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.