision, or at least to deny the enemy its
strategic freedom to continue fighting’ (p. 128).
… While portions of his argument are compelling, especially
his call for ‘versatile and varied military capabilities’
and his emphasis on ‘understanding a war in its distinctive
context’, Tira’s observation that military force is
becoming less decisive appears to contradict his advocacy of maximum
force, and his exhortation that ‘the complexity of war compels
us to contend with the broader picture’ seems inconsistent
with his narrow focus on military operations (pp. 129–30).
Still, this book will be of use to military officers and defence
officials, and to anyone interested in Israeli interpretations of
recent experiences in Southern Lebanon and Gaza and the way these
are likely to shape Israeli doctrine and defence modernisation.”
Survival
“Tira (a veteran of Israel Air Force intelligence and
special operations) draws on Israel’s recent experiences with
war-making, as well as the broader history of 20th century warfare,
in order to develop ideas that go beyond the classical Clausewitz
doctrine of war towards a new theory of asymmetrical warfare that
aims towards breaking the ‘enemy’s paradigm’ or
the basic assumptions that the enemy’s plans rest on. He tests
his theories against the cases of the 2006 Israel–Lebanon
war and “Operation Cast Lead,” the 2009 assault on besieged
Gaza. An example of what he means by breaking the enemy’s
paradigm is found in this latter case, wherein he argues that ‘attacking
the enemy’s combatants and weapons wherever they were, even
in the basements of mosques, public buildings, and residential quarters’
– all within the limits of international law, he insists,
contrary to the judgment of the Goldstone Report and large swathes
of international opinion that saw the assault as an act of collective
punishment aimed primarily at Gaza’s civilians – ‘represents
a measure of breaking the enemy’s paradigm.’ Such a
judgment appears to discount the moral level of war, emphasized
by such fourth generation war theorists as William Lind, who commented
during the assault that the enemy, Hamas, ‘will not only survive,’
(the only criteria needed to claim victory against an advanced state
military, according to Israeli military theorist and historian Martin
van Creveld), ‘but be strengthened by a worldwide flood of
sympathy, which will translate in part into new recruits and more
money.’” Reference & Research Book News
“War is a very complicated business that takes
place on different levels. At its highest level, it involves strategy,
where military plans are tailored to achieve diplomatic objectives.
At its lowest level, it involves tactics, where men and machines
are organized and deployed to fight on the battlefield. In between
these lies the operational level, which ties together strategy and
tactics by prescribing a particular type of warfare, manoeuvre or
attrition, conventional or unconventional and so forth. War may
also be either ‘symmetrical’ – that is, between
adversaries that are similar in nature (state versus state or non-state
versus non-state), pursuing similar objectives with similar means
– or ‘asymmetrical’ – that is, between adversaries
that are either dissimilar in nature (e.g., state versus non-state),
pursuing dissimilar objectives, using dissimilar means or some combination
thereof.
… Ron Tira, a former Israel Air Force fighter pilot and intelligence
officer, has produced an erudite volume that probes, as the title
says, the nature of war. This challenging work, which analyzes every
seemingly imaginable war scenario in terms of adversaries, objectives
and means, is also filled with enlightening historical examples
that make the dense, abstract discussions much more accessible to
the unschooled than would otherwise be the case. These examples
range from the ancient to the modern, from the Second Punic War
to the Second World War. The author, naturally enough, makes special
reference to Israel. With respect to the Jewish state’s two
recent asymmetrical wars, the 2006 Second Lebanon War and the 2008–9
Operation Cast Lead, which probably had much to do with prompting
his inquiry into the nature of war, Tira is highly critical of the
conduct of the first, somewhat less critical of the conduct of the
second. He believes that Israel came up short at every level of
war in the Second Lebanon War, except perhaps in certain respects
at the tactical level. In regard to Operation Cast Lead, while he
thinks that the Jewish state performed very well at the tactical
level, he also feels that it displayed shortcomings at both the
operational and strategic levels. It is critical to rectify these
operational- and strategic-level
problems, he continues, because Israel is likely to face precisely
the same kind of warfare – that is, massive rocket salvos
fired against the Israeli home front, strict avoidance of large-scale
battles fought against the Israel Defence Forces, hostile civilian
populaces turned into giant human shields and so on – in any
future conflict, whether the Jewish state’s opponents are
states or non-state terrorist organizations.
… While it is certainly possible to take issue with some of
Tira’s ruminations about the general nature of war or the
specific conduct of Israel’s wars (e.g. he appears to underrate
the Jewish state’s ability to reap benefits from wars of attrition),
his volume is a thought-provoking one that ought to be given careful
consideration by military officers and diplomats alike. It can also
be read with profit by both academics and laymen with an interest
in war or the Middle East.” Israel Affairs
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