DEBKAfile Military Report and Analysis
Since the beginning of the week, Israel’s top military commanders have been poring over the situation of the Israeli Defense Forces in a workshop called by Ehud Barak who took over as defense minister two months ago. Some of their most alarming findings were presented by Barak at his first news conference in Tel Aviv Monday, Aug. 21 in advance of the ministry’s presentation of its budget requirements.
Not all of the findings were news after disastrous deficiencies were brought to light in the ill-managed 2006 Lebanon War against Hizballah. But the negligence was now frankly traced to 1994 and 13 years of budget slashes by one government after another, including the one headed by the defense minister himself. They have left Israel’s armed forces deprived of the three security capabilities which Barak deems essential to Israel’s survival in a hostile environment: deterrence, early warning and victory.
To restore these capabilities, Barak outlined a program, the highlights of which are to reconstitute two disbanded reservist divisions, improve tank armor to withstand armor-piercing missiles and effective, active interception measures to protect the population against enemy rocket fire.
DEBKAfile’s analysts note that, for the present, the IDF offers early warning – but not deterrence; the burning drive to prevail over the enemy was seen wanting in the Lebanon War and missing in dealing with the plague of missile and mortar attacks from Gaza, the daily fare of the neighboring Israeli population.
Senior officers told our sources: “The IDF is not only short of funds to meet its objectives, but also lacks sufficient manpower. It would take at least 10 years to rebuild and retrain the armed forces. The question is: what do we do in the meantime?â€
According to DEBKAfile’s sources in Jerusalem, prime minister Ehud Olmert refuses to approve funding for two additional armored reservist divisions, for accelerating the development of the Iron Dome system against short-range missiles and rockets, for fitting Israeli tanks with an extra layer of armor against anti-tank missiles, and for manufacturing the new Nimrod armored personnel carriers that would make the infantry much more maneuverable in the terrain where combat is foreseen.
The new defense minister is also calling for a long IDF operational arm which can strike deep inside hostile territory in such places as Iran, Syria, Lebanon and, if necessary, beyond. DEBKAfile’s military analysts report that the continuing budget deficiencies which hobble Israel’s military at large, also deny it the air power, missiles, submarines and specialist training for such long-range capabilities.
The under-training of special operations units was starkly conspicuous in the Lebanon war, in particular the Baalbek raid. Military experts agree that if Barak wants to achieve a swift victory against Syria in the event of war, IDF forces must be able to move very fast and take the battle across the lines deep into hostile territory so as to seize the initiative from Syrian commando forces. They may find they are also up against Iranian Revolutionary Guards flown in to back up the Syrians.
The manpower for such missions is in short supply at present.
DEBKAfile’s military sources point to four factors which need to be taken into account in the immediate future:
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1. The rapid arming of the Iranian, Syrian and Hizballah armed forces financed by war budgets estimated as threefold or four times that allocated the IDF.
2. The danger of a simultaneous war flare-up on three of Israel’s borders. The IDF is better prepared for a multi-front conflict than it was a year ago, but the population remains defenseless against possible rocket attacks.
3. Israel’s policy-makers have not kept up with the rapid development of weapons technologies in the world, which is drawing on experience in the Iraq War and other conflicts. Hizballah, too, has made great strides forward. The fact is that interceptor systems for short-range missiles, such as the Iron Dome which Israel has tardily decided to develop, have been proved ineffective for protecting a civilian population. The American and Japanese armies have dropped it and gone back to tactical mobile high-energy laser weapons for countering rockets, artillery shells and mortars. Israel’s military industries began to pioneer this type of weapon a decade ago, but were forced to abandon their work by, yes, loss of government funding.
4. The long neglect of Israel’s military capabilities must be attributed largely to unrealistic fixations at the top of Israeli governments on peace prospects with the Palestinians and Syria and their failure to factor in Iran’s creeping domination over the military and diplomatic strategies of its allies and protégés. Even now, Israel’s leaders are blinding themselves to the fact that Tehran’s undivided focus on annihilating the Jewish state governs the policies of three of its neighbors, Syria, Hizballah and the Palestinians.
Barak’s stress on deterrence, early warning and victory is timely and right but unworkable so long as the heads of Israeli government and society refuse to rearrange their priorities. Soldiers will not be inclined to fight to win in a climate of concessions to active hostile forces, budget cuts and indifference to their needs.
As one high-ranking military source put it,
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“The IDF is the people’s army. Unfortunately it now mirrors a people whose leaders’ top priority is a strong economy and who allow a select affluent elite to exempt their sons and daughters from military service, while the bulk of the fighting men are put up by the majority low-income classes.â€
To make the doctrine held by Barak work, the IDF must be able to call on highly proficient soldiers of all ranks, who can devote their attention wholly to operating complex systems and are not distracted by worry about their impoverished families at home. For high-tech weapons, a sufficiency of high-quality manpower is required.
Nigel
The support for the terroist army comes largely from Russia and China. As for Saudi Arabia, the US has attempted to support them in a fruitless attempt to try and contain Iran and Syria. So far, Saudi Arabia has proven to be an unreliable ally.
Read Gil-white writings. I think the evidence is in the writings. Now if one already hates America, it may not be readily apparent.
With the NATO bases former Soviet Republics wish to have a buffer against an expanding Russian threat. The Russians seem to be attempting to reform the Soviet Union. These bases are not enough of a build up to threaten Russia. Russia is actively building the militaries of Venezuela and other South American countries. This build up seems to be more significant than the NATO bases. At the very least, the actions of NATO need to be evaluated in this context.
Admitedly Gil-White’s political views may not be relevant to the discussion. In the final analysis, unless things change quickly, the US will not be a major power for much longer. America hateres will need to find a new enemy.
B./B Poster continues to make bizarrely improbable assertions without providing a scrap of evidence.
What “type of support” is B./B Poster talking about? The notion that this “terrorist army” which has murdered thousands (mainly Iraqis), is somehow more dangerous than a highly industrialised eugenically motivated State which had a thoroughly structured military infrastructure and murdered millions to be extraordinary on the face of it, if not utterly absurd. Extraordinary evidence is clearly required. Poster is invited to provide it.
I’ll leave the nexuses between the US, Chinese and Russian establishments for another day – suffice to say for now, that most of the apparent rivalries between them are essentially theatrical.
Curious that Poster hasn’t mentioned Saudi Arabia……..
Poster would likely benefit from examining the numerous pro-Islamist events which Russia, China and “The left” aren’t responsible for – many of which I list at https://www.israpundit.org/2006/?p=5566#comment-105396
Hmmm. So according to B./B Poster, deploying less troops to invade Iraq than were deployed to trash it from a distance in 1991 – even though numerous military experts were warning about this prior to the 2003 invasion – is a result of errors. And these supposed errors have left a country which seems to be doing little more than making a few noises as NATO continues to surround it, “the most powerful military force on earth.”
An interesting hypothesis, the evidence supporting which currently eludes me.
LoL! This in response to me saying:
Of course, I didn’t really expect Poster to come along and satisy my “half expectation”! 🙂
Lindsay England never had a chance because she was a stooge of the intelligence operatives who ordered the torture and who possibly then released the pictures to the press, not because she was supposedly duped by the prisoners into torturing them!
Puh-leeaase!!
Curious response. My mentioning of Gil-White was in relation to warnings which both he and Barry Chamish have made – warnings about an imminent genocide of Jews – not about anything he’s allegedly said about “American power”.
Ad Hominem – http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html
Strawman – http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html
Poster is invited to provide examples of Gil-White “villifying America”
Or it becomes easier to discredit those who provide evidence-based assertions about how “powerful they actually are”.
Poster has done both – by making absurd exagerations about the nature of the Islamist threat, they make it easier to vilify Muslims generally and make it more difficult for those who warn about the Islamist threat to be seen as something other than malicious/foolish propagandists. Both of these results strengthen Islamism’s hand. I’ll leave it to other readers to decide for themselves whether this is the result of error.
As for the notion that Israel’s gonna be OK ‘cos the Bible says so – all I can say to that is “God helps those who help themselves”. A lesson which hopefully some of the poor sods from Gush Katif have finally learned.
Maybe…….. http://yitchakrabin.com/Barry%20Chamish/html/israel_nazi_kapos.html
B.Poster: I agree with you that the strength of Israel and the US have been exaggerated because strength comes from more than weapons (which are also obviously of great importance). Strength comes from a conviction that our position is correct. All I hear these days is that our side is wrong and we, unfortunately, have bought into that lie; hook, line, and sinker. The enemy today is very different from any the world has faced but shares some common features of the evil regimes of yesterday.
The new enemies are numerous enough and dispersed enough that they cannot be easily found and eliminated…they hide behind innocent, unarmed civilians…they are bolstered by the strength of their Islamic faith and teachings…they are fighting people who don’t want to fight, people who have been given too many “rules of engagement” and have not been told why they are fighting…they are supplied by rich terror states who are now united in their purpose…they share the hatred of Jews with which the educated German Nazis found it in themselves to eliminate European Jews…and they have no moral or ethical codes that might prevent them from always using their biggest gun first without a scintilla of concern or guilt (concern and guilt are foreign concepts serving to restrain the Dhimmis and the infidels).
Nigel
Many of the prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison are part of a terrorist army that has state backing. The type of support available to this terrorist army does in fact make them more dangerous to America than Nazi Germany every was or likely ever could have been.
Granted some of the people at the prison were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and some simply kept bad company but were innocent of terrorist activities. Unfortunately it is not always easy to separate the true bad guys from the others.
The sense of urgency with Abu Ghraib and the Gitmo prisons are very severe because the baddest of the bad at these prisons pose a grave security threat to the US and the entire free world. No doubt many mistakes were made, however, they have to be evaluated within the context of the enemy we are fighting.
This enemy poses an existential threat to the United States. This is especially the case when one conisders who the primary supporterers of this enemy are. Russia and China are the primary backers of the terrorist states of Iran and Syria, as well of other Islamic terrorist groups. Due in large part to American and allied missteps in Iraq Russia has become the most powerful military force on earth.
You are correct that Lindsay England and the other guards never really had a chance. Many of the guards and the commanders of these guards were reservists. Many of the prisoners were/are battle hardened soldiers who have been highly trained in psy ops war fare, so I would agree with you that these guards never really had a chance.
The guards have been convicted of the actions they were accused of committing. As such, I’m assuming they were guilty and I’m not defending their actions. Wtih that said it was clear from the beginning that the guards and the entire military were not going to get a fair trial from the news media. These people were tried and convicted in the press before the actual trial even started. This is part of the psy ops campaign being directed against the US and the West.
You point out that you do not think things look good for Israel and you are not all that optimistic. Actually its even harder to be optimistic about the future of the United States and the future of Western Civilization. Israel long range future is guaranteed to be a bright one. These promises are contained within the Torah and the Christian New Testament and were given by God himself. This does not mean that Israel will not face tough times but its long range future is guaranteed to be a good one. The Scriptures contain no such promises for America or Western Europe.
Given the nature of the threats and the complete unwillingness of the free world to acknowledge them much less mobilies to properly deal with them its hard to be optimistic about the future of America or Western civilization but I hold out a prayer and hope that we will prevail.
I would suggest that American policy be evaluated in light of the complete and total withdrawl from Iraq that will be coming soon. The US Army cannot keep the current force structure in Iraq for much longer and there is not the political will to expand the size of the Army. As such, complete withdrawl will be happening soon.
As for Francisco Gil-White, the best thing to say about him is he greatly over estimates American power. He seems to be a Socialist/communist. Such people have been villifying America for years. If you make out a country or person to be much more powerful than they are actually are, they become much easier to vilify. In general, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism are quite simillar. They cost nothing and can be very profitable. Of the two, anti-Americanism is the easiest and maybe even the least costly.
LoL! [Sarcasm] Yes of course! A bunch of prisoners who were so dangerous that they tried to run away and hide from themselves by bundling themselves into piles and covering their faces and smearing…well, y’all know the rest…are really sooooo much more dangerous than the axis powers ever were! I mean, the Nazis were just mucking around, but these Abu Ghraib prisoners…sheeeeshh, they’re SOMETHING ELSE!!!!!! [/Sarcasm]
I half expect someone to suggest that the prisoners tricked those particular American guards into posing as abusers because they’re “also experts at using the media as part of a psy ops war.” – Lindsay England never had a chance.
Rather than worry about trivial or non-existent threats, which are often presented to us phantom-like in order to distract us, let’s try and see what some of the real threats are.
Things are not looking at all good for Israel. Moshe Feiglin’s recent “exposé” of Fatah was a farce – he didn’t even present it to the Israeli audience. The guy is a total fraud and a decoy. I should have listened to Barry Chamish – he’s usually right both with his predictions, and his assessments of Israeli political figures.
Here he is providing a likely scenario of how the next Arab-Israeli war will be fought (2:28) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssxFqXdQfJk
Also, check out “Time Out Productions Interviews Israeli Author Barry Chamish” (27:59) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OSbtOEDOAw
A Jewish (former) friend of mine has decided I’m an antisemite for making the kind of warnings Barry Chamish and Francisco Gil-White have been making – this in spite of the fact that I met her because she was working on a project to confront increasing antisemitism, at the time. Another Jewish friend respects my views, but “doesn’t want to hear it”!
I’m not particularly optimistic, but I think there may still be some chance…….
Maybe.
The Americans repeatedly apologed for Abu Ghraib, at least in deed. This did nothing to help America’s image. This is beause Islamists and their Communist allies only respect strength. They do far worse to prisoners than we ever thought about doing. Now many of these people who were in the Abu Ghraib prison are free now. Given how dangerous they are, this is a very disconcerting thought.
Gary
I agree whole heartedly. One thing that most Americans fail to understand, is the Muslims at Abu Ghraib prison pose a grater threat to the US than Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan ever did or ever could have.
Islamists only repsect strength. The only way to gain their respect is to win.
In addition to terrorism, the Muslims are also experts at using the media as part of a psy ops war.
The Muslim countries don’t need to be too well-trained or have the latest and greatest technology (even though the technology gap is closing very rapidly) because they engage in terrorism on a grand scale.
When the Islamists lose militarily they are able to sustain a terror war ad infinitum over the decades to keep the battle going forever. What they use as daily and consider normal tactics (mass murder, sawing heads off, homicidal bombings) of war are forbidden and shunned by westerners. The American public could not even look upon Muslims being physically and sexually humiliated in Abu Ghraib prison. It paralyzed the entire Iraq mission.
If the West wants to level the playing field, then we can’t afford to be gentlemen and we must use some unsavory and ugly tactics to win – and they will respect us more if we win — if we lose there is no return.
Russia and China are the primary supporters of the Islamic terrorist countries of Iran and Syria. Without the support of Russia and China Iran and Syria would be far easier to deal with.
Russia is trying to reestablish the Soviet Union and they are the most powerful military on earth right now. As such, I think Russia has to be regarded as the greatest threat to the free world.
For its part, the US should lead the way in mobilizing its military forces. If the US would place itself on a war footing and develop more of its own oil and gas reserves, it would not have to sell weapons to the Saudis and other Arab nations in an act of desparation to try and contain Iran.
We actually could say the same thing about the American military and the militaries of the Western European countries. The Israelis and the Americans are the first line of defense for the free world. The American military is undermanned and under-equiped for war with either Russia or China. The militaries of the Western European countries are in even worse shape than those of the US or Israel.
It is not to late for us to rectify this situation, however, time grows short. The entire world should place itself on a war footing and mobilze like they did for WWII.