The Decisiveness Of Israeli Small-Unit Leadership On The Golan Heights In The 1973 Yom Kippur War

The Decisiveness Of Israeli Small-Unit Leadership On The Golan Heights In The 1973 Yom Kippur War PDF Author: Major Oakland McCulloch
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 178625137X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
This study is an analysis of the decisiveness of Israeli small-unit leadership on the Golan Heights during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. What allowed the Israeli brigades on the Golan Heights to defeat an Arab coalition that launched a surprise attack with a force that vastly outnumbered the Israelis in men, tanks and artillery? The one advantage the Israelis had was the quality of leadership at the small-unit level. This study begins with a brief review of the strategic and operational situation in the Middle East in 1973. This includes background information on the Israeli and Arab forces facing each other on the Golan Heights and their plans for the defense and attack respectfully prior to the start of hostilities. The majority of the thesis discussion is concerned with the actual battle on the Golan Heights. It highlights the contributions that small-unit leadership made during the battle that allowed the vastly outnumbered IDF to destroy a massive Soviet-style Arab army. This portion of the study also looks at the experiences of those Israeli leaders involved in the fighting. The study then looks at leadership from the Israeli perspective. I define what leadership is and why it is important at the small-unit level. I take a close look at how the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) picks and trains its leaders and what role the Israeli Military Culture plays in that process. The conclusion of the thesis is that the IDF was able to fight and win even though surprised and vastly outnumbered due to the quality of leadership at the small-unit level. This lesson may prove to be important still today as the armies of the Western societies continue to get smaller even though they still face the threat of fighting the massive Soviet-style armies of the “Axis of Evil” for decades to come.

The Decisiveness Of Israeli Small-Unit Leadership On The Golan Heights In The 1973 Yom Kippur War

The Decisiveness Of Israeli Small-Unit Leadership On The Golan Heights In The 1973 Yom Kippur War PDF Author: Major Oakland McCulloch
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 178625137X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Get Book Here

Book Description
This study is an analysis of the decisiveness of Israeli small-unit leadership on the Golan Heights during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. What allowed the Israeli brigades on the Golan Heights to defeat an Arab coalition that launched a surprise attack with a force that vastly outnumbered the Israelis in men, tanks and artillery? The one advantage the Israelis had was the quality of leadership at the small-unit level. This study begins with a brief review of the strategic and operational situation in the Middle East in 1973. This includes background information on the Israeli and Arab forces facing each other on the Golan Heights and their plans for the defense and attack respectfully prior to the start of hostilities. The majority of the thesis discussion is concerned with the actual battle on the Golan Heights. It highlights the contributions that small-unit leadership made during the battle that allowed the vastly outnumbered IDF to destroy a massive Soviet-style Arab army. This portion of the study also looks at the experiences of those Israeli leaders involved in the fighting. The study then looks at leadership from the Israeli perspective. I define what leadership is and why it is important at the small-unit level. I take a close look at how the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) picks and trains its leaders and what role the Israeli Military Culture plays in that process. The conclusion of the thesis is that the IDF was able to fight and win even though surprised and vastly outnumbered due to the quality of leadership at the small-unit level. This lesson may prove to be important still today as the armies of the Western societies continue to get smaller even though they still face the threat of fighting the massive Soviet-style armies of the “Axis of Evil” for decades to come.

Transforming Command

Transforming Command PDF Author: Eitan Shamir
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804772037
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
The book tells the story of the theory and history of the mission command approach (decentralized command) and the attempts by different armies to adopt and reform according to this approach.

Victory, Defeat, or Draw

Victory, Defeat, or Draw PDF Author: David Rodman
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1782847170
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
Three outcomes are possible on the battlefield: victory, defeat, or draw. An adversary may defeat or be defeated by its adversary, or neither of the two may emerge victorious or vanquished. Observers of military history have long tried to identify the variables that determine victory, defeat, or draw. While most would certainly acknowledge that decisions on the battlefield are dictated by a combination of variables rather than by a lone circumstance, many observers nevertheless tend to stress a single variable -- for example, the number of fighting men and fighting machines deployed by the adversaries, or the operational doctrines employed by the opposing forces -- as far more significant to the explanations of these decisions than other variables. This book, in contrast, takes a multicausal approach to the question of victory, defeat, or draw, proposing that a combination of six organizational, materiel, and environmental variables are pivotal to the explanation of decision on the battlefield. Using the extensive history of the Israel Defense Forces, the book examines a sample of eight battles across the ArabIsraeli conflict from 1948 to 1982 in order to determine the collective impact of the six variables on the outcomes of these battles, concluding that this basket of variables captures much of the explanation behind victory, defeat, or draw on the battlefield, at least insofar as concerns the record of the IDF. While the research in this book is aimed primarily at military historians and military practitioners, it is fully accessible to any layperson interested in Israeli military history in particular or international military history in general.

The 1973 Arab-Israeli War: The Albatross Of Decisive Victory [Illustrated Edition]

The 1973 Arab-Israeli War: The Albatross Of Decisive Victory [Illustrated Edition] PDF Author: Dr. George W. Gawrych
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1786252791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Includes 8 maps and more than 20 illustrations Armies appear to learn more from defeat than victory. In this regard, armed forces that win quickly, decisively, and with relative ease face a unique challenge in attempting to learn from victory. The Israel Defense Forces certainly fell into this category after their dramatic victory over the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six Day War of June 1967. This study analyzes the problems that beset Israel in the aftermath of its decisive victory in the Six Day War over the Arabs. In the 1973 War, Anwar Sadat, Egypt’s president, was able to exploit Israeli vulnerabilities to achieve political success through a limited war. An important lesson emerges from this conflict. A weaker adversary can match his strengths against the weaknesses of a superior foe in a conventional conflict to attain strategic success. Such a strategic triumph for the weaker adversary can occur despite serious difficulties in operational and tactical performance. The author suggests a striking parallel between the military triumphs of Israel in 1967 and the United States in 1991. In both cases, success led to high expectations. The public and the armed forces came to expect a quick and decisive victory with few casualties. In this environment, a politically astute opponent can exploit military vulnerabilities to his strategic advantage. Sadat offers a compelling example of how this can be done.

The Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur War PDF Author: Abraham Rabinovich
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 0307429652
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 590

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Book Description
An updated edition that sheds new light on one of the most dramatic reversals of military fortune in modern history. The easing of Israeli military censorship after four decades has enabled Abraham Rabinovich to offer fresh insights into this fiercest of Israel-Arab conflicts. A surprise Arab attack on two fronts on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, with Israel’s reserves un-mobilized, triggered apocalyptic visions in Israel, euphoria in the Arab world, and fraught debates on both sides. Rabinovich, who covered the war for The Jerusalem Post, draws on extensive interviews and primary source material to shape his enthralling narrative. We learn of two Egyptian nationals, working separately for the Mossad, who supplied Israel with key information that helped change the course of the war; of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s proposal for a nuclear “demonstration” to warn off the Arabs; and of Chief of Staff David Elazar’s conclusion on the fifth day of battle that Israel could not win. Newly available transcripts enable us to follow the decision-making process in real time from the prime minister’s office to commanders studying maps in the field. After almost overrunning the Golan Heights, the Syrian attack is broken in desperate battles. And as Israel regains its psychological balance, General Ariel Sharon leads a nighttime counterattack across the Suez Canal through a narrow hole in the Egyptian line -- the turning point of the war.

The Polythink Syndrome

The Polythink Syndrome PDF Author: Alex Mintz
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804796777
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Why do presidents and their advisors often make sub-optimal decisions on military intervention, escalation, de-escalation, and termination of conflicts? The leading concept of group dynamics, groupthink, offers one explanation: policy-making groups make sub-optimal decisions due to their desire for conformity and uniformity over dissent, leading to a failure to consider other relevant possibilities. But presidential advisory groups are often fragmented and divisive. This book therefore scrutinizes polythink, a group decision-making dynamic whereby different members in a decision-making unit espouse a plurality of opinions and divergent policy prescriptions, resulting in a disjointed decision-making process or even decision paralysis. The book analyzes eleven national security decisions, including the national security policy designed prior to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the decisions to enter into and withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2007 "surge" decision, the crisis over the Iranian nuclear program, the UN Security Council decision on the Syrian Civil War, the faltering Kerry Peace Process in the Middle East, and the U.S. decision on military operations against ISIS. Based on the analysis of these case studies, the authors address implications of the polythink phenomenon, including prescriptions for avoiding and/or overcoming it, and develop strategies and tools for what they call Productive Polythink. The authors also show the applicability of polythink to business, industry, and everyday decisions.

Duel for the Golan

Duel for the Golan PDF Author: Jerry Asher
Publisher: William Morrow
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
The first published eyewitness accounts of the greatest tank battle since World War II, and a gripping account of how Israeli defenders, outnumbered ten to one, successfully saved their homeland. 48 black-and-white photographs.

Toward Combined Arms Warfare

Toward Combined Arms Warfare PDF Author: Jonathan Mallory House
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428915834
Category : Armies
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description


We Were Caught Unprepared

We Were Caught Unprepared PDF Author: Matt M. Matthews
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437923046
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Book Description
This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. The fact that the outcome of the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War was, at best, a stalemate for Israel has confounded military analysts. Long considered the most professional and powerful army in the Middle East, with a history of impressive military victories against its enemies, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) emerged from the campaign with its enemies undefeated and its prestige tarnished. This historical analysis of the war includes an examination of IDF and Hezbollah doctrine prior to the war, as well as an overview of the operational and tactical problems encountered by the IDF during the war. The IDF ground forces were tactically unprepared and untrained to fight against a determined Hezbollah force. ¿An insightful, comprehensive examination of the war.¿ Illustrations.

West Germany and Israel

West Germany and Israel PDF Author: Carole Fink
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107075459
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
A new history of the West German-Israeli relationship as these two countries faced terrorism, war, and economic upheaval in a global Cold War environment.