The Israeli occupation is still attempting to extract painful lessons from its recent aggressive wars, operating under the assumption that a regional war is inevitable. The prevailing fear within its own institutions is that the army will not be ready for such a confrontation. This shortfall is viewed as a direct threat to national security, requiring the political and military leadership to correct course despite their reluctance to implement painful reforms or address ongoing failures.
General Yitzhak Brik, former commander of the military colleges, stated that the army must undergo reconstruction across almost every domain to defend the state in an upcoming regional war. He outlined several primary areas that demand urgent attention, beginning with the absence of a long-term security doctrine. The political and military leadership, he argued, lacks any strategic vision that anticipates the coming years. As a result, there is no guiding framework for preparing the army for a regional conflict, whether in terms of required force size, technological needs, manpower scale or quality.
In a column published by Maariv and translated by Arabi21, he added that the second area in need of rebuilding is the collapse of the “bankrupt” ground forces. Their current size amounts to one third of what it was twenty years ago. Emergency warehouses are in poor condition, with a shortage of specialised personnel, spare parts and equipment, and widespread weapon inefficiency. Meanwhile, ground units are exhausted to the core from constant combat.
He explained that the third area concerns the weakness of the home front, which is expected to be the primary theatre of any future war. Most municipalities, councils and cities are unprepared for any scenario. There is no capable authority that can manage or command such a military campaign. Leadership remains disorganised and unqualified, and the National Emergency Authority, established after the lessons of the Second Lebanon War, suffers from severe dysfunction.
He noted that the fourth area relates to an imbalance in resource allocation. The army has invested primarily in aircraft while nearly neglecting the development of new systems essential for a regional war. This includes missile power, high-energy lasers for intercepting manoeuvrable ballistic missiles, and weapons to counter aircraft, drones and unmanned aerial vehicles.
He added that the fifth area concerns the outsourcing of logistics and maintenance services. This could paralyse the army entirely if a regional war breaks out. He pointed to a broken and weak organisational culture that prevents the army from rehabilitating itself or preparing for war. At the centre of this is a manpower crisis, which he described as the worst in the army’s history in terms of quality, professionalism and numbers. The ongoing collapse may push the entire system to a point of no return.
The writer then moved to the root causes of this deteriorating situation. The first, he said, is the reduction of military ranks. During Gadi Eisenkot’s tenure as Chief of Staff, thousands of ranks were removed from permanent and professional officers in the ground, naval and air forces. This triggered an extremely severe crisis in managing ground emergency warehouses, maintaining equipment and weapons, and harmed the air and naval forces in similar ways. The outcome has been a near-total loss of job security for permanent personnel and a sharp decline in the army’s professionalism.
He noted that the second cause lies in a combination of scarce resources, weak organisational culture, failure to verify and execute orders, poor oversight over decisions and project implementation, lack of lesson-learning, an unreliable investigative culture, what he described as a “culture of lying”, absence of proper procedures, and low standards across many units. The destructive result is that high-calibre officers and soldiers no longer wish to remain in an institution that operates below mediocrity.
He revealed that recent years have witnessed a mass exodus of hundreds of lieutenant colonels, majors and captains annually from permanent service, accompanied by many conscripts. In recent months, thousands of new recruits have sought early release and shown no interest in continuing their service. Today, there is no desire among qualified officers or recruits to enlist for permanent service. This situation threatens the army’s very existence. An army that loses the quality of its human force, he warned, cannot protect the state or defeat the enemy in the future.
This grim reading of the occupation army’s future shows a chain of structural failures rooted in multiple causes of collapse. Decisions taken by successive Chiefs of Staff have inflicted deep, lasting damage on the military’s most important component: its human capital.
