ISRAELS DEFENSE MINISTER MOSHE YAALON PLANS TO
RESTRUCTURE THE IDF AS SMALL, SELF-CONTAINED ARMIES
Related topics by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring:
- ISRAEL’S DEFENSE STRATEGY OVERHAUL (see links below)
- LONG-RANGE, LARGELY CLANDESTINE AND MULTI-SERVICE MISSIONS
- IRAN ALREADY HAS DEPLOYED NUCLEAR WEAPONS, A FACT KNOWN BY THE USA AND ISRAEL SINCE 1991
Via DEBKAfile
The
two top ministers in the new Netanyahu government both have big plans. While
overlapping at some points, the two will certainly butt heads on others.
Finance Minister Yair Lapid in particular has his eye on deep cuts in defense
spending to reduce the budget deficit. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon plans to
do away with such ambitious military programs as the Chariot Tank Mark 4 and
the “Tiger” APC. But his blueprint for restructuring the IDF will definitely
cost big shekels.
Yaalon’s innovative blueprint is influenced by a pervasive new concept that the big ARAB armies which attacked ISRAEL in the past have been relegated to obsolescence by the ARAB Revolt and the decline of the EGYPTIAN and SYRIAN armies – the first crippled by economic calamity and the second, debilitated by more than two years of fighting a civil war. Ergo, according to this concept, ISRAEL is now for the first time in its 65 years no longer menaced by a large professional army capable of waging a full-blown war.
IS
FULL-SCALE WAR REALLY OUTDATED?
This
concept is criticized by debkafile’s military sources as far from fail-safe and
short-sighted.
It fails to take into account the threats of a nuclear-armed IRAN and its armed forces launching a war of extinction against ISRAEL in the course of 2013; and a LEBANESE Shiite Hizballah hugely expanded into a fully-fledged military force, armed with tens of thousands of missiles.
That the EGYPTIAN Muslim Brotherhood’s secret militia designed on the lines of IRAN’S Revolutionary Guards may link up with the still robust sections of the EGYPTIAN armed forces cannot be ruled out; or a mutiny in parts of the SYRIAN army for joining forces with radical Islamist rebel groups to wage jihad on ISRAEL.
It fails to take into account the threats of a nuclear-armed IRAN and its armed forces launching a war of extinction against ISRAEL in the course of 2013; and a LEBANESE Shiite Hizballah hugely expanded into a fully-fledged military force, armed with tens of thousands of missiles.
That the EGYPTIAN Muslim Brotherhood’s secret militia designed on the lines of IRAN’S Revolutionary Guards may link up with the still robust sections of the EGYPTIAN armed forces cannot be ruled out; or a mutiny in parts of the SYRIAN army for joining forces with radical Islamist rebel groups to wage jihad on ISRAEL.
Comment by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring:
As mentioned many times on this Blog, the chances of IRAN launching
nuclear devices against ISRAEL are nothing more than war mongering propaganda
which is suiting both sides politically, but will most probably never occur. After
all IRAN, for some years, apparently possesses a small amount of purchased nuclear
warheads, capable of striking ISRAEL. Thus the threat is not new and ISRAEL
surely has been aware of this from the beginning.
See: ISRAEL AND IRAN- AIRSTRIKE UNLIKELY
Chapter: IRAN
ALREADY HAS DEPLOYED NUCLEAR WEAPONS, A FACT KNOWN BY THE USA AND ISRAEL SINCE
1991 at:
Concerns regarding the SYRIAN civil war one should not forget that ISRAEL
managed to outride a similar scenario with its northern neighbor LEBANON, which
waged a 15 year civil war, which hardly threatened ISRAEL’S existence and security
policies. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War)
Related topic: Read
IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM: SABER RATTLING SINCE 1979 at
The
IDF is already being drawn into its first covert activity in Sinai and South SYRIA.
In the current incendiary climate, full-scale combat could erupt on three of ISRAEL’S
borders, EGYPTIAN Sinai, southern SYRIA and LEBANON.
And to the east, the sudden fall of the Hashemite throne (JORDAN) could drag ISRAEL into an unforeseen conflict on an unforeseen scale.
And to the east, the sudden fall of the Hashemite throne (JORDAN) could drag ISRAEL into an unforeseen conflict on an unforeseen scale.
TAKING
ADVICE FROM SPYMASTERS
IDF Insignia |
In
2008, when he was appointed Minister for Strategic Affairs in the former
Netanyahu government, Yaalon, 63, carried over the work methods he cultivated
as chief of staff. He gathered around him a brains trust of valued advisers,
consisting mostly of senior players from Military Intelligence and the Mossad,
rather than army generals like his predecessors. These spymasters and
undercover mavens kept him up to the minute with input and insights for his
policy decisions in the constantly shifting regional environment.
Ya’alon
has also chosen to break with another of his predecessors’ practices by
strictly delegating his department’s many tasks. Management of the armed forces
is left to the incumbent chief of staff, Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, and his
professional GHQ, and the running of ISRAEL’S sophisticated multibillion
military industries to professional executives.
This leaves the minister free to perform as policy-maker and find the right answers to the country’s core national security issues, which he sees as standing up to a prospective nuclear IRAN, attaining a budget matching his ministry’s program and the restructuring of ISRAEL’S military assets.
GET
THE US ABOARD FOR AN IRAN STRIKE
Yaalon’s
perspective on IRAN is clear: ISRAEL must do its utmost to win AMERICA as
partner before embarking on an attack on IRAN and its nuclear facilities.
But
if Washington rules out any form of attack and IRAN is on the verge of
acquiring an operational nuclear arsenal, it will be up to ISRAEL to embark on
a unilateral offensive – even without American participation.
Related article: ISRAEL’S AND IRAN “WARMONGERING RHETORIC’S” ARE DECEIVING
TACTICS FOR A GREATER CAUSE
A
swelling stream of intelligence has reached the US and ISRAEL in the last few
months attesting to the speed with which IRAN is amassing enriched uranium and
developing nuclear-capable weapons.
Ya’alon
has therefore started coming around to the conclusion that, if in the course of
2013, Washington still holds back from military action to curb IRAN’S race for
a nuclear weapon, ISRAEL may find it has no choice but to go it alone.
Geopolitical
Analysis and Monitoring reiterates its comment above:
ISRAEL AND IRAN- AIRSTRIKE UNLIKELY
Read Chapter: IRAN
ALREADY HAS DEPLOYED NUCLEAR WEAPONS, A FACT KNOWN BY THE USA AND ISRAEL SINCE
1991 at:
Alongside
the perils of a nuclear IRAN this year, the new minister perceives the
unresolved war on ISRAEL’S doorsteps with the pro-IRANIAN Shiite Hizballah in LEBANON
in 2006 and Hamas’s seizure of the Gaza Strip after ISRAEL’S 2005 disengagement
as two dangerous pieces of unfinished business. He has long believed that both
radical terrorist groups are crouched for the right moment to pounce and
overrun ISRAEL’S borders. Ultimately, he believes, ISRAEL will be forced to
settle these issues by military initiatives before they blow up in its face.
Hizballah’s
involvement in the SYRIAN war on behalf of the Assad regime, Yaalon believes,
has boosted the radical Shiites’ confidence in its ability to vanquish ISRAEL.
He is certain that the LEBANESE-ISRAEL border will never be peaceful until
Hassan Nasrallahy’s Shiite army is decisively defeated and disarmed (as
mandated by UN Security Council resolution 1731) and sections of southern LEBANON
south and north of the Litani River are recaptured by ISRAELI forces as a
buffer.
THE
IDF’S RADICAL OVERHAUL
Related
articles:
December 2012: ISRAEL’S DEFENSE STRATEGY OVERHAUL
May 2012: LONG-RANGE,
LARGELY CLANDESTINE AND MULTI-SERVICE MISSIONS
Yaalon’s
planning for the revolutionary overhaul of the ISRAEL Defense Forces from the
bottom up is in its final stages, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources
first reported in March.
The crux of the proposed new structure is the substantial downsizing in stages of the IDF’s ground and armored forces, starting with the heavy Chariot 4 tank and large Tiger troop carrier units. He believes the time has come to do away with the classical divisions, brigades and professional corps, such as artillery and tanks, which characterize a conventional army, and replace them with small, self-contained armies capable of operating independently.
The crux of the proposed new structure is the substantial downsizing in stages of the IDF’s ground and armored forces, starting with the heavy Chariot 4 tank and large Tiger troop carrier units. He believes the time has come to do away with the classical divisions, brigades and professional corps, such as artillery and tanks, which characterize a conventional army, and replace them with small, self-contained armies capable of operating independently.
Each
such mini-army would be equipped with its own attack helicopter, tank,
artillery and special-forces units and self-supply facilities. In contrast, the
Defense Minister aims to expand the Navy, Air Force and Missile Arm for the key
task of securing ISRAEL’S airspace and territorial waters. Special Forces units
will additionally secure these strategic spaces.
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