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Kushet (Rainbow) Plan

Israel announced in February 2006 that it had launched its own Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), or Kushet Plan, which would be completed in June or July 2006. The aim of this project is to guide Israel’s defense spending and planning between 2007 and 2011.138 The Kushet Plan seeks to restructure the IDF based on threat assessment and the changing nature of warfare. This includes optimizing the IDF for low-intensity, urban, and asymmetric warfare without compromising Israel’s conventional edge.

The IDF Deputy Chief of General Staff, Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, stated the following in an interview with Defense News: "We [in Israel] need to achieve an appropriate balance between conventional high-intensity conflict [HIC] — which is no longer our principal threat, though it regrettably still exists — and all kinds of low intensity conflicts [LICs]...We’ve been trying to strike this balance while fighting over the past several years, but now we are emphasizing this as a bottom-up requirement for future plans. Our central direction is toward generic capabilities that can give us the flexibility we need for HIC and LIC, since we can’t afford to put platforms and weapon systems in warehouses and save them for a war that might never come."

Kushet also focused on strengthening Israel’s capabilities against infiltrations and terrorist attacks including remotely monitored, sensor-fused, multilayered C4Isystems to control its borders with Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. According to the IDF, this would improve Israel’s monitoring and detection capabilities on its borders.141 It focuses on developing and deploying ‘‘multirole’’ and linked forces and limits the use of IDF troops.

According to an IDF office, the new system reflects the view of the new Chief of General Staff, Major General Dan Halutz, which focused on "replacing people with technology whenever possible, but he’s equally intent on doing it in a methodical, very prudent, low-risk manner." This shift toward a ‘‘technocentric’’ force could include cutting active IDF manpower by 5,000 (10-percent cut) and substitute more advanced weapons and technology. The details of the actual plan, however, remain uncertain. Such numbers are not final and may change when the actual plan is presented to Israel’s Knesset.

There were also other plans to restructure the IDF manpower, but it was unclear if those plans were part of Kushet. For example, it was reported that the IDF was planning to reorganize its IDF command structure through merging commands, cutting back on manpower, and optimizing IDF ground capabilities. This process started on December 26, 2005, and was based on three principles:

1. Separate operating units from the staff units,
2. Build up the IDF forces only from within the units, and
3. Sever the General Staff from its role as the supreme commander of the IDF ground forces.

To accomplish this reorganization, the IDF plans to reorganize the ground forces in the following ways:

1. Subordinate eight corps including the signals, ordnance, and personnel management corps to the ground forces by the end of 2006. The goal is to improve maneuver, auxiliary, and support capabilities.
2. Some of the corps will be decommissioned.
3. Combine artillery, intelligence, and field tactical intelligence corps into one, which the IDF hopes will be more effective.
4. Create a ‘‘Special Forces school,’’ which will offer joint training and weapons program.
5. Create new divisions called ‘‘multiple corps tactical divisions.’’