Page 174 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

174 airpower in 20 Century doCtrines and employment - national experienCes
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Lebanon. The truth is that this aircraft that was designed to operate above the sea,
suffered many difficulties in land operation, we later made every effort to sell it. At
the end, we received many compliments. We invited former IAF commanders to a
briefing that same evening. One just criticizing remark was made, one that I contem-
plated a lot before the Lebanon 1982 war – the exposure of weapon systems we used
could have led the other side to prepare counter measures towards the possibility of
a real war. Exposure of our capabilities during a limited operation in Lebanon could
expose us to many difficulties during a future real war. Criticism is of course legiti-
mate and we did our best to conceal our means and capabilities.
We could not, of course, conceal our capability to destroy the surface-to-air mis-
siles because this was the result of the successful attack. In a historical perspective,
the achievement was very significant to Israel’s element of deterrence. Since the
1982 war and up to 2010, Israel was not required to fight a real major war, some of
this can be attributed to the deterrence achieved and which leads to the conflict on
exposure being justified. If one decides to attack surface-to-air missiles, one must do
it with the best of means and capabilities in order to achieve the best possible result,
and obtain maximum deterrence. There is no doubt that such conflict will arise in
the future due to the asymmetric type of war. It seems that this lesson is true in most
cases.
Short story to be added: In June 1992, when I was director general of the MoD,
visiting Czechoslovakia right after the Glasnost, on a formal visit and during a side
meeting, the deputy Chief of Staff of the host country at the time, former commander
of the anti-a/c forces, told me with enthusiasm that he was in Moscow in 1982 at the
National Security College, and our achievement in destroying the surface-to-air mis-
siles caused a shock to the Soviet defense establishment. In his opinion, it was one
of the reasons that led to Glasnost. I cannot assess the contribution of our success to
the development of Glasnost, but it was clear that from the military aspect, the Soviet
expectations were different. They built very high self confidence with their anti a/c
defense following the Vietnam war, the war of Attrition and the Yom Kippur war,
and this caused a revolutionary change in their approach.