ABSTRACT
From a purely military point of view—and even if all the political constraints are taken into account—the Peace for Galilee War could have ended differently. Most of the Israel Defense Force's (IDF) regular combat echelon and a large part of its reserve forces—armored formations, infantry, artillery, and engineering and intelligence units—were introduced into Lebanon during the war, but only a small portion of this huge war machine actually fought. Every corps or other IDF element, regular or reserve, struggled to ensure its proper representation in the war. Every professional corps units in the war acted according to its corps' procedures. During the war Headquarters ignored objectives and time-and-space considerations and permitted each corps element to operate according to its own standard procedures, regardless of their relevance to developments on the ground. The IDF ground forces in the Peace for Galilee War, fought according to their preferred style, i.e., the systematic use of firepower rather than maneuver.
