WarSclerotic

Three months into his tenure as chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi set out the framework for his multi-year plan to improve the Israel Defense Forces, some parts of which will be rolled out shortly, while others will require budgetary and legislative approvals before they can be implemented.

According to the IDF, Kohavi’s plan, known as “Readiness and Change,” focuses on continuing and strengthening two existing trends within the military: greater distribution of technology and intelligence throughout the military and better cooperation between its various different branches and units.

“Readiness and Change” appears to be concerned with shorter-term changes to the military that are designed to quickly boost efficacy — what the military typically refers to as “lethality” — whereas the previous chief of staff Lt. Gen. (res.) Gadi Eisenkot’s multi-year Gideon plan was aimed at longer-term, structural changes within the IDF.

Kohavi’s plan will also include the creation of a unit within the IDF Planning Directorate, headed by a brigadier general, to be known as “Fighting methods and modernity” — or by its Hebrew acronym Shiluah — that will focus on integrating new techniques and technology into the IDF, the army said.

A moment before an Israeli missile destroys a Syrian SA-22 air defense system on May 10, 2018. (Israel Defense Forces)

A new target-picking task force will also be established, bringing together Military Intelligence, the Israeli Air Force and the three regional commands. The task force will comprise existing elements of those units and will also expand the use of technology — namely artificial intelligence and big data — in identifying potential targets for military strikes.

“This will improve the number and quality of the targets in the different regions,” the military said Thursday.

While Kohavi’s plans are meant to affect the entire military, the main beneficiaries of the proposals are the IDF’s ground forces — infantry, tanks, artillery, and combat engineering — which have been at the center of both public and internal military debate in the past year concerning their preparedness for war.

In order to increase the ground forces capabilities, the military plans to provide them additional resources, particularly in the form of anti-tank guided missiles and greater access to air power.

“This will strengthen the fighting force of the combat soldier, will defeat the enemy and will very powerfully and very quickly deny [the enemy] of its capabilities,” the military said.

IDF tanks stationed near the Israeli Gaza border on March 26, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

These additional, expensive resources will require budgetary approval from the government.

Another potentially costly proposal from “Readiness and Change” is a plan to connect nearly all branches and units of the military to an IDF intranet, allowing intelligence and operational information to be shared far more quickly than today.

A task force within the IDF General Staff will lead the project, the army said.

“This comes from an understanding that advancing this issue will allow better collaboration and connectivity throughout the military and will connect all the troops and platforms on the battlefield to one another,” the IDF said.

Illustrative. An IDF soldier from the C4I Corps types on a computer. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)

Kohavi also called for the implementation of an existing planwithin the military to form a combined unit made up of infantry, combat engineering, artillery, air force and intelligence. Currently, the various units regularly collaborate with one another but are kept structurally separate; under the plan, which was first proposed under Eisenkot, the elements will be brought under one roof.

“This will be the model for the future changes in the maneuvering units,” the military said, using its term for ground forces.

Toward the end of his first year as IDF chief, in late 2015, Eisenkot began rolling out his Gideon Plan, which was aimed at increasing the military’s efficiency and cutting waste.

The Gideon Plan came under significant criticism in recent years, chiefly by former military ombudsman Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brick, who claimed that it was contributing to a decline in the IDF’s preparedness for war and in the quality of its officers.

The Israeli Air Force conducted successful live-fire tests of its Patriot and Iron Dome missile defense systems on Tuesday, the military said.

The exercise had been subjected to the military censor until Wednesday evening.

“Air defense soldiers from the Israeli Air Force conducted successful interceptions of targets at various heights and ranges,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

The Patriot air defense system is meant to intercept both incoming aircraft and long-range ballistic missiles, while the Iron Dome is designed to shoot down short-range rocket and mortar attacks, as well as some aircraft.

Illustrative: In this handout file photo provided by the Israeli Army on February 22, 2001, a Patriot anti-missile missile is launched on the last day of joint five-day US-Israeli military exercise in the Negev desert. (Israel Defense Forces/AFP)

The Air Force said the exercise, which was conducted in central Israel, was meant to test the preparedness of its air defense and technical units, as well as the air defense batteries themselves.

The IDF said the exercise was part of its annual training schedule.

Two foreign military delegations visited the exercise, the military said, refusing to specify the two countries.

“The delegations came to watch the exercise and to study its results. The delegations will take part in a panel discussion that will focus on professional matters and inter-military cooperation,” the IDF said.

Israel maintains a multi-tiered air defense system that is designed to protect the country’s strategic assets from aerial attack.

An Iron Dome anti-missile battery is seen near the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on December 27, 2014. (Flash90)

The lowest layer is the Iron Dome system, capable of intercepting short-range rockets, small unmanned aerial vehicles and mortar shells like those that have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip or from southern Lebanon.

The middle tier is made up of David’s Sling, which is meant to defend against missiles like the Iranian Fateh 110 and its Syrian equivalent, the M600, both of which have seen extensive use in the Syrian civil war and are known to be in the Hezbollah terrorist group’s arsenal.

At the top are the Patriot, Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 systems, which are intended to engage long-range ballistic missiles. The Patriot has also been used on a number of occasions against incoming aircraft.

Last July, the Patriot system shot down a Syrian fighter jet that traveled two kilometers into Israeli airspace, the military said.

TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani called on Middle East states on Thursday to “drive back Zionism,” in an Army Day tirade against the Islamic republic’s arch-foe Israel.

Speaking flanked by top general as troops paraded in a show of might, Rouhani also sought to reassure the region that the weaponry on display was for defensive purposes and not a threat.

“The region’s nations have lived alongside each other for centuries and never had a problem… If there is a problem, it is caused by others,” he said in the speech broadcast live on state television. “Let us stand together, be together and rid the region of the aggressor’s presence.”

Rouhani assured neighboring countries that Iran’s armed forces are “never against you or your national interests” but are “standing against the aggressors.”

“The power of our armed forces is the power of the region’s countries, the Islamic world”, he said. “If we have a problem in the region today, its roots are either with Zionism or America’s arrogance.”

Rouhani called on Muslim nations to band together and “restore the historical right of the nation of Palestine,” saying that “Zionism … has been committing crimes in the region for the past 70 years.”

Protesters burn a representation of the American flag during a rally against the US’s decision to designate Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization, after their Friday prayers at the Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) square in Tehran, Iran on April 12, 2019. (AP/Vahid Salemi)

“The final victory will surely be with the righteous,” he said.

Iran’s annual Army Day celebrations are an opportunity for the military to show off its latest weapons but also for its political leaders to try to reassure the region and the international community that they are for defensive purposes only.

The military parade was held next to the south Tehran mausoleum of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It showcased Iran’s latest weaponry, including the domestically designed and manufactured Kowsar fighter jet, which was first unveiled last year.

‘Cancerous tumor’

Diatribes against Israel are standard fare of the official speeches, although some, such as a call by Rouhani’s firebrand predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” have triggered international condemnation.

Rouhani has previously called Israel a “cancerous tumor,” and called on Muslim governments to unite against it and its US ally.

Iran does not recognize Israel and opposition to the Jewish state has been a central tenet of official policy since the 1979 revolution.

Iran has supported Palestinian radical groups that lay claim to all of historic Palestine and has vociferously opposed the now moribund Middle East peace process under which the Palestinians won autonomy in some of the territories captured by Israel in the Six Day War of 1967.

Iranian officials have warned repeatedly that Israel will soon cease to exist, but have usually been careful to underline that that will come about not through a direct attack by Iran.

“In 25 years’ time, with the grace of God, no such thing as the Zionist regime will exist in the region,” supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in 2015.

Syria tensions

The presence of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in Syria supporting President Bashar Assad’s forces in the eight-year civil war has sharply increased tensions between the two countries.

Israel has said publicly that it has carried out hundreds of air and missile strikes targeting the forces of Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah in Syria.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that he will never allow Iran to establish a long-term military presence in Israel’s northeastern neighbor.

Netanyahu has also been an outspoken opponent of a landmark nuclear deal Iran signed with major powers in 2015 and was the leading supporter of US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from it and reimpose crippling economic sanctions last year.

Washington has sought to forge an anti-Iran axis in the Middle East bringing together Israel and the Gulf Arab states to make common cause against what they see as Iranian “meddling” in the region.

Last week, Washington placed Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on its blacklist of “foreign terrorist organizations,” the first time it had imposed the sanction on a military arm of a foreign government.

The new commander of the IDF’s Ground Forces said Thursday the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah was still planning to carry out a surprise invasion of northern Israel, despite the recent Israeli operation to uncover and destroy an extensive network of cross-border attack tunnels dug by the Iran-backed militia.

Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick was tapped to lead the military’s Ground Forces in February, amid increased criticism charging that Israeli troops were not prepared for war. His comments came less than four months months after the IDF concluded its anti-tunnel operation along the Lebanese border.

“Hezbollah still has plans to invade the Galilee,” he told the Ynet news site in an interview, referring to entering Israeli territory through a cross-border tunnel network. “Of course we won’t allow that to happen, we will thwart these plans.”

In December, Israel accused Hezbollah of digging cross-border tunnels into its territory from southern Lebanon and launched an operation to destroy them.

According to the army, Hezbollah had planned to use the tunnels to kidnap or kill civilians or soldiers, and to seize a slice of Israeli territory in the event of any hostilities.

The IDF did not given a total figure for the tunnels found, though it announced in January that six were destroyed during the course of the operation.

Strick also voiced support for declaring war on Lebanon.

“In the next war, it would be a mistake for us to distinguish between the state of Lebanon and Hezbollah, since Hezbollah is a political actor and part of the government,” Strick said.

Israeli soldiers stand around the opening of a hole that leads to a tunnel that the army says was dug by the Hezbollah terror group across the Israel-Lebanon border, near Metula, on December 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

In such a conflict, “if it were up to me, I would recommend declaring war on Lebanon and Hezbollah,” he said. “I have no doubt what the outcome will be… It will be a decisive victory.”

Strick also addressed Israel’s efforts to combat Iranian troops in Syria, saying the ongoing airstrikes have been “very effective” in limiting Tehran’s military entrenchment near the Israeli border.

“In the area referred to as ‘southern Syria,’ our operations have been very effective, and they have actually pushed the Iranians out [of that area],” he said.

“In those places, Iran’s presence is so weak it,s almost nonexistent,” he said, adding that Iranian forces are entrenched elsewhere in Syria.

Strick also threatened to destroy Syria’s S-300 system if were to be used against Israeli fighter jets, regardless of the potential blowback Jerusalem would face from Russia, which provided its ally Syria with the powerful air defense battery.

“I don’t see our freedom of operation as being diminished,” he said. “If these batteries are used, the air force will eliminate that threat. We know how to do it.”

“It’s a legitimate course of action that is in accordance with the rules of engagement, and I assume that it will happen,” Strick told the news site, though he conceded the move could “complicate” relations with Moscow.

In recent years, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria against targets linked to Iran, which alongside Hezbollah and Russia, are fighting on behalf of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Israel has accused Iran of seeking to establish a military presence in Syria that could threaten Israeli security, and of attempting to transfer advanced weaponry to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This once quiet fight has become increasingly public in recent months, with each side issuing public threats.