The Anatomy Of The Israeli Army

At the opening of the Geneva Peace Conference in December 1973, the American Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger observed that, except for uneasy cease-fires and armistices, the Arab-Israeli conflict constituted one continued war that had already lasted 25 years. Despite the events that have taken place since that observation was made, Israel Defence Force, or IDF. The central theme of this book is the evolution of the modern Israeli Army, its organisation, doctrines, and special characteristics.

In Part-Time Soldiers, Andrew Lewis Chadwick offers the first in-depth historical study of the development and evolution of modern army reserve forces. In doing so, he explores how a confluence of military, political, and socioeconomic developments since the First World War has forced armies preparing for major war to increase their dependence on reservists (part-time soldiers who reinforce or augment professionals or conscripts in wartime) for critical and routine military tasks. At the same time, he shows how these developments placed tremendous stress on the industrial-era reserve policies and structures that armies continue to use today. For example, reservists training for less than thirty days a year have struggled to keep up with the increasingly high-skilled character of modern warfare, as evidenced by the poor performance of reservists in the world wars and, most recently, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War. Chadwick primarily examines these developments in the cases of the US Army National Guard and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Army Reserve, given that unique geopolitical conditions have forced the United States and Israel to frequently employ reservists in combat over the past century. These cases, which Chadwick explores using archival and secondary sources, reveal how armies using two different reserve models—the former built around volunteers and the latter around discharged conscripts—have attempted to mitigate the challenge of maintaining combat-ready reservists in the era of high-tech and high-skilled warfare. By doing so, Chadwick identifies an enduring and often overlooked problem facing contemporary defense policymaking: how does one build and maintain effective army reserve forces at an affordable cost without causing undue stress on reservists’ civilian lives?

Israel assumes in advance that defeat in war means an end to the Jewish nation, and it wages war accordingly. This fact influences the Israeli approach to its army and to the strategy, tactics, training and conduct of war. Surrounded by hostile nations, Israel has fought six victorious wars between 1948 and 1973. For a force which began as an irregular, impoverished and improvised group, this is a formidable record. Backed by plenty of photographs and eight full page colour plates, this fine text examines the six wars fought between 1948–73, including the extraordinary Israeli victory of 1967.

For readers of Michael Oren, Alan Dershowitz, and George Gilder comes a new perspective on a hot topic: the future of Israel. "Can Israel survive?" has been the essential question for Israelis -- and Jews worldwide -- since the Holocaust. Now a renowned Israeli journalist and security expert conducts a "strategic state of the nation" tour to evenhandedly assess the issues facing the country today, and ultimately suggesting that the "essential question" has become a misleading, even wrong question. Israel will survive. But what kind of country will it be?

Israel seized the strategically critical Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War in an audacious and determined operation, yet when the Yom Kippur War broke out the Israeli military were exposed by the effectiveness of the newly confident and dangerous Syrian army. In the Golan only luck, herculean Israeli efforts and tactical misjudgements by the Syrians were to allow the Israelis to maintain control. In this book, three pivotal encounters in the Golan are assessed, supported by artwork, maps and photographs, tracking how both sides' forces evolved over the period.