The IDF is not enough: Israel needs an expeditionary force to fight beyond its borders - opinion

The events of October 7 revealed not only an intelligence failure but also the exhaustion of Israel's security doctrine. For years, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had honed its capabilities in surveillance, interception, and precision strikes. However, its strategy was largely static, focusing on border monitoring, absorbing initial attacks, and relying on air power and missile defense to regain control, a proposition that ultimately failed.

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October 7 did more than expose an intelligence failure; it exposed the exhaustion of Israel’s security doctrine.

This doctrine had gradually adopted the logic of a fortress, where sensors replaced physical presence and fences served as deterrence. While missile defense remains indispensable, it began to overshadow a comprehensive strategy. The result was a military force that was tactically sophisticated but strategically reactive. A fortress, by its nature, surrenders the initiative to the attacker, allowing adversaries to dictate the timing, direction, and intensity of pressure while Israel bears the continuous burden of defending its borders and infrastructure.

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The IDF had become exceptionally capable at surveillance, interception, and precision strikes, yet increasingly organized around a static proposition: watch the borders, absorb the opening blow, mobilize, and rely on air power and missile defense to restore control.

Instead of merely reinforcing this fortress, the proposed solution is to break its underlying logic. This involves fighting on the exposed edges of the systems designed to encircle Israel. However, the post-October 7 debate has largely focused on inquiries, force size, procurement, and accountability, with little doctrinal ambition for how Israel should operate in a region transformed by drones, precision missiles, proxy armies, and maritime coercion.

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That proposition failed.

The article argues that Israel requires more than just a larger version of its pre-war IDF. It needs a new operational instrument: a Tzahal Expeditionary Command (TEC). This permanent joint command would be designed to deploy a limited but potent force beyond Israel's immediate borders, sustain it under fire, and integrate various capabilities, including naval, air, intelligence, cyber, and ground forces. Its purpose would be to impose strategic disruption without necessitating occupation or full-scale war, thereby restoring the principle of displacing the battlefield away from the Israeli home front and forcing enemies to defend their own assets.

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But a fortress cedes the initiative to the besieger.