This Debacle Will Transform Israel
The IDF has a record of exceptionally rapid recovery, and it is already adapting.
The history of the Israel Defense Forces is a history of failure followed by exceptionally rapid recovery. Israel’s elite paratrooper units were born from organizations created after a series of botched retaliation raids in the early 1950s. Its armored corps became one of the world’s best after a dismal performance in 1956. Other units were created after a failed attempt in 1974 to rescue hostages held in the town of Ma’alot. Israel’s brilliant suppression of Syrian air defenses in 1982 resulted from staggering aircraft losses in 1973’s Yom Kippur War, and so on.
Each time, after failure, the IDF adapts, as it will today. It is helped in doing so by a tradition of brutal self-scrutiny. Almost all of the documentation of
