A Good Lesson in Israel's Army Revamp

Israel is on the right track with its military reforms. America would be well served to take a lesson from the Israelis. The Wall Street Journal’s Joshua Mitnick explains:

Israel’s military plans to downsize its conventional firepower such as tanks and artillery to focus on countering threats from guerrilla warfare and to boost its technological prowess, in a recognition that the Middle East turmoil has virtually halted the ability of neighbors to invade for years to come.

The plan marks a sea change in Israel’s decades-old outlook toward the main military threats it faces. Ever since it fought a multiple-front offensive by Arab armies in its 1948 war for independence, Israel’s strategic planners and public have been dogged by fears of being overrun by enemy armies, with their backs to the sea.

Formidable militaries in Egypt and Syria, which fought together against Israel three times in a quarter century, are now mired in domestic unrest. The war against President Bashar al-Assad has worn down the Syrian army; Egypt’s military is busy trying to stabilize the country amid a political crisis.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in public remarks that the army plans to be less dependent on heavy armaments. “In another few years we will see a different” Israel Defense Forces, he said. “Wars of military versus military—in the format we last met 40 years ago, in the Yom Kippur War—are becoming less and less relevant.”