Ariel Center for
Policy Research

A JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND THE ARTS

 

NATIV   ■   Volume Eleven   ■   Number 6 (65) ■  November 1998   ■  Ariel Center for Policy Research

 

SYNOPSIS

 


The Need for Revision of the Israeli Military Doctrine

Yoav Gelbar

Israel’s founding leaders shaped its national security’s fundamental concepts in the early 1950s in view of the contemporary geopolitical, demographic, social and economic conditions.  Despite the major changes that the 1967 and 1973 wars generated in all these fields, no thorough revision of the prevalent principles has taken place ever since.  An analysis of the present military and non-military threats which Israel encounters on the one hand, and its socio-cultural situation on the other hand, reveals a huge gap between the menaces’ intensity and the readiness of Israeli society to cope with them and face reality.  The IDF’s traditional character as “The People’s Army” has turned, therefore, from an asset to a liability.

The essential reform of the national security’s principles and organization covers a reexamination of the three basic concepts – deterrence, alert and overpowering; reshaping the military’s relations with the political authority and creating a national security team besides the PM; and, particularly a revision of the relative role and composition of the career army, the conscripts and the reserves.

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