We need brains

In order to win future wars we need cunning rather than expensive weapons The Americans are holding the world's largest arsenal of heavy war machines but were unable to win wars against hungry, poor, and zealous nations - armies with no tanks or planes that learned how to fight a modern war from King David, Yitzhak Sadeh, and Orde Wingate and his night squads.

Hizbullah didn't defeat the IDF. It won because Olmert made errors. Not because the army didn't train or because Peretz didn't know anything about security. It won because it learned the method which the IDF itself used in its early days: By wise counsel thou shalt make thy war.

This is how guerilla fighters defeated the largest and strongest of armies. With cunning. With small and smart units. This was the case in Vietnam, and this is the case in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The world is progressing, but it's moving backwards. The world is shifting back to the period of the Bible where mere violence made no difference. A thousand new tanks won't defeat partisans willing to fight using their head and not only their daggers and willing to die for the sake of an idea.

Today's war is against radical Muslims willing to die for their beliefs. No tank would be able to defeat them. So here comes a new and wise defense minister, Ehud Barak, who in the past came up with the term "small and smart army," and now builds up military power that will cost billions, and once it will be ready, it will be ready for World War II.

Where is this Jewish brain they're always talking about? How come we keep on going into alleys with heavy tanks when skilled field units or small and clever weapons could have defeated the Qassam rockets? No F-1000 jet will beat the mortar of a bold enemy who learned the Wingate doctrine and the Yitzhak Sadeh doctrine, and the doctrine of their student, Moshe Dayan.

The decision was taken to fix the army following the problematic war in Lebanon. A committee was established. More committees were set up. Yet no wisdom broke through the layers of folly. What the defense minister is preparing for us now, along with his distinguished military commanders, who lack real thinking ability, is an army that won't be able to handle any future war.

Iran, even if it wanted to, would not send tanks to cross hundreds of kilometers in the desert against Israel. Iran cares about the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey. It knows that Israel is home to fools who fall victim to the arrogant words of the Iranian president, who is talking about destroying Israel and seeking ways to create a new Persian empire.

In that plan, Israel is a small footnote. Besides, so what? He can go ahead and talk. He knows there is only one country in the world that can destroy his country should it be attacked - the State of Israel and its missiles and what it reportedly possesses in Dimona.

We need to prepare for 21st Century wars
So who will attack Israel? Lebanon? For that we need heavy war machines and spy planes? Syria? Do we really need more heavy machines for that front beyond what we already have? Or maybe we need it for the West Bank? Apparently we do.

Perhaps this is the original thinking of the new defense minister, whose judgment I trusted so much, after he returned from his private journey and began seeking to turn the IDF into the best World War I army.

Something is off in this entire story. I'm not a former major-general or a military expert. I'm the taxi driver who always knows better than the generals. I'm an idiot who sees reality as it is, and sees things that heavy war machine traders don't wish to see: What we need is an army that would know how to win the wars of the 21st century. America is learning this now too. Immense power is no longer a guarantee.

What's truly amazing is that that military thinkers who established the IDF and won several wars never worked by the book. This book is good for learning what not to do. True education came after school was over. Barak understood this once upon a time, and suddenly his eyes were covered by darkness. Suddenly he forgot what he believed in for years.
For our wars in this century we need King David, who used a slingshot to defeat a heavily armed giant. We need brains. We need computer war knowledge.

There's no need to cut off the electricity supply to Gaza in order to punish. It doesn’t work. Five hackers could have paralyzed the computers of Islamic Jihad and Hamas leaders. Yet it won't help, and the laws of life rule that every mistake must be repeated. Failure is better understood than victory. Good luck.