I told a friend at the beginning of the conflict that the Israelis may not be as effective in this one as US troops (despite their vaunted reputation). My reasoning was that we have developed and tested the air-ground battle doctrine and this conflict seemed like a natural combined forces conflict--combining small numbers on the ground to draw the enemy out and locate him and precision guided weapons from the air to take him out.
It sounds like part of the problem was lack of doctrine an some was lack of practice. The emails from Israeli soldiers describing raids where they ended up hiding in a house for three days were consistent with ground forces proceeding with no effective coordination with precision air support.
I don't know if this is lack of hardware, doctrine, or training. But the combined assault did not work as a US assault would have.
Hope they do a very critical lessons learned because they are going to need them soon. But at this point, the IDF is no longer the best military, man-for-man, in the world. We are the undisputed title-holders.
The IDF will learn and make adjustments. They did after every war, sometimes during the war.
Agreed. I think their reputation for ruthlessness has given them an almost mythical aura of invincibility.