Israel's Lessons Learned in Lebanon

First, we have a USAF analysis and bomb damage assesment (paid subscription required) which basically comes down to the following: Don't let an Air Force General be the chief or your general staff, as General Dan Halutz was. The pertinent quote:

Israel broke new ground when it became the only other country besides the U.S. to conduct a sustained, round-the-clock, modern air campaign in responding to rocket and missile attacks by Hez­bollah from southern Lebanon, says Arkin. But in doing so, Israel also followed a discredited airpower model by failing to connect air and ground attacks to its overall political and military objectives and communicate what it was doing.

This basically translates to following Curtis LeMay's strategic bombing doctrine. It is another argument against having an air force as an independent branch of the military service.

The Israeli assesment of the war (paid subscription required), is similar, though I think a more complete analysis. Some pertinent quotes:

Specifically faulted is the decision to begin operations before military objectives and political goals had been identified.

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“Hezbollah is not the problem; leadership is,” says one of Israel’s renowned generals, now retired. That lack of leadership failed to improve a longtime mis-prioritization of effort, intelligence, training and decision-making that led to a muddled military campaign, he says.

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Additionally, one finds problems in coordination between services:

Early in the conflict, the Israeli air force (IAF) was not in the same network as the army, according to aerospace industry officials; however, after several days of combat, that connection was made and data exchange was improved.

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“The air force did a good job in taking out the medium- and long-range missiles,” the retired general says. “Northern Command was the problem. The air force could attack only [in short-range missile launch areas] if it got permission. Katyushas and other short-range missiles were the responsibility of the artillery and Northern Command.”

Additionally, it appears that the IDF was going through a shift similar to Rumsfeld's transformation, with similarly dismal results.

Government officials had not anticipated a war, and Halutz (a technocrat) had been brought in to the top position to shave defense spending, streamline acquisition and change the force to a less armor-heavy mix. Air Force pilots of the rank of colonel and brigadier general, asked about the Army’s antipathy toward Halutz, say the former chief of staff would be the last to blame anyone in the army, but they agree there was a good deal of resentment from regular army commanders who saw opportunities for senior positions slipping away from them as the military changed.

Part of the lesson is a round the clock air presence above the the battle space, and part is the fact that there really was no plan on what to do if the army had to move in a full scale invasion:

If the army had been better prepared, some Israeli officials contend, a strong move toward Beirut would have pulled the Hezbollah fighters out of their bunker positions and forced the Lebanese government to get involved earlier. But with the transformation unfinished, an attack into Hezbollah’s most heavily fortified positions turned into a war of attrition and a political trap.

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“You can only get rid of the Katyushas with a land force,” says the retired general. But by the time the ground force was heavily involved, the conflict had gone on for a month and Hezbollah was in its long-prepared positions. “The attack was strategically incorrect,” he says. “Instead of going into Hezbollah land, they should have gone to Beirut. They lost [military and political advantage] every day after the first four. You have to go for the limited war, otherwise the advantage is with the irregulars, and the focus shifts from the battlefield leaders to guys in offices.”

Basically, Israel bought into the "Networked war" model that the US has been pushing for some time, and it did not work against irregular forces (It did against Saddam's army, then failed utterly against the insurgency).

I think that there is going to be a much greater role for armed drones in the future too:

Discussing UAV armament is taboo, but Elbit-built Hermes 450s were armed with missiles and used heavily as strike aircraft during the Lebanon fighting. Late in the war, no Hezbollah short-range missile was fired without immediate counter-fire from a UAV or manned aircraft, say a number of Israeli officials. To ensure there was always a UAV available on short notice, they were operated in stacks positioned over several parts of the battlefield. A UAV would enter the stack upon arrival, circle until needed and then return to base after completing its mission. The aircraft operated at an altitude where they could not be heard and, often, not seen. The Hermes 450s generated 16,000 flying hours, three months in a row with a 92% mission completion rate, the officials say.

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Despite hard flying by the UAV unit, management of the conflict limited their contribution and exposed their limitations.

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My guess is that we will first see this in the skies above Gaza, where the opportunity for immediate response to Kassam launchers being set up will be the primary mission.