Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), had a dream: to turn the IDF into the world’s most digital army, taking advantage of Israel’s decisive technological intelligence edge to catapult the military one or two decades ahead. He planted the seeds for the plan during his term as head of Military Intelligence. Now he is fighting for its implementation.

Kochavi was promoted to Israel’s top military position on Jan. 15, 2019, and it was then that he started transforming his vision into a multiyear project. Those privy to the plan, dubbed “Tnufa” (Hebrew for “momentum”) were persuaded that if implemented, it would turn the IDF into a force surpassing the wildest imagination of science fiction creators.

We have a historic opportunity and we have to understand its importance and seize the moment, Kochavi explained at the time, when Israel was a wealthy, prospering state with a budgetary surplus. Kochavi and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed an overall allocation of 40 billion Israeli shekels ($11.5 billion) in 10 equal annual increments to fund the ambitious plan. The sky seemed the limit. Then the coronavirus struck.

Kochavi’s blueprint was designed to provide a response to a very different 21st-century battlefield from the one on which the IDF has won its wars in the past. One such challenge emerges from Hezbollah, which has completely blended into the civilian population of Lebanon and maintains an arsenal of sophisticated guided anti-tank missiles (of the Kornet variety and up) bigger than the combined ones of Syria and Egypt in their heydays.