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IDF EXPANDING SUBMARINE FLEET, INTEGRATING MORE WOMEN & HAREDI; FIELD HOSPITAL RANKED “NO. 1 IN WORLD”

 

 

The Billion-Dollar Deal That is Stirring up Israeli Army: Ben Caspit, Al-Monitor, Oct. 31, 2016— On Oct. 26, the Israeli Cabinet secretly authorized a huge weapons transaction that developed under the radar over the recent year…

The New IDF: Editorial, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 20, 2016— Two discernible and potentially conflicting trends arise from the manpower data published this week by the IDF on the percentage of eligible young men and women who are conscripted for mandatory military service.

UN Ranks IDF Emergency Medical Team as ‘No. 1 in the World’: Judah Ari Gross, Times of Israel, Nov. 13, 2016— The United Nation’s World Health Organization recognized the Israeli army’s field hospital,

Rationality, Irrationality and Israel's Changing Order of Battle: Louis René Beres, Israel Defense, Oct. 30, 2016 — In every traditional military lexicon, strategies of international deterrence automatically assume enemy rationality.

 

On Topic Links

 

Submarines and Advisers: Editorial, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 20, 2016

Israel Puts the Spike Missile on its Apache Helicopters: Shoshana Bryen, Jewish Policy Center, Nov. 21, 2016

Behind the Scenes of the Israeli Army: Tsivya Fox, Breaking Israel News, Nov. 22, 2016

Women Increasingly Join the Fight in Israel's Army: Michael Blum, Yahoo News, Nov. 20, 2016

 

 

 

THE BILLION-DOLLAR DEAL THAT IS STIRRING UP ISRAELI ARMY

Ben Caspit

                                                 Al-Monitor, Oct. 31, 2016

 

On Oct. 26, the Israeli Cabinet secretly authorized a huge weapons transaction that developed under the radar over the recent year: Three additional Dolphin-class submarines will be purchased from a German shipyard in the port city of Kiel. A memorandum of understanding between Israel and Germany is expected to be signed this month in Berlin. The deal is assessed at about 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion), approximately 400 million euros ($439 million) per submarine, after a discount of about 30% financed by the German government.

 

The clandestine negotiations between Israel and Germany were relatively brief. Many Israelis are strongly criticizing the deal, from various aspects. One clear conclusion can be reached regarding the policies and strategic mindset of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: The Iranian threat, including concern regarding a nuclear Iran, continues to preoccupy Netanyahu and assume center stage in his very essence.

 

According to foreign reports, these submarines (Israel already possesses five of them; the sixth will arrive in 2019) are viewed as the Israeli answer to the Iranian threat, as they are capable of carrying and launching ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. According to foreign reports, the impressive submarine fleet Israel is building will give the country a significant “second strike” capability even in the event that it absorbs an Iranian nuclear attack. These submarines transform Israel from a “one-bomb country” (which would be so devastated from one nuclear attack that it could not respond in kind) to a state that could respond and cause great destruction to any country that would dare attack it.

 

In a conversation with Al-Monitor, an Israeli military source emphasized that Israel has no intention of enlarging its fleet of submarines from six to nine, but to gradually replace aging submarines with new ones. According to the source, the life span of a submarine is 20-30 years. Over the next decade, the three oldest submarines in the Dolphin fleet will become obsolete, and will be replaced gradually by the new submarines.

 

This argument does not convince the naysayers, many of which come from within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). They believe the tremendous sum of money wasted on the submarines should have been earmarked for more urgent needs. “The first Dolphin submarine will begin to become obsolete only in 2030,” an Israeli security source told Al-Monitor on the condition of anonymity. “Until then, it’s not certain that we will need such a large quantity of submarines. The current commitment to pay billions of shekels in a huge deal for products that may not be absolutely necessary is rather strange, to say the least.”

 

Critics of the transaction feel that the monies should have been used to upgrade the IDF in more important spheres. “The submarines are not effective in the war against terror,” a high-level Israeli security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “Submarines are ineffective in fighting against the Islamic State and Hamas; even the third Lebanon war [if this happens] will not be decided in the ocean depths. It would have been better to spend all this money to provide armored shield protection for all of the army’s armored personnel carriers, or for unmanned aircraft [drones], for cyber strengthening, and other spheres that are critical to the war against terror. Unfortunately, Israel is making its traditional mistake: It is once again preparing for yesterday’s wars and not tomorrow’s conflicts.”

 

Another debate raging between the sides is connected to the price of the deal. Netanyahu’s main concern, when he pushed for a speedy agreement with the Germans, was that German Chancellor Angela Merkel might not survive the elections awaiting her in 2017. Those close to Netanyahu say that Merkel’s replacement might not be as generous as she is and might not approve a discount of 30% on the submarines to Israel. Better to close the deal now, before it’s too late, they say.

 

This argument does not satisfy the critics. The German discount is fictitious, they claim; instead, they say, the Germans upped the price and then gave a discount on the higher amount. Not long ago, that same German shipyard sold four similar submarines to Egypt at a much lower price. No one in Israel did the necessary preparatory work; no one conducted the kind of negotiations that are necessary for a transaction of such magnitude. There are other, more experienced shipyards in the world that produce the kind of submarines that Israel needs. To the final price, the Germans added their investment in research and development (R&D), but no one checked if this R&D hadn’t been carried out in any previous transaction it signed with other countries. The additional characteristics that are supposed to be added to the new submarines belong to the specialized fields of other shipyards, mainly in France, and common sense would dictate that additional price quotes be obtained from French shipyards as well (before deciding from whom to buy). Instead, someone was in a very big rush to complete this transaction and threw away Israeli taxpayer money with a very ready hand — so say the critics…                                                                 [To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]           

 

Contents                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

THE NEW IDF                                                                                                                        

Editorial                                                                                                      

Jerusalem Post, Nov. 20, 2016

 

Two discernible and potentially conflicting trends arise from the manpower data published this week by the IDF on the percentage of eligible young men and women who are conscripted for mandatory military service. On one hand, there has been a sharp rise in the number of religious women who are opting to enlist in the IDF instead of performing National Service or receiving an exemption. In all, 2,159 enlisted in 2015 compared to 1,853 in 2014. Women as a whole – both religious and non-religious – are enlisting at a rate of 58%, the same as in 2012. Also, more and more women are being integrated into combat units. There has been a 400% rise in the number of women serving in combat roles, with more mixed-gender battalions opening every year.

 

Brig.-Gen. Eran Shani, speaking before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday, noted that the IDF is considering allowing women to serve in the Armored Corps and in the elite 669 air force rescue unit. In parallel with the increasing integration of women in the IDF, there is a potentially conflicting trend. The number of religious soldiers is growing. In 2015, 2,475 haredi young men were conscripted. And religious soldiers as a percentage of the total number of IDF soldiers is also growing due to demographic changes.

 

A weakening of rabbinic authority seems to be one of the causes of both trends – both the higher conscription rate of religious women and of haredi men. Though a majority of religious Zionist rabbis opposes IDF service for women, a number of institutions have been created to give support to religious females who choose to enlist. For instance, the NGO Alumah provides religious women with advice and intervenes on their behalf vis-a-vis the IDF command. Tzahali, a pre-military academy, prepares religious women for military service not unlike the many academies that exist for religious men. Few rabbis openly support these bodies.

 

Haredi men who enlist are also bucking rabbinic leadership’s authority. They often face stiff opposition from family members, friends and neighbors. And despite rabbinic opposition, large percentages of religious Zionist or modern Orthodox Israeli men enlist without first attending a yeshiva, a pre-military academy or joining a hesder yeshiva that combines military service and religious study.

 

These two distinct trends – the increasing integration of women and the rise in the number of religious men – could potentially result in a clash of interests. Integrating larger numbers of women in the IDF entails opening more avenues of service. The sharp rise in the number of women who serve in combat units is one example. But in order to make the IDF truly gender egalitarian, the length of service of IDF soldiers must be based on the role they serve and not their sex. Because they serve only two years, women are prevented from serving in many IDF positions unless they agree to volunteer. Also, exemption criteria should be identical for men and women. Women need to be part of the decision-making process on the highest levels within the IDF.

 

But religious men are the main force within in the IDF preventing the full integration of women – both religious and non-religious – into the IDF. As the number of religious men in the IDF grows as percentage of the total, opposition to the integration of women will grow as well. Accommodating these conflicting trends is one of the major manpower challenges facing the IDF. The IDF has long ago abandoned the “melting pot” model for conscription in parallel with a change in Israeli society as a whole toward a more multicultural mosaic of groups – haredi, Arab, religious Zionist, secular, Sephardi, Druse, and Beduin. This shift has created opportunities and challenges.

 

The IDF has become both more gender egalitarian and open to the special needs of haredi and religious men. As long as Israel maintains the ideal of universal conscription or “the people’s army,” the IDF will have to find ways of integrating diverse segments of the population. Succeeding in navigating conflicting interests will make the IDF stronger. Talents that previously went untapped can be enlisted in the concerted effort to defend Israel from its many enemies. This week’s data seem to prove that it possible to accommodate the needs of diverse groups, providing yet another reason to be optimistic about Israel’s future.                                                                     

 

Contents                                              

UN RANKS IDF EMERGENCY MEDICAL TEAM AS ‘NO. 1 IN THE WORLD’                                                      

Judah Ari Gross                                                                                                            

Times of Israel, Nov. 13, 2016

 

The United Nation’s World Health Organization recognized the Israeli army’s field hospital, which is regularly sent abroad to provide aid at natural disaster sites, as “the number one in the world” in a ceremony last week, classifying it as its first and only “Type 3” field hospital, according to its commander, Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Ofer Merin. As reported in The Times of Israel last month, the WHO and the Israel Defense Forces had been in talks to determine if the army unit met the demands of a “Type 3” medical team, a status no medical team had ever reached before.

 

Last Wednesday, the IDF’s field hospital team received the “Type 3” designation, along with some additional “specialized care” recognitions, which technically made it a “Type 3 plus,” though the army kept the information quiet until Sunday. “We’re going to recommend the director-general verifies [Israel’s team] as a Type 1, Type 2, and also Type 3 and multiple different types of specialty cells,” Dr. Ian Norton, the lead author of the classification system and head of the WHO delegation, said Wednesday at the ceremony in the Medical Corps’ base in Ramat Gan, outside Tel Aviv. “We haven’t had that ever before,” Norton said, praising the months of work put in by the Israeli team to receive the designation.

 

Israel will receive official WHO patches noting the new designation, and members of the IDF’s Medical Corps, including Merin, will meet with the head of the international organization at a formal ceremony in Hong Kong at the end of the month, the army said. The United Nations is generally seen as having a negative attitude toward Israel, giving this recognition of the IDF’s abilities some additional weight, Merin said. The representatives from the World Health Organization were “not biased, not one bit,” he said.

 

In 2013, the United Nation’s WHO created a set of criteria to classify foreign medical teams in sudden onset disasters, on a scale from one to three. Israel is now the only country to receive the top mark. “Only a handful in the world could even think of” doing so in the future, Norton said in a conversation with The Times of Israel last month. In a phone conversation with reporters on Sunday, Merin, who has personally invested “hundreds of hours” in the recognition process, described the experience of having the work he and his team have done be classified as the best in the world as “emotional.”

 

“I wish I could sit here and say it’s a ‘Mazal tov’ for me, but it’s a ‘Mazal tov’ for the army, for Israel,” Merin said, using a Hebrew term that literally means “good luck,” but is used as “congratulations.” The recognition process took nearly a year, beginning in January 2016, most of that meticulously reviewing manuals and ensuring that Israel met the criteria, Merin said. In the past two months, WHO delegations also visited Israel and met with Merin and his team in order to assess the IDF Medical Corps’ field hospital, a sprawling structure that can comprise up to 30 tents, according to the IDF. However, the version seen by Norton’s team during an exercise in northern Israel in September contained just 26.

 

The military’s field hospital is “not just some medics and doctors spread out in the field”; rather it is a “national treasure” that has the capabilities of an advanced, permanent hospital but can be set up almost anywhere in under 12 hours, Merin told The Times of Israel last month. Israeli disaster relief delegations — some of them led by Merin — have been some of the first and largest to arrive at the scenes of natural disasters. Teams from the IDF Medical Corps and Home Front Command provided rescue and medical services after an earthquake in Turkey in 1999, an earthquake in Haiti in 2010, a typhoon in the Philippines in 2013 and, most recently, an earthquake in Nepal in 2015.

 

This Type 3 classification ensures that Israeli teams will continue to be the first allowed on the scene of future disasters and further cements Israel’s position as a world leader in emergency medicine, proving to friends and foes alike that the Jewish state knows how to handle catastrophes. “This recognition isn’t just international. It’s also recognition for ourselves, showing us what we can do,” the army spokesperson said Sunday.

 

While Israel’s emergency medical teams may be best known for their work abroad, Merin stressed that this takes a backseat to its primary directive. “Our role is, first of all, to deploy and assist in either — God forbid — a natural disaster, which can happen because Israel’s on an active [fault line] or in cases of war,” he said. Israel’s regular humanitarian relief efforts have drawn both international praise and accusations of “rubble-washing” — or using its disaster relief effort to boost its international standing. Helping other countries in need is “the most effective kind of diplomacy,” then-foreign minister Avigdor Liberman said in 2015, after Israel sent a team to Nepal. “In crafting a country’s image, nothing is more effective than providing aid.”

 

However, diplomats insist the drive is mostly altruistic. “If we’re sending aid to Haiti, the Philippines and Nepal, we’re obviously not looking to reap great diplomatic benefits from these countries, which I might be allowed to describe as not superpowers,” said a former senior diplomat in 2015, responding to a question about Liberman’s comment…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]    

 

Contents           

             

RATIONALITY, IRRATIONALITY AND ISRAEL'S

CHANGING ORDER OF BATTLE                                                                           

Louis Rene Beres                                                                   

Israel Defense, Oct. 30, 2016

 

In every traditional military lexicon, strategies of international deterrence automatically assume enemy rationality. In the absence of rationality – that is, in those more-or-less residual circumstances where an enemy state might rank order certain preferences more highly than “staying alive” as a nation – deterrence is necessarily expected to fail. Regarding those inherently more serious and complex circumstances involving nuclear deterrence, the plausible consequences of failure could be catastrophic. They could even prove to be unprecedented.

 

Dealing with sub-state or terrorist adversaries presents a somewhat different and potentially even more hazardous set of nuclear deterrence risks. By definition, these increasingly hard-line adversaries (e.g., ISIS, Hezbollah) generally do not have sovereign national territories to protect (Palestinian Hamas has a sort of quasi-sovereign status in Gaza). Their core objectives are also apt to include “martyrdom,” a faith-driven preference that is plainly inauspicious for maintaining orthodox Israeli deterrence strategies. The basic problem is easy to recognize. Certain beleaguered states in the Middle East already have to deal with ISIS, Hezbollah, and related adversaries that may never habitually conform to the ordinary definitions of decisional rationality in world politics. This quality is far more portentous than a merely inconvenient truth. It represents a potentially existential peril.

 

For the most part, at least for now, nuclear deterrence should continue to be examined and assessed in Israel vis-à-vis national or state adversaries, not sub-state enemies. Moreover, irrationality, it must be understood, is not the same as “crazy,” or “mad," and must always be systematically differentiated from these imprecise and common-sense terms. Israeli strategic planners must expressly understand that even an irrational enemy leadership could still maintain a distinct and identifiable hierarchy of preferences, albeit one in which national survival does not predictably rank at the top.

 

Using correct strategic terminology, professional military analysts would likely report that such irrational state actors still exhibit an ordering of preferences that is “consistent,” "instrumental," and “transitive.” In principle, therefore, even certain "irrational" states could be rendered subject to alternative forms of deterrence. For any state that must rely more-or-less on threats of retaliatory destruction, correctly recognizing such "forms" could prove indispensable to its core national security.

 

By definition, a genuinely “crazy” or “mad” leadership would have no discernible order of preferences. Its strategic actions and interactions would expectedly be random and unpredictable. It follows that facing a crazy or mad adversary in world politics is substantially “worse” than confronting "just" an irrational adversary. Although it might still be possible and even reasonable to attempt deterrence of an irrational enemy, there would be little or no point to seeking such protections against a seemingly “mad” one. "Do you know what it means to find yourselves face to face with a madman," inquires playwright Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV. "Madmen, lucky folk, construct without logic, or rather with a logic that flies like a feather."

 

What is true for individuals is sometimes also true for states. In the bewildering theater of modern world politics, a drama that routinely bristles with absurdities, strategic decisions that rest upon logic can quickly crumble before madness. Corresponding dangers may reach the most singularly threatening or existential level. This is the case whenever madness and a nuclear weapons capability would overlap. Pertinent strategic questions of rationality and irrationality are not narrowly theoretical. On the contrary, they are profoundly real and current, especially in the still- adversarial dyad of Israel and Iran.  Because the “international community” could never agree to undertake an appropriately preemptive action (“anticipatory self-defense,” in the formal language of law), and had committed itself, instead, to the futile diplomacy of the July 2015 Vienna Pact, Jerusalem could still have to face an effectively genocidal Iranian nuclear adversary.

 

All along, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has understood that Iran’s senior leadership could, at least at some point, value Israel’s physical destruction more highly than its own national survival. Should this calculation actually happen, the “play” would end very badly for all the “actors," including the "victorious" Iranians.

 

For the foreseeable future, Israel’s ultimate source of national security will assuredly have to lie in some pattern or other of sustained nuclear deterrence. Whether still deliberately ambiguous or newly disclosed, this Israeli “bomb in the basement” could expectedly “crumble before madness.” This suggests that in certain easily-imaginable instances involving aberrant enemy behavior, the outcome of failed Israeli retaliatory threats could sometimes include irremediable harms. All things considered, while the logic of deterrence has traditionally required an assumption of rationality, history also reveals the persistent fragility of any such theoretical expectation. We already know all too well that nations can behave in ways that are consciously and conspicuously self-destructive…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]    

 

On Topic Links

 

Submarines and Advisers: Editorial, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 20, 2016—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s successful navigation of a turbulent Middle East is undoubtedly one of the reasons he may soon surpass David Ben-Gurion to become the nation’s longest-serving prime minister.

Israel Puts the Spike Missile on its Apache Helicopters: Shoshana Bryen, Jewish Policy Center, Nov. 21, 2016 —Sometimes when decisions do not work out exactly as intended, they work out just fine. In the midst of Operation Protective Edge — Israel’s response to 182 Hamas rockets and mortars fired at Israeli towns and villages in the first week of July 2014 — the Obama administration accused Israel of “heavy handed battlefield tactics,” including the use of artillery instead of precision-guided munitions. U.S. President Barack Obama halted the supply of Hellfire missiles and announced that all military equipment supplied to Israel would be vetted individually in the White House, instead of shipped, according to prior agreements, by the Pentagon to Israel.

Behind the Scenes of the Israeli Army: Tsivya Fox, Breaking Israel News, Nov. 22, 2016—The Israeli army (IDF) is known for its prowess and advanced technology. Lesser known is the wide range of projects which maintain soldier welfare and morale. These programs might just be the secret to the IDF’s outstanding success.

Women Increasingly Join the Fight in Israel's Army: Michael Blum, Yahoo News, Nov. 20, 2016—Her face covered in mud, 18-year-old Smadar crawls beneath thorny brush, her automatic rifle around her neck. She smiles despite the intensity of the training, and her commander, also a woman, shouts encouragement. "I don't regret choosing this unit," said Smadar, who was not allowed to provide her last name under Israeli army rules. "I wanted to do my military service in the most combative unit possible."

 

 

 

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