Perceptions of the future battlefield in Israel vs. Western countries

In the post-heroic era, features of warfare have dramatically changed in Western armies, but what about the future? This study focuses on the perceptions of commanders and experts from Israel versus those of commanders and experts from three Western countries (UK, Sweden and the US) regarding the challenges those armies will face in the future battlefield, at both the macro and micro level. This examination can lay a foundation for understanding the differences in the perceptions of the challenges that Israel and other countries are facing and to identify the major issues that must be considered in the discussion about the future battlefield. Most of the respondents found it difficult to anticipate the future. However, the Israeli narrative of the future was different from the narratives in the other countries. Qualitative analysis has exposed four factors of future battlefield perceptions: the characteristics of conflicts, macro-social factors, information and technology, and unit and command. In the Israeli context, complexity was perceived as a difficulty and even as a threat.