The Israeli military sees its Ground Forces — tanks, infantry, combat engineering and artillery — as in desperate need for a makeover if it is to be prepared for the types of battles it is likely to encounter in future wars.
Long gone are the days of the lone tank platoon or paratroopers company conquering a hilltop from an enemy military. The Israel Defense Forces’ next war, be it in the Gaza Strip, inside southern Lebanon or elsewhere in the Middle East, will overwhelmingly take place inside urban areas — if not in densely populated cities then at least in developed towns — and it will be against terror groups and individual cells, operating autonomously and independently from one another within a civilian population.
In the military’s view, conquering a capital or destroying a command center isn’t going to cut it anymore. It needs to be able to conduct a large number of operations simultaneously in order to rapidly and effectively find and destroy an enemy’s capabilities in order to end the war fast, before large numbers of rockets and missiles have been fired at Israeli civilians and critical infrastructure.
To bring the Ground Forces up to speed, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi’s Momentum Plan deals extensively with breaking down homogeneous units with narrow skill sets and turning them into multi-disciplinary detachments that are able to bring to bear the military’s full host of capabilities. This effort includes the purchasing of new equipment for ground troops, including better rifle scopes, shoulder-launched missiles, and small drones, as well as training soldiers in new methods and improving communication between units.
However, while some of those proposals have already been implemented or are in the process of being carried out, many are dependent upon a new defense budget, which has yet to be approved by the government. Though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently approved a one-time NIS 3.3 billion increase to the budget last month, the issue of the IDF’s funding remains unresolved, especially as many aspects of the Momentum Plan require large amounts of money, which the military will have to fight harder to get in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the related economic crisis.
For instance, the IDF Ground Forces has long wanted to construct a large-scale simulated Lebanese village where it can conduct live-fire exercises with infantrymen, tanks and other heavy vehicles to train for a war with Hezbollah. However, building and operating such a facility would be highly expensive and without a clear source of funding, such a project cannot proceed.
No comments:
Post a Comment