As soon as a new governing coalition takes office, argues David M. Weinberg, it should place at the top of its agenda the need to expand the defense budget and boost the capabilities of the IDF’s ground forces:
[O]ver the coming decade the IDF will need to knock back the Iranian proxy armies and jihadist militias camped on [Israel’s] borders. It may need to “decommission” Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordo and Arak. And only God knows what kind of instability Israel may yet have to overcome on its eastern border. . . .
Consider [also] the situation in Lebanon. In order to rout Hizballah and destroy its missile stockpiles, in the next war Israel will have to reconquer southern Lebanon on the ground. Even with the Israeli air force working intensively from above (including massive leveling of Lebanese infrastructures), Israel could be facing eight weeks of real and unrelenting combat.
Readying the IDF for this requires a rollback of the misguided . . . multiyear plan for the IDF promulgated in 2013 by then-chief of staff Benny Gantz. That plan accepted a significant decrease in overall funding of the IDF and shifted priorities away from the ground forces in favor of air-force and cyber capabilities, intelligence, special-operations forces, and stand-off precision fire.
Read more on Israel Hayom: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=12353