Israel’s military-strategic advantages over its adversaries are many, but no one doubts that Israel’s air force is the true game-changer. For dozens of years already, Israel’s top decision-makers and army chiefs refer to the air force as “the insurance policy of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.” The Israel Defense Forces invests the better part of its funds, its energies and its qualitative human resources in the air force, and has become the first foreign army to have tested the United States' F-35 stealth fighter jets under real combat conditions.
The missions and sorties the Israeli air force had accomplished in two weeks of fighting in the Second Lebanon War can now be carried out in a 24-hour timeframe. The air force is viewed as Israel’s awe-inspiring strategic arm and its most effective instrument of deterrence.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman is now working to add a new dimension. At this stage, Israel has no intentions of adversely affecting the quality and dominance of its air force, but Liberman has already set his sights on a strategy that he wants to promote in his current term of office: The establishment of a “missile corps” in the IDF, a “smart” missile-rocket military arm that will be precise and deadly over various ranges, from southern Lebanon to the depths of Syria. It would be Israel’s counterbalance to Hezbollah’s seemingly infinite rocket arsenal and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s renewed missile capabilities.
The IDF’s reception to the defense minister’s initiative was frosty. The army already has precise long-range rockets. Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot does not like this revolution brewing in his own backyard and threatening his multi-year Gideon plan. Gideon involves an array of actions to strengthen the army and its activities, its provisions and supplies for the coming years. Meanwhile, Liberman and Eizenkot decided on an enormous acquisitions deal in which the IDF will purchase from Israel’s IMI Systems (formerly Israel Military Industries) a new fleet of rockets and missiles that will greatly strengthen Israel’s array. According to the plan, a special, separate military arm devoted only to missiles will be established later on. It will be more varied, sophisticated, precise and deadly than all the corresponding missile branches in Lebanon and Syria.
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