What can the PLA learn from the IDF?

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is generally regarded by military experts as one of the finest armed forces in the world. IDF doctrine has been shaped since Israel's founding by the country's need to stave off attack from the numerically superior and geographically advantaged forces of its hostile Arab neighbours. This doctrine encompasses the IDF's belief that Israel cannot afford to lose a single war, a goal that it feels can be attained only through a defensive strategy that includes a peerless intelligence community and early warning systems and a well-trained, rapidly mobilized reserve component combined with a strategic capability that consists of a small, highly trained, active-duty force that is able to take the war to the enemy, quickly attain military objectives, and rapidly reduce hostile forces.

An integrated organization encompassing sea, air, and land forces, the IDF consists of a small corps of career officers, active-duty conscripts, and reservists. Military service is compulsory for Jews and Druze, both men and women, and for Circassian men. Muslim and Christian Arabs may volunteer, although because of security concerns, the air force and intelligence corps are closed to minorities. The period of active-duty conscription is three years for men and two for women; this is followed by a decades-long period of compulsory reserve duty (to age 50 for women and age 55 for men). Reservists have 30 to 45 days of military service and training per year, but in times of national emergency reserve duty can be extended indefinitely.

Since the IDF depends on the reserve service of the population to meet manpower requirements, it continues to be mainly a popular militia rather than a professional army. Consequently, civilian-military relations are based firmly on the subordination of the army to civilian control. The chief of staff of the IDF, the nation's highest-ranking military officer, is appointed by the government based on the recommendation of the minister of defense, who selects the appointee from ranking IDF officers. Training is a crucial element of Israeli military success, and the IDF administers an extensive network of military schools and colleges for the training of its enlisted personnel and officers. In addition, a special force, the Nahal, combines military and agricultural training and is also responsible for establishing new defense settlements along Israel's borders. Youth battalions conduct premilitary training for young people both in and out of school. The Israeli government also assigns the IDF to provide educational services for recent immigrants whenever the need arises.

A brief history to "Arab-Israeli wars"

They are the major conflicts between Israeli and various Arab forces, most notably in 1948–49, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982.

The first war immediately followed the proclamation of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948. Arab forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon occupied the areas in southern and eastern Palestine not apportioned to the Jews, then captured the small Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Israelis, meanwhile, won control of the main road to Jerusalem through the Yehuda Mountains (Judaean Hills) and successfully beat off Arab attacks. By early 1949 the Israelis managed to occupy all of the Negev up to the former Egypt-Palestine frontier, except for the Gaza Strip. Between February and July 1949, as a result of separate armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab states, a temporary frontier was fixed where the line had been at the beginning of the negotiations.

Tensions mounted again with the rise to power of the nationalist Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser; in October 1956, in the midst of the international crisis caused by Nasser’s seizure of the European-owned Suez Canal, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula to destroy Arab military bases there. In five days the Israeli army captured Gaza, Rafah, and Al-Arish—taking thousands of prisoners—and occupied most of the peninsula east of the Suez Canal. The Israelis were then in a position to open sea communications through the Gulf of Aqaba, an added threat to the Egyptians. In December, after a joint Anglo-French intervention, a United Nations (UN) Emergency Force was stationed in the area, and Israeli forces withdrew in March 1957.

Arab and Israeli forces clashed for the third time June 5–10, 1967, in what came to be called the Six-Day War. In early 1967 Syrian bombardments of Israeli villages had been intensified. When the Israeli Air Force shot down six Syrian MiG planes in reprisal, Nasser mobilized his forces near the Sinai border. During this war Israel eliminated the Egyptian air force and established air superiority. The war cost the Arabs the Old City of Jerusalem, the Sinai and the Gaza Strip, the Jordanian territory west of the Jordan River known as the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, on the Israeli-Syrian border.

The sporadic fighting that followed the Six-Day War again developed into full-scale war in 1973. On October 6, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur (thus “Yom Kippur War”), Israel was attacked by Egypt across the Suez Canal and by Syria on the Golan Heights. The Arab armies showed greater aggressiveness and fighting ability than in the previous wars, and the Israeli forces suffered heavy casualties. The Israeli army, however, pushed its way into Syrian territory and encircled the Egyptian Third Army by crossing the Suez Canal and establishing forces on its west bank.

Israel and Egypt signed a cease-fire agreement in November and, on Jan. 18, 1974, peace agreements. The accords provided for Israeli withdrawal into the Sinai west of the Mitla and Gidi passes, while Egypt was to reduce the size of its forces on the east bank of the canal. A UN peace-keeping force was established between the two armies. This agreement was supplemented by another signed on Sept. 4, 1975. On May 31, 1974, Israel and Syria signed a cease-fire agreement that also covered separation of their forces by a UN buffer zone and exchange of prisoners of war.

On March 26, 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty that formally ended the state of war that had existed between the two countries for 30 years. Under the terms of the Camp David Accords, as the treaty was called, Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, and, in return, Egypt recognized Israel's right to exist. The two nations subsequently established normal diplomatic relations with each other.

On June 5, 1982, less than six weeks after Israel's complete withdrawal from the Sinai, increased tensions between Israelis and Palestinians resulted in the Israeli jet bombings of Beirut and southern Lebanon, where the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had a number of strongholds. By June 14 Israel's land forces had invaded Lebanon as far as the outskirts of Beirut, which was encircled; but the Israeli government agreed to halt the advance and begin negotiations with the PLO. After much delay and massive Israeli shelling of West Beirut, the PLO evacuated the city under the supervision of a multinational force. Eventually, Israeli troops withdrew from West Beirut, and the Israeli army had withdrawn entirely from Lebanon by June 1985.

Hostility continued, however. On December 9, 1987, rioting broke out among Palestinian Arabs living in the Israeli-occupied territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and in Jerusalem. The Palestinian demonstrations and riots continued in the following years and took on the character of a mass popular rebellion (known as the intifada, or “uprising”) directed against continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In 1993 Israel and the PLO reached an agreement that involved mutual recognition and envisaged the gradual implementation of Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip before a permanent peace settlement. That process began in 1995.

Sticking to the topic question....

I will avoid the temptation of the flippent answer of "Cruelty, Savagery and Cowardice" and say little for its own doctrine, but perhpase a lot for its strategic and tactical planning.

The IDF must be the Antithesis of the PLA, being a small well armed and usually fanatically motivated. The PLA is huge, still lagging behind in many issued equipment areas, but unquestionably well motivated.

Maybe there is some room to model some elite units on the IDF, but overall, I think it gives the PLA an example of a small but advanced military, of the type which it may theoretically one day have to deal with.

Excluding technology transfer opportunites (highly unlikely) I would say that is it.

While i agree that pla is almost the exact opposite of the idf there is still much the pla can learn from it. after all as Maork points out the idf is really the only army that has modern fighting experience (horrific over match situations don't count, either does warfare involving only infantry).

A fairly random list i just thought of:

urban operations
Anti-guerrilla warfare
combined arms operations

some debatable technical stuff:

always including a rapid fire cannon on your aircraft
possibly getting rid of your bigger boats
designs focused on survivability
don't forget the value of ground based artillery

as for technical exchange, didn't is Israel give the uav plans to china that really pissed off the Americans?

IDF is one of the finest army in the world however its organization may not be the best for PLA. Iseral is tiny compared to china, there is no way the chinese can ever afford to organized their armed forces along these lines.
apart from tatic for airforce and tech-transfores there isent much. the Soviet army instead is a much better example welll armed with high-tech equipment but still large enough to win battle by numbers.Because pla is orignaly orrganized along soviet lines is also easier to rearm.

I agreed with Darth sidious. IDF is a great force, but China would have hard time to fellow their foot step. But I think China could train some SpecialOptForce in different method than orginal military, china can learn a lot from IDF in urban warefare, ant-guerrilla warefare, anti-terroism and rapid respond unit.

IDF like army=elephant
Soveit style army= ants

elephant may kill some ants ,But eventualy it WILL be eaten

China is like the soviet union in many ways

1 releative poor cant afford a large IDF like army
2 high population ( copared with potenial enemies)
3 large land mass to defend
4 less advabced then rivial tech wise

such a situation demands a large army at a reasonably low cost
weapons produced will be more paratical and relible at the expanse of perfomance

a T-99 will lose aginst the abrams at a one to one encounter, But will most certinaly win in a Kursk style battle ( fire power and armour releative the same but T-99 will be in far greater numbers). A AK may not be as accurate as a M-4 but it wil shoot regardless of enviroment. Lack of high perfomance aircraft will be overcomed with massive numbers of cheap Sams etc.

lack of quality will be overcomed with Quanity

IDF has been victrious in the past because all of its enemy have roughly the same size military much are armed and trained in soviet lines. This combined with forgein supprot better weapons and training allowed iseral to surive.
Lack of unity amoung arabs in also a grerat asset enabling iseral to take o and defeat her enemy one by one.

this will noit be the case if the enemy has greater numbers? better motivation/training in the iran-Iraq war Iran manage to hold off a enemy with superior weapon with numbers alone.

Lack of unity between Arab nations and foreign support for Israel were huge factors in winning the wars. Had the Arab armies actually fought together as one army, then the outcome could have been quite different. Also, it isn't necessarily easy to say that the Israelis simply "won." The Arab armies put up quite a fierce fight on many fronts yet they lost because of the incompetence of their superiors (during the 1967 war, there was a single road that went straight to Jerusalem that the Israelis had left unprotected; a Syrian tank general never took that opportunity to strike and was later hanged after the war).

In regards to the PLA, the PLA and the IDF are two very different armies with very different doctrines. Israel has to defend itself by enemies that can field relatively large armies that can overrun the tiny nation. China is a massive country that currently doesn't have an enemy that has the capability to invade and take over Chinese territory.

crazyinsane105 said:

they lost because of the incompetence of their superiors (during the 1967 war, there was a single road that went straight to Jerusalem that the Israelis had left unprotected; a Syrian tank general never took that opportunity to strike and was later hanged after the war).

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The story that I read was that one of the generals had a whole bunch of tanks lying around and wanted to use them however when he suggested this to Asad snr. he grabbed him by the neck threw him against a wall and said 'Who will protect us if we use ALL our army' ? presumably from his own public.

The main universal lessons from the Arab-Israeli Wars I believe is that a generally higher education level all the way down the chain from generals to privates, and especially amongst NCO's, can very well be the deciding factor. Israel's high pace meant that they took the initative and their enemies were forced to react upon Israeli manouvers instead of making their own moves (first half of the Yom Kippur War being an exception).

When you add mission tactics to this you get what not only made Israel beat their bigger and sometimes better equipped enemies, but also what made Germany win the battle for Tannenberg and their Luddendorf offensive succesfull, not to mention the huge German victories in the early parts of WWII. The fact is that Germany throughout the Second World War managed to "do more with less" when compared to the Allies who, especially the Soviets, were more strictly directed from the top.

It is one of the great ironies of history that the country that best have carried the doctrines of Germany forward is Israel.