What do other countries think about Israeli tactics and security challenges?

This week, Israel is hosting a range of around 130 officials from foreign militaries to present some of its lessons and latest warfare techniques from the 2023-2025 Middle East war.

On Tuesday, The Jerusalem Post embedded with the foreign military officials as they heard IDF lectures, witnessed a full-on IDF war games exercise that included explosions, gunfire, drones, tanks, and dozens of soldiers, and visited IDF bases displaying artillery and other long-range firepower techniques both from the frontline and headquarters perspectives.

Among the countries involved are a large contingent of diverse US military officials, as well as contingents from Canada, Britain, France, Germany, India, Morocco, Finland, Greece, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Estonia, Japan, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia.

While a condition of the Post’s attendance at the various events was not to reveal the identity or country of the officials, the Post did speak to military officials from several countries, and for some countries, multiple officials from the same country.

There was no single script or reason the officials were here.

Some were interested in shopping for cutting-edge Israeli technologies for their own militaries, and this was an opportunity to get much wider exposure to many more technologies and how they are used in the field than one might normally get.

For example, some militaries have not yet advanced to using the futuristic-looking virtual reality electronic glasses that the IDF now uses to simulate and explore various battle zones.

After data is combined from satellites, drones, aircraft, ground forces, and other clandestine intelligence collection means, the IDF usually has an extremely detailed depiction of a given battle zone in Gaza or Lebanon, sometimes down to centimeter levels of detail.

These glasses also allow inserting friendly and enemy forces into the mix of the virtual reality battle zone to play out certain scenarios.

Moreover, multiple IDF officers can conduct a review of a virtual battle zone from physically distinct areas as long as they are using the same technology.

Other militaries have virtual reality glasses, but they lack some of the features of the IDF’s systems and want to augment their existing systems.

Yet, others were interested in the old-fashioned physical techniques that the IDF is using for operating its artillery units or in how the IDF is jointly coordinating its new diverse aerial elements, including tiny, medium-sized, and huge drones, directly with its land forces.

Some military officials still face asymmetric urban warfare threats like Israel does, and wanted to learn about counter-terror techniques.

Still others do not foresee needing to conduct urban warfare anytime soon.

These days, they are far more interested in whether IDF techniques for ultra-micro-level coordination between land and air forces can be played out in traditional large-scale land warfare.

Military lessons for countries worried about potential Russian invasion scenario

This could be relevant for countries worried about a potential Russian invasion scenario if, at some point, its ambitions expanded beyond Ukraine – not so theoretical after it has violated the airspace of several nearby countries.

If Israel is still stuck in the counter-terror era that much of the world dealt with post 9/11/2001 and is only slightly augmenting its land forces’ broader army-to-army fighting capabilities, Russia’s war on Ukraine has pushed much of the rest of the West to fully walk back the clock to an era of potential large army battles.

Few of the foreign officials volunteered to discuss the controversies surrounding allegations of war crimes against the IDF and Israel in Gaza.

However, when pressed, some did, and they seemed split about how to address the issue.

On one hand, as military officials, they sympathized with the IDF’s challenges in fighting an asymmetric enemy in an urban setting systematically using human shields.

On the other hand, they found the number of killed Gazans during the war – if anywhere near the 69,000 number is correct, and even if 25,000-30,000 were Hamas or killed by Hamas – to be very hard to swallow.

They also sometimes objected to the idea that Israel should be able to have higher “collateral damage” numbers than other countries and that other countries “don’t get” the idea of terrorism and what the Jewish state is up against.

Instead, they argued that they had faced large-scale terror incidents in their own countries and understood that it could not be combated with kid gloves, but that there were still lines that should not be crossed.

While there will probably be some closed sessions where Israelis and foreign military officials debate these issues more explicitly, which occurred before the war when the IDF hosted conferences periodically for top foreign military legal officials, no such session was open to the Post, and it did not seem to be the main thrust of the visit.

It seems Israel’s strategy in that respect is more indirect – show the visiting foreign military officials the vast, unique challenges they face and the creative techniques they have had to come up with to confront these challenges – in the hope that that presentation will regain respect from any militaries that may have downgraded their respect for the Israeli military’s respect for the laws of war.

A couple of Israeli military presenters detailed the challenges of fighting asymmetric warfare and the caution they undertook to avoid civilian casualties, with at least one saying he can fully “look in the mirror” and know he acted ethically.

Military officials seeking to discuss how IDF works with UNIFIL, Gaza's International Stabilization Force

Some were ready to discuss Israeli military challenges with working with UNIFIL in Lebanon and with the new potential International Stabilization Force (ISF) just ratified on Monday by the UN.

Those who did acknowledged that Israel faced tough dilemmas going forward.

Few voiced high confidence that the ISF would be ready to confront Hamas in a gunfight to disarm them, despite that provision being a center point of what Israel pushed for and succeeded in obtaining as part of the resolution ratifying the ISF.

Rather, they were unsure about the future deployment of the ISF and how effective it would be.

While some of the officials in attendance had specific experience and insights into how to train foreign forces, such as the ISF, it was not clear that any of them would necessarily be involved directly with the ISF.

Other attendees were less senior, and this was part of their initial training for complex missions in differing international battle zones and environments.

Among the military officials, most wore their country’s military uniform and corresponding flag, but some wore nondescript clothing to avoid drawing too much attention due to cultural sensitivities about their relations with Israel and its military.

Interestingly enough, some came from police backgrounds but are on loan for complex missions to their militaries, illustrating the complexities that modern missions can involve.

Overall, the week is likely to at least win some sympathy for Israel among these foreign militaries.

That in and of itself will pay off in future military cooperation, sales, and wearing down recent military embargoes.

How far that sympathy expands to their larger publics is another question.