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H.R. McMaster: America and other free and open societies face crucial challenges and opportunities abroad that affect security and prosperity at home. This is a series of conversations with guests who bring deep understanding of today's battlegrounds, and creative ideas about how to compete, overcome challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and secure a better future. I am H.R. McMaster. This is Battlegrounds.
Announcer: On today's episode of Battlegrounds. Our focus is on the Israeli defense force and what we might learn about military leadership, from the experiences of the IDF chiefs of staff since 1948. Our guest is Brigadier General Reserve Meir Finkel of the IDF, a soldier scholar who holds three PhDs, is the author of several books, and serves as the head of research for the Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies, an organization designed to further the success of the IDF and its military and political strategies.
Announcer: Prior to his current post, Finkel led the Dado Center from 2014 to 2019. For the first 20 years of his career, General Finkel served in the IDF Armored Corps, including as the commander of the 847th Armored Brigade during the second Lebanon war. He also headed the IDFs ground forces doctrine and concept development department for seven years. General Finkel's doctorate degrees are in evolutionary biology, political science, and prehistoric archeology. He is the author of three novels, a book entitled On Flexibility: Recovery from Technological and Doctrinal Surprise on the Battlefield, and numerous essays in military and academic journals.
Announcer: We welcome general Finkel to discuss his most recent book entitled, Studies in Generalship: Lessons from the Chiefs of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. What has research revealed concerning the essential elements of effective military leadership, and his framework for selecting and evaluating performance of the most senior generals and admirals in democratic societies.
H.R. McMaster: General Finkel, welcome to Battlegrounds. Let me begin by saying how great it has been over the years to work with you on future force development and laying a conceptual foundation for the US army, and the future of Israeli defense force. And thanks again for being such a great host in Israel and taking us to some of your archeological sites. Great to see you.
Meir Finkel: Thanks. Thanks for inviting me. And waiting to see you in person, not only through video Zoom.
H.R. McMaster: I'll tell you, I look forward to it. Our armies have worked together very closely over the years. And first I want to congratulate you on a great book, Studies in Generalship. I think there are a lot of lessons there for leaders of all types, but obviously in particular military leaders. And I thought maybe a way to start our discussion is for you to set the context by describing the unique military history of Israel, and the learning environment that allowed you to make these observations about the nature of military leadership?
Meir Finkel: Okay. I want to begin with the describing biblical battleground, just saying that Alexander the Great in-person was here on his way south to Egypt, and Napoleon was leading his forces in-person from Egypt to Acre, trying to conquer the city 30 minutes from where I sit.
Meir Finkel: But putting the ancient and more recent military history aside, I believe that what is called the Arab-Israeli wars, or Israeli-Arab wars, the amount of engagement that the IDF had and still has with its adversaries, it's kind of huge. People usually are familiar with the Six-Day War in 1967, Yom Kippur War 1973, maybe second Lebanon War 2006. But there were many more, beginning from the War of Independence, which was fighting in four wars, practically four wars at the same time. The Sinai campaign, Sinai War in 1956, the first Lebanon War 1982, full engagement in Gaza, kind of limited size operation since 2008, and few prolonged wars or engagement in Gaza, in Judea and Samaria to a decade and half in the securities zone in Lebanon.
Meir Finkel: So when you put it all together, the amount of test cases for researcher dealing with force employment or force design is huge. And this enable learning from the IDF, not only from occasions where the adversary was similar between the US army and the Israeli army, which are the usual kinds of learning, but in much wider aspects. And I just want to talk about two, I would call learning events of the US army from the IDF. One of them is well known from the Yom Kippur War, the reason is obvious. We, the Israel used American and American tanks and airplanes, and we were fighting the Syrians and Egyptians using Soviet tanks and airplanes, and also the newly acquired and deployed the 80 GMs, the [inaudible 00:06:30] missile, and the most sophisticated, the surface to air missile, let's say six.
Meir Finkel: So the reason for learning from the IDF was obvious. And I would say it was kind of learning on the tactical and operational level, relevant lessons for a future war in Europe, between NATO and Warsaw Pact. A second event is 2006, here I think the US army learned from the IDF, from the strategic level on the issue of what is happening to an army, which is occupied in the long wars. Like we were fighting in Judea and Samaria, losing along the time, the capability to fight in combined arms warfare, joint warfare.
Meir Finkel: And the US army was saying, "Okay, I'm fighting long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, maybe I should blur from this issue." But also in some aspects of tactical and operation level, [inaudible 00:07:28] was taken as what was called the hybrid threat. And they used high trajectory fire in the Israel case on the civilian there, in your case, on basis in Iraq, tunnels, et cetera, et cetera. But I just give those examples as a basis to my claim that in my new book, on Studies on Generalship, there is a lot, much to learn from Israeli military history, because what I deal with or focus here in this book is not the adversaries or weapon system or tactics, which change all the time, but this is practically a self-reflection on organizational and psychological issues that at least in my opinion, are universal and enduring.
H.R. McMaster: And I'll just say the two examples you gave, 1973 and 2006, did have a profound impact on the US army. And just for our viewers, I wanted to summarize the general Don story, a real visionary in our army in the 70s and into the 80s, went to visit Israel in the wake of the 1973 war to learn everything that he could. The work that he did in the wake of that led to a fundamental shift in our doctrine called Airland Battle, which emphasized the integration of all arms and joint capabilities to seize and retain the initiative over the enemy and took into account the countermeasures. You mentioned that the Egyptians in particular, but the Syrians as well had integrated into their forces after the lessons they learned from 1967.
H.R. McMaster: So I think what this example shows us is the continuous interaction with enemies in war, but also with adversaries in between wars. And we have to be recognized that our adversaries will always be developing countermeasures to capabilities that we think, oh, might be decisive in future war. I think whenever we hear decisive, we should probably run for the exits, because nothing's ever decisive. And this of course was the problem in 2006, where some of these theories of future war that really, really the next war will be fundamentally different from all those that have gone before it, I think captured the Israeli defense force, it captured the American army as well.
Meir Finkel: In 2006, the issue was that the Israeli military thinking was not focused, but particularly people say commanders hiring officer that the war against terrorism in Judaea and Samaria, and we suffered from a massive suicide bombs in passes in Israel, et cetera. So they thought that there won't be any big wars. That was the issue then, it's not they saw that future war was going... They thought basically, it's kind of [inaudible 00:10:41] saying there is complexity inside this issue, but practically they said, "No more big wars. We are winning the war against terrorism. And then we got to take the second Lebanon War." Getting back to the issue of learning from Israeli military history, I think, but most of our audience will say, "Okay, but things have changed."
Meir Finkel: We, the Americans are focusing again on whatever the Russians, the Chinese. The Israeli military history is not relevant anymore. And what I'm trying to say, that what I'm suggesting in my book is that, I would say that I try to put the strategic environment and the enemy and the technology in the back of the test cases. And I think I can do it because I'm focusing not on the engagement between the IDF and its adversaries, but on its internal processes. I'm focusing on what's going on. I'll just give you an example with the few of the chapters of the book, if it's okay?
H.R. McMaster: Yes. And I'll just point out, I think, what is interesting to point out first, maybe just front, an important to point out is that, the Israeli defense force chiefs are both commanders and their advisors. And I think the framework that you developed to assess them is particularly powerful. So I was just going to ask you to maybe introduce the framework that you used to assess IDF chiefs over time, and the circumstances that they encountered in light of their main duties and responsibilities?
Meir Finkel: Okay. I'll just begin with the note, when I'm saying the chief of staff, it's not really the chief of staff in American terminology. The chief of staff in the IDF is the commander of the IDF, is the sole commander, he gives the direct orders and force employment and post design, and he's subordinate to the minister of defense and the government decision. He combines practically, I think he combines both the chairman of the joint chief of staff and the competent commanders authorities. It's just for clarification.
Meir Finkel: He's not a staff officer, he's the commander. Now concerning the conceptual framework, basically, I think that I'm looking to find, to describe and crystallize phenomena, that's what interests me. Not the test cases, because a phenomena by definition is something that will happen few times in the past and will happen in the future. So looking for things that will happen in the future and we, the Israel defense force should learn from, and now those who will read the books.
Meir Finkel: I focused on the social aspects of the military doing. Now, the first chapter deals with the responsibility of the chief of staff of the commander of an organization, a general in his responsibility to identify changes in geopolitical, operational, and tactical realities, declare what is the new situation, to give it a name, to name it. And then of course, to initiate a shift in his forces, under his responsibility, to meet the new threat. Now, I compared six IDFs chief of staff involved from a great success to pay bills.
Meir Finkel: And the idea is that, when you look on yourself on issues of who is responsible for what? Authorities, division of labor within the military organization, the creation and diffusion of knowledge, and you put the adversary or the geopolitical situation in the back, you are able to crystallize the phenomena and get lessons from the future. For example, from this chapter, what I squeezed out from those six test cases was that, what enabled the chiefs of staff to do it right, to identify change and beginning shift the idea toward the new issue was three issues.
Meir Finkel: First, the personal experience, meaning that, for our audience, that if you think that your main future theaters will be, I don't know Europe and the Pacific, you want the next commander of whatever general that you are going to appoint to a very critical position will serve along his career in those both theaters. In the old day in Israel, it was Sinai and the Golan high, in the days of the big wars, now, it's probably serving along the Israeli Lebanese border, north arena and in the Palestinian arena, either Gaza or Judea and Samaria. So this is a first requirement for a commander to understand that something gets changed because he has a reference, a personal reference.
Meir Finkel: He remembers something from his part, he's saying, "Okay, this is different from what I remember, let's get the investigation into the issue." The second suggestion is that, he will create a situation. He will develop personnel that I would say troublemakers and keep them within his headquarters, because when things change and you have to critically, or check your sometimes very deep rooted concept, somebody will be brave enough, close to you, and brave enough to say you are wrong. We are doing fine, the wrong thing. So second, the guideline is create a situation where people can say, you are wrong within your close environment. And the third one is, when I compare chief of staff, he's the formal learning processes that they organize for learning the diverse issues that they were dealing with. And there are all kinds of learning methods and processes.
Meir Finkel: So the combination of your personal experience, the close environment with trouble makers and creating focus, learning machineries aimed at specific programs, altogether this enable, according to my research, the chief of staff to identify change as early as possible, and chief of IDF and vice versa, those that indeed they do it will surprise. And sometimes depressed got into what is called the cognitive dissonance and couldn't handle the situation. So what I'm trying to say about my conceptual framework is that, I believe that when I focus on myself, it always repeats organizations based on humans and all what I described before are similar all over.
Meir Finkel: And that's the reason that I believe that the book would be very interesting for everybody, because you don't have to know very good IDFs military history, and some may say, "Okay, this is totally different military culture. Why should I learn from the Israel?" My military culture is different, but I'm saying it's not. And if you want, I can describe another chapter and why it's relevant for everybody.
H.R. McMaster: I'd love to hear your thoughts on this relevance, but I'll just tell you, I think it's absolutely relevant. The background and experience of leaders is an important consideration, obviously. And then I think your second point is having people around you who are going to tell you not what you want to hear, but give you an honest assessment of your initiatives and to give you good advice. I think that has a lot to do with how secure a leader is in his personality. Those, I think who are insecure tend to surround themselves with sycophants and people who are yes, men and so forth. But then I think what I'd like to hear a little bit more about is this, is setting up the ability to learn as an organization, because this is a topic that you bring up in your previous books as well.
H.R. McMaster: And when we were developing our future armies, I tried to put into place a framework for learning around what we called, the army war fighting challenges. First order problems. That will ever really be solved. We're working on interim solutions to these problems such as how to develop and sustain a high degree of situational understanding in complex environments and against adaptive enemies. So by asking that question, you're developing a way to learn about that in a focused, sustained, and collaborative manner, instead of learning, oftentimes what we do is redundantly and episodically and so forth, but could you say more about how you saw effective chiefs develop a learning process and a learning organization?
Meir Finkel: Yes, I was the head until two and a half years ago, the head of data center, which is an organization kind of... let me think the English word-
H.R. McMaster: Maybe a think tank, a think tank and-
Meir Finkel: No, no, no. It's not a think tank. It's not a think tank. This is a big difference. But, when I describe data center, it's practically a kind of strategic and operational level learning accelerator. What data center is doing based on a learning concept called design, but it's not the American design, it's the Israeli version of design for our audience who think that it's similar design, and I will elaborate a little bit about this issue. We were responsible to develop the method and aid the generals in doing it. Because every strategic and operational level learning process is unique.
Meir Finkel: You have to design a process, focused on this set of problems, organization, whether it is a regional command in Israel, a service, a regional division, a commander of an army like the air defense. Each one of the learning processes depends on the issue and on the organization. And you have to develop a unique, dedicate the learning forces for each case. So data center is responsible still to do it. And it's not a think tank that gets the information and write papers about what I think should be done. Data center is aiding from within the organization. Meaning that I work with the commander, the major general is commanding the northern command. He thinking about next war with [Bala 00:23:27], what is going on now in Syria concerning Iran, et cetera, et cetera.
Meir Finkel: So I'm working with him along half a year. And data center researchers, which are researchers by name, but practically they are grown up in a way that they will be able to accompany a major general or Brigadier general in their learning processes. Of course, it's part of the process. We make focused research on issues related to the content of the process, but the Israeli strategic and operation level learning machine is based on understanding or open minded commanders that I think aligned with what you just said, feel secure enough to expose themselves on certainties. This is critical, critical if you-
H.R. McMaster: And to challenge assumptions. And I think I know the data does what really, what we do in the training and doctrine command in our army, and across our joint force is experimentation and war games. And trying to challenge assumptions and come to different conclusions about priorities for force modernization and improving military capabilities.
Meir Finkel: Yes, but in Israel somehow, and this relates to military culture. We almost don't use red teams, usually external red teams seems to a commander as guys that will never get deep enough into the complexity of the issue like him, and therefore cannot judge him. Our way is that, let's say I'm accompanying a general, I'm part of the learning group. And then in some part, I'm constructing the war game in order to challenge his current and really developed understanding and assumption. This is related to military culture, but usually we are not using external, in some cases we do, but in most cases not. But I think, and again, I want to get back to the issue of the secure personality or insecure personality, because I think this is a major issue in general development and commander development.
Meir Finkel: I think that in the Israeli case, as I said, in the last seven and a half years altogether, commander of data and head of research now, working with them, working with the chief of the staff, history of the IDF is that, if you are insecure, have insecure personality, you'll just fail. Because the pace of change of reality in Israel is so high, if you will stick to previous concept and you won't identify the change when it's only growing, you'll fail. So generating the idea I think practically are going along the way in a way that you can choose or force up those that have secure personality and can cognitively and mentally handle large amount of uncertainty, and the ability again, expose themselves, their inconvenience.
Meir Finkel: It's not easy for general to say, "I don't know." Really and to say, "I don't know the answer we have to work on." And particularly it's a huge disservice because in the morning, let's say the commander of the northern command is visiting in let's say battalion exercise and is talking with the commander is saying, "Okay, we are going to beat [inaudible 00:27:39] with the tactics and weapon system that you have now." And later in the afternoon is conducting a session in his learning process with let's say his staff, and division commander saying, "Okay, we have to develop new tactics. We are not relevant. Our concept is not relevant."
Meir Finkel: So his personality has to contain both aspects of the very hierarchy based conduct of commander and very open aspect of open research and openness for criticism. And this is not easy. And I believe this is something that is extremely difficult, but good commanders, whatever, I think whenever they are around the world are able to do both things.
H.R. McMaster: I think this framework for thinking about the future, generating change, and then coping with the outcomes of those changes is a really useful framework that you provide in the book. And I'd like to just talk a little bit more about, you mentioned culture, and I think about our warrior ethos these days as being under duress and I describe the warrior ethos. So think about it as a covenant that binds soldiers to one another, and also binds us to the society that we serve. I think it's under strain here in the United States for a number of reasons, but what can you tell us about the role of the chief of staff in determining and directing the IDFs culture, which includes we're emphasizing values that are important to combat effectiveness?
Meir Finkel: Well, first I want to tell the chief of staff in Israel as a personality in the Israeli society, I think it's unique position compared to other, I would say western armies. He's not only the commander of the army, he's one of the most important social personalities in the eyes of the civilian. Because the security demands or the security challenges in Israel are so vast. I think there are usually people are checking the appreciation of civilians of values organization in Israel like the Knesset, our parliament, the army, the police, et cetera, et cetera. And usually the IDF is the most esteemed organization. And the chief of staff is leading the most esteemed organization within Israel.
Meir Finkel: So what he says and doesn't say, and how he react to all kinds of issues related to the warrior ethos and other issues is held not only within the army, but immediately over Israel. So his challenge I would say in various regarding to the issue of war fighting and the warrior ethos, and this is on maybe three or four aspect. Fails is the lead ethos in the last operations the IDF did not employ the great amount of lead forces and all the time questions, whether or not my son, let's say my son is infantry soldier in one of the infantry brigades, but people ask themselves, "Okay, if you know [inaudible 00:31:51] warfare is not very important. So maybe I will send him to less demanding, but maybe more important service in the intelligence, maybe go to [inaudible 00:32:04] and maybe after the army will have something to live for.
Meir Finkel: And those kinds of questions. And the chief of staff is dealing with elevating all the time, the lead they want ethos which is an issue. Another one is the issue of, I don't want to get too much into details, but the issues of women serving the army. We've got women almost in every unit. I think the IDF was still heading this issue of putting women in combat action. And now the Orthodox Jews on the other side that are saying, "I have a problem." Meaning the Orthodox soldier have a problem with staying in the same small unit with women. But the IDF needs both. So he's dealing a lot with this challenge.
Meir Finkel: Sometimes he's criticized from both sides. From one side, people saying, "Okay, I want to see women tankers, in tanks." From the other side, they say, "Okay, if women will be in a tanks unit, then the Orthodox Jews won't be able to be part of the unit." So all together as a military personality and the social personality, as I said, is challenged all the time in this issue. And this is, I can't say what is the percentage of his time dealing with those issues, but is fully engaged with them. And that's part of... and I believe it's, I'm not aware of what's going on in the US concerning those issues, but he has to deal quite extensively with those issues.
Meir Finkel: And there are all kinds of measures and try to emphasize the warrior ethos. Meaning like if you are a soldier in combat unit, remind the audience, this is a conflict army, it's not a volunteer army. You are not paid for this issue. You do it by law. And then for 20 years as a result soldier. But still for the combat soldiers who finish almost three years of combat service, they get from the state of Israel money for bachelor degree in universities. And this is only one measure of the state of Israel and the chief of staff dealing with this a lot. They try to emphasize and build and force the issue of oil liters which, as you said, is challenged all the time. A long answer.
H.R. McMaster: And of course all of these issues are political. So is giving military advice. I don't know if you're tracking some of the controversy here in the United States about this catastrophe in Afghanistan, what I would characterize as our self defeat in Afghanistan. But a lot of the questions revolved around, did the president receive best military advice? What kind of advice was given? And you really, you deal with this quite extensively in the book. And you talk about how the IDF chief of staff has to juggle the policies and preferences of the political echelon, manage disagreements between mean the IDF and leading Israeli politicians.
H.R. McMaster: You come up with really four patterns in the behavior of IDF chiefs of staff and dealing with political leadership. Could you talk more about that dynamic at the civil military level?
Meir Finkel: Yes, basically the military national is subordinate to the political echelon, and this is quite clear. But as in many cases, it can be in every issue that the political level is dealing with, there are sometimes different points of view between I would say, let's call it the professional echelon and the political echelon. Now, I must say before we continue that in Israel, differently from the US and I believe in Britain, in other, let's say security establishment, we don't have something which you can compare to the Pentagon, meaning that most of the military thinking up to the strategic level is conducted by the IDF.
Meir Finkel: Our ministry of defense has got a small unit that deals with strategic issues. And there's security council that aids the prime minister. But still the amount of people and the expertise is within the IDF [crosstalk 00:37:34].
H.R. McMaster: And I'll just point out just for our viewers, that this is another part of the big difference. You have US Department of Defense, led by the secretary of defense. You have administrative of defense, obviously as well, but there's an extensive civilian appointed staff. And the joint staff is clearly subordinate to that and provides best advice for the chairman. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, just to highlight again, is not in the chain of command in the United States. The chain command goes from the president to the secretary of defense, and then to the combatant commanders who employ the US joint force.
H.R. McMaster: It's much different in the IDF. I just wanted to point that out. And so I would imagine that the civil military issues are even more intense because they're not really mediated at all by a secretary of defense. Not that they should be either. It's probably better to have that unvarnished advice. But could you talk about, of course, these four ways of dealing with the political echelon, but also, you talk about the minister of defense as should be a discussion partner with the IDF chief. And I thought you might want to expound on that as well.
Meir Finkel: And to continue what you said, many of the ministries of defense in Israel were chief of staff before it. And that is very important. So they understand the army very good, the army, I mean the IDF, and they understand how it looks like from the chief of staff point of view, working with the operations. And this is another thing that I believe quite different from the Israeli establish... And that's again, why chief of staff are appointed to be ministers of defense. Again, I think people understand in the society and in the political echelon, that there are some advantages and disadvantages, but mainly advantages in a defense minister who knows the army.
Meir Finkel: Okay. And getting to your point, I described four kinds of interactions, and I do not claim that there are those kind of interactions. And I will elaborate in a minute about them, the all plateau of interactions, but just examples. They are beginning with Moshe Dayan as the chief of staff, trying to enlist prime minister Ben‑Gurion, be to enforce his, the chief of staff view within the army on a very important general within the army, general score was the guy who pushed forth the use of armor in wars. So in this case Moshe Dayan was trying to get the prime minister within a military session to say what Moshe Dayan wanted him to say, it didn't work for Moshe Dayan. Ben-Gurion said, "Okay, I understand ask few questions."
Meir Finkel: But didn't make it easy for Moshe Dayan as the chief of staff to decide. On the other side of this range, you could see minister of defense, Yitzhak Rabin, trying to enlist chief of staff Dan Shomron, to stop an already decided the state size project of developing an Israeli air fighter, the Lavi. So in this case, he knew that Dan Shomron was against, Dan Shomron was saying as vice chief of staff and commander of the ground forces service that is against the Lavi. And he wanted to develop a long range stand of firearms, like the Israeli version of the follow on forces attack on long range strike. And he wanted to close this project and defense minister Rabin enlisted him because he was known as a war hero.
Meir Finkel: And he knew that the government will listen to the chief of staff. So in between those examples, there are not many, many interactions along the hills, the issue in Israel is that, as I said, in the beginning of this part of our discussion is that the chief of staff personal esteem within Israeli society is very, very high and it's not easy for the political echelon to totally reject what the chief of staff is saying. It's not easy to political usually will not want to openly fight with the chief of staff.
H.R. McMaster: Well, and of course in the democracy, you don't want generals to make policy. Because nobody elects generals. And they're not accountable to the people. And I think a way to think about this is to expect best military advice from senior military officers, but also expect those officers not to cross the line between advice and advocacy publicly, or actively advocating a particular policy.
Meir Finkel: I totally agree. And I don't think that in Israeli military history, there was a case of crossing the line. There were some cases where the chief of staff was-
H.R. McMaster: Walking up to the line?
Meir Finkel: No, I think the lines were guarded, but I want to add another aspect and that's it. This is again, related to the insecure or secure personality and the ability of the chief of staff to bring with him persons form his staff that thinks otherwise than him to the government and not close the discussion within the IDF. And I want to give two, three examples. During the Yom Kippur War, the vice chief of staff was the head of what is called the [Gamo 00:44:11]. The J3 in the IDF, general Israel Tal was previously the chief of armor and very famous for his act as a commander of armor.
Meir Finkel: He was practically within the discussions within the IDF GHQ, kind of saying to everybody that the chief of staff, David Elazar said, "Well, this is not the time. This is not time for the counter attack in Syria. I don't think we have to cross the canal now. Maybe we'll be late." Okay. The major decisions and think how hard it is to the chief of staff, when his vice chief of staff and head of the NJ3 saying, "This is not the time." But David Elazar brought Israel Tal to the political military discussions. And after he presented his views and he said, "I think we should cause the canal now." To Moshe Dayan then the minister of defense and [inaudible 00:45:14] the prime minister. He said, "Okay, now I want you to hear my vice chief of staff who thinks otherwise." This is amazing.
H.R. McMaster: No, it's a great example. It's a great example. And just for our viewers, this is the counter attack in 73, after the strategic surprise. And we're going to talk a bit more about that because our mayor has a great book, as a separate book on flexibility, on how to recover from strategic surprise. But I think it's a great example of giving best advice. Understanding that what the elected leader needs is multiple options and best analysis. And now that's a great example. I think of leadership fulfilling their trust.
H.R. McMaster: Chapter three, in chapter three of the book, you talk about the dynamics associated with an internal loss of trust. And could you give a few examples of that, that sort of illuminate what can lead a loss of trust? And then how can leaders recover from it? Or how can they recover from it? We're in a bit of a crisis of confidence here in the United States associated with a lost war in Afghanistan. So I think this is particularly relevant to the discussion here in the US as well.
Meir Finkel: Okay. And so chapter three as you said with a lot of trust of the chief of staff during war time with a commander of original command. And this is what's great in comparative analysis. People may think, okay, two, three, totally different events 1956, 1973, 2006. But practically because we deal with interechelon relations, responsibilities, authorities, et cetera. Practically, what I found out is that the dynamics of the loss of trust are identical. And they're embedded within two parts of the process.
Meir Finkel: First of all, what I found out that in those three cases, there were hidden assumptions and discussed before the war about the concept and the plans. People thought that we were talking about the same issue. People use sometimes the same terms, but they meant otherwise, and this is easy to find out. And I think the lessons here is that, and sometimes it was done because I'm not sure this is the right term in English, what is called industrial piece. Okay. I don't want argue to make a fast out of this issue. I won't argue with you, we just put it aside, probably there will be no war in the next few years nevermind. But-
H.R. McMaster: No, I just want to highlight this is so important. I think so often I think you can attribute strategic failures to implicit and therefore unchallenged assumptions and the behavior of satisfying. Coming to this drives consensus that prevents you really from thinking clearly about complex problems, but there's this is a very rich chapter. Go on Meir on what are the other dynamics.
Meir Finkel: Yes. But I think that in Israeli military culture is not as satisfying. It's just that people think, I'm talking about content, not just... the Israeli military culture is based on the Jewish culture of debating. And we debate all the time really. And formality in the IDF is less appreciated, hierarchy is less appreciated than experience and efficiency, et cetera. So debating is really on the content. But I think that sometimes, really people think that they agree on something, but when you dig in after the war, you understand they that practically although they thought they agreed, there were islands of things that they were not clarified. And the lesson is to dig in the concept and the plans and get it clear what we don't agree upon and what we agree.
Meir Finkel: And at least now before we begin war, what we don't agree upon. And the second part of the process is of course the war. When they engagement begin and you are acting on the background of undiscussed issues then, naturally gaps are becoming. bigger. And then you add differences in expectations regarding false employment. How fast, I think as the chief of staff, you are supposed to do, this and this? How many casualties suppose in my view, in your view to have in those parts? Issues of the broken telephone phenomenal of, I'm talking to my staff and my staff is talking to the general regional command staff and he's talking and the all day is issues, sometimes advisors from out of the chain of command, somebody's advising me is not in the chain of command, is annoying me, et cetera, et cetera.
Meir Finkel: Altogether, you can see that in 1956, 1973, 2006, three different war, three different generals. It ended in Moshe Dayan wanted to dismiss general Asaf Simhoni from the army. General Simhoni was just killed in air crash a day after. So he was not dismissed from the army. General Elazar, chief of staff send his vice chief of staff to command the southern command above the commander of the regional command, Godish, a kind of Israeli way of saying, "Okay, I'm not sending you out, but I don't want the public to know that the crisis is going on." And the same happened in 2006.
Meir Finkel: General Halutz, the chief of staff sent his vice chief of [Kalinski 00:51:57] to be above general, Adam in supervising now. And when I found out that the dynamics are almost identical, that of course create a huge interest within current military generals because they understand that will probably could happen during their period because it's and doing issue. And what I suggest in the book is you as a commander and subordinate, and your staff should know that this is part for any inter-echelon discussion and the interaction. And now, after you read the book and many staff officers in Israel are reading this book, you know that your mission is not only to do the staff process, to do the right things that your commander is telling you to pass the information.
Meir Finkel: Part of your mission is to look all the time for cracks and trust. Either is from the chief of staff point of view, or the regional command, or the service point of view. You have to conduct double thinking, you do the right thing. And you think about what you are doing, whether or not, you identify crack between echelons. And then if you see that you have to go to your commander and say what was done in one of the test cases that I present, well chief of staff, I think you are not on the same page with the commander of the regional command, go there and meet him in person and discuss this issue.
Meir Finkel: This is not an issue that can be discussed in big forums on the VC. And my suggestion is that you can... if you understand that this is an enduring and we it'll happen once, and again, not only in Israel, in the American army, in every army, now we understand better how to deal with it. You will look for it, you'll look for it, and when you identify it as a staff officer or the command itself, you'll be able to close the gap, not give it or let it widen until a loss of trust and catastrophe. I just want to add another small issue. In the test case, which is amazing in my view. In the test case, dealing with 2006, the second Lebanon war, the aid of general Halutz, Colin and Ronnie Numa said exactly what I just said. He said to general Halutz, "I think you are not on the same page with general Adam, go to start where the headquarters is and talk with him."
Meir Finkel: And the most amazing thing is that, he was staying out of the room and they talked in four eyes, and when the chief of staff Halutz goes out, he said to Ronnie Numa, "Thank you so much my dedicated aid, it was great. You were right. Now we cleared everything." Few minutes ago, general Adam is getting outside he's saying it's a catastrophe. General Halutz doesn't understand what they said. Meaning that it's more complex, even if you try to stitch those gaps. And this is I think, and I want to emphasize, because military engagements are so complex in our age and so dynamic and so involved with politics, the amount of those cases or... how do I say, you'll have to cut this.
H.R. McMaster: You can just back up, just back up and restart, and then we can cut it.
Meir Finkel: Yeah, no, no, it's okay. The statistics of how they call it, when the statistic is getting higher, that something will happen, the probability okay.
H.R. McMaster: The probability. Yeah.
Meir Finkel: So I think that in current and future military engagement, they are so complex by nature and so dynamic, and they are so involved with the political act, the probability of a loss of trust is getting higher. And I think it's more important than before when things were more stable and more slow that people will understand within headquarters, commanders themselves, the people within headquarters will be able to assess the situation, not only from its objective issues, but also from the point of view of the inter-echelon dynamics and be able to say, "Well, there's a crack, inter-echelon crack beginning, and I'm responsible also to close it." So I think it's a major lesson for the future.
H.R. McMaster: Exactly. And then also to have an eye toward making sure that you're integrating all efforts toward your objectives, and you don't have people and commands working across purposes. There are so many examples I'm thinking of in military history, but I don't want to of time on that. Because I want to move on to your other books too. So studies in generalship, I'll ask you just first, before we do that to summarize, what is your framework for assessing military leaders? There's a lot of discussion here in the United States about military leadership now, especially in the wake of Afghanistan. Can you share with our readers just your summary of your framework for how to assess military leadership?
Meir Finkel: I cannot crystallize this because in my book I chose the title of, what is the meant from the chief of staff in the IDF is this one short passage when I looked for it. Okay. What is the job of the chief of staff in the IDF? It's written to command the IDF and design its force. I couldn't do anything with this as a researcher. So I had to break it down in to pieces and the pieces that I got of the chapters of the book, they are not encompassing everything, but defining the strategic situation, making a change in forced design. And I mean, change is not buying more of no more tanks or more airplanes, but sometimes changing the direction of the force design. And I describe three cases.
Meir Finkel: Sometimes it's rehabilitating the army after a war that is taken as a catastrophe, or as a failure. And I give two examples, chief of staff Gur after Yom Kippur War and chief of staff Ashkenazi after secular Lebanon. But sometimes it's not a failure in the war. Sometimes it's a crisis within the military organization. So this is applicable also to the armies, chief of staff, knowledge. This is the second part. This is a big issue. No, a chief of staff can grow up in a service, is infantry man, infantry battalion commander. Someday he will move to the right or to the left, mechanize the armor, brigade commander, et cetera, et cetera.
Meir Finkel: But practically you won't be a pilot. You won't be in intelligent researcher. And I deal with in chapter two with the issue of what are the knowledge criteria for a chief of staff on domains other than the one he had grown up in, and this is a major issue. And I try to conceptualize this issue and give four levels of knowledge. And I suggest and claim that the chief of staff has to be at least in level three of knowledge about all other domains, like let's say is a pilot. So it means on Naval issues, land warfare issues, cyber issues, et cetera, et cetera.
Meir Finkel: So what I try to do in my final is to practically, I try to give to the readers and to our viewers, a kind of a better shape of the outskirts of this huge and the very demanding position. And it still doesn't... I couldn't get to everything issues related to the war. It was issues related to developing human resources. There are many aspects. And that's the reason that the book, which is what I just released and translated into English apparently is the first one in five books series. The second one published in Hebrew, was dealing with the GHQ. Because for research purposes, I isolated the chief of staff from his staff.
Meir Finkel: And this is not an easy issue because people may say okay, he is a part of a complex organization. He's taking the decisions. He's leading the force. But there's a staff under him. There are the services, very powerful organizations. So for the purposes of research, I kind of isolated the chief of staff. And this is what you see in this book, but I think I did it right. I gave the minimal amount of details on the environment and what the staff did and what the services did. But my next book is focused on the processes. The staff work, the learning processes from the staff point of view, the learning, et cetera, et cetera.
Meir Finkel: And the next three books are dealing with the air force, the ground forces and the intelligence branch, because it's a complex system, in order to fully understand it, you have to look at the same issue from various aspect.
H.R. McMaster: Well, here, I think what our viewers should do is read your book and then they can come up with their own framework for assessing leaders. And what I'd like to do is, you summarized what you're doing with your next book, but could you talk about your previous books, Military Agility, and On Flexibility? I think these books are really important for any organization that is trying to respond to surprise, to a new set of circumstances. And what are the big lessons of those books? And what did you glean from that research?
Meir Finkel: Okay I begin On Flexibility which deals with military adaptation on the battlefield, recovery practically, from what I focused on, which is technological and doctrinal surprise. Meaning a new open system and new tactics that the enemy is using. And in my investigation, and what I found out that usually military organizations are dependent on intelligence on the enemy and experiments with what they have, compared to what they think on the enemy.
Meir Finkel: And as you said, in the beginning of our discussion, usually, military thinking on the blue side is freezing the other side. Meaning I'm changing a lot and I'm going to beat him, but the other side is frozen. He's waiting for me to make the change. This is military thinking.
H.R. McMaster: And this is when you hear about leap ahead capabilities, which is another phrase that I think we ought to run for the exits whenever we hear that.
Meir Finkel: Yes. This is related to I'm leaping and he is stuck in the same time. If this is something that we love as a military officers and researchers to think. But what I found out that local military history, no matter what, in many cases, I won't say that in all, in many cases, no matter what the intelligence effort and experimentation effort was done, armies didn't succeed in envisioning next war. And what I suggested in the first book is that, "Okay, if that's the case and best effort is done by all armies all the time, then probably the answer lies with giving the army and the commanders and the units in the field, the ability to recover on this surprise. You'll know that you are surprised, sorry to say that, only in the battlefield.
H.R. McMaster: Right. I'm thinking of sir, Michael Howard, the famous military historian, he said that, we're never going to get it exactly in terms of anticipating the demands of future war, the key is to not be so far off the mark, that you can't recover once the true demands of that conflict are made apparent to you.
Meir Finkel: Yes, I agree. But I add something more, although you shouldn't be too far in your basic capabilities, you will be always surprised. So the burden will be on the forces in the field. And what I suggest in the book basically is a framework for building the army about the issue of not only being more little, or more fast than the other side, but more flexible. And the idea is built on all levels of flexibility. The first one, and I won't elaborate, because we don't have the time is the conceptual and doctrine level.
Meir Finkel: Meaning that, again, as I said there before, you will have in your staff trouble makers who all the time tell you that you are wrong. Okay. You say in peace time, "Okay. I'm not wrong, but I still don't kick you from my headquarters." But then when surprise appear, you are calling this guy and telling him, "Okay, now say again, what you thought in peace time." And maybe this is the solution. And doctrinal flexibility means that you'll have to say during military education, "Sorry, I don't know everything about future battlefield." The doctrine that I teach you then can cover only up to 70% of what's going to be on the battlefield.
Meir Finkel: The last 30% will be your responsibility. You in your brigade, battalion division will have to develop the last 30% because only then you and me as the organization will understand what's going on, on the battlefield.
H.R. McMaster: I just want to highlight, this is super important Meir, because I think today people use this just the phrase of artificial intelligence. Which a whole range of technologies. And many of them assume that these range of technological capabilities are going shift war fundamentally from the realm of uncertainty, to the realm of certainty. And of course your book argues strongly against that. And the framework ought to summarize for our listeners.
H.R. McMaster: They ought to read the book. I think anybody who's interested in creating flexibility organizations should take a look at Meir's framework of conceptual doctrinal, cognitive command, organizational and technological elements to create an organization that has a higher degree of flexibility. But if you assume you're going to know everything, the war's going to be certain, I think are setting yourself up to build flaws and weaknesses into your military organization.
Meir Finkel: Yes. I totally agree. I totally agree. In some cases maybe, I don't know. Maybe the first war that will be based on the artificial intelligence, the side that will use it will win. But in the long term, I don't know. I cannot predict as you understand what's going to be in the next world. But I think in the long term, that it may be in the first use of AI that people will rely too much on it. That it'll fail. It's not only that it'll fail, it may work, but it won't be enough. It won't be enough. The issue is that everything is changing.
Meir Finkel: You cannot predict many of the changes. And we have to remember, it's not predicting what your competitor on the other industry is doing. It's an adversary, it's competing to win you. It's trying to get into your system, is trying to make it hard for you, unlike in the civilian war. And I think that building flexibility within the system, conceptual doctrinal organization one, which has by itself a four sub-level. So basically balancing between capabilities, air strike, and land maneuver, down to a redundancy in weapon systems when you think this is... not for everything, but when you decide that those issues are the most important one.
Meir Finkel: And the kind of a command and control concept of mission command, it doesn't matter if you will have a flexible organization and many assets, but if, as a commander, you are not allowed to do whatever you think in battlefield to exploit them, in face of the new situation, nothing will work. If you limit the authority during peace time, people will not do it in war time and fail. And the last aspect of this flexibility concept is fast lesson learning process within the organization. I expect the IDF and I was responsible for this in one of my previous positions, this for the ground forces, to understand what is new, think about it and give new suggestions to the forces in the field within 24 hours.
Meir Finkel: You say, Israel is a small country. The fights are along the borders. They are fighting in Gaza. I am 20 kilometers in the back getting the lesson talking, but still, this is a huge burden again, and demand for a form I think modern military organizations, being able to learn, you have to succeed in learning within few days, much faster learning than in prolong the engagement.
H.R. McMaster: And I think Meir, across all of your books, these are lessons that apply to business leaders. Leaders in other professions, of course, it's learning and extremists when the stakes are life and death. But hey, I can't thank you enough on behalf of the Hoover Institution. Thank you for helping us learn more about real battlegrounds. We usually use that term metaphorically, but real battlegrounds and learn lessons from battle and war that are important to building a future of peace and prosperity for generations to come. It's been great to see you. Great to have you here on Battlegrounds Meir.
Meir Finkel: Thank you again for inviting me. And it was great seeing you again and see you soon.
H.R. McMaster: Thanks, thanks Meir.
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