properly represent all its layers
Photo: Haim Hornstein
Major-General (res.) Giora Eiland
Photo: Ofer Amram
Professional army won't work in Israel
Op-ed: The 'people's army' was and will continue to be vital in maintaining the IDF's force and quality.
The intense arguments over the new IDF draft law
once again raise the notion that perhaps we should change the service model. Instead of universal service, we will establish a professional army. This army will be joined voluntarily only by those who choose military service as a way of life, as is customary in the US and in most countries of the world.
The temptation to move in this direction ignores two reasons which make such a solution not only wrong but also impossible. The first reason is quantitative. The starting point of every debate is the minimal size required for the IDF's
fighting force. The current number of IDF battalions is the minimal number which is genuinely required, and there are those who say that in recent years we have even gone below the red line. Most battalions are reserve battalions.
A shift to such an army would allegedly solve at once the difficulty involved in enlisting the haredim and put an end to the infinite dispute over an equal share of the burden.
Equal Share?
Yossi Yehoshua
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Simply put, those who speak about a professional army should realize that the number of soldiers who will have to serve in it (as part of career service) will be enough not only for the regular army but also for filling in tens of thousands of positions which are currently manned by reservists.
Today the reserve units are sustained by soldiers who complete their regular service at a proportion of about 4:1 (four reserve battalions for every regular battalion). They acquire the military profession in three years of service, and then implement it in their reserve service. If the new regular army, the one suggested as a professional army, will only have people for whom the army will be a 20- or 30-year career – who will sustain the reserve forces?
Therefore, due to the size required for the IDF's fighting force, in regular and reserve service, it would be impossible to establish an army of professional soldiers only. Even if theoretically there were enough people willing to serve in such an army, its financial cost would be extremely high.
The existing model is incredibly economical. When necessary, the army is big, because it is capable of recruiting all the reserve units within a short period of time. When unnecessary, the cost of maintaining the reserve unit's preparedness level is minimal. All this will change dramatically when the positions of tens of thousands of reservists will be filled by professional soldiers.
'People's army' properly represents all layers
The second reason why a professional army model is undesirable and even dangerous has to do with quality. In the existing model, the army is given an opportunity to choose the most suitable people to become pilots out of an entire age group and choose the best soldiers among the recruits to send to an officers' course.The army can also gain from the fact that the best youth – some of whom are successful later on in science, in the academia and in business – is also the one which performs the roles of pilots, doctors and commanders of squadrons and battalions in the reserve service.
This quality, which has a decisive influence on the IDF, will be significantly damaged if there is a professional army which will only be joined by those who decided on a military career at the age of 18. They will not necessarily be the best people, and the ability to choose only from them rather than from an entire age group, will critically impair the quality of the IDF command.
Moreover, the "people's army" is not just an expression of the enlistment duty, but it is also what guarantees that the army will properly represent all its layers and listen to the winds blowing from within it. Every general acknowledges the fact that a conversation with reserve regiment commanders sometimes helps him make critical decisions much more than any purely professional conversation.
The conclusion is that the "people's army" was and will continue to be vital in maintaining the IDF's force and quality.
