18 to eliminate Iranian know-how in the nuclear, missiles and weapons fields. Israel continued its covert approach of recent decades against the nuclear project and “stretched” it to a war-time scale, striking dozens of specific military-dedicated Iranian engineers. Will the elimination of a key group of engineers, as well as the destruction of Iran’s archive site and labs, have a significant role to play in disrupting the regime’s future projects? Can a military offensive have a substantial negative effect on an opponent’s know-how? These are intriguing questions. 7. Counter-missile warfare. Israel’s air defense system is probably the world’s most dense, multilayered and sophisticated. Although inventory has been eroded during the war since October 2023, Israel became highly experienced at responding to attacks, including two large missile attacks from Iran in 2024. It prepared for this moment by adding layers of technology, redeploying, and accelerating production over many months. The Israeli array was also reinforced by US military ground and sea air defense (THAAD batteries and Aegis ships) and additional aerial warning and interception capabilities. Despite all that, some highly sensitive targets in Israel were hit, luckily without incurring functional damage. Thirty Israeli civilians were killed, thousands were hurt, and thousands of homes were damaged. The relative reduction of damage to Israel was also due in part to Israel’s success at disrupting Iran’s ability to coordinate large salvos, as well as the significant damage inflicted on Iran’s launchers and launching facilities. The future of missile warfare, it seems, lies in the increased effectiveness of the offensive component at overcoming the inherent difficulty of this mission. 8. Special vs. repetitive capabilities. Two original and daring operations that included similar elements – Ukraine’s Spider Web operation in Russia and Israel’s Operation Rising Lion – combined special intelligence operations and the intrusion and operation of covert attack capabilities within enemy territory. The September 2024 pagers operation against Lebanese Hezbollah should also be recalled. Three major events of this nature cannot be taken as a coincidence. The potential of combining covert operations and exploiting supply chains for kinetic operationswithin the frameworkofmilitary systems has been systematically demonstrated. In the Israeli case, both operations were characterized by close coordination of the covert and military dimensions. Alongside the successes, the question must be asked: Is this combination of covert and overt really a “new military grammar”, as formulated by John Spencer in his article “Redefining shock and awe”, or is it conduct that will be very difficult to repeat? Are we witnessing a new doctrinal trend or a security breach that will be addressed? More positively, how can we make a systemic method out of a one-time surprise element? The 12-Day War, as successful as it was on the operational level, did not mark the end of the Photo: IDF Spokesman
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