Good day. I'm Colonel Jerry Morlock, the Director of the Combat Studies Institute. You're about to use a video series which our instructors have prepared for the sole purpose of improving your presentation of M610, The Evolution of Modern Warfare. We've taken care to make the course that you teach as similar to the one taught at Fort Leavenworth as possible, and choose to add these tapes to your libraries in order to give you every advantage as you prepare to teach this new course. These tapes are similar to the weekly train-up sessions which we utilize to prepare our instructors here at Fort Leavenworth. My intent for the tape sessions was to provide you insights and tips on ways to approach the lessons of M610 that were not available in the instructor notes. I've drawn various instructors, military and civilian, into the sessions based upon their specific expertise and historical background. They were asked to just talk to the lesson structure and content, giving you some additional information on the historical context, and differing views on how to approach the lessons. These tapes will provide you a wealth of knowledge and direction that will significantly improve your readiness to teach our new history course. One word of caution regarding how to use these training tapes. They are not designed to be substituted for your instruction during the individual lessons of the course. As instructor preparation tapes train the training material, if you will, they are inappropriate for direct instruction to students and are not intended for that purpose. Our intent with these tapes is to improve your ability to lead the students' seminars by sharing tips and advice from some highly qualified experts. The Combat Studies Institute stands ready to provide whatever additional expertise or assistance that you may require, and we've included the institute's phone, mail and email contact information on the tape if you should need it. Good luck with the evolution of modern warfare course. Have a good time. And welcome to Fort Leavenworth. I'm Dr. Sam Lewis with the Combat Studies Institute. I'd like to introduce you to Dr. George Gavrich, the lesson author today. Our purpose today is to talk to you informally about how to approach our lesson in the MS-610 on the Arab-Israeli War. George? Before I begin, I'd like to introduce my colleagues. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Sylvia Pierce, a Latin America specialist. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Wal Kretcher, and I am a Middle East specialist. Let me begin by first giving you an idea of the format that we'll be using for today's presentation. If you look at the board, we'll be looking at first the methodology, the different ways that you can teach this lesson, get the most out of the time that you have. Then we'll look at the issue of the background to the war, what sorts of issues you could raise to generate discussion. Then we'll look at the conduct of the war, what transpires operationally, tactically and strategically within the war itself. And then we'll conclude by looking at what are the results of this war, what impact does it have on the evolution of warfare, and what issues you could raise there. Before we get into looking at the methodology, I think one issue you should keep in mind that you might address to your students is why are we studying this lesson. And the readings will give you an idea of why this lesson is important. After World War II, we saw that war moved out of Europe, and the big general wars were taking place elsewhere. Wars that could be studied as conventional wars with the latest technology. And the Arab-Israeli conflict fits into that mold where certainly with 67 war and on, other countries are studying what is going on in that region and they're drawing lessons. And for us, it has a major impact and we'll talk about that in the results part and how it affects our doctrine. Now, if you think about different ways to approach the lesson, one of the things you have to consider is what the readings are. The basic text would just give you an idea of the 67 war and what happens in the 73 war and on. That's good background for the students. This LP was written with the idea that you could look at the interaction of strategic operational and tactical dimensions, spheres of war, and how they interact in preparing for war, the conduct of war, and its fallout. One thing that you might consider to give yourself some time and get the students involved is rather than have everyone read the entire LP, is to have students do small briefings. Because you're out there in the field and there's a lot of interest and concern with tactics and operations, one consideration that you might have is to look at two battles that are covered in this LP. One is the 8th of October counterattack by the Israelis. Assign that to a student, have the rest not read that section, and it covers basically the pages 39 to 53. Have the student give a briefing on what transpires during this battle and what's its significance for the war. Another battle that you could look at is Chinese farm. Chinese farm takes place to the latter part of the war and have another student look at those same kinds of issues that you do in the battle analysis format. If you look at the battle analysis format and the importance of each of these battles, you might consider the 8th of October is the last serious attempt by the Israelis to stop the crossing of the Egyptians. And as you look at what transpires during this battle, ask the students to look at what is the strategic setting and what part of the war is this taking place and what's the overall strategic environment. Ask the student to look at what are the opposing plans, what are the opposing objectives of each side. Then look at how the tactical events unfold and what are some of the problems that transpire on the battlefield when the Israelis try to counterattack against the Egyptians. You could ask your students certain kinds of issues and we'll talk about in the latter part of today's presentation that are specific to this battle. Do the same thing for the Chinese farm battle. Ask those same kinds of issues for the student and that will take some time. They'll get the student involved in doing presentation, probably get some insights from them and then the students can react to their presentation. George, you mentioned the battle analysis methodology. Do you have an example of what that would be like? What kinds of questions, just in case the folks out there don't have anything to go by? Okay, you could begin by raising the issue, what is the strategic setting? What is going on in the larger context of the war? What kinds of battles have transpired? What are the objectives of the war until that point and how much have they been met on the battlefield? And then look at where each side is on the battlefield in terms of tactical and operational situation. Then you ask the question, well, what are the objectives and plans that each side has for conducting the next day's operation? That'll be for the 8th of October. You would ask questions like what are the tactical objectives? How are they fitting into the larger operational objectives? And how might they meet the strategic objectives? And ask yourself the question, are these plans the best possible? What are some other options that could have been done? What are the goals? Are the goals are attainable? Does each side have a clear picture of what's going on? Those are some of the issues you can raise as we look at the plans unfolding and objectives for the next day. Then look at the actual conduct of the battle. How does the engagement start out? What are the changes that start taking place in plans? Because as we know, plans usually undergo change with the first shot. Look at those reactions each side is making to what the other side is doing. And then focus on what you think are the key tactical events of that day or several days, if it's a battle that lasts several days. And evaluate how well were those tactical events conducted by each side? Look at issues of command, look at issues of training, look at issues of doctrine. Did they help each side or did they hinder each side? Each side is going in with a particular doctrine, a particular style of leadership, a particular way of approaching the war. Then after you look at the entire battle, see where it ends up. Where are the sides at? Did they meet their objectives? And what impact does it have on subsequent battles or if it's toward the end of the war? How does it help end the war? Those are some of the kinds of issues that we could address when we look at a battle. And if you want, we can send or include as part of the packet an overall format that we have developed at CSI that deals with a very detailed approach. And there are tons of questions there, but you wouldn't answer every one of them because some pertain, some don't. So we could do that. Thank you. Any other ideas about methodology? I think that the approach that George laid out is a very standard one. From someone who's had to follow this methodology myself, it's very easy to learn. I think that one of the keys that we're trying to get into though is the historical legacy that the 73 war is going to bring for the future and therefore there is also a connection to the past. One of the things that's important is to examine the leadership, both at the strategic and operational level initially how the 1967 war affected their decision making. Part of what George will get into in a little more detail will be how the war is going to unfold. I think it's important for us to realize that some of the experience judgments that commanders make are a direct reflection upon past events. And I think that that's a key point that you may want to bring out with your students. One of the thoughts that you might entertain is trying to connect this lesson to things that you've done in the past with this course. One of the things that strikes me, if you look at Israel's geostrategic situation, it's very similar to that of Frederick the Great. We have a small state with larger states around it. We have terrain that's not favorable for the defense. We have limited resources. And we have similarities in the style of war that seems to be evolving in Prussia as in Israel. You'd like to take the fight into the enemy's territory. You want to have your army be a higher quality than your opponents, march faster or drive faster, be more disciplined. And you take more care in developing your military. You assign more resources than societies around you, more energy toward developing a first class military. So you might draw parallels between Prussia and Frederick the Great and his geostrategic situation and how he goes about winning. And look at Israel's situation. There are similarities and there are differences. One is a more authoritarian state, 200 years earlier. Israel is more democracy with dependence on reserves. Citizen-soldiers fighting. You don't see that in Prussia under Frederick the Great. But there are certain similarities and you'll see that there are things that can be drawn from the past. And you can understand why Israel has been infatuated with studying German military history. That's a very sophisticated idea. It has the advantage of bringing the students back to looking at the entire course. Where did we start off? And how far have we come? What has changed since the course started? We saw Frederick the Great resort to the offensive using audacity, maneuver. How appropriate is that in 1973 exported to a different continent? Compare the role of fixed fortifications in 1740 versus 1973. The use of firepower, how has that changed? Logistics, in what way was Frederick limited? What sort of limitations are on the militaries in 1973? Now I think that would be a good tool. I've approached this particular war in different ways over the years. One is to look at it in three separate categories. I start off at the strategic level and look at what's happening for both sides. And when that's wrapped up, move over to the operational, cover both sides and then move on to the tactical and move on. That has worked in the past. In recent years, I've walked in and the first question I've asked is has anyone served with or next to the Israeli military or the Egyptian military? And if so, ask them what sort of institutions these were. Or were they like the US Army or different? You never can tell. But quite frequently there is someone who has had some experience with one of those militaries. And they can share their knowledge about what it's like. Is their military culture like ours or different? What is similar? And you can use that as a launching pad to look at the two armies as they were. And then move into their geopolitical situation, their strengths, their weaknesses. And eventually their doctrine. One other thing to look at as we look at comparisons. We look at comparisons between Egypt and Israel at the time during the war. We also need to draw comparisons or draw relationships between Egypt, Israel and the United States. Because a lot of what happens in the Arab-Israeli War directly impacts on US doctrine at the time. General Depew in our Leavenworth paper number 16 here, he talks about the impact that the Arab-Israeli War has on our doctrine and how we look at maneuver, how we look at logistics, how we look at audacity, those things. That's an excellent point. We do have some readings for this week from the Depew book. And it will constitute the bulk of the readings for lesson 16 next week. So I try to use that as a bridge for wrapping up this week's lesson and getting ready for next week's lesson. But yes, I agree wholeheartedly with that. It brings me to my final thing to consider is you could have one student give an overall summary of what's in this book and then open up to discussion. Did we draw the right kinds of lessons as we looked at this war? And it'll be a nice bridge. So you can now add a third possible briefing for a student in addition to one on the 8th of October battle, one on the Chinese farm in the Israeli counter-crossing, and then add this one. The other thing that's kind of interesting, you might keep in mind, as Dr. Lewis has mentioned, if you have some students who have some background experiences with Israeli and Egyptian military, you might find that they think that what they see today reflects back at what was going on in 1973 and you might explore that issue. Are the armies the same today as they were before? Can we make jumps back into the past that easily? Okay, the next thing I think that it would be good to look at is the background to this war, that whole issue. I think as you look at teaching history, there are certain kinds of questions that you can ask that are of broader nature and use a particular historical example to highlight those broader issues. As I look at the 67 to 73 timeframe, one question you could ask, that's a phrase that you often hear mentioned in the military. What does it mean to re-fight the last war? Are the Israelis preparing to fight the last war? And as I look at the 73 war and how the Israelis prepared for it based on their 67 experience, there are very broad issues that you might consider that armies might be doing, at least in the Israelis were doing, when they're preparing to re-fight the last war. Do they expect the enemy to perform the same way that he did last time? Are they prepared for a different kind of enemy? If you notice in the LP, there are several places in this war where senior Israeli generals are saying, this is not the army of 67. They expected it to perform pretty much the same way as it did in 67. They had that led to disaster. The second kind of thing that armies that are preparing to re-fight the last war might be doing is, they think it's going to be the same kind of dynamic in the war. Israelis were thinking the next war is going to be short, it's going to be decisive, and we're going to have a few casualties. They did not expect for a war of attrition that was going to draw out to be three weeks. For them, three weeks is a long time if you think of a nation of 3 million people trying to fight that long. So sometimes nations, when they're preparing to re-fight the last war, might be expecting the enemy to perform the same way and expect the dynamic of the conflict to be pretty much the same as it was last time. And the third thing that the Israelis, I think, are doing that is kind of re-fighting the last war is they are relying on the same keys to success. Those are, they're going to have prior intelligence that the war is going to break out, that intelligence is going to be accurate, timely and useful. The second thing is they're going to be able to use their air power to a maximum, be able to have air superiority and they're not able to do that because the war starts out with the Arabs attacking and then you have to face the dilemma. What happens when the enemy starts the war and you have to fight and you've been used to fighting with you starting the war, as in 56 and 67? And the final thing he successes is that on the ground the key will be armor and armor is going to be able to break through easily and bring decision on the battlefield and you find that armor does not perform the way it's supposed to because the Arabs have attacked and they have countered each of those kinds of strengths that the Israelis have. When you put them all together there is a parallel to our army situation. We expect to win the information war, we expect to have air superiority and we expect to have the superiority and maneuver. Who would want to go against an army with those strengths? Well the Arabs have to face those strengths as they develop a strategy out of desperation, if you will, on both sides, Syria and Egypt. Something that's important that George you've kind of highlighted on is that the enemy always has a vote. If we forget that and many times we do, it's going to be to our detriment. Always count on the enemy having a vote no matter what the situation is, whether it's good for you or bad for you. There are those things that the opponent can do that's going to influence what your plans are and what your operations are going to be. This ties in with an approach that I have used in the classroom regarding the preparation for the future conflict. What we have here is a mindset that exists within the Israeli military, which today the American military labels complacency. Complacency is an issue that you can explore because it has to do with you established conditions that you become so comfortable with that you do not see things change around you. That commanders in order to understand the situation need to constantly reevaluate the situation for what is both consistent and what is changing. We can see in the Egyptian army that at the strategic operational and tactical level they have reevaluated the situation based upon the 1967 conflict. Then the political leadership is trying to emphasize a point which George will get to I believe also that is achievable. Something that is well within the capabilities of the Egyptian military of the time. That is something that we try to stress with the students is that when the plans become so ornate and so grandiose that they are not achievable within your own capabilities and what are your chances of success. The key then is to establish something that even in a limited conflict is achievable within a certain timeline with the resources at hand and from there if you are going to use the military instrument of power to achieve your political ends then the military itself has the capability to win and not fail. And that is something that we try to drive home here. I think the going along with what the General Khrushchev has said I think then you could look at what are the strategies that the Arabs are employing Syria and Egypt. And in that to generate discussion you could go into the LP and look at those long interviews or quotes that come in about how the Egyptians are thinking they will fight against the Israelis at the strategic level. You have a long quote of Haikal. They are not talking about a decisive military victory but they are talking about changing America's attitude toward the Middle East and toward Egypt. Changing Israel's attitude toward the Arabs. How they are going about doing that. And then look at the interview that Sadat conducts in Newsweek in April of 1973. What is he saying there? What message is he trying to do there? Why is he going to the public in America to the policy makers and presenting himself to them and basically telling what he will be trying to do in the war. And that should generate some discussion. And I think then the beauty of it is as Colonel Khrushchev said we've got a situation where the opponent cannot decisively defeat the person cannot defeat or I should say his opponent. How is he going to counter that? He has to develop a strategy that is going to bring some political benefits to him. And he also has to use the military to counter the strengths that the opponent has and that gets into air defense, that gets into the anti-tank missiles used by infantry and that gets into deception to undermine Israeli intelligence and its ability to predict the war too far in advance. So you might explore then what is this strategy that's being developed because I think in the future if someone is forced to fight us they're not going to be thinking of defeating us decisively on the battlefield they're probably not going to be thinking of capturing decisive terrain but they might be trying to do is hurt us enough that after the war is over we'll look at that region and that particular player differently and they've gained politically that way because they still will survive and power most likely if it's a dictator. One of our colleagues came up with an idea of silver years ago of simply walking in and asking who won this war and then once the responses start coming in why? It sounds very simplistic but as a rule you'll find there will be officers in every group usually divided down the middle with half thinking that the Israelis won the war and half thinking that the Arabs won the war. That's the basis for a healthy discussion of warfare at the strategic level, operational level and tactical level. Your job as a facilitator is to control that discussion but theoretically it can be done by asking one very good question. Absolutely. What Dr. Lewis is saying is it reverses the whole order rather than looking at background to more conventional way conduct the war and then the results start with the results and then have them defend their position. What were the objectives in this war for each side? Were they attained? How was the war conducted? Did it affect the overall strategic situation at the end in determining whether they can obtain their objectives? Because you have to remember just by crossing the canal it's not enough for the Arabs. If they get decisively defeated and their whole army gets pulverized it leaves them in a different bargaining position strategically at the end of the war. They are left compromised at the end of the war because their third army basically first echelon to reinforce divisions is surrounded on the east bank. So that's the position from which Sadat has to start negotiating rather than I've crossed all my positions are secure and now negotiate with me. So it brings it back and puts more pressure I think on you as the instructor to ask the right kinds of questions that will force people to provide evidence. Why do they believe one side one or the other? If they say both, why and what degree? At what levels? Certainly Egypt gets back to Sinai but at the same time its military image is not that good. It's only good for the first part of the war and the crossing operation. Israel comes out looking good because they've done the bold audacious Connor crossing got into the Israeli rear. So that is a good way of doing it. I would like to add one point on that. This gets into a previous lesson with Carl Clausowitz and his notion of using military instrument to achieve political objectives It is an interesting dynamic to bring out with your students when they begin to first realize some of them for the very first time that why a military is used. Some students believe that militaries are used to go out on the battlefield and do certain things to fight and win wars for their nation state. Some are also educated now to the point where they realize that maybe it's not just the nation state that the military was used for but for a key political leader to accomplish that individual's goals and objectives. And then while the war is being conducted, Clausowitz noted that you can never push war to its extremes because of limitations that are placed upon the military commander that come from all sectors of the society that spawn that military plus also the political dynamics that are ongoing while the conflict is being fought which reinforces I think George's point that if that military commander is not successful on the battlefield and accomplishes in the end then what situation does that place the political leader in where he now has to bargain rather from a position of strength like he envisioned but a position of vulnerability. So that should be emphasized I think with the students that they as military commanders play a key role how they maneuver their forces how they fight those forces how many casualties they cause on the enemy or take themselves how they use the equipment at hand to achieve national ends because no matter how that conflict ends they were the ones who may have fought that conflict but it is going to be the political leadership that has to pick up the pieces at the end and then negotiate or bargain to achieve the military end state and the political end state. That's a very good point. I was going to go a slightly different way with the conduct of the war but to take off on what Colonel Kretschek said as this war is being conducted you could look at these things tactically and operationally but also politics plays a role in this and it affects how you conduct operations. For example, when Israel is doing its counter-crossing operation and starting to become successful and the United States comes out and supports Israel with the promise of more military aid that's when the Arabs start to increase the price of oil then they put an oil embargo on the United States it puts pressure on the United States to get more involved diplomatically it puts pressure then on people who are conducting battles on the Israeli side to end the war as quickly as possible because it imposed ceasefires coming down quickly for the Egyptians, they're just trying to hold on with what they have because Sadat sees that there might be a political resolution in it so you find that in the conduct of war not only what you do tactically affects the political but also you might find a political that makes decisions and starts using other kinds of weapons like the economic weapon of oil that influences your own operations and you never can see yourself in isolation and this war brings this dynamic very beautifully together because it's there in the planning by Sadat going into the war talking to Arabs about using the oil weapon in the war it's done in the war by the use of the weapon and then afterwards it's part of the pressure to bring some resolution to this conflict to get the oil embargo rescinded to bring back the free flow of oil because the Western world is much more vulnerable than we are in the United States but we have to show leadership to help the rest of the Western world to handle the economic problem of rising oil prices That's a very good point I'd also like to reinforce Colonel Kretchick's point particularly in bringing forward things that we've looked at in previous lessons in this instance the ideas of Carl von Klauswitz which I think is a very good idea Now in terms of the conduct of the war there are some broader issues too that you might consider How important is it that you start the war and have the initiative at the beginning Does it create more fog and friction for an army that is stronger, more superior when it comes to military skills and in the LP you find there is a flow of events trying to capture the kinds of tactical and operational dilemmas that confront Israelis as they find themselves having to prepare counterattacks not knowing how well the enemy is prepared making certain assumptions about the enemy You might ask your students too the question what kind of problems would we have if we found ourselves having to go into an area where we're fighting for control of the air and the ground at the same time and the other opponent has started the war What kind of adjustments would we have to have in our military the way we've prepared ourselves mentally, doctrinally, technologically to fight that kind of conflict because there are some parallels We're used to like the Israelis fighting with air superiority being on the offensive not letting having the other guy have the initiative That's very true George We're so used to being, if you will the top dog in military affairs that we forget that people can use not just initiative but different ways of attacking the same problem that we are not going to expect we do not have the answer to everything and even though our present enemies might be less technologically capable than we are they may be able to use that particular idea against us because we are so technologically advanced I would like to bring out one additional point to reinforce this conversation and that comes from a planner's perspective Many of your officers have planned or executed military operations in the past but possibly only at the tactical level and I'd like to just discuss something here at the operational strategic level that may be important As a plan's officer myself one of the things I had to envision when looking at the enemy was I would go back to Sun Tzu and I would think about knowing yourself and knowing your enemy you need not fear a thousand battles but one of the things that I tried to do from the enemy's perspective was I had to try to war game in my mind operationally how an enemy force would react to something we were doing and then once I envisioned that reaction how I would counteract what the enemy was doing I think we see some of that reflected in the Egyptians' preparation for this war well the Israelis themselves are really not going through this dynamic between the period of 67 and 73 to tie back to what happens when you miscalculate however I think the Egyptians also have certain assumptions about the Israeli army knowing their enemy and how fast that army can mobilize One of the things is that the Israeli army nature depends greatly upon reservists and trying to call up from the populace of force that can then eject any type of force which threatens the mother country if you go back to other previous lessons such as World War I essentially a war of plans a war of mobilizations the Germans had certain preconceived notions on how fast Russia could get its act together and mobilize its force and when Russia was able to do that two weeks faster than envisioned what did that do then to the whole plan for conducting that operation this is something that your students need to be aware of because if they tie into other instruction and tactics such as branches and sequels to plans you must have some type of idea that if your basic assumptions of how fast your enemy can react prove to be wrong then what options do you have in order to still achieve the national objectives because if you don't have those options laid out ahead of time it's simply too late once the mechanisms begin to conduct this war to then react and I think that then you put both the leadership military leadership and the political leadership in a position that they don't want to be put in which is running out of options quickly so I would sort of challenge your students to draw upon their own personal experience both in planning and operating and ask them what happens to the Egyptians and the Israelis as this war begins to unfold about their preconceived notions about how each side is going to act or not act and then what do they do to try to counter things when reality begins to set in and it is not just an assumption but they're now faced with life and death situations on the battlefield and what changes do they have to make in order to adapt to that situation aha the difference between real war and war on paper that's it another thing that you might consider too as you look at this war is the whole issue of fatigue we often don't talk about that in our military history course but look at the 8th of October problems that the Israelis have in understanding what really is the plan what really transpired at that meeting on the 7th of October when everybody was tired and under stress remember we're talking about officers who have seen in most cases their 3rd or 4th war that they've been in so they're not without combat experience this is not the first shots that they have seen but yet they are tired they are cranky they're having a hard time remembering what was actually said to each other they're having to react with little time to think because things are happening fast on the battlefield would digitization solve their problems or could the opponent find counters to that digitization to still bring confusion to the battlefield try to capture that face of battle because that's the reality for these people in tactical units they're going to have to face death and destruction and it brings with it a whole set of problems and there's no easy solution as you look at each of these battles 8th of October at Chinese Farm there are a lot of tough decisions that have to be made and there are probably no right or wrongs and some are better than others may I interject a point here regarding your specific point it would be possible to ask one student to read the one chapter in Martin van Creefeld's book Command in War which would also introduce the notion of political interference and a politicized military also into the both the realm of strategic and operational planning don't have all the class read that chapter but just have one student read that chapter and brief the others on it just to add more depth and to make it for a richer lesson sure George may I add some here also there are two other books which are readily available in libraries which I would recommend if you want to get into some of the strategic dynamics one book is The Causes of War by Blaney where he gets into the whole notion of perception and misperception about forces and why nation-states go to war against other nation-states another book is by a team called Military Misfortunes which talk about where disasters occur in military operations a student who wants to do additional depth of reading and may bring in a different perspective into this lesson can go to both of those books and easily find something which would be of use to the group I think it's about time to move to the last part which is the results of this war what impact does it have one issue that you can ask and it's an important issue because it affects your analysis of what Sadat, Assad and Meir are all about is what impact does this war have on the participants in particular on Israel and on the United States are Sadat's strategic objective submit in this regard what did he want to achieve in this war in the United States vis-à-vis Israel again who won the war that's one thing that you might look at that's at the strategic level but at the same time the thing that's interesting is you might consider and this is kind of makes you want to pause and think about warfare is how long it takes to get to Camp David and then the peace treaty and in a way the Israelis use an attrition diplomacy wearing down when you come out with something that Sadat did not really originally want it's a separate peace treaty with Israel but he gets maneuvered into it so war, the way it ends does not necessarily logically lead to what you might think are the most logical results politically but now the politicians are left to negotiate to make time work to their benefit and in there the United States gets involved Israel is involved Egypt is involved what's more correct is strategy nothing more than a series of stop gaps a legitimate question exactly another thing that you might look at is the impact that the war has on the United States and the evolution of warfare we do have the LP with that reading the student can look at that and summarize some of that impact it has a tremendous impact on the United States considered in the evolution of warfare the beginnings of precision guided missiles in warfare it is the use of electronic warfare in a conventional sense with large forces it is using tanks in large numbers numbers that probably equal those in the battle of Kursk in World War 2 not that they're all fighting at the same time but they're spread out over a couple fronts so we're talking about death and destruction and loss of equipment that boggles the mind in the United States because it's a high level so that we have to train for a lot of our storage capabilities in NATO to resupply Israel and we don't want to see that happening so it isn't a war that has an impact tremendously on the societies involved which is one thing that's very important the other factor to consider is what impact does it have on the evolution of warfare on the US in particular this war comes as a rude shock for everyone it's the first real opportunity since 1945 to see large conventional militaries engaged in combat and see what happens in next week's lesson we're going to see how the US army relates to this very rude shock coupled with leaving South Vietnam another question can be asked was raised by the first of the great scientific historians, Hans Delbrook 100 years ago before the invention of the tank in the airplane looking at military history he said the central question is who rules the battlefield the man on horseback or the man on foot and he meant it literally but in 1973 clearly the man on horseback has been replaced symbolically by the man in the tank and the man in the helicopter or aircraft who rules the battlefield in 1973 who rules it now what should we be doing now to prepare ourselves and the next generation of officers for dealing with profound change one of the lessons you might consider in that is the profits right after somewhere saying the airplane is dead because the air defense system won't play that role again the anti-tank missile will challenge armor to the point it will be taken off the battlefield one lesson that comes out of this is for every weapon there's a counter weapon and it's combining of these arms in the right kind of organization to get the maximum effect but there is no single weapon that does damage to the point of excluding all the others on occasion it would appear that there is a silver bullet a magic weapon system that will solve all of your problems what's the shelf life of that magic bullet yeah any other thoughts I would just add one concluding point here and that is the change that occurs in military culture particularly within the Israeli army the Israeli army is going to be used again from 1973 in operation peace for Galilee where they go in to attempt to eliminate the Palestinian liberation organization and also Syrian presence in Lebanon what did the Israeli army then learn from the 1973 war we talked about the influence that this had on the United States this was dramatic change with Depew and the Depew doctrine outside power looking at a war in another continent here is an army that has just fought the Egyptians and saw their ability to change and adapt very quickly from the 1967 conflict how then did the Israelis change and adapt or did they and then what was public opinion view of this war in Israel because public opinion is going to change as opposed to previous conflicts in fact public opinions will become less supportive of public objectives and then what is the impact of public opinion upon future Israeli conflicts this is something that military commanders I think planners and executors must be cognizant of because it plays so much impact upon morale of the force and also how that force will be trained, educated and implemented and even equipped in the future and something that maybe your students may want to pursue one final things several maybe final things you might consider one is if you look at the Arab-Israeli wars overall each war is different but the participants are roughly the same many of them have seen various wars perhaps one important lesson to be drawn is that it's difficult and virtually impossible to predict what kind of war you're going to fight and perhaps the best thing to do is when you think of a concept like force 21 is to have flexible response in there to fight different kinds of wars 48 was a war of independence for Israelis it was a levy en masse 56 found them with allies fighting against only Egypt with France and Britain helping Israel 67 is a kind of blitzkrieg 73 is long by their standards but it's a conventional war 82 is kind of like a Vietnam for the Israelis and then they end up fighting on the streets of what I could say but on the streets of Hebron a different kind of conflict altogether for each one they seem to be caught off a little bit the question is to be able to adjust so to create a mindset that do not prepare yourself for only one kind of war or your weapons will be used to the maximum in the battlefield and one other thought that you might consider is that when we were a small nation like in the period of the Crimean War we were smart enough to send lookouts, observers to other parts of the world to learn from other parts of the world how warfare was conducted that was the mission of every up to the 19th century go abroad my son and learn from others because you're a superpower doesn't mean that you cannot learn from others you should pump up your students the week before or the lesson before of the importance of looking at other parts of the world and the lessons that can be drawn by studying warfare as it's conducted elsewhere because it helps us to get outside of our own narrow parameters of looking at the world and what is war, what is universal about war or what is very American about war so really pump them up because this is a very rich lesson we find at the CGSC and electives in the core course two hours are often not enough time to cover all the things that have to be and leave the offices of the mindset we could learn from other parts of the world and wars which do not involve us directly about the nature of war thank you very much it was fun, I hope you enjoyed it too