Joe Katzman has a great column on "4th Generation Warfare" up on TCS. This is nicely put:
As we've seen recently, big-ticket military items aren't always the ones that matter, which puts the U.S. military procurement culture at a big disadvantage. That's why the Israeli Defense Force's "we depend on these for survival, daily" attitude will be so important. To all of us. They have a renewed grasp of the issues, a nimble planning culture, and plenty of opportunities to use new developments in practice against "warrior culture" opponents. That makes Israel a tremendously valuable ally. It's also why I think they'll end up tutoring the U.S. in this area, even with our "War on Terror" in full swing.