"Oz" program
Despite budget cuts, the "Oz" program, which mainly included more submarines and cyber warfare and fewer tanks and APCs, was officially approved in May 2011. And despite the events in Syria and the fear of the collapse of the peace agreements with Egypt, the army will continue to decrease in the coming years, and the IDF will invest in the field of gathering and processing information and improving capabilities in the fields of network-based and intelligence-based warfare.
In the week when the Second Lebanon War broke out, the IDF was about to approve a new multi-year plan called "Slingshot". The Chief of Staff at the time was Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, and the commander of the ground arm was Major General Benny Gantz. At the center of the plan was an intention to dramatically reduce the number of IDF tanks. The program was born in a series of military workshops. Already in 2006, Gantz thought that the era of tanks as a major force in combat had passed, but the failure in Lebanon spoiled the cards: the "Slingshot" program was canceled even before it was implemented, and everything associated with its principles was put on hold. Since then the IDF had not reduced units, but rather increased them here and there.
In retrospect, it was clear that if the reduction in the order of forces had already been carried out last decade according to the "Slingshot" plan, the IDF would have saved billions of shekels, which it soon lacked like air to breathe. The reduction was not carried out even though the major loss in the Second Lebanon War was not due to a lack of tanks, but equipment. The wretchedness of most of the fighting forces after years of no training and poor management of combat. Halutz and Olmert, who followed him, were the signatories of the failed management and paid the personal price. The target this time: the Ministry of Finance. The best minds worked on this maneuver. When the rookie finance minister Yair Lapid and his people understand in a week or two all the elements of the IDF's move, they will have to plan the state budget anew.
The process of building a multi-year plan in the IDF usually begins with determining the reference threat: what was the chance that the IDF will find itself fighting on a certain front or on several fronts at the same time. From this point of view, there has been a dramatic change from the day the IDF started working on the "Halamish" plan that did not come to fruition (the work on "Halamish" began even before the fall of Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt) to the changes taking place right now (the Syrian army was supposed to be a threat central to "Oz", but it was disintegrating at a dizzying pace).
In general, the region was considered very unstable, and the IDF needed to prepare itself for a wide range of conflicts - from a major war against Iran to a conflict with global jihadist elements across the border fence in Egypt or Syria. The main threat was the rockets and missiles aimed at Israel. The public was living in a sweet illusion that the "Iron Dome" system provides significant protection such as in the fight against Hamas in Operation "Pillar of Clouds", but in the event of a war against Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, which are armed with tens of thousands of missiles, the batteries will be able to protect most of the strategic facilities and air force bases, at best .
The IDF was trying to implement a multi-year plan that had been new since the end of 2011, when the previous multi-year program called "Tefen" ended (this was the program that replaced the canceled "Slingshot" program after the Second Lebanon War). Unfortunately for Benny Gantz, he had not yet been able to launch a multi-year plan in his term. The first plan he signed on to, "Halamish", was supposed to be launched in 2012, but was canceled in the summer of 2011 following the wave of social protest that swept the country In those days. Netanyahu announced a cut in the defense budget, even though the years 2011 and 2012 were high years in the system. because with the approval of the Treasury). High-budget projects, which will be paid for by the end of the decade, have been launched.
Instead of "Halamish" the "Oz" program was born, which was not approved by the government because of the elections. The "Oz" program was far from being revolutionary in this way, but it was going in the direction of these voices. The IDF, which has already cut the number of tanks and APCs in the last decade, will continue to close units (it was likely that the obsolete tanks will be sent to museums or sold to third world countries and the IDF will retain basic maneuverability) , but will reduce the rate of production of Merkava tanks and Merkava APCs (NMRs), so that it fits in with the plan to retire the obsolete vehicles.
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