Why the IDF can’t win wars: The fatal flaws in its ethical code

A recent public debate in Israel has emerged regarding the IDF’s ability to secure victory given its current ethical code.

For those unfamiliar, the ethical code written by Asa Kasher and Avi Sagi in the 1990s is considered unique in that it does not include the value of victory. Instead, it appears to prioritize "human values" over the values of the nation, the people, or the sanctity of the land.

Much of the philosophy behind this ethical code stems from the work of Michael Walzer, particularly his book "Just and Unjust Wars", published in the late 1970s.

Over the years, this ethical framework has become a primary tool for post-Zionist movements, allowing them to embed their universalist and progressive ideology into the military establishment, thereby undermining the operational effectiveness of the IDF. Since the implementation of this ethical code, the IDF has not decisively won a war.

The understanding of the Ethical code's influence on the IDF's ability to win a war, is based on the fundamental reality that a military is first and foremost measured by its core-values, which ultimately shape its battlefield achievements.

The most important research on this topic has been conducted by Rabbi Yair Kartman and Rabbi Yaakov Yakir, who have published their findings in Hebrew. These studies have appeared in the journal Hashiloach (Mosaic) and as part of a research compilation by the Yachin Center for Strategic Studies (Full disclosure: the author is a research fellow at the center).

In this article, I seek primarily to highlight the failures within the current IDF ethical code and the philosophy of Walzer. In a future article, I will also present an alternative ethical code of my own.

Part I - Limitations of a Code and Moral Dilemmas

Part II - The Weakness of Asa Kasher's Ethical Code

1 – The Absence of Asset Development in the Field Leads to Immorality

By placing "the individual" at the core of its ethical foundation, the current code subordinates national assets (land, property, wealth, security) to an external non-operational category rather than to Israel.

This creates an operational and economic flaw, as it is difficult over time to subjugate Physical national assets that are grounded and created in cultural, national, and economic contexts, to abstract values that lack real-world functional remifications that serve the social contract. The moral failure of the IDF code does not lie in its emphasis on "the individual" or "Humanism" — but rather in its lack of practical application, which lacks an empirical basis - ultimately harming the very universal "Man" it seeks to protect.

As a result, The document is non-operational, lacks applicability, and is morally indifferent (amoral) already in its foundational concept, from which its value architecture is derived.

2 – Incoherent Transitions Between Layers Lead to Methodological and Operational Failure

Beyond its moral shortcomings, the IDF’s ethical code operates through a flawed methodology: it shifts arbitrarily between theoretical, identity-based, and operational sentences — an approach that undermines its realistic-vaule.

This approach ensures its own failure. Because this multi-structural approach creates ambiguity where the principle that defines success is not the same as the principle that defines the military system’s requirements. One of the consequences is that following the reading of the IDF ethical code, one can never be able to determine what a REAL failure or a sucsses is made of —because the IDF has circularly subjugated military-requirements to the code's multilayer phraseology itself, preventing any objective assessment of its effectiveness through measurable concepts such as victory.

Thus, the code both defines the system’s goals and limits us to the means by which they may be achieved based on its idea of right and wrong but at the same time does not tell us how to do so - Brilliant.

Any deviation from the code is automatically unacceptable, regardless of operational needs.

Hence, this is a circular system that cannot be refuted at this stage, making it an ideological-circular document rather than an operational, professional, or scientific one.

The problem is that, as an ideological document, it also lacks economic and operational logic, as mentioned in Section 1.

3 – The Inability to Define an Operational Space Due to "Purity of Arms"

The IDF code fails to define operational combat zones because the principle of "purity of arms" (Another Jewish invention) restricts military action beyond what is necessary to achieve battlefield success.

By prioritizing the "ethical purity of arms" rather than the preservation of the military system, the IDF code paradoxically renders itself incapable of ensuring the very self-defense it seeks to uphold without which it won't be able to exist.

The focus on weapons and their moral constraints, rather than on identifying and neutralizing enemy threats, creates a fundamental problem of ensuring existence and protection.

4 – Lack of Governmental Authority

Has the IDF Code of Ethics been approved by the Israeli government? Has it been ratified by the Knesset? If not, then it is invalid, because the military cannot subject itself to principles that are not derived from government orders—otherwise, it constitutes insubordination.

5 – A “Defense Army of the Individual” Contradicts the Need for a State

A military designed to protect "Man" does not need to exist—as individuals can defend themselves. This is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution—the right to bear arms and protect oneself, eliminating the need for a state military or an ethical code for combat forces.

6 – An Internal Contradiction Leading to Enforcement and Implementation Failure

The document takes an inherent contradiction between the values of "particularist nationalism", which oppose the values of "pure universalism", and overlays it with another inherent contradiction—between the concept of a "national army" and the universalist value of "human life".

This contradiction within a contradiction cannot be objectively enforced. It is engineered from the outset for arbitrary judgment, and from the outset, it leads to enforcement or implementation failure.

On economic, operational, logical, and conceptual levels, this is an amateurish document designed to fail.

The explanation that this is a document engineered for failure stems from the fact that the value is applied in a way it was intended to be applied.

The document is, first and foremost, devoid of logic, and only afterward, in the field of reality, do its ethical failures emerge—stemming from conceptual ambiguity, lack of functionality, and lack of authority.

Thus, the document is entirely moral—except for the fact that it cannot be operationalized, adjudicated, enforced, or implemented within a military-state system.

Part III – The Moral Distortion of Hybrid Warfare in International Law

Asa Kasher and Michael Walzer write in an era of mixed warfare, guerrilla/civilian warfare, a method of war used by Germans, Africans, Communists, and Arabs.

This method was not known to French and English gentlemen or to Jews.

Therefore, it is an ideal method for integrating questions from the professional military domain with questions from the moral/political domain—and even more ideal for the situation of occupation in Judea and Samaria, which combines:

A. Guerrilla warfare

B. The embedding of combatants within the civilian population

C. An occupying army masquerading as a political entity

This culminates in:

D. An oligarchic perception of the military system as an independent system with political freedom.

This perception ignores the fact that the more wars become mixed, the greater the need for expulsion in order to create separation, as was the case until the 20th century.

Thus, important categories include:

International law is not a factor in this world.

It is a legal framework designed to create attrition and serves a Communist ideology aimed at exhausting the moral strength of the occupier who defends his land and sovereignty.

By blurring the distinction between just military power and unjust military power, through integrating combatants within the civilian population, it creates guilt regarding the expulsion of the enemy from the territory.

This results in more deaths among Africans, Arabs, and Communists, which in turn leads to prolonged warfare and the retreat of just forces.

Avoiding expulsion creates civilian and armed population mixing, irregular warfare, continuous friction, and a cycle of intermingling in which the false framework of international law attempts to wear down the moral forces and fulfill the objectives of the Arabs, as described by Yitzhak Sadeh—"Tactical losses, strategic victories."

This is how false international law seeks to exhaust the West.