%0 Journal Article %T Force Deployment Planning in the IDF General Staff %A Gabi Siboni %J Military and Strategic Affairs %D 2011 %I Institute for National Security Studies %X IDF General Staff planning processes relate to two primary areas: force buildup and force deployment. The fundamentals of military doctrine of any army, and particularly the IDF, necessitate full synchronization between the two, and the element that underlies all planning processes is what is needed for force deployment. Upon the establishment of the IDF, these processes were assigned to a single framework: the General Staff Branch. However, more than sixty years later, planning in the General Staff today has been decentralized among various bodies in a way that complicates effective processes. Of the signi cant dif culties posed by this situation, three should be singled out. The rst is the weakness of planning for force deployment, which ostensibly is the responsibility of the IDF Operations Branch.The second dif culty concerns weak planning for force buildup, which must be based on force deployment needs. The third dif culty is the absence of synchronization in the planning processes. This article seeks to examine operational planning within the IDF command in three ways. The rst avenue of approach describes the evolution of operational planning and its implementation in the IDF over the years; the second analyzes the principles of operational planning and the limitations of the current situation in the IDF; and the third presents a possible model that could obviate some of the anomalies that exist today in the IDF. The scope of this article dictates a focus on the General Staff¡¯s operational planning for force deployment. The limitations involved in planning processes related to force buildup should be discussed in a separate framework. %K IDF %K chief of staff %K military %K General Staff %K Operations Branch %K operations %K military management %K framework %U http://www.inss.org.il.cdn.reblaze.com/upload/(FILE)1326276948.pdf