Strike First or Wait Defensively: The Formulation of the idf’s Fighting Strategy after Israel’s War of Independence

Two facts related to the fighting strategy adopted by the Israel Defense Forces (idf) following the first Israeli-Arab War of 1948 are well accepted. The first is that after the war, the idf adopted a ‘defensive-offensive’ strategy. The second is that in 1953 this strategy was replaced by an ‘offensive-defensive’ strategy. Over the years, researchers have suggested several explanations for this change. However, opinions remain divided. This article argues that although the ‘offensive-defensive’ strategy was preferred particularly by officials in the planning and operational departments, they reluctantly chose the ‘defensive-offensive’ strategy for economic and strategic reasons. Only a few years later, however, after re-evaluating the premises on which the ‘defensive-offensive’ strategy had been based, the idf switched gears and returned to the strategy it had wanted from the beginning: to strike first.