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Afghanistan After America: China’s Next Adventure

By Micah Petersen and Addison McLamb

As the final boardwalk shop on Kandahar Airfield closed its doors for the last time, reality hit home: this time the United States was actually leaving Afghanistan. A decade ago, thousands dined at TGI Friday’s on the boardwalk and joined in for Salsa Night; but now the desert dust of Kandahar blew trash across the empty basketball court and into the barbed-wire fence surrounding it, deterring anyone from playing a game during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike the proposed closure of the airfield in 2015, the minimal numbers of U.S. troops throughout the country was indicative of an impending full withdraw. A nearby volleyball court, track, and soccer pitch—once part of a bustling complex of over 30,000 visitors—now sat empty in the sun, waiting for the revolving door of imperial powers to supply its next occupant.

The U.S. military began its first withdraw from Afghanistan in 2011, but 2,500 troops remained in the country at the start of 2020. In February 2020, as part of a U.S.-Taliban peace plan, former President Trump agreed to the full, conditional withdraw of all U.S. troops by May 2021. President Biden then delayed the date of withdraw until September 2021. With the withdraw now complete, continued instability in Afghanistan seems inevitable, and foreign stakeholders will vie for leverage as part of a larger Central Asian strategic competition for influence. Of these players, China is uniquely poised to fill Afghan power vacuums and pursue its foreign policy objectives in Afghanistan by leveraging its historic neutrality with the Taliban, capitalizing on existing Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Afghanistan, and backing Pakistan to consolidate gains in a post-American occupied Afghanistan.

China’s Central Asia Strategy

Predominantly populated by a European diaspora, the United States first sought its strongest foreign ties with the “Old World” of Europe. In contrast, as a civilization unto itself, China sought its strongest ties and influences with the areas most able to affect domestic wealth and power—in a word, its borders. Throughout history—perhaps inspired by a “Go” strategy of avoiding encirclement—China has sought to secure lines of communication (LOC) in zones of influence adjacent to its borders. Whether through the eastern “nine-dash line” or western clashes with India, China sees its borders less as boundaries, but more as the circumference of a territorial platform from which to project power in near-area zones of influence, thereby ensuring domestic security and buffering outside threats to the desired “Grand Society” envisioned by Confucius.

This realist approach to security has also been balanced with a partnership approach via bilateral relations under the BRI. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) likely recognizes its western-focused BRI will necessitate power projection in Afghanistan. Beijing’s policy proposals often allude to Chinese cultural references or shared history (usually an attempt to nest the young Communist Party within ancient Chinese society), and the choice of Silk Road alliteration is not melodrama. China probably desires Central Asian resources and economic clientelism to offset any adversarial posturing from South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan. Beijing would also anticipate Pakistan’s help with any push to utilize LOCs in and around Afghanistan. As if to signal the depth of their alliance, Pakistan and China recently leaked an intelligence agreement between Pakistan’s Defense Ministry and China’s Central Military Commission, demonstrating their willingness to combine strategic effort with tactical collaboration. Overall, China recognizes that stabilization in Central Asia requires a stable Afghanistan.

Over the last two centuries, Beijing learned from previous Russian, British, and American occupations in Afghanistan. As a result, the CCP has neither taken an official political stance against the Taliban nor generated unilateral policy positions towards Afghanistan. Their “bilateral” relationship with Afghanistan (framed with the same grandeur and opacity as its nearly eighty other BRI “bilateral” partnerships) allows the CCP to exert paternalistic dominance in economic relationships whilst couching investment loans as indicative of symbiotic “global leadership.” With the Taliban now in control of most of Afghanistan, Beijing could use infrastructure investment and United Nations’ influence to support a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Supporting a Taliban regime could also allow China to excuse itself from foreign accusations of anti-Islamic bias. The Taliban is geographically postured to quell any potential uprisings against their CCP partners, allowing Xinjiang abuses to be cast as a purely secular effort to shore up public safety rather than as an Orwellian plan to crush recurring thought crime.

Overall, to China, Afghanistan likely reflects a ripe investment opportunity, credible hedge against criticism of anti-Islamic bias, and tantalizing opportunity to display international leadership. To Afghanistan, China likely represents a steady supply of invasion-free investment, a sympathetic ear within the United Nations Security Council, and a pan-Asian sense of durable partnership. Whether the relationship blossoms will be largely dependent on the real returns of each side’s commitment.

Infrastructure Investment

During America’s two-decade effort in Afghanistan, Beijing took advantage of waxing relations (especially in the Hu Jintao era) to quietly fund infrastructure investment throughout the country. This was not a new tactic for China—from the early 20th century through the 1980s, China bankrolled various African infrastructure projects and even supplied weapons to sub-Saharan tribes fighting for independence from their colonial invaders. China transitioned to more passive models for the next three decades (largely due to Deng Xiaoping’s famous “lie low” doctrine and Jiang Zemin’s “Shanghai Clique”opportunism), which culminated most recently in Xi Jinping’s hybrid BRI.

Modern Sino-Afghan relations were significantly shaped by Mao’s diplomacy in the 1960 Beijing-Kabul Non-Aggression Treaty. Despite sharing a slim border with Afghanistan; and even in comparison to the billions of dollars of United States’ aid since 2001, China nonetheless still holds rights to Afghanistan’s largest foreign investment project: the Aynak copper mine. Chinese payments for mineral exploitation fees alone guarantee the Afghan government an annual return of over $800 million. As strategic hubs like Kandahar Airfield are no longer controlled by foreign actors, China’s construction and operation of airports in Zimbabwe and other African states foreshadows interest in controlling and managing Afghan transportation networks. The Taliban lacks any experience in operating international airfields, and China is likely to offer its managerial expertise in hopes of establishing a similar control over transportation networks that it has with aforementioned African states. The durability of economic quid pro quo is questionable, but Chinese strategic intentions remain clear.

Infrastructure development in Afghanistan allows China to secure both profit and security. The Taliban has a history of supporting the Eastern Turkmenistan Movement, which is China’s largest terror threat in Xinjiang. Using Afghan infrastructure investment as an incentive—and domestic resources (like Aynak) as collateral—Beijing can field both carrots and sticks to dissuade Taliban support of Uighur Turkic groups. The mechanics of such negotiations can be nested within BRI projects and then marketed as skillful CCP maneuvering focused on both foreign and domestic outcomes.

Risk and Alliance

Chinese success in Afghanistan will be most reliant on its alliance with Pakistan. Kipling’s famous “Arithmetic on the Frontier” lyricizes the debilitative cost of attempting to stabilize a society that has been de facto tribal since the 14th century Durrani Empire. True to Kipling’s foreboding, it seems that durable stability in Afghanistan will only come when Pashto, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, and other minority tribes are aligned to a common national vision. China’s initial networking among some of Afghanistan’s most rugged and hardened regions—in concert with Pakistan—will pay dividends in their understanding of how to assess and realign competing visions.

The United States and Soviet Union both struggled in Afghanistan in part because of difficulties in suppressing insurgent activity from the ungoverned Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Relationships with powers like Pakistan are helpful for casting a wider, more effective net against regional terror activity, and China has a very strong and stable diplomatic relationship with Pakistan. Through this relationship, China has arguably set conditions to stabilize the infamous northeast provinces near the FATA. This could create a power dynamic where Beijing’s most significant negotiations would be with the Pashto and Taliban-dominated South—areas historically more aligned with kindred Pashtos in Pakistan. Northern stability and southern alliances may then serve as a platform to negotiate with a larger confederation of tribes (including those of the former Northern Alliance) to more quickly realize a Durrani redux and Afghan solidarity.

The crux of China’s involvement in Afghanistan relates primarily to security—both economic and domestic—and the risk tolerance of the CCP to flex global leadership aspirations in such a difficult environment. China will likely mitigate this risk by leveraging its existing infrastructure investments and strong alliance with Pakistan, while using BRI channels and domestic information control to frame the move as necessary for Central Asian prosperity and stability in Xinjiang. Furthermore, with the inevitability of the Taliban attaining at least some formal influence within Afghanistan governance, China remains the only permanent United Nations Security Council member whose relationship with the Taliban could bring benefits to both parties.

Conclusion

The U.S. military and NATO writ large made a lasting impact on the country of Afghanistan. Despite the fall of the Afghan government, other aspects of development such as female literacy rates, female employment, and significant overall growth of GDP per capita since 2001 are evidence that the NATO mission transformed the lives of Afghans. But long-term outcomes of western involvement remain ambiguous.

If history is any guide, U.S. troops will not be the last foreign soldiers to see shops close their doors at Kandahar Airfield. What we do know is that the discussion regarding Afghanistan’s future development is a conversation space that should not be dominated solely by the People’s Republic of China. The CCP’s expansion over the last decade, and its associated exploitation of countries in need of steady development, raises enough red flags to force the United States and its allies to consider how China will insert itself in Afghanistan over the coming years. Recognizing the incentives China possesses to influence Afghanistan is of the utmost importance and critical for the United States as it repositions itself within the Middle East.

Micah D. Petersen is a graduate of the University of Delaware with a BA in International Relations and an MA in Geography, focusing on Chinese migration to Africa. He is also a Schwarzman Scholar and currently serves as an Infantry Captain in the United States Army. He  has studied and traveled to over 25 countries and deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan as the Aide-de-Camp to the Kandahar Airfield Commanding General.

Addison McLamb is a graduate of Wake Forest University with a BA in Chinese Language and  Culture, focusing on Chinese foreign policy. He is a Schwarzman Scholar (Class of 2017) and currently serves as an Intelligence Captain in the United States Army. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the Department of the Army or Department of Defense.

Featured image: December 2020 – Once the center for social activities, the Kandahar Boardwalk sat desolate before coalition forces handed it over to the Afghan government in January 2021. (Credit: authors)

U.S. Southern Command Needs a Permanently-Assigned Hospital Ship

The Southern Tide

Written by Wilder Alejandro Sanchez, The Southern Tide addresses maritime security issues throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. It discusses the challenges regional navies face including limited defense budgets, inter-state tensions, and transnational crimes. It also examines how these challenges influence current and future defense strategies, platform acquisitions, and relations with global powers.

“We focus on partnerships…Our partners want to work with us. They want the advantage of the United States education, training, exercises and military equipment. It’s the best in the world. And so it’s up to us to deliver that in a way that’s relevant and also provides a return on investment for American taxpayer. So that is our focus.” –Navy Adm. Craig S. Faller, commander of U.S. Southern Command, before the Senate Armed Services Committee July 9, 2019.

By Wilder Alejandro Sánchez

The variety of extreme natural disasters that annually hit U.S. Southern Command’s (SOUTHCOM) area of responsibilities, exacerbated by climate change, demonstrates the Command’s need for a permanently-assigned hospital vessel. While the Command can obtain assets if needed in case of a crisis, like the current deployment of the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS Arlington (LPD-24), among other naval units, to Haiti after the deadly earthquake on August 14, there are benefits to having a permanently-assigned hospital vessel.

Comfort: SOUTHCOM’s key asset

In an interview that will soon be published by Janes, U.S. Navy Admiral Craig Faller, the current commander of SOUTHCOM, explained to the author that it would be great to have the Mercy-class hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) sail annual four-to-six month missions in the region. Comfort last sailed in Latin American and Caribbean waters in 2019. 

As part of Operation Enduring Promise 2019, the vessel made 12 port calls across Latin America and the Caribbean, providing free medical services to local populations, an important humanitarian operation that helps win the hearts and minds of civilians and authorities alike.

SOUTHCOM’s activities in Latin American and Caribbean waters also include a constant participation in humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) operations. HA/DR will become more critical due to the increasing frequency, violence, and impact of weather-related events, particularly hurricanes. 

The role of vessels in HA/DR operations

The Greater Caribbean – meaning Caribbean and Central America – is a region that knows very well how catastrophic these disasters can be. Just in the past decade these areas experienced the devastating 2010 and August 2021 earthquakes in Haiti and the April 2021 La Soufrière volcano eruption in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. 

Moreover, the region is hit annually during its summer months with frequent hurricanes, which are existential threats to many countries. Hurricane Irma in 2017, for example, hit Antigua and Barbuda particularly hard, as ReliefWeb explains,

“The impact on Barbuda was particularly severe as the eye of the hurricane passed directly over the island; 81% of Barbuda’s buildings were reported to have been destroyed or severely damaged, and the island was deemed uninhabitable, as all resident households (HHs) on Barbuda were seriously affected by the hurricane.”

In November 2020, past the usual hurricane months, Hurricanes Eta and Iota, category 4 and 5 respectively, hit the Colombian Caribbean islands of San Andres and Providencia, and then made landfalls that affected El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua with devastating results. Climate change will increase the strength of the hurricanes that hit the region for the foreseeable future, making regional cooperation and partnerships all the more important.

In response to the devastation caused by the two hurricanes the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS William P. Lawrence (DDG-110) “arrived off the coast of Honduras… to support Joint Task Force Bravo’s (JTF Bravo) mission by conducting familiarization flights, delivering medical supplies, and coordinating with other JTF Bravo assets to identify future HA/DR needs.” U.S. Navy helicopters and U.S. Army watercraft also participated in the relief effort. SOUTHCOM’s 2021 Posture Statement explains that by working together with partners and components like JTF-Bravo, the Command “[conducted] search and rescue operations and [delivered] lifesaving aid to areas isolated by the storms, delivering over 1.2 million pounds of life-saving humanitarian aid and rescuing 852 people.”

As for the response effort to the recent earthquake in Haiti, apart from Arlington, other ships deployed include the Freedom-class littoral combat ship USS Billings (LCS-15), and USNS Burlington (T-EPF-10), a Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport ship. A total of six U.S. ships have been deployed as of the end of August. RFA Wave Knight, which serves in the Royal Navy, and the Mexican ships ARM Papaloapan and ARM Libertador have also been deployed.

One vessel that was not in Central America after the 2020 hurricanes or the recent incidents in the Caribbean islands was Comfort. The hospital ship last deployed in Latin American waters in 2019 (my commentaries for CIMSEC on Comfort include “USNS Comfort’s Latest Humanitarian Mission Throughout Latin America,” and “The Significance of U.S. and Chinese Hospital Ship Deployments to Latin America”), even though it has proven to be a critical component of SOUTHCOM’s strategy to strengthen relations with regional partners by providing civilians free and efficient medical services. While the ship has other duties and maintenance requirements, its value to SOUTHCOM’s HA/DR operations is undeniable.

What are the Options?

The US Navy is currently considering the expansion of its fleet of medical vessels to replace Comfort and its sister ship USNS Mercy (T-AH-19). For example, the Australian shipyard Austal displayed a model of its expeditionary medical ship (EMS) during the Sea Air Space 2021 defense expo, held outside Washington DC, in August.

Another proposal to revamp the Navy’s medical ship fleet was made in a July 2 CIMSEC commentary by Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Misty Wilkins, a US Strategic Sealift Officer. Lt (j.g.) Wilkins proposed that unused offshore supply vessels (OSVs) “are ready to be used and ripe for re-purposing to meet Navy, Marine Corps, Army, and Air Force needs.” The officer proposed that “these vessels could be converted at relatively little cost and would likely be available much sooner than the time needed to construct and test the [Expeditionary Fast Transport] ambulance ship concept.”

I certainly agree with Lt (j.g.) Wilkins’ argument, and I would take it one step further, highlighting that the U.S. fleet requires more hospital ships not solely for wartime missions but also to help with HA/DR operations, which are a critically important activity for a command like SOUTHCOM.

Therefore, in the very near future, an OSV-turned-ambulance ship must be permanently assigned to SOUTHCOM given the constant activities the Command carries out in its area of operations. While units like LCSs or destroyers are certainly helpful to HA/DR operations, it would be even more beneficial to have a specially-designed hospital vessel deployed annually in the region and ready to help with disaster relief when, not if, it is needed. Admiral Faller explained to me during our interview for Janes that it would be great if SOUTHCOM had Comfort deployed annually. This type of assistance and cooperation would strengthen US relations with partners and allies throughout the Western Hemisphere, and win the hearts and minds of regional populations. 

The Case for a Permanent Ship

SOUTHCOM and its naval component, U.S. Fourth Fleet, do not have ships permanently assigned. Rather, SOUTHCOM deploys a variety of units that are assigned on rotation, including Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and LCSs. Admiral Faller has requested additional ships to combat drug trafficking and monitor the activities of U.S. adversaries like Venezuela in the region.

SOUTHCOM’s leadership is very aware of the challenges and threats (not just drug trafficking-related) that regional partners face. Thus, the Command trains with Caribbean forces via exercise Tradewinds, tabletop exercises, and also works with agencies like the Regional Security System and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA). The goal is for regional forces to cooperate more effectively when the next hurricane or other type of disaster occurs.

Given that natural disasters afflict Latin America and the Caribbean, combined with the success of medical assistance operations like what Comfort has carried out in the recent past, SOUTHCOM has demonstrated the need for a permanently-assigned hospital vessel in order to be ready for the next HA/DR operation or medical deployment to its area of responsibilities. While the likelihood of SOUTHCOM obtaining additional warships is low, the Command should still lobby for a permanent hospital vessel.

Final Thoughts

SOUTHCOM’s Posture Statements routinely highlight the success and relevance of HA/DR operations that the Command carries out in its area of responsibilities. Case in point, the 2021 Posture summarizes what the Command did to help Central America after the 2020 hurricanes, stressing that “there is no better way to demonstrate U.S. commitment to the region than to respond to our neighbors’ needs in times of crisis.” Working together to face natural disasters is not just a cliché, it is how SOUTHCOM gets the job done. 

Looking to the future, by acknowledging that climate change-enhanced weather events will get worse; by taking into account the positive impact of SOUTHCOM’s role in HA/DR operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, and by highlighting the fact that that the U.S. fleet in general needs more hospital ships, it is clear that SOUTHCOM not only deserves, but also requires, a permanently-assigned hospital ship in order to effectively carry out its missions.

Wilder Alejandro Sánchez is an analyst who focuses on international security and geopolitics. The views expressed in this article belong to the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of any institutions with which the author is associated.

Featured image: The Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) sits anchored off the coast of Colombia during Continuing Promise 2015. (U.S. Navy photo)

Lifelong Student-Centered Learning: A PME Paradigm for Honing Our Intellectual Edge

By Dr. Mie Augier, Maj Sean F. X. Barrett, and MajGen William F. Mullen, III (ret.)

Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen remain our most important resource for prevailing in long-term competition. We will remain the world’s preeminent naval force through recruitment, education, training, and retention of diverse active, reserve, and civilian talent. Transforming our learning model for the 21st century will enable us to adapt and achieve decisive advantage in complex, rapidly changing operating environments. –Advantage at Sea1

The recently published Advantage at Sea, a Tri-Service Maritime Strategy signed by the Chiefs of the three Naval Services, provides guidance for prioritizing threats, integrating, and modernizing in order to prevail across the competition continuum. The strategy emphasizes the importance of training and education for developing an integrated all-domain naval force. Given the change, complexity, and uncertainty inherent in the security environment, Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen must develop the intellectual agility to adapt to rapid change and emerging threats and shape the organizations they lead.

This necessitates changing the industrial age training and education paradigm for Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen by placing a greater emphasis on skills such as creative, critical, and innovative thinking; holistic problem solving; and, lifelong learning. Doing so implies not only the need for comprehensive changes to current curricula, teaching materials, and methodologies, but also placing a greater emphasis on informal education and self-study as a lifelong professional duty. 

Today, discussions concerning military training and education include explicit calls for changing the industrial age paradigm to a post-industrial age one, as well as considerations of the kinds of training and education appropriate for the post-industrial age, including moving beyond the “lecture, memorize facts, regurgitate facts on command” model to one focused on cultivating growth mindsets.2

It is important, first, however, to recognize the tremendous progress that has already been made at U.S. professional military education (PME) schools, while acknowledging the work that remains to be done throughout the training and education continuum. Secondly, it is worth noting that paradigm change is difficult because it entails rejecting an otherwise well-established paradigm and substituting a new one, and paradigms by their very nature tend to reinforce themselves and are not intended to generate novelty.3 The industrial age training and education paradigm holds schools, educational institutions, and academic textbooks at the center of the “universe.”4 Today’s security environment, however, demands a new student-centered, outcomes-based approach that is lifelong and continuous. Learning must be valued and evaluated both in and out of schoolhouses to systematically produce the intellectually agile leaders needed to compete.

In this article, we seek to build on our previous conversation, which touched on the skills and attitudes that are important in a post-industrial age, as well as some barriers to cultivating and implementing the mechanisms central to this paradigm change. We also integrate elements of our understanding of paradigms and organizational change with research in learning, education, cognitive science, and individual and organizational decision making to discuss a few interrelated issues that are central to developing a 21st century approach to training and education. 

The Industrial and Post-Industrial Ages

We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us. Winston Churchill5

The Naval Services’ industrial age approach to training, education, organization, and manpower, among other things, has its foundation in Taylorism, the concept of breaking down complex production sequences into simple, sequenced, and standardized tasks. People are trained to be interchangeable parts to maximize efficiencies associated with solving fixed problems in stable environments. Taylorism was cutting edge management science at the turn of the 20th century, leading President William McKinley to appoint Elihu Root as Secretary of War in 1899 “to bring ‘modern business practices’ to the ‘backward’ War Department.”6 In the mid-1950s, this trend towards organizing for large-scale, stable problems was exacerbated as additional tools and techniques such as strategic planning and financial management were developed and employed to measure progress and efficiencies in solving known problems.

Applying known tools to known problems made sense in a relatively stable and predictable world. Such a paradigm gradually reinforced itself over time, not only in the U.S. military’s organizations, but also in its training and education institutions and approaches to learning. While PME schools have made great strides, the challenge is that military occupational specialty (MOS) training schools are still largely based on this outdated and ineffective approach, which undermines the ability to produce the leaders we need as a matter of course rather than by exception. 

One result of this industrial age approach is that education in particular is viewed as episodic and undertaken only when required. Even worse, in the profession of arms, attending a PME school is oftentimes viewed as a break from the operating forces or pressure cooker supporting establishment tours that comprise the normal career path. For some, it is also merely a “check in the box” for promotion purposes and not viewed as a serious educational endeavor requiring one’s best effort. Additionally, due to negative educational experiences earlier in their careers, warfighters oftentimes lack the intrinsic desire to better educate themselves and instead believe they are already smart enough, leading them to partake in educational endeavors only when forced to do so, and then only at the minimum level of effort required to graduate.

Industrial Age Post-Industrial Age
Characteristics of Larger Environment and Problems Confronted – Stable, well structured

– Changes slow and incremental

– Rapid change

– Wicked, ill structured 

– Changes blur boundaries between organizations, industries 

Central Aspects of Organization and Leadership – Large hierarchies, functional organizational structures

– Management of standard operating procedures and processes

– Decentralized, decomposed organizational structures

– Emphasis on resources (including human), competencies, and capabilities

– Agility built in to enable and facilitate organizational learning and adaptation 

Skills and Attitudes Critical to Learning and Leading – Knowledge (static)

– Functional (and individual) learning of facts, knowledge, and how to immediately use, measure, and control

– Fixed intelligence mindset enough

– Understanding (dynamic) of both knowledge and changing contexts, as well as how to interpret knowledge in different situations

– Holistic problem solving, strategic and critical thinking, imagination, active open-mindedness, and judgment

– Growth mindset needed

– Intellectual preparedness and ability for lifelong learning

Learning Types and the Role of Teachers  – Schoolhouse, passive learning

– Receive and memorize data teachers transmit 

– Instructional learning and lectures

– Test and forget 

– Doctrinal approach to learning

– Lifelong, active learning

– Dialogues, discussions

– Two-way learning between teachers and students 

– Teachers as mentors/coaches

– Dialectic approach

Educational Materials and Approaches  – Textbooks confined to disciplinary silos 

– Rote memorization 

– Static learning goals and procedures to control activities 

– Learning measured by tests

– Cases, simulations, wargames, and problem-posing approaches

– Learning goals are constantly revised and updated; best practices are explored and created

– Learning practiced through reflections and self-reflections

Civic Engagement  – Not really a focus – Fostered through critical thinking (i.e., enabling understanding others), we-leadership, and small group discussions

Table 1. Industrial Age Versus Post-Industrial Age Characteristics.

Table 1 provides an overview of some of the dimensions differentiating the industrial and post-industrial ages to help inform efforts to change the industrial age training and education paradigm.7 In particular, we focus on clarifying some dimensions of these differences, including the concepts relevant to learning, as well as fostering lifelong learning, active minds, and a sense of value beyond oneself. Several key themes differentiating the industrial and post-industrial ages that are relevant to training and education include the following:

From tools to thinking. Specific tools and techniques are adequate for solving structured, repetitive, known problems, but ambiguity, uncertainty, and ill-structured problems require intellectual agility, creativity, and the ability to think critically, rather than purposely overlooking or oversimplifying aspects of problems to fit prescribed solutions. Nobel Laureate Herb Simon cautioned, “What we must avoid above all is designing technologically sophisticated hammers and then wandering around to find nails that we can hit with them.”8 Rather, the prevalence and rapidity of change necessitates leaders who can take integrative, pluralistic approaches and make connections across disciplines, domains of knowledge, and methodologies. Leaders must not only be able to learn new tools quickly to adapt to the changing environment, but also understand when and how to employ them, as well as when to drop them entirely, if needed.

From knowledge to understanding. The wicked, ill-structured, and interdependent problems of the post-industrial age demand leaders who can think holistically and in an interdisciplinary manner in order to identify and understand the deep structure of a problem before they try to solve it. While important, knowledge is mostly static and needs to be paired with imagination, creativity, intuition, and improvisation in order to enrich understanding. Knowledge by itself, Alfred North Whitehead observes, “does not keep any better than fish.”9 Practicing problem formulation (and re-formulation), active open-mindedness, and purposely focusing one’s attention outside one’s domain of expertise can help nurture this imagination that enriches understanding and the ability not only to adapt to changes in the environment, but also to anticipate them.10

From memorization to learning. Warfighters are confronted with situations clouded by ambiguity and uncertainty in which they must make decisions when facing time and information constraints. Developing the intellectual agility to make these decisions and transfer knowledge across domains or apply it to entirely new and unforeseen situations or problems is enabled by first learning how to think, not what to think. The current industrial age training and education paradigm, however, is based on “the fallacy of rote memorization.” Simon explains, “Rote memorization, as we know all too well, produces the ability to repeat back memorized material but not the ability to use it in solving problems.”11 

From school-centric to student-centric learning. In the industrial era, schools were the central institution in education, and administrators developed procedures and mechanisms to enhance and measure the efficiency with which schools could transmit information to students. Learning was thus, by necessity, passive and objectives static. In the post-industrial age, the focus must shift to students and their learning, which must be active and lifelong. 

Post-Industrial, Student-Centric Training and Education 

After thinking about the trends and changes outlined above, we can start piecing together some key elements of what is needed for post-industrial age training and education. In particular, critical thinking enables leaders to widen their apertures and question information presented to them in the pursuit of ground truth. “Questions,” Ian Leslie explains, “weaponize curiosity, turning it into a tool for changing behaviors.”12 A questioning attitude enhances leaders’ understanding of the world around them while instilling in them the notion they will never know everything and thus must embark on a lifelong pursuit of wisdom. The ability to think critically and the curiosity underlying it must be cultivated and driven by a quest for knowledge and understanding, especially of questions with no definitive answer.13 The following considerations are relevant to this post-industrial, student-centered paradigm: 

Educating active minds. Mortimer Adler distinguishes between the doctrinal and dialectal approaches to learning, which embody the industrial and post-industrial ages, respectively. The doctrinal approach effectively indoctrinates and attempts to imbue students with as much truth (and no errors) as possible, and the textbooks upon which this approach relies simply reinforce disciplinary silos. In the industrial age paradigm, teachers and educational institutions are viewed as the principal causes of learning, and students are expected to passively absorb information without any real understanding of it. In contrast, the aim of the dialectical approach is teaching students how to think and pursue truth. In post-industrial age training and education, students must be taught to identify, engage, and sort through contradictions and contradictory ideas. Teachers aid students through this learning discovery process by helping them ask questions, identify problems, think through hypotheses, and so on.14 It is cooperative and inculcates a desire in students to adopt a growth mindset, seek an ever-increasing understanding of great ideas and issues, and pursue lifelong learning for their own betterment.

Learning and learning approaches. Today’s students are different than those in previous generations, so a student-centric approach to instruction must correspondingly adapt in order to foster a culture of continuous learning. Determining how individual students learn best and the pace at which they learn, and then tailoring their learning experience accordingly, is vastly more effective than the “one-size-fits-all,” industrial age approach to learning that placed a heavy emphasis on known problems for which providing students with specific tools for solving them proved adequate. Additionally, incorporating active learning approaches, such as historical case studies, sand table or map exercises, tactical decision games, terrain walks, or tactical exercises without troops, across the training and education continuum will benefit MOS training schools, and not simply PME schools. Active learning approaches focus on problem solving and making decisions rather than simply remembering information or theorizing. Students must be encouraged to think independently, practice making decisions, and learn from mistakes along the way if they are to develop the judgment needed to take intelligent initiative.15 Active learning presupposes that learning has to occur in—and transform—the minds of students.16

Building creative thinking. Today’s strategic documents and the rhetoric of many senior leaders emphasize the importance of innovation, which unfortunately, all too often leads to the misunderstanding that technology can solve any problem. As a result, leaders overlook the need for warfighters who can think critically and creatively and develop ways to incorporate and effectively employ these new technologies. Creative thinking can and should be taught in conjunction with subject matter content. Students must have enough domain-specific knowledge to have something about which to think creatively, but some useful guidelines for encouraging creativity include posing questions or problems that have more than one response, asking students for multiple solutions to open-ended prompts and to think through their implications and implementation, group work, solving analogies, and identifying novel relationships between two or more seemingly unrelated ideas.17

Learning leaders. To truly embrace a culture of lifelong learning, leaders must set the example, embody the warrior-scholar motif, and inspire junior warfighters to embark on a lifetime of learning themselves. Learning and professional self-study must be expectations. Implementing a student-centric 21st century approach to learning at MOS schools (and even boot camp) can help mitigate some of the negative educational experiences warfighters might experience early in their careers that turn them off to learning, but to be truly lifelong and continuous, leaders, especially senior officers, need to engage their junior warfighters, demonstrate the humility to learn from them, participate in activities with them, and empower them to experiment and learn from mistakes. 

 Obstacles to Change and Closing Thoughts

This article has discussed some central aspects of industrial age training and education, as well as the elements of what is needed to transition to a post-industrial age paradigm. Without understanding the differences and the mechanisms by which the industrial age paradigm reinforces itself, the ongoing (and needed) transformation of the training and education paradigm will necessarily remain incomplete. The U.S. military has made great progress implementing student-centered learning in its PME institutions, but the same changes must be implemented across the training and education continuum, especially at MOS training schools. 

To do so, military educators must focus on what students take with them after graduation and how it changes their thinking, not on the process that pushed them through to graduation. Bureaucracy and the formal school inspection process are the biggest obstacles to cultivating and implementing these changes since they simply reinforce the industrial age training and education paradigm.

As a result, on August 26, 2019, Major General William F. Mullen III, then Commanding General, U.S Marine Corps Training and Education Command, published a memorandum, “Training and Education Command Authority to Experiment With New Learning Practices Policy,” to grant “to Formal Learning Centers (FLCs) the authorities necessary to experiment with new learning practices with respect to innovative curriculum design, development, and delivery.”18 He granted commanders a pass on those aspects of the formal inspection process that no longer applied due to the experimental changes they had implemented. Some commanders embraced the ability to experiment and, for example, loaded curriculum onto tablets so Marines could make their way through training at their own pace with the aid of staff and avoid the long periods in which they would have otherwise been awaiting training. Marines responded to being granted flexibility and responsibility, and those in MOS training reached the operating forces more quickly and with the same (or more) knowledge and skills than the industrial age approach would have otherwise provided them. It placed the focus on what the graduates understood and retained rather than on the process.

Change is never easy since there are always antibodies to change in any organization. However, just as a paradigm change in the understanding of the solar system was once needed, today’s military requires a paradigm change for training and education that addresses the totality of the training and education continuum, including the self-reinforcing obstacles to change.19 This will require a lot of hard work and leadership, but as the Naval Service Chiefs identified in Advantage at Sea, the threats China and Russia pose to global peace and prosperity demand nothing less.

Dr. Mie Augier is a Professor in the Graduate School of Defense Management, and Defense Analysis Department, at NPS. She is a founding member of the Naval Warfare Studies Institute (NWSI) and is interested in strategy, organizations, leadership, innovation, and how to educate strategic thinkers and learning leaders.

Maj Sean F. X. Barrett, PhD, is a Marine intelligence officer currently serving as the Operations Officer for 1st Radio Battalion. He has previously deployed in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom, Enduring Freedom-Philippines, and Inherent Resolve.

MajGen William F. Mullen, III, USMC, retired after 34 years as an infantry officer. Among his many assignments, he served 3 tours in Iraq, and as a General Officer, was the President of U.S. Marine Corps University and Commanding General of Education Command. He is also the co-author of Fallujah Redux, which was published in 2014 by the USNI Press. MajGen Mullen retired on Oct 1, 2020 and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado. He also recently started as Professor of Practice at the Naval Postgraduate School (Graduate School of Defense Management).

Endnotes

[1] U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Coast Guard, Advantage at Sea: Prevailing With Integrated All-Domain Naval Power (Washington, DC: 2020), 22.

[2] See, for example, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Developing Today’s Joint Officers for Tomorrow’s Ways of War: The Joint Chiefs of Staff Vision and Guidance for Professional Military Education & Talent Management, (Washington, DC: 2020); Department of the Navy, Education for Seapower (Washington, DC: 2019); Commandant’s Planning Guidance: 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps (Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 2019).

[3] The notion of paradigms—a set of shared fundamental beliefs, concepts, ideas, models, theories, and practices accepted by communities of scholars and practitioners in a given era—is often associated with Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Regarding the self-reinforcing nature of paradigms, Kuhn explains, “Normal science consists in the actualization of that promise, an actualization achieved by extending the knowledge of those facts that the paradigm displays as particularly revealing, by increasing the extent of the match between those facts and the paradigm’s predictions, and by further articulation of the paradigm itself.” Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 50th Anniversary Edition (The University of Chicago Press, 2012), 24.

[4] Thomas Kuhn’s first book, The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought, documents the paradigm change from the geocentric to heliocentric model of the universe. We need an analogous paradigm change from focusing on school-centered processes to student-centered learning in order to develop a 21st century approach to training and education. 

[5] UK Parliament, “Churchill and the Commons Chamber,” accessed March 6, 2021, https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/architecture/palacestructure/churchill/. 

[6] As quoted in Don Vandergriff, Personnel Reform and Military Effectiveness (Washington, DC: Center for Defense Information, 2015), 7.

[7] The table draws on and extends thoughts in, among others, Al Gray and Paul Otte, The Conflicted Leader and Vantage Leadership (Columbus, OH: Franklin University Press, 2006); Mie Augier and Sean F. X. Barrett, “Learning for Seapower: Cognitive Skills for the Post-Industrial Era,” Marine Corps Gazette 104, no. 11 (Nov. 2020): 25-31; Commanding General, Training and Education Command to Distribution List, “TECOM Commander’s Guidance,” July 18, 2018.

[8] Herbert A. Simon, “What We Know About Learning,” Journal of Engineering Education 87, no. 4 (Oct. 1998): 346. 

[9] Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1929), 98.

[10] Herb Simon, for example, notes, “Problem formulating is itself a problem solving task.” Herbert A. Simon, Problem Formulation and Alternative Generation in the Decision Making Process, Technical Report AIP 43, (Arlington, VA: Office of Naval Research, 1988), 7. Unfortunately, we are prone to rush to identify solutions rather than taking the time to understand a given problem. Active open-mindedness entails treating forecasts as hypotheses we actively seek to disprove. 

[11] Herbert A. Simon, “Problem Solving and Education,” in Issues in Teaching and Research, eds. D. T. Tuma and F. Reif (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1980), 87.

[12] Ian Leslie, Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 98.

[13] Leslie differentiates between diversive and epistemic curiosity. He defines diversive curiosity as an “attraction to everything novel” and epistemic curiosity as a “deeper, more disciplined, and effort type of curiosity.” He also differentiates between puzzles (e.g., how many or where questions) and mysteries (e.g., how or why). We tend to be attracted to puzzles, since they can be definitively answered, whereas mysteries are more complex and intractable. Finding the key piece of information that enables us to solve a puzzle quenches our curiosity, but curiosity inspired by mysteries is deeper and longer lived. Leslie, xx, 47-49.

[14] Mortimer J. Adler, Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind, ed. Geraldine Van Doren (New York: Collier Books and Macmillan Publishing Company), http://learningmethods.net/downloads/pdf/adler–reforming.education–a4.size.pdf, 5-9.

[15] A case, for example, “provokes in the reader the need to decide what is going on, what the situation really is, or what the problems are—and what can and should be done.” Kenneth Andrews, The Case Method of Teaching Human Relations and Administration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), 60.

[16] See, for example, Herbert A. Simon, “What We Know About Learning,” Journal of Engineering Education 87, no. 4 (Oct. 1998): 346. Simon explains, “You can do anything you like in the classroom or elsewhere—you can stand on your head—it doesn’t make a whit of difference unless it causes a change in behavior of your students. Learning takes place in the minds of students and nowhere else, and the effectiveness of teachers lies in what they can induce students to do.”

[17] Emma Gregory, et al., “Building Creative Thinking in the Classroom: From Research to Practice,” International Journal of Educational Research 62 (2013): 43-50.

[18] Commanding General (CG), Training and Education Command to CG, Training Command; CG, Education Command; CG, Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island; CG, Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego; CG, Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command, “Training and Education Command Authority to Experiment With New Learning Practices Policy,” August 26, 2019. 

[19] For example, school accreditation requirements limit options available for implementing changes in PME institutions, and quotas at MOS training schools exacerbate an excessively short-term focus on producing the required number of graduates—even potentially at the expense of their long-term development. Epstein notes that excessive hint-giving (the proverbial “foot stompers”) may help a student pass a test but at the expense of long-term progress. See David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (New York: Riverhead Books, 2019), 85-90.

Featured Image: U.S. Marine Corps infantry squad leaders assigned to School of Infantry West, Detachment Hawaii, move to their next position during the Advanced Infantry Course (AIC) aboard Kahuku Training Area, Hawaii. (U.S. Marine Corps photo)

The Next War: How the Israeli Navy Can Better Cooperate with Israel’s Air and Ground Forces

By Ehud Eilam

The Israeli Navy has several important tasks, including the protection of Israel’s population and industrial centers, its sea lines of communication in the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, and its gas rigs. As part of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Israeli Navy must also combat Arab Non-State Actors (NSAs), namely Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel fought wars with Hezbollah in Lebanon from July to August 2006, and with Hamas in the Gaza Strip from December 2008 to January 2009, July to August 2014, and in May 2021. The Israeli Navy is composed of three flotillas. This article will examine their cooperation with the IDF’s air and ground forces in the next war with Hezbollah or Hamas and make recommendations to improve the Israeli Navy’s capabilities.

Reliance on Firepower

In the last two decades, the IDF has relied on firepower more than maneuver to reduce its combat casualties, due to the increasing precision of its weapons systems. By depending on firepower, the IDF is exploiting its advantage in technology over its adversaries, in particular Arab NSAs. However, this approach did not lead to success in the 2006, 2008-2009, and 2014 wars with Hezbollah and Hamas, all of which ended without a clear victory. The IDF is eager to ensure such a victory in the next war, but it will likely continue to prioritize firepower over maneuver, mostly from the Israeli Air Force (IAF).

While Hezbollah has significantly less firepower than the IDF, it has approximately 150,000 rockets and missiles with which it can target most of Israel. The IDF’s Home Front Commander, Major General Uri Gordin, warned on March 15, 2021, that during a war with Hezbollah, Israel might absorb as many as 2,000 rockets and missiles daily–which could hit any number of targets, including Israeli airfields. The IAF has been preparing for such a scenario so that it can continue to operate under fire. This problem was raised back in the 1990s, when the IDF was more focused on Arab militaries, particularly the Syrian military, rather than Arab NSAs.

Some in Israel suggested then to strengthen the Israeli Navy at the expense of the IAF, as a platform to strike adversaries from the sea. Their justification for investing in the navy was that warships can carry more weapons and operate for longer of periods of time than aircraft, which require more frequent rearming and refueling at airfields that are exposed to enemy fire. Yet warships also need to rearm and refuel at their bases that are exposed to enemy fire. Regardless, the IDF continues with its traditional doctrine of relying on the IAF, rather than the navy, for delivering massive firepower. The IAF has no strategic bombers, only fighter-bombers—the F-15, F-16, and F-35—but they can inflict a significant blow.

Assisting Ground Forces

In the 2006, 2008-2009, and 2014 wars, the Israeli Navy assisted ground forces by providing sea-to-shore fire support. The Israeli Navy has 76 and 20mm cannons and Spike-Er missiles, which is relatively less firepower than what the IAF can deliver. This firepower also has a short range, which limits the navy to striking targets at or near the coastline. However, more akin to artillery than aircraft, warships can maintain a longer presence at the battlefield, ready to fire at any time—which is essential if a ground unit needs immediate fire support. The IAF has significantly improved its availability for close fire support, but it is sometimes not enough. 

Gunships are useful in attacking various targets and would significantly improve the navy’s fire support for ground forces. In the IDF, almost all aircraft are under the control of the IAF. Since the Israeli Navy has no ability to strike targets from the air, it has needed to improvise. For example, on July 10, 1985, two MD-500, light gunships, took off from an Israeli missile corvette operating near the Lebanese coastline. The gunships bombed a base of a terror group and returned to the ship. The Israeli Navy could repeat such a mission with AH-64 gunships and warships large enough to embark them. The British Army Air Corps used AH-64s embarked aboard ships to strike targets in Libya in 2009.

The AH-64 has a range of less than 300 miles, but that should be more than enough against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Lebanon’s geography is such that all of Hezbollah’s bases there are within striking distance from the sea, if the IDF attacks them with gunships. The geography of the Gaza Strip is even more conducive for strikes from the sea, and its width is not more than seven miles. Therefore, every objective there could be hit from the sea by an AH-64.

The IAF can bomb every objective in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip by relying on its airfields, but gunships can land in many other areas, including on ships. An AH-64 that is sent to strike deep inside Lebanon can save fuel if it is launched from a ship located near the coastline. Having more fuel would allow the gunship to remain on station for longer periods, which sometimes can be crucial for the success of the mission. Furthermore, having the ability to launch an AH-64 from a ship would be helpful for operations farther away from Israel. 

The Israeli Navy also assists ground units with intelligence gathering activities. In general, the IDF has upgraded its ability to gather intelligence, most notably by assimilating various types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The navy is also part of this effort. Operating with and without UAVs, its surface ships and submarines can escort ground units, conduct reconnaissance for them, warn them about threats ahead, advise how to bypass an obstacle, etc. Surface ships such as missile corvettes risk exposure to Hezbollah’s anti-ship missiles when supporting these activities, but Hezbollah lacks anti-submarine capabilities. However, the Israeli Navy cannot rely on submarines solely in gathering intelligence, let alone in a time of war, when information will be in high demand.

Hezbollah and Hamas plan to defend their positions from these activities. Their defense relies on mortars, improvised explosive devices, mines, and anti-tank missiles, such as the advanced 9M133 Kornet. The latter might also be used against Israeli ships operating near the coastline. Hezbollah has additional anti-ship missiles: the Yakhont and C-802. They will be met by Israel’s Barak-8, a long-range anti-missile system. The Israeli Navy also has the C-Dome to protect ships from drones, rockets, and missiles. The Barak-8 and C-Dome have not been tested in combat. Depending on how well those defense systems work, the IDF will decide how much the Israeli Navy can assist ground units in providing fire support and intelligence.

In the 2006 war, Hezbollah fired a C-802 missile that hit an Israeli missile corvette, killing four of its crew. In the first stage of the next war, the Israeli Navy and the IAF will try to destroy Hezbollah’s anti-ship missiles before they can be launched. Until then, the Israeli Navy might limit its operations in order to protect its ships. This is another factor that will affect how much support the Israeli Navy can provide to Israel’s ground forces.

Amphibious Capabilities

The IDF has carried out amphibious operations during and since its first war in 1948. However, the landings were quite limited, mostly aimed at delivering supplies and vehicles, such as in the 1956 war. In 1967, a relatively major amphibious operation was supposed to take place in northern Sinai, close to the border. It was canceled due to the rapid advance of Israel’s ground forces. In the 1973 war, the IDF had plans to conduct a large-scale amphibious operation in the Suez Bay, but they were eventually turned down. The IDF preferred to rely on crossing the Suez Canal, which was a daring and highly risky operation, but one that seemed less problematic than landing from the open sea.

In 1982, the IDF carried out its largest amphibious operation ever. It was conducted in Lebanon against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). However, the IDF did not face much resistance since there were no PLO fortifications and almost no PLO forces in the landing zone. The PLO also did not have a navy, and the IDF enjoyed air superiority. Even the weather supported amphibious operations. Despite all those advantages, the IDF did not advance quickly from the beachhead. In 1993, the IDF took its few landing craft out of service, which were sold or used for target practice. The Israeli Navy concluded the landing craft were too vulnerable to enemy fire. The IDF could have dealt with this vulnerability by suppressing the enemy fire, buying better and faster landing craft, etc., but the IDF did not further invest in this warfare area.

In a war against Hezbollah or Hamas, establishing a beachhead in Lebanon or in the Gaza Strip could meet some resistance. However, while Hezbollah has a few dozen tanks, Hamas lacks capabilities to carry out a significant counterattack. They can only launch infantry to storm the beachhead. Conversely, the IDF can quickly deploy enough troops, backed by air power, to push back any counterattack. Hezbollah and Hamas have mortars and anti-tank missiles, but no heavy artillery. Therefore, the beachhead is not likely to face any danger of annihilation. Hezbollah and Hamas have also invested in building fortifications near their land border with Israel, assuming correctly that Israeli troops will attack there, as they have in previous wars.

In the last decades, the IDF’s naval commandos carried out raids, including from the sea. However, conducting a vast amphibious operation is distinct from such raids. The IDF is aware this will be a complicated task, which requires effective and tight cooperation between its sea, ground, and air forces. Even when Israel’s foe has been an NSA, and therefore lacking most capabilities of conventional armed forces, the IDF avoided investing in amphibious capabilities. It is a missed opportunity. With amphibious capabilities, the IDF can surprise its foe, which could help in achieving victory. The IDF can land in Lebanon or the Gaza Strip, bypass its enemy’s lines of defense, and attack their flanks and rear.

Coastal Defense

Most of Israel’s population and infrastructure are near its coastline, so coastal defense is a top priority for the IDF. In the 2014 war, the IDF was surprised by, but still managed to kill, a few Palestinian naval commandos, or frogmen, who penetrated southern Israel from the sea after swimming there from the nearby Gaza Strip. During the fight with Hamas in mid-2021, the IDF destroyed much of the equipment used by their frogmen, degrading their capability to strike Israel again. Depending on how much Hamas has rebuilt this capability, the IDF will probably repeat these strikes at the start of the next war.

In contrast with Hamas, Hezbollah has an increasingly capable naval unit, which receives significant funding and military assistance from Iran. Iran has provided this unit “with quality Iranian naval weapons, and trained [it] in Iranian Revolutionary Guards bases and training camps. “ Currently, Hezbollah has warehouses in Lebanon to sustain and enable its naval unit, “to have a continuous supply of weapons and access to the logistical and technological backbone.”

In the next war, Hezbollah or Hamas could attempt to penetrate Israel with frogmen, small boats, and perhaps even tiny submarines. They could inflict casualties among both troops and civilians, damaging IDF equipment near the coastline and disrupting operations. In recent years, following Israel’s conflict with Iran and its proxies, “Israel has invested in improved detection and defenses of its shores and maritime assets against various threats, such as missiles and most probably also underwater and fast-boat attacks.” This effort often requires close cooperation between sea, ground, and air forces.

The first line of coastal defense is of course at sea. The Israeli navy will try to block incursions, such as detecting fast boats and frogmen before they reach the Israeli coast. The Israeli Navy has the AS-565, a helicopter that operates from ships such as the Sa’ar-5 for a variety of missions, including reconnaissance and rescue. The AS-565 is essential when the ship is far away from Israel, where the IAF is not available.

In a time of war, the IAF will be busy with many tasks, so coastal defense may not be a priority. However, one of the IAF’s primary missions, achieving air superiority, should be relatively easy. Unlike Arab militaries, Arab NSAs lack air forces and significant air defenses. Hezbollah has some air defense capabilities for short range defense, such as SA-8, 14, 16, 17, and 22 anti-aircraft missiles. Hamas has much less. The IAF might lose a few aircraft, but it will not stop it from ruling the skies. Therefore, the IAF could focus on other tasks, such as destroying missiles and rockets before they are launched at Israel and supporting ground forces. Nevertheless, the IAF also must be prepared to allocate aircraft for naval missions, especially coastal defense.

The IAF could assist coastal defense efforts in several ways. UAVs can patrol across the coastline, looking for indications and warnings of an attack. UH-60 helicopters could land troops in every spot where there is an assault from the sea. The AH-64 could join them to provide fire support. Helicopters and gunships would be needed to support ground units on the frontline, but some helicopters and gunships could be assigned to patrol the coastline. In the 2006, 2008-2009, and 2014 wars, Israel postponed its ground offensive, sometimes by weeks, hoping heavy bombardments would be enough to bring victory. This approach might repeat itself in the next war, which means that helicopters and gunships could aid in coastal defense until the ground offensive starts.

Despite the importance of the sea to Israel, the IAF was not built to assist the navy. The IAF’s doctrine and weapon systems have been designed to defeat the air and ground forces of Arab militaries. While many Arab militaries have navies that could have attacked Israeli coastlines in past wars, they never tried. Therefore, the IDF focused on land invasion, worrying much less about an attack from the sea. NSAs cannot invade Israel from the sea, but their naval infiltrations could disrupt Israeli operations—or worse. The IAF must be ready to coordinate with the Israeli Navy to prevent this outcome. The priorities and development of the IAF will continue to be based on preparing for air combat and striking ground objectives, but the IAF should also invest in capabilities to locate and strike sea targets.

Conclusion

The IDF must be prepared to confront Arab NSAs in the next war. The Israeli Navy will have to provide fire support and intelligence to ground units, but it currently lacks the firepower it needs to be effective against ground targets. One way to improve the navy’s firepower is to launch AH-64s from ships at sea. The IDF should also consider reinvesting in amphibious capabilities for the Israeli Navy to surprise its adversaries from the rear. Ultimately, the IAF is likely to gain air superiority in a war against an Arab NSA, which will allow it to focus on other tasks, such as destroying missiles and rockets and assisting the IDF’s ground and sea forces. The IAF will decide if and how many aircraft will be allocated to carry out each mission, according to the priorities at hand. The Israeli Navy and IAF must be prepared to cooperate if one of those priorities is coastal defense.

Dr. Ehud Eilam has been dealing with and studying Israel’s national security for more than 25 years. He served in the Israeli military and later worked for the Israeli Ministry of Defense as a researcher. He has also  published six books in the United States and United Kingdom. His latest book is Containment in the Middle East.

Feature image: INS Magen, the first of four new Sa’ar 6-class corvettes to be delivered to the Israeli Navy.  (Credit: Israeli Defense Forces)