Israel's Dilemma: Where To Cut?
The elimination of Iraq as a military power has given Israeli leaders perhaps as many as five years during which they can slash military spending, in part by decommissioning or reorganizing up to 10 air force squadrons equipped with older aircraft.
To jump-start the process, senior defense ministry and Israel Air Force (IAF) officials will quickly retire the country's remaining A-4 Skyhawk and F-4-2000 Phantom squadrons--a combination of reserve, active and training units. Some of these units will switch to older F-16As from squadrons that are to begin receiving the new F-16Is late this year.
"A 30-year-old aircraft is not efficient to operate," said Kuti Mor, the defense ministry's deputy director general for policy and planning. "[Moreover,] a multirole aircraft like the F-16 is preferable" to one specialized for air defense or ground attack. The new advanced Block 52 F-16Is will all have a second seat for a weapon systems operator, conformal fuel tanks for long-range missions, a dorsal avionics compartment for additional avionics, and additional chaff and flare dispensers.
Even with multirole aircraft, "Israel can't maintain more than a few hundred aircraft," Mor said. "We have to think about alternatives such as flying some missions with unmanned aircraft." While no one will admit it officially, work on weaponization of UAVs is underway.
Mor and others interviewed note that while the decision has been made to trim the military, the exact numbers and timing are not yet final. The process is accelerating, however, and should be completed by September, said Jacob Nagel, acting head of the defense ministry's research and development office. The cuts will not be applied as a fixed percentage of every organization's budget, although they are expected to total about 10%.
To encompass a broader vision of the Israel Defense Force's long-term goals in the budget reprioritization, the process is being run by the IDF's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, instead of the service chiefs. But even Nagel's R&D funding isn't immune. While avoiding precise numbers, he said military R&D would take reductions of "less than 10%" each year through 2008, which will chip away at the gains made in 19952000 when the budget doubled.
The drawdown in combat aircraft won't produce a significant change in capability, said Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, chief of the IAF's Air Div. And it will promote modernization of the IAF with the introduction of new F-16I and F-15I aircraft, free the money for upgrading older F-15s and F-16s already in the fleet, and streamline the fleet by operating fewer types of aircraft, he said. Nehushtan estimates the effort will be complete in 8-10 years. In October, the IAF will receive its first F-16Is, and delivery will continue for almost a decade. "They will be the head of the spear in the quality of the aircraft, munitions and avionics," he said.
Critics of the anticipated changes say the restructuring is too conservative. They advocate a greater reduction in reserve and active-duty forces that is balanced by a greater investment in precision weaponry; more acute intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sensors; improved command and control to include all the services in a single network; and the greater use of unmanned aircraft and space.
"WE HAVE TO LEAN more on space assets," agreed Maj. Gen. Eitan Ben-Eliahu, who retired as chief of the IAF in 2000. "You can't collect intelligence on the outer circle [countries] without space." He too advocated phaseout of the "A-4s and F-4s as soon as possible. They can't help in the outer rings."
There are other modernization worries. "The bad buys will develop a better jamming capability for GPS-guided munitions," said a senior aerospace industry official. He also advocates rapid development of a common command-and-control grid for all the services so operators can pass around coordinated aiming points and target identification. Having such data available through communications channels could reduce the need to buy so many sophisticated sensors. "Why put a $50-million air-to-air radar in every aircraft?" he said.
The IAF will be rebuilt and a number of squadrons reactivated over the next decade as 102 new F-16Is enter service, making it an increasingly homogenous force. Having only a few aircraft types also will decrease the demand on manpower. While the funding for the air force won't fall as much as for the other services, "the budget is a continuing concern and it's going to be so for the foreseeable future," Nehushtan said.
Part of the plan is to keep the ratio of pilots to aircraft very low, about half of most air forces. Other economies will include reductions in military pay and the career extension--possibly by as much as 10-15 years--of nonoperational, professional members of the IAF. Operational personnel, mainly aircrews, will continue to retire at the relatively young age of around 45.
The military as a whole is absorbing a cut in 2003 of about $500 million from the previous year's budget with additional reductions of $200 million to follow in each of the next two years, Mor said.
Nehushtan warned that pay cuts for the troops have to be done carefully, since a reduction in salaries would affect the motivation of a force built primarily around professional volunteers. Those working on the plan say the percentage of wages in the budget is to drop from 55% to less than 50%.
"Those responsible are checking every activity and expense to see how much we can cut to adjust to the new numbers," Nehushtan said. Savings will come from "manpower mainly" and streamlining of the IDF's logistics, but doing so without affecting antiterrorist activities, maintenance of defenses along the border with Lebanon and preparations for future technology advances, he said.
Mor said a crucial question for the IDF is: "Can we temporarily have fewer combat units?" In addition to fewer IAF squadrons, planners are looking at reductions in tanks and armored personnel carriers--staples of defense in past wars. So far, "these are questions, not conclusions," he cautioned.
Ben-Eliahu suggested that only the navy (needed to keep the sea lanes open and guard the coast), special operations units (dedicated to unique, strategic missions) and missile defenses are largely immune from reductions. The cuts, he warned, will make it difficult for the IDF to handle conventional conflicts on two fronts simultaneously.
A key savings initiative for the IDF is outsourcing to civilian contractors. For example, a company called Aeronautics has been hired to conduct intelligence-gathering in Gaza using its own unmanned aircraft. Without offering specific numbers, Mor said that buying hours of operational use from a company is far cheaper than acquiring and operating its own aircraft, crews and maintenance facilities. The company says it is making money by using IAF veterans, a few inexpensive UAVs and an abandoned World War II airstrip.
Other initiatives may include cuts to the home front command, Mor said. With the threat of Iraq's Scud missiles gone, "do we need gas masks for everyone?" he said. It costs the IDF about $60 million a year to replace and refresh those that are currently in every home.
Mor also worries about future threats from Iraq. While there is good potential for real change, there is still a major danger that Iran may try to radicalize Iraq's Shiite majority. "It depends on the U.S. response to the internal threat," he said. "We will find the Revolutionary Guard in Iraq if they don't take steps now."
Mor said two other threats making an impact on IDF planning are Syria, "where nothing has changed," and Iran. The latter is closer to becoming a power with nonconventional weapons more quickly "than we had thought," he said. Finally, despite new hopes that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be resolved, the battle against terrorism is not expected to subside soon.
All the unknowns are certain to have an impact on the military budget. "If there are no changes, we will need lots of resources," he said. High on the list of expenses will be the investment in UAVs for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and, likely, the attack mission.
Moreover, with the potent combination of attack helicopters such as the Apache Longbow and UAVs (armed, perhaps, with antitank weapons that can reach out 20 km.), Israeli planners think the number of armored vehicles they need may have changed dramatically. The U.S. attack against Iraq has left an impression. "Precision-guided munitions, attack helicopters and artillery destroyed a huge number of [Iraqi] vehicles and armor in a short time," Mor pointed out.
In particular, "the use of armed UAVs was very interesting," he said. The phenomenon was so impressive that the IDF will again examine the use of unmanned aircraft for carrying high-speed missiles to intercept ballistic missiles soon after launch (BPI) and to attack missile launchers (BPLI). These concepts will be examined again, but the IDF will invest cautiously because--despite the Scud scare--nothing actually happened to Israel in the war with Iraq.
"We'll have to see what the threats are now," Mor said. Against Syria's Scud force, BPLI combined with the Arrow and Patriot missile defense would probably be the right answer. But against Iran, BPI becomes a need. "We're talking to the U.S. about both concepts," he said.
The operational use of unmanned aircraft will continue to evolve, Nehushtan said. But he stopped short of admitting that plans are afoot to arm UAVs with antitank missiles (such as the precision-guidance Lahat) and other standoff weapons. The IAF has developed tactics that let helicopters and fighter aircraft stay out of harm's way to launch their weapons while targets are identified by UAVs. For the moment, he said, the Cobras and Apaches provide the needed firepower.
Boosting UAV numbers would allow the IAF to strengthen its unmanned aircraft fleet without increasing the number of units. Currently, there are two UAV squadrons. "You don't mind if a squadron has 20 UAVs or 50," Nehushtan said. On the other hand, the use of UAVs is still evolving so "you don't know how many people you will need."
WHAT MAY DRIVE the greater use of UAVs, including armed craft, is the continuing demand for round-the-clock operations by the IAF. "The real battle is with aircrew human factors," Nehushtan said. Night operations are particularly useful, but also very demanding. Many of the aircrews are reservists (about 75%) who have day jobs and then fly operations at night. "Being tired and flying doesn't work," he said. "The helicopters are our most busy fleet. It's a new kind of burden, and it's a problem that needs to be solved."
Those calling for a more radical shakeup of the IAF contend that armed UAVs would allow the service to take precision attack far deeper than armed helicopters and allow them to loiter there at low speeds looking for targets. For second- and third-tier targets (those 500-1,500 km. away), UAVs may be the only answer. "Manned operations require lots of logistical support [tankers and constant space reconnaissance] that we don't have. A mission to western Iran would take 5 hr. Immediate response to a missile launch or preparation to launch will require unmanned aircraft orbiting overhead. You will see armed UAVs in the IAF," he predicted.
Other priority investments for the IDF include:
*Fielding of the next-generation Python 5 air-to-air missile.
*Fielding of the Merkava 4 tank beginning in 2004 to counter a new generation of antitank missiles, although in smaller number than previously planned.
*Participation in the F-35 program. Israel is interested in the conventional U.S. Air Force version of the Joint Strike Fighter. In IAF service, the aircraft would carry Israeli-developed electronic warfare systems as well as air-to-ground and air-to-air weapons.
*Attack helicopter purchases will stop after delivery of about another 10 Apache Longbows. Purchases of at least 50 Black Hawk helicopters will continue to replace the UH-1 fleet.
*The small fleet of Gulfstream G550 multi-sensor, mini-AWACS surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft is expected to offer a big boost to Israel intelligence-gathering capabilities and special operations efforts. The IAF plans to keep costs down by exploiting the G550's electronics capabilities, small airframe and small crews. By focusing all the services' capabilities through network-centric operations, the IDF believes it can maintain an advantage over any potential foe, even with a smaller force.
"The name of the game is to close the loop between detection of a target and attacking it anywhere in a very short time," Nehushtan said. "This is where we are going."