Monthly Archives: April 2017

Guest Article: Israel – The Price of Independence

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Dr. Eitan Shamir*

On May 2nd of this year, Israel will be celebrating its 69th Independence Day. As always, the cheerful opening celebrations on the evening of May 1st will begin within hours of the memorial ceremonies for the fallen soldiers carried out that very morning, during Memorial Day. On Memorial Day, the nation is sunk in grief, remembering some 23,500 fallen members of the Israeli security forces and 5,150 civilians who lost their lives to ensure Israel’s national survival, freedom and prosperity.

As always, the ceremonies will include a reading of a poem by Natan Alterman (1910-1970), one of Israel’s best known poets. Its title, “The Silver Platter,” is attributed to Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann. Just two weeks after the UN decision, on November 29th, 1947, to partition British Mandatory Palestine, and amidst the rapidly escalating Arab attacks on the Jewish community, he declared that “the state will not be handed out to the Jewish People on a silver platter.” Thus foreseeing the great sacrifice in lives that the community in question would have to make in its pursuit of statehood. Four days later, on 19th December 1947, Alterman published the poem. As the years passed, it gained status as a national canon epitomizing the sacrifice the nation has asked from its members:

 

And the land shall again be peaceful, the red eye in the sky

Slowly dimming over smoking frontiers,

And the nation will rise, heart torn but still breathing,

To accept this miracle, this one and only miracle…

A ceremony it will prepare, standing before the crescent moon,

Facing them dressed in joy and terror.

And then towards them will walk a young woman and man

Slowly marching toward the congregated nation.

Dressed in dirt and battle-gear and heavy shoes

They will ascend the path, treading quietly.

They will not have changed their garb nor wiped their brow,

Nor cleaned any trace of their days in labor and nights in battle.

Exhausted, but never resting,

Still in the dew of Hebrew youth…

Silently the two will approach and then stand perfectly still
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Revealing no sign whether alive or shot.

And then the nation shall ask, tearful and amazed,

“Who are you?” And the two quietly will answer:

“We are the silver platter

On which you have received the Jewish State”.

Having spoken they will fall at the nation’s feet, covered in shadows,

And the rest will be recounted in the chronicles of Israel.

 

Each year, shortly after the sun sets, Memorial Day comes to an end, giving way to Independence Day and causing the country’s mood to shifts all at once. Hundreds of thousands of people join public celebrations complete with fireworks, food stands, music and dancing. A stronger contrast than the one between those two days would be hard to imagine.

This phenomenon of a sudden switch of national mood, from one extreme human emotion to its complete opposite, might seem peculiar, and a stranger might not appreciate it. Indeed, each year there are Israelis, especially among the families of the fallen, who argue that the abrupt extreme change in mood is abnormal and that more space should exist between these two days, allowing for a more gradual transition between the emotions they represent.    

However, Israel’s founding fathers created these two days as inseparable twins for a good reason. They wanted to make sure the nation remembers that its freedom was acquired and is being maintained at a dire cost; that before the nation begins to celebrate it must pause to pay tribute to the Silver Platter. One cannot be without the other.

Since Alterman wrote his poem in 1947, the State of Israel has gone through profound changes. One such change is Israel becoming a technology powerhouse. If, in the past, Israel’s main export product used to consist of oranges, then today it is high technology: a wide variety of software- and hardware related products. Included among these products are “apples.” Though not the kind one can eat, but rather the new model iPhone 8 that has been mostly developed in Israel.

These technological developments have affected not just the methods by which Israel wages its wars but also the way the Israeli public perceives the wars in question. In the past when a reference was made to Israel’s qualitative edge, what was meant was the quality of its field commanders and combat training; today it means Israel’s technological advantage. Technology is expected to deliver a solution for every security challenge, from rockets to tunnels.

This expectation leads to a perception that wars have become – or should become – a “clean business.” The heroes of our era, argue certain self-proclaimed pundits, are the men and women behind the keyboard or joystick. In other words, “cyber warriors.” These new military professions “should be elevated” above all the rest, they argue, as they represent the future. The prestige and status society reserved for its combat soldiers, those who operate in the line of fire, killing and risking being killed, should be shared with these new cyber warriors. The IDF prestigious definition of “combat soldier,” they continue to argue, should include soldiers who operate systems that can definitely shoot, even though their operators are located in secure places, very far from harm’s way.  

While cyberwar and technology are indeed important, even crucial, this entails a grave danger as the new ethos could affect young recruits who are led to believe that self-sacrifice is not needed on today’s battlefield. If, in the past, the best and brightest felt that their first calling was a combat unit, this is slowly changing. Sadly, as the recent wars in Gaza, Iraq & Syria remind us, war is still very much a bloody affair of soldiers “running around with rifles shooting each other” as one observer commented. I often show my students a scene from Spielberg’s “Band of Brothers” in which a company of American paratroopers fight house to house to recover a small village in Normandy France, 1944. There are always a few students who approach me after class and say, “this is exactly what we experienced in Gaza and Lebanon”.

Blood is the currency of war, said Clausewitz. Vast technological change notwithstanding, for those who engage the enemy at the front little has changed. Unfortunately, on its 69th birthday, while Israel celebrates its many astonishing achievements, it is still embattled, and will continue to face war and bloodshed for the foreseeable future. The struggle and the sacrifices necessary to uphold the state have not ended, and before we celebrate, let us not forget the Silver Platter that enabled us to do so.

 

* Dr. Eitan Shamir is a Senior Research Fellow with the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA Center) Bar Ilan University. He is author of Transforming Command (2011) and Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies (2017) with Beatrice Heuser.

Infantilization

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At fifteen, my grandfather left home and became an apprentice to a chicken-feed dealer (later he worked himself up until he became a very rich man, but that is beside the point). My father and I both happened to leave home at eighteen. Fast move forward. In the US between 2000 and 2011, the number of women aged 25-34 who lived with their parents went from 8.3 to 9.7 percent. The corresponding figures for men were 12.9 and 18.6 percent, a vast increase indeed. These changes have been accompanied by others, such as allowing people up to 26 years of age to join their parents’ health insurance (in the US, under Obamacare) and extending the licenses of “child psychologists” so as to enable them to treat 25-year olds (in Britain).

Crowning the process is the rise in the age at which people have their first child, which is now the highest in history. Even so, the above figures only form the tip of the iceberg. They are the last—for the time being, at any rate—stages in a process of compulsory infantilization that, in all Western countries, has been going on ever since the industrial revolution. Some of the earliest moves were made in Britain during the middle decades of the nineteenth century when parliament first limited the number of hours young people could be put to work and then gradually prohibited them from working at all. Then as now, some of those involved in the efforts were true “philanthropists,” as the phrase went. Others, though, had less lofty motives in mind. Either they were trying to eliminate competition from small family-operated enterprises, as big business did; or else they hoped to increase wages, as trade unions did.

Today, things have reached the point where anyone who suggests—as, famously, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich once did— that it might be good for teenagers to do some work will face a storm of disapproval. And yet, as thinkers as far apart as Aesop, St. Benedict, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud have recognized, working and earning one’s keep as one of the most important ways in which people can maintain their own self-respect and take up their place in society.

Meanwhile, youngsters who were not allowed to work had to be looked after. Traditionally doing so was the job of mothers. Especially middle-class ones who neither had the money to hire substitutes nor were compelled to work by economic necessity. Starting the 1960s, though, the advent of feminism led to a vast increase in the number of women who worked outside the home; meaning that they could no longer do as they used to.

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Meanwhile, more and more children who used to walk or cycle to school are now either being “bused” there or driven by their parents. Statistics show that the maximum distance from home at which they are allowed to roam on their own has been falling. Instances when parents who allowed children aged ten or so to play, unsupervised, in a park near home were threatened with having their offspring taken away from them are on record. In many cities those under sixteen, or seventeen, or eighteen, now face a curfew; meaning that, unless they are accompanied by an adult, they are no longer allowed to be on the streets at night. Amidst all this the age of consent has been rising. The more years young people spend at school and the better educated they are, apparently, the less able there are to resist the appeal of sex and to handle it responsibly.

Briefly, young people are increasingly being treated as if they cannot look after themselves. Not in respect to work. Not in respect to study. Not in respect to freedom of movement, not in respect to drink—in the US and some other countries, one must be over 21 in order to enjoy it—and not in respect to having sex. All for their own, good, needless to say.

But that is not half of it. For as long as humans have existed, the moment at which young people of both sexes were separated from each other was considered a critical step on their way to adulthood. Normally this took place when they reached puberty or slightly earlier. Now we are told that, in Norway and Sweden, recent reforms in the military have led to male and female recruits being made to share the same bedrooms as if they were not yet twelve years old.

The ultimate insult to both men and women, I would say.

Bravo, Mr. Trump

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For those of you who have forgotten, it is now almost exactly six years since President Barak Obama, that left-wing, hesitant, weak, and vacillating Obama, launched his cruise missiles at Libya, thereby firing one of the first salvoes in what soon became a French and British air campaign against that country. A few months later Dictator Muammar Gadhafi was captured and killed; not that he had not richly deserved it. Leaving the stage, he took with him the last government Libya has known or is likely to know in the foreseeable future.

As the war expanded it turned into a struggle of all against all. A country whose per capita income had been about $ 11,000, which in “developing world” terms is nothing to sneeze at, literally fell apart. Uncounted thousands were killed, hundreds of thousands more forced to flee from their homes. Taking to any rickety boat they could find they poured across the Mediterranean, hoping that the Italian Navy would pick them up on the way. Sometimes it did, sometimes not. Thank you, US, thank you, France, thank you, the United Kingdom (which is not so United any more, but never mind.) The war whose flames you helped stoke is still going on. And on. And on.

Last week it was the turn of right-wing brave, confident, daring President Donald Trump—he who, unlike presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, had promised not to take the US to an unnecessary and unwinnable war—to resort to cruise missiles. The very weapons, nota bene, of which right-wing brave, confident, daring, President George Bush Jr., and his equally right-wing, brave, confident, daring, secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, famously said was that all they could do was to hit a camel in the ass. In doing so Bush was referring to his own predecessor, the left-wing, hesitant, weak and vacillating President Bill Clinton who had used them in Iraq.

Syria being further away, France and Britain, too weak to play any significant role, stood on the sidelines, cheering Trump’s action and egging him on. So, of course, did Israel. The latter’s role in the conflict has been especially contemptible. Hyena-like, for years now it has been trying to push someone, anyone, into doing its dirty work for it and bring down Assad. Never mind that the alternative, namely the total collapse of government in Syria, is even worse.

All these, and many others besides, were happy to assume the high moral ground. All also willfully overlooked the fact that, when it comes to breaking the laws of war as well as engaging in sheer cruelty, there is little or nothing to choose between the warring parties in Syria. Look at the Net! Assad’s forces, long specialized in dropping dynamite-filled barrels on markets, have now graduated to gassing children as well. However, some of his enemies boast of turning people into human torches, roasting them, and killing them in all kinds of other exotic ways.
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The immediate casualties, of which there seem to have been very few, apart, the two people most affected by the American strike are Assad and Putin. Neither is exactly a kind, liberal guy, as Donald Trump notoriously is. But both have a finger—in Assad’s case, much more than a finger—in the pie. And both are determined to safeguard their interests. Nor, at any rate in Assad’s case, is it a question of interest alone. Should his forces be defeated and his government collapse, then the fate of the Alawite community to which he belongs and which in Syria numbers anything between 1.5 and 3 million people, cannot even be imagined.

For these and other reasons, it is inconceivable that the war will end in a way that will not take account of Putin’s interest, which is to re-build and maintain his country’s presence in the eastern Mediterranean. As for Assad, barring some unforeseen accident he will stay in power for as long as Putin wants him to. Putin’s immediate reaction to the American strike was to terminate military coordination with the Americans, thus making any future operations considerably more difficult. If necessary he could also make Russian troops share the bases of their dear Syrian brethren, thus rendering such operations impossible.

To be sure, Assad and Putin are bad, bad people. Though whether they are really worse than the American heroes who, in December 2016, deliberately (as they themselves say) bombed an Iraqi hospital is another question. However bad they may be, without their cooperation no solution will be found.

So bravo, Mr. Trump. Thanks partly to you, this war too will go on. And on. And on.

Guest Article: Air Forces – Balance of Power in the Middle Eas

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By: Karsten Riise

Air forces are of colossal importance in the Balance of Power between states. Without air superiority, a state is open for huge devastation from potential adversaries. To get a clearer picture of the Balance of Power in the Middle East, I therefore decided to focus on the balance of assets for air superiority in the Wider Middle East – see figure 1:

Figure 1

Methodology

My methodology in figure 1 is straight forward: Only high-end fighter (or multirole) aircraft in service are relevant for the contestation of air space. It is assumed high-end fighters in service have received all technical upgrades for high-end status. Light or older fighter aircraft are shown, but may quickly be eliminated.  To keep the methodology robust, I focus on the sheer number of high-end air superiority fighters. Only easily available, open sources have been used.

Readiness is a significant quantifiable factor which has not been easily available. If a modern air force has a normal readiness of for example 70%, it may well be, that Iran, due to lack of spare parts, lack of instruments, lack of trained pilots and technicians, may have a readiness of only 35%. If that is the case, the effective force of Iran would be only half of what her number of 44 high-end units indicates, bringing Iran’s total force down to 22 comparable “units of force-level”.

The “qualitative factors” like pilot-training, support-structures, leadership, configuration of bases, communication, support from other assets (ground-sensors, AWACS, satellites) etc. can be decisive. Also lethality and availability of modern munitions (e.g. air-to-air missiles) go into this. A “quality-factor” is difficult to measure, but it is still possible to say something in general about “quality” level. If USA=100 in “quality-factor”, it is generally accepted that Israel’s “quality-factor” is probably quite above 100, that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are probably a bit below 100, and that Iran is very much lower due to lack of training, and other modern assets. In this analysis, I will not measure “quality-factors”, just point to them.

Overview

Figure 1 brings up four issues for my discussion: First, Iran’s obvious lack of air power against all of her many competitors. Second, the enormous increase in GCC air power, not least in Saudi Arabia. Third, the balance of power in relation to Israel. Fourth, the issue of nuclear weapons.

Iran – vacuum of air-power

Iran has only got 44 high-end aircraft to disperse, and they may not all be upgraded to deserve “high-end” status. Due to lack of training, spare parts etc. it may well be that Iran’s readiness factor is only half of her neighboring countries, which means that her 44 units may only count as a “force-level” of 22. These 22 units of “force-level” have to be split up in (minimum) 3-6 sectors to defend a vast territory of 1,6 million km2, leaving only a meager 3-7 units of modern “force-level” per defense sector. It is obvious, that Iran does not possess any of the air assets necessary to protect her air space, not even against the air force of her smallest neighbors. Deficits in other “qualitative” combat factors like pilot-training only reinforce this conclusion. A few S-300 anti-air missiles may serve as a “trip-wire” for point-defense, but without a comprehensive, layered integrated air defense system, a few S-300 do not change the overall picture of a nearly undefended air space. The regional stability risk, therefore, seems not to be that Iran becomes “too strong”, but rather, that Iran in terms of air defense is a power-vacuum, which could invite intrusion from any of her numerous competitors. Iran does possess a substantial number of surface-to-surface missiles of considerable range, which are often cited (especially by USA sources) as a “threat”. But you cannot win a war with surface-to-surface missiles alone, and all of Iran’s competitors have got effective Patriot missile defenses. In view of Iran’s lack of air power, Iran’s surface-to-surface missiles are a stand-alone capability. Iran’s missiles must merely be seen as a deterrent, in other words a defensive capability, which stabilizes the region, because Iran’s missiles discourage attack on Iran. Iran also possesses a capability of armed speed-boats, land-to-sea missiles etc. which can obstruct the oil traffic in the Persian Gulf. This marine capability, like Iran’s conventionally armed land-to-land missiles, must also in the overall context be seen as a deterrent, discouraging attack on Iran, but not a capability which gives Iran encouragement for a very adventurous strategy. As it will appear below in figure 2 and 3, Iran is not investing an overly great portion of her economy in military.  

Is this “good” or “bad”? Well, anyone reserving a “right” to attack Iran, may think it is “good”.  Given the troubling experiences in the region of turning a functioning country into havoc and chaos, it may arguably also be “bad”.

GCC – enormous increase in air-power

All the GCC countries relative to their size possess very large quantities of high-end air assets. The GCC total is 409 aircraft, and with 349 units more on order, this group is on way to an inventory of 758 units. In comparison, France and Britain have a total of 369 high-end units, according to the same sources. Even the smaller GCC-states have by a wide margin plenty of assets against Iran. Saudi Arabia alone has got 222 units, and 156 more on order, for a total of 378 units. An additional order of 72 Eurofighters is under consideration, which could bring Saudi Arabia up to 450 units. According to GlobalSecurity.org, Saudi Arabia has also asked for 100 units of F-35 “stealth” fighters. If Saudi Arabia is denied F-35 from the USA, she may instead choose to buy J-31 “stealth” fighters from China. That might bring the Royal Saudi Air Force up to 550 units. Saudi Arabia also possesses 13 units of E3-sentry AWACS. In comparison, NATO for patrolling all its Eastern flank from Norway to Turkey (4,000+ km) has got about 16 similar units.

The question comes up, why Saudi Arabia invests in air superiority assets on such a large scale. Air force may be the most expensive part of Saudi Arabian military spending, and Saudi Arabia’s military spending of 13.7% of GDP in 2015 is the third the highest in the world after Oman (and South Sudan, not shown) – see figure 2:
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Figure 2

Oil prices have been high for many of the preceding years. Surplus money may tempt military spending. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia’s high air force investments are felt now that oil incomes have been depressed the last few years, and Saudi Arabia also wants to invest huge sums of money in diversifying her economy to achieve a broader economic footing to prepare for her “post-oil” era in due time.

Intentions are never known for sure, and may even change. I will go through a range of seven theoretical types of thinkable intentions. First, air forces have prestige. But the “bling” factor can hardly explain investment on this scale. Second, “defense against Iran” can be ruled out as a reason, because the Iranian air force is so small, ref above. Third, the Saudi Arabian and GCC assets are so numerous, that an offensive strategy (for example against Iran) may be a possibility, especially if the Patriot systems (which all the GCC countries have) are effective to defend against possible retaliatory missile strikes. Fourth, protection of Saudi Arabia against internal revolts, might theoretically be thought of, but the Saudi Arabian air force seems bigger than needed for that. Fifth, Saudi Arabia might seek the role of a great regional power. For the general role as a regional power, Saudi Arabia will need a strong navy to complement her air force in power-projection. And according to the open sources used here, Saudi Arabia actually has got an ambitious navy program with 7 frigates, 4 corvettes, and contemplates buying 2-3 destroyers, including the powerful American Arleigh Burke class, plus the advanced Freedom class littoral combat ship. Submarines are missing. For power projection, Saudi Arabia also has 2 tanker aircraft, 3 more tankers on order, plus a number of heavy transport aircraft. Saudi Arabia also has a satellite program, but her missile force seems not built out. Sixth, Saudi Arabia might not rule out, that a conflict with Israel could erupt one day, willingly or unwillingly, perhaps just due to misunderstandings. Here, however, Israel is in possession of the “great peacekeeper” in form of nuclear devices. Seventh, we may look at the timing of Saudi Arabia’s increase in military spending – see figure 3:

Figure 3

The acceleration in Saudi Arabian military spending started 2004/2005, after the USA war for “regime change” in Iraq. It might be thinkable, that Saudi Arabia wants to have an “insurance policy”, that such an American action should never be turned against Saudi Arabia. To make this effective, Saudi Arabia would need to add aircraft from non-US suppliers, and (better) to have themselves the kind of “devices” which Israel has in possession. All this is of course theoretical, because the surge in Saudi Arabian military spending since 2004/2005 also to some degree coincides with a higher general level of oil prices.

The balance

Iran’s air force is not a threat to Israel – probably not even Iran’s missiles, due to Israel’s layered missile defense systems. However, figure 1 shows that Israel soon will have 366 fighter aircraft against 1,046 fighters from the GCC-countries, Egypt and Jordan – and they are out to buy more. These countries are not Israel’s enemies, and Israel has good practical relations with all of them. Still, a numerical disadvantage of 3:1 is something to think about, even taking into account Israeli historical superiority in training, her satellites etc. – but above all, her nuclear weapons.
 
Israel being free from major conflict hinges on Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons. This will also apply, if more sides possess them. Nuclear weapons, however, do not hinder that “Low-Intensity” War will continue.

Karsten Riise
Partner & Editor

CHANGE NEWS &
CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Karsten Riise is Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from University of Copenhagen. Former senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden with a responsibility of US Dollars 1 billion. At time of appointment, the youngest and the first non-German in that top-position within Mercedes-Benz’ worldwide sales organization.

Karsten Riise can be reached at Changemanagement.dk@gmail.com

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