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Israel’s Army Wants to Keep Its Tanks Written by Arieh O’Sullivan Published Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Threat of asymmetric warfare grows, but generals warns it’s too early to change strategy The diminutive Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel, who is in charge of strategic planning and force building for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), joked that when he was in Washington last week the pressure was on not to strike Iran’s nuclear program. “When I got there I was six feet and above, and look what happened [to me] after the pressure,” said Eshel, a veteran fighter pilot, who stands five foot seven inches. Eshel, who is a candidate to take over command of the Israel Air Force, made sure to repeat he was speaking in jest, because any kind of levity involving Israel’s potential actions against Iran’s nuclear program is serious business. With U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey scheduled to visit Israel later this week, much of the focus has been on the reported difference between Jerusalem and Washington about assessments over how long it will take for Tehran to develop its first nuclear weapon and how to stop it. “We are living right now during dramatic changes [in the Middle East] that create a lot of new challenges and a lot of unknowns,” Eshel said, referring to the growing power of Islamists in countries like Egypt. “Unfortunately, our assessment a year ago that those revolutions would be hijacked by others came true.” Yet despite the dramatic political changes in the Middle East, Israel has no intention of reducing its battle order of conventional armored divisions, even as the traditional threats facing the Jewish state are arguably at an historic low and new ones are emerging in the form of asymmetrical warfare and missile attacks. “It is a zero sum game and we are trying to juggle all the balls,” Eshel said in response to a question from The Media Line. “When the adversaries find out that we are weak in one part, they will be sucked to that. We cannot allow ourselves to have too many weak points.” “You see more unmanned vehicles on air, ground and sea. There are changes. But if you ask me if this is going to be cancelled, no tanks, that is not the case. It would be irresponsible. We have to be robust. You don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow and suddenly a threat that you said was already gone is there and you don’t have the right tools to address it.” “There are changes, but we don’t see a trick here to create a new military,” he added. “One thing that I have learned from real life related to insurance policies, when the risk is higher so you pay more. You have to pay more for your insurance policy and the IDF is the real insurance policy of the state of Israel.” Israel's military spending is among the largest in the world on a per capita basis and has been the subject of bitter controversy between the defense and finance ministries in recent months. Last week, Israel’s defense budget for 2012 was sent at 53.6 billion shekels ($13.9 billion), which includes some $3 billion in annual U.S. military grants. This included a three billion-shekel hike, and came after intensive lobbying by generals to counter demands to cut the defense budget to fund socioeconomic reforms. In Israel, the public is clinging to the social and economic agenda. But the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has largely focused on the security agenda, citing the Iranian threat. The generals have been all too eager to comply, saying they need more funding. At a news conference last week, Netanyahu took the side of the defense establishment saying that “in light of multiplying threats and security challenges around us, it would be a mistake – even a big mistake – to cut the defense budget. More than that, I think we need to increase it at this time.” Speaking at a think-tank in Jerusalem, Eshel told foreign journalists, military attaches and diplomats that a nuclear-armed Iran could provide an “umbrella” for Israel’s adversaries like Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip which could make them more aggressive. “They will dare to do things that right now they would not dare to do,” Eshel said. “This is going to create a dramatic change in Israel’s strategic posture, because if we are forced to do things in Gaza or Lebanon under an Iranian umbrella, it might be different.” Eshel echoed the views of most of the general staff when he highlighted the potential for conflagration in the region, saying there were 100,000 rockets and missiles currently aimed at Israel. He outlined the growing strategic threats, including an increase in surface-to-surface missiles and sophisticated anti-tank rockets. He said Syria, which is nearly bankrupt, has invested $2 billion in air defenses over the past two years that protest it from Israeli counter-strikes. Still, the threat of conventional military war with Israel appears more distant than ever, with Syria’s army tied down in a 10-month-old popular uprising and Israel at official peace with Egypt. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein’s divisions were vanquished by the U.S. and Jordan has solid defense ties with Israel. Hizbullah, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have no armored forces to speak of. Yet Dana Preisler, head of the international sphere at Reut, a government-linked think tank, explained the army’s hesitancy to take major risks such as lowering its battle order. “The IDF right now, as every other establishment, is waiting. It is a difficult period of change and bodies like the IDF prefer to wait and see how the realities are going to evolve,” Preisler told The Media Line. “The threat is getting bigger, the region is going backwards, so let’s enlarge the budget and let’s build ourselves to be ready for the next war.” Preisler has been leading her organization’s investigation of the impact of the Arab Spring on Israel and she doesn’t foresee that things will stabilize for some time. “During a period of change nobody can say that in one year or in five years we will see here a stable new regime or that we will know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. It is what we call an eco-systemic nature.” She also noted that Israel’s traditional strategic pillar of deterrence may have held up with Arab regimes but the new world emerging was shaking it. “Deterrence is strong, but vis a vis who? The regimes. And those regimes are changing.” She said that if any risks were to be taken now by Israel to explore the new opportunities in the region it would be diplomatic and civilian before military. These included reaching out to Turkey and Saudi Arabia and other players in the region, she said.