Israel's Ebbing Martial Spirit

__"Israel’s Revolution in Security Affairs" by Eliot A. Cohen, Michael J. Eisenstadt, and Andrew J. Bacevich, in Survival (Spring 1998), International Institute for Strategic Studies, 23 Tavistock St., London WC2E 7NQ England.__

Fifty years after its founding, Israel is more secure than ever against conventional military attack. But the spread of ballistic missile technology in the Arab world and changing attitudes in Israeli society are undermining the "nation in arms" approach to national security that has defined the Jewish state’s character.

Egypt and Israel’s other immediate Arab neighbors may still be worrisome at times, but the gravest threat (besides terrorism), contend Cohen and Bacevich, both of the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, and Eisenstadt, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, comes from Iran, Iraq, and Libya. They "do not share a border with Israel but... appear bent on acquiring a capability to strike Israel directly," the authors observe. "Cruise or ballistic missiles tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads are the likely weapons of choice." For Israel to maintain a technological edge will require a "small, élite, and professional" military establishment, not a costly, cumbersome mass army. "Indeed, without an unlimited defense budget," they write, "high technology and large numbers of people and equipment appear to be mutually exclusive."

To opt openly for a "slimmer and smarter" force would be to challenge the cherished Israeli belief that virtually every youth, male and female, should serve in the army. "Actual practice, however, has begun to differ from this ideal," Cohen and his colleagues observe. "Without fanfare—indeed without acknowledging that it is departing from past practice—the army is adopting a system of de facto selective service," raising the mental and physical requirements for active duty. Currently, some 17 percent of eligible males are exempted from service, and an additional 15 percent get early discharges for various reasons. (The surplus in the conscript pool is at least partly due to the influx of Russian immigrants since 1990.) The term of service for female draftees has been reduced from 24 months to 21, and even at that, only 50 percent of eligible women serve.

With Israel’s economy booming (gross national product has grown an average of six percent per year since 1990), and with the nation’s survival not appearing in immediate jeopardy, many young Israelis, including some of the "brightest and best," now have their eyes on private enterprise, not the Israel Defense Forces, and on self-realization, not self-sacrifice. The authors discern "a growing tendency among draft-eligible Israelis to contrive physical or psychological excuses to avoid military service." Among reservists, a 1996 report found absenteeism at 20 percent in some combat units and twice that in some noncombat ones. In a survey that same year, half of Israeli men said they would not do the demanding reserve duty (obligatory service until age 54, with active training typically amounting to a month each year) if it were not compulsory.

Cohen and his colleagues do not expect Israel to create an all-volunteer force or to cease relying on seasoned reservists. But over time, they think, a system will emerge that provides different "tracks" for different folks. The average soldier, for instance, might undergo basic training followed by reserve duty, while volunteers (perhaps encouraged by monetary incentives) would stay on active duty for a period after basic training. Career-oriented professionals, meanwhile, would have renewable, long-term contracts. The principle of nearly universal service would thus be retained, but the mass citizen army—rendered unaffordable by expensive high-tech weapons systems—would not.