The first anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, marked yesterday, is not a good excuse for a party. Because, of all the wars Israel has fought, it is the only one remembered as a failure. Because, apart from the War of Independence, it was the longest war we have ever fought. Because it was the only one in which the enemy struck deep inside Israeli territory. Because it was the only offensive war that we decided upon in the span of a few hours. Because it was the only war in which we didn't think first. Because it was the only war we went into unprepared. And worst of all, it was the only war that eroded the myth of Israel's power of deterrence and military might in the eyes of our neighbors and the world.

And yet, despite all this, and despite the high price in human life - 163 dead - we're lucky the war was a year ago, and not three or four or five years from now. Because considering how militarily unprepared we were then for an offensive war, and considering how wrong we were in our assessments of the enemy and its capabilities, God knows where Israel would be and what it would have to face several years from now.

That Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, defense minister Amir Peretz and chief of staff Dan Halutz were so smug back then, so sure we were going to teach Hezbollah a lesson, makes Israel's defeat all the more humiliating. Halutz was not only wrong in his conviction that the whole war could be wrapped up from the air. He also goofed in selling his stocks a few hours before the war. The fact is, two days into the war, the stock market shot up. Lousy war, lousy investment.

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Hezbollah surprised us with 4,000 artillery rockets that kept on coming until the last minute before the cease-fire. Lucky for us, only 800 of them hit built-up areas. In a future war, the home front will be an integral part of the war. With all the missile batteries stationed around us, Katyushas and Zilzals will be kid stuff by then.

Our assumption that the army is ready at all times for a major operation, and would need a few hours' warning at most if the political echelon decided to go to war, was shot down overnight. We have a hollow leadership, as David Grossman put it, and the same goes for their judgment in launching an all-out war in a matter of hours. The army did not deliver the goods at even the most basic level, and it couldn't have.

The exclusive focus on preventing terror distorted the army's whole approach to its task. Most military experience is gained through training, not by policing territories. But for years, there were hardly any drills. Battalion and company commanders went into battle without ever putting their soldiers through their paces. The equipment, both light and heavy, was outdated and rusty for lack of use.

Our luck was that we got rapped across the fingers when there was no existential danger to the state, and no irreversible damage was done. In the past, wars were fought against regular or semi-regular Arab armies, far from the home front. In the next war, all of Israel will be bombarded by rockets and missiles, and the home front will be the main front.

In the past, we saw the enemy and could take aim. Today, we face an evasive enemy, an enemy that has learned how to camouflage itself and disappear into the woodwork, to spread out in small task forces, equipped with anti-tank, anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles in quantities that ensure the effectiveness of its attacks. And nothing has been said yet about the possible resurgence of terror, with bombs going off and suicide bombers blowing themselves up in the heart of the country.

Based on our experience in the last war, the threats from Syria and the nuclear armament of Iran, all sorts of theories about the battlefield of the future are hovering in the air. With the enemy building up its attack force and dangers looming over the home front, the question is not so much what kind of scenario the army is preparing for, but how the political echelon is readying itself to reach life-or-death decisions.

The winner will not be the one with the newest and most lethal weapons, but the one whose leaders make the right moves. Weapons of war may be more sophisticated today, but the basic approach formulated by David Ben-Gurion in the early days of the state is still valid - move the war to enemy territory and keep it short.

For those who didn't understand that when they reached their spur-of-the-moment decision to go to war in Lebanon, let them wait until October.

Winograd will make sure to explain just how miserable a failure it was, and who was responsible for it.