Prime Minister Ehud Olmert couldn't have looked more pathetic when he responded this week to a rocket attack on a day care center in Sderot by writing a letter of complaint to the United Nations. But what is he to do? Olmert and his government colleagues are stumped. They are unwilling to pay the political price that comes with abandoning the defense of the Western Negev to Palestinian rockets in Gaza. But they are also unwilling to pay the military and political price of launching a wide-scale ground campaign in Gaza.

In vain attempts to get themselves off the hot seat, they try to change the subject to Tony Blair's visit, or Condoleezza Rice's upcoming visit or the imaginary peace accord they might sign with Fatah terror chief Mahmoud Abbas someday.

Then too, they beat their chests every time the IDF destroys a rocket launcher and threaten to stop supplying electricity to Gaza and start targeting Hamas commanders. They say all of this even though they know full well that nothing they are doing or talking about doing will prevent the Palestinians from attacking Israel.

This is so because nothing Israel is now doing or talking about doing will change the Palestinians' view that attacking Israel with rockets and mortars serves their interests. And nothing being done today or being considered for tomorrow will diminish their capacity to assault the Negev.

The Palestinians have good reasons to continue their attacks. Those attacks keep the Palestinians mobilized as a society against "the Zionist enemy." They also guarantee continued Iranian, Syrian, Egyptian and Saudi military and financial support for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah.

Furthermore, the Kassam barrages advance the Palestinians' long-term strategic goal of fomenting the collapse of Israeli society. By maintaining their offensive they daily portray the government and the IDF as impotent in the eyes of Israel's citizenry. Israeli society, in turn, is demoralized and its demoralization induces a sense of lost sovereignty and powerlessness that legitimates and prolongs the paralysis of the IDF and the government. The enemy, of course, uses this paralysis to enhance its offensive capabilities and reinforce its legitimacy in the eyes of its society.

With those rationales for striking, it is obvious that the Palestinians will continue to assault Israel with rockets and mortars for as long as they can. And given the nature of its enemy it is similarly clear that Israel must take away the Palestinians' ability to attack its territory.

There is only one way to achieve this goal. The IDF must take the western Negev out of rocket range by conquering northern Gaza. It must cut off the Palestinians' supply lines by retaking control over Gaza's border with Egypt. And the IDF must establish a two-kilometer-wide security zone within Gaza along its border with Israel to prevent terrorist infiltrations.

Unfortunately, it is hard to see either the government or the IDF General Staff agreeing to take this necessary action. Over the past several years, some dubious notions about the nature of 21st century warfare have taken hold of Israel's military and political decision-making circles. These notions have ensnared them in a conceptual trap that convolutes their debates and obfuscates imperative choices they are duty-bound to make.

THIS CONCEPTUAL trap is set-forth and defended in a book published this year by the University of Haifa. Diffused Warfare: The Concept of Virtual Mass, was authored by former Navy Commander Vice Admiral (ret.) Yedidia Groll-Yaari and strategist Haim Assa.

Briefly, the work argues that "classical" military doctrines built around linear battles of massed columns of conventional forces are no longer relevant today. Yaari and Assa claim that in asymmetric conflicts against sub-state guerrilla and terror forces, control of territory is not necessarily desirable and as a result, maneuver warfare that concentrates forces in one place with the aim of destroying enemy forces is antiquated and serves mainly to complicate matters.

In their view, rather than seeking to control territory, the militaries of democratic states should reorganize around the concept of stand-off battles predicated on precision weaponry. Those weapons, backed by network centricity which enables near unimpeded information flow to commanders in the rear, can create virtual mass by assaulting multiple, dispersed enemy targets simultaneously, and so foment systemic shock. After the initial systemic shock of enemy forces is induced, repeated precision attacks will prevent the enemy from reorganizing to fight effectively. In light of this, militaries today should organize around their air and special forces components, which can move rapidly in and out of target areas.

As the IDF's pinpoint attacks in Gaza today, and in Lebanon last summer show, the IDF and the government share Yaari's and Assa's view. The problem unfortunately is that their view is incorrect.

First of all, it isn't true that classical warfare was based as a rule on concentration of mass and linear battle lines. From the times of Joshua, Gideon and Alexander the Great, military commanders have conducted successful campaigns which defeated their enemies by fomenting systemic shock. Throughout the ages, if there has been one rule of thumb for battlefield success, it has been to apply your strengths against your opponent's weaknesses - whether through frontal assaults, sieges, psychological operations or aerial bombardments.

Moreover, whether control of territory is necessary or not is a function of the nature of the enemy and of the society from which it operates. In World War II, Allied forces did not need to occupy liberated France after they overran it because the local population did not oppose them.

In 2003, the Americans successfully overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq through a diffused "shock and awe" campaign that did not involve occupying and controlling the country. The Americans erred in failing to recognize the potential for resistance among the Iraqis and Iraq's neighbors Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Due to their misreading of the intentions and aspirations of disgruntled Iraqis and their neighbors, the Americans did not take control of the country or secure its borders and so allowed insurgent forces to develop and take hold of territory from which they launched their insurgency.