The Typhoon Doctrine: A New Strategy for Securing Israel’s Borders

The October 7 attack and its aftermath revealed significant shortcomings in Israel’s border security doctrine and its implementation. Israel’s assumptions about the magnitude and nature of threats on its borders proved false, and, as a result, its operational concept and plans to protect against those threats failed. These struggles starkly underscore Israel’s need for a new border defense doctrine to better detect and counter a wide range of threats to its homeland.

This paper, drawing on the extensive insights of the co-author, JINSA Visiting Fellow IDF BG Yoram Knafo, from his years serving as Chief of Staff of the IDF Northern Command, proposes a new doctrine—called the “Typhoon Doctrine”—to help Israel mobilize forces with the speed and precision required by today’s complex security environment. It also recommends more successfully integrating intelligence and advanced surveillance; enhancing aerial and subterranean threat detection and interception; and better enabling rapid force deployment.

By adopting these recommendations, Israel can transition from a reactive border posture to a continuously adapting system calibrated for both anticipated and unanticipated threats along its borders.

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Report Authors
IDF BG Yoram Knafo
JINSA Visiting Fellow and Former Chief of Staff, IDF Northern Command
Ari Cicurel
Associate Director of Foreign Policy
Yoni Tobin
Senior Policy Analyst