\t Italian World War I general Giulio Douhet, often called the father of strategic airpower, once said: \u201cVictory smiles upon those who anticipate the changes in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes occur.\u201d<\/p>\n That insight still holds true more than a century later. Militaries like the IDF that place a premium on keeping up with the bleeding edge are finding that anticipating changes means they must redefine themselves now.<\/p>\n Looking to the future, the army is learning to strike a balance between coding and courage, algorithms and intuition, machines, and the men and women behind them, for an era where wars are waged through networks, sensors and software as much as through firepower.<\/p>\n Ghost in the machine<\/p>\n The IDF\u2019s latest push for adaptation could arguably be traced back to 2019. That year, chief of staff Aviv Kohavi championed a shift away from dependence on large-scale ground formations as part of a multi-year plan he dubbed Momentum<\/a>.<\/p>\n At its heart is a \u201cmultidimensional strike\u201d concept, also known as multi-domain operations, or MDO, which seeks to strengthen three interconnected capabilities: real-time tactical intelligence to detect and engage targets; expanded aerial strike capacity to hit multiple high-value targets in rapid succession; and a sweeping digital transformation that linked sensors, strike units, and the air force through advanced information networks.<\/p>\n Together, these innovations aim to make operations faster, more precise and less reliant on prolonged, manpower-heavy campaigns.<\/p>\n To make it work, the plan calls for a structural overhaul of the IDF\u2019s ground forces \u2014 shifting from traditional divisions to smaller units designed for strategic maneuvering and equipped with improved defenses, particularly against anti-tank missiles.<\/p>\n The combined approach underscores a clear objective: to create a more agile and technologically driven ground force that could operate without needing large-scale callups of troops.<\/p>\n Kohavi\u2019s vision, however, now faces an uncertain future. Unverified reports, first aired in April by Kan, indicate that the IDF is considering disbanding the very unit that embodied his multidimensional warfare concept \u2014 the so-called Ghost Unit<\/a> \u2014 and reallocating its resources among other elite formations.<\/p>\n The IDF has yet to comment on the matter publicly.<\/p>\n \t The Ghost Unit is a showcase of Kohavi\u2019s push for compact, versatile units that could rapidly deploy and perform a myriad of maneuvers to face a wide array of threats, a Swiss army knife of sorts. Unlike traditional combat formations, it combines a wide range of capabilities from across the military \u2014 including infantry troops, fighter jets, attack helicopters, tanks, combat engineering, drones, K-9s and robotics.<\/p>\n But the Ghost Unit was never just about tactics. It was part of a broader revolution in military thought \u2014 what strategists call multi-domain warfare.<\/p>\n Everywhere at once<\/p>\n Tim Sweijs, director of research at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies, describes MDO as \u201cold wine served in new bottles.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea, he said, builds on century-old visions of coordination between land, air and sea forces, but now extends across entirely new dimensions, such as space and cyberspace.<\/p>\n He credits the conceptual shift to \u201cthe sensor revolution \u2014 the ability to see everything, everywhere, all at once \u2014 combined with the information and communication technology revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n \t \u201cThese two technological advancements have made it so military organizations dust off older concepts,\u201d Sweijs explained.<\/p>\n MDO aims to synchronize every aspect of warfare \u2014 kinetic and digital, offensive and defensive \u2014 across land, sea, air, cyber and space, while linking it with non-military tools such as information operations. That means combining traditional weapons and troops with activities like cyber disruption, satellite surveillance and information campaigns aimed at shaping public perception and the enemy\u2019s decision-making.<\/p>\n Imagine an army deliberately seeding false intelligence to convince an adversary that no attack is coming. Once the enemy has relaxed alertness, a tightly synchronized multidomain action unfolds: naval units secure the coastline, satellites and drones feed real-time images to commanders, aircraft carry out targeted strikes while electronic-warfare assets degrade the enemy\u2019s ability to coordinate, a small ground team moves to seize key positions, and a remote cyber cell quietly intrudes into the group\u2019s networks to confirm identities and intercept communications.<\/p>\n For a traditional military, such an operation could take years to plan and coordinate, working through thickets of actors, bureaucracies and mission-critical choke points. An army using a multidomain strategy would theoretically cut through all that to enable rapid simultaneous action across all these areas to overwhelm and surprise an adversary.<\/p>\n In practice, though, making it all work is far more challenging.<\/p>\n \t \u201cMost of these militaries are still very much organized in a service base,\u201d Sweijs noted \u2014 meaning they remain divided into traditional branches such as the army, air force and navy, each with its own hierarchy, culture and command structures. \u201cSo that whole idea of MDO is aspirational, but as it comes down to reality, it\u2019s really hard to implement\u2026 also because the individual services aren\u2019t trained to operate in such a context.\u201d<\/p>\n Confusion also persists over where multi-domain integration should occur \u2014 at the unit level, as with Israel\u2019s Ghost Unit, or at higher operational echelons. Sweijs pointed to the challenges of \u201ccommander overload,\u201d warning that small-unit MDO often demands impossible levels of coordination and risks over-reliance on constant connectivity.<\/p>\n Yet, even non-state actors \u2014 who operate asymmetrically against well-established militaries \u2014 are learning to exploit the multi-domain approach.<\/p>\n Sweijs called Hamas\u2019s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel \u201chorrific,\u201d but noted that \u201cyou could argue that this was an MDO operation,\u201d combining land, air and sea infiltration with rocket barrages and information warfare.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s own campaigns, he said, offer some of the most advanced examples of multidomain coordination. In its June 2025 offensive against Iran<\/a>, the IDF fused kinetic strikes, intelligence and covert action into a single, synchronized effort. Israeli jets hit missile, nuclear and command sites deep inside Iran, guided by satellite intelligence that produced over 12,000 high-resolution images<\/a> in real time.<\/p>\n On the ground, over 100 foreign agents<\/a> \u2014 some reportedly operating a drone base inside Iran<\/a> \u2014 helped neutralize air-defense systems to assist the Israeli military in its campaign. At the same time, Israeli cyber units infiltrated the phones of Iranian officials\u2019\u00a0bodyguards and drivers, turning their devices into trackers that led strike teams to their targets.<\/p>\n \t Still, Sweijs cautions against viewing MDO as an end in itself.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if we have smaller, dispersed and decentralized units operating with more capabilities,\u201d he said, \u201cyou will still have a difference between the close fight and the deep fight\u2026 and the ways that you not only execute them, but command and control them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFighting a war on the ground with Hamas is different than fighting a war with Hezbollah, and is very much different than fighting a war with Iran,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n An automated future<\/p>\n If multi-domain warfare is the blueprint, AI and automation are the machinery bringing it to life. For Aviv Shapira, CEO and co-founder of XTEND \u2014 a defense technology company that provides drone systems to militaries, including the IDF \u2014 the past two years have been a live experiment in that transformation.<\/p>\n \u201cXTEND is very unique in a way, because we had the power and the privilege to actually save lives in the past two years,\u201d Shapira said.<\/p>\n His company builds an operating system that allows soldiers with minimal training to control swarms of drones and robots remotely, keeping operators out of harm\u2019s way. Since October 7, 2023, XTEND has become one of the largest drone providers to the IDF, supplying systems for intelligence, reconnaissance, precision strikes and counter-drone operations.<\/p>\n \t \u201cEveryone thinks that the air force can win the war without boots on the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cUnfortunately, we\u2019ve seen that it\u2019s not like that.\u201d<\/p>\n The future, he argues, lies in precision robotics \u2014 tools that can do what human soldiers can\u2019t, in places the soldiers can\u2019t safely go.<\/p>\n Artificial intelligence, meanwhile, is rapidly transforming how those drones operate.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of AI \u2014 or thanks to AI \u2014 they can actually make decisions for the first time, based on everything they\u2019ve learned from human operations,\u201d Shapira explained.<\/p>\n Today, most drones around the world are still manually operated, he said, \u201cbecause autonomy is not good enough.\u201d But progress is accelerating. In XTEND\u2019s systems, AI already manages flight control and target detection \u2014 though strike missions still require human approval.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to killing enemy targets, AI needs to be under ethical reviews,\u201d Shapira said. \u201cWe created a flying computer that has ammunition capability, and when that computer is independent, we have to make sure it doesn\u2019t make mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n During the early weeks of the Gaza war, however, the limits of AI became clear.<\/p>\n \t \u201cWhen the war started, we thought we knew what we were doing,\u201d Shapira recalled. \u201cAI completely failed because it was training on the wrong scenarios\u2026 Drone spoofing was something that no one had prepared for.\u201d<\/p>\n Spoofing normally refers to an activity in which a data source is disguised as another to mislead a target. During the war, Israel used widescale GPS spoofing, emitting false GPS signals to obscure the real location of assets, to confuse incoming rockets and hostile drones.<\/p>\n But the tactic occasionally disrupted friendly systems as well, causing XTEND\u2019s autonomous drones to lose positioning data or misinterpret their environment. As a result, human operators had to step in, revealing the limits of AI-trained systems in unpredictable electromagnetic conditions.<\/p>\n In those moments, the \u201chuman touch\u201d \u2014 adaptability, intuition and improvisation \u2014 proved irreplaceable. Yet Shapira remains convinced that, once properly trained, AI will eventually surpass human performance in certain combat roles. \u201cWhen it\u2019s better than a human,\u201d he said, \u201cI would give AI the controls.\u201d<\/p>\n Manpower transformed<\/p>\n For all the talk of machines replacing humans, Azar Gat, academic adviser to the executive director of Israel\u2019s Institute for National Security Studies, argues that such assumptions misunderstand the history of technology itself.<\/p>\n \t \u201cWhat we know from 200 years of technological development is that the workforce does not contract. It\u2019s transformed.\u201d Just as tanks and airplanes didn\u2019t reduce army size in the 20th century, drones and AI won\u2019t erase the human factor \u2014 they\u2019ll redefine it.<\/p>\n \u201cIn many roles, drones and other robotic systems are going to replace human activity,\u201d Gat said, \u201cbut the idea that this means a reduction of manpower is beside the point.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of expanding the number of foot soldiers, Gat believes that militaries will redirect manpower toward operating, maintaining, and programming increasingly complex autonomous systems \u2014 ensuring that humans remain essential, even as machines take on more of the physical fight.<\/p>\n \u201cThe IDF is as big as it was during the Yom Kippur War and larger than it was during the Six Day War,\u201d Gat noted, referring to conflicts in 1973 and 1967. \u201cWhat we need is an army of whatever size \u2014 depending on the threat \u2014 which is fully technological.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the 1980s and 1990s, the IDF\u2019s overall manpower and number of divisions have been cut roughly in half. Yet Gat sees this as evolution, not erosion.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/WhatsApp_Image_2022-08-04_at_12.35.03.jpeg\")
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\n\t\tIDF chief Aviv Kohavi (right) speaks with Nimrod Aloni, chief of the Gaza Division, near the border with the Gaza Strip, August 4, 2022. (Israel Defense Forces)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/WhatsApp_Image_2020-07-23_at_14.53.15_1.jpg\")
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\n\t\tSoldiers and a K-9 from the IDF\u2019s Ghost Unit take part in a weeks-long training exercise in July 2020. (Israel Defense Forces)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/WhatsApp-Image-2023-11-06-at-14.05.24-640x400.jpeg\")
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\n\t\tSoldiers are seen monitoring surveillance cameras at a command center at the IDF\u2019s Re\u2019im camp in southern Israel, November 5, 2023 (Israel Defense Forces)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/AFP__20240207__34HW96A__v7__HighRes__TopshotIsraelLebanonPalestinianConflict-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tAn Israeli soldier looks on as a helicopter takes off during a military exercise in Upper Galilee near the Lebanon border on February 7, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY \/ AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/WhatsApp_Image_2025-06-25_at_15.37.41_1-640x400.jpeg\")
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\n\t\tIsraeli Air Force F-15 fighter jets fly over Israel en route to carry out strikes in Iran, in a handout photo published on June 25, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/66f95a875ab822134ad622ad_Xtender-slide-3-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tAn action shot of XTEND\u2019s XTENDER drone, used for tactical indoor reconnaissance, unknown date. (XTEND)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/F240801CG327-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tA man shows GPS disruptions on his cell phone on the Google Maps app, Haifa, August 1, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg\/Flash90)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/AP25278213020222-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tIsraeli soldiers drive tanks inside the Gaza Strip toward southern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025. (AP\/Ariel Schalit)<\/p>\n
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