Defense Minister Ehud Barak fought on enemy turf on Tuesday when he briefed economic reporters who are usually in constant contact with his bitter rivals, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz's staff. He attempted to counter the Finance Ministry's influence on the media, which supports its plan to cut NIS 3 billion ($750 million) from Barak's defense budget. Barak welcomes social welfare programs and the conclusions of Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, but demands an adequate defense budget. (The Finance Ministry has adopted Trajtenberg's recommendation to redirect funds from defense to social welfare). Barak proposes funding both security and welfare needs by increasing the overall budget, but that is a separate issue. The Finance Ministry bureaucrats are zealots trying to protect the coffers, but they have become arrogant and condescending in believing that only they know how to run every aspect of this country, including national security. Get the Israel Hayom newsletter sent to your mailbox! The first thing they asked for was "transparency" -- nothing more than a whim. The accountant-general, or whoever the accountant-general appointed to oversee the Israel Defense Forces and the Defense Ministry, is privy to every tiny detail of defense spending. What the Finance Ministry is actually trying to do is raid the sensitive defense budget and throw a national party -- unnecessary at best and a long-term disaster at worst. The Finance Ministry argues that the Arab Spring has weakened the armies of many Arab nations and mired them in civil wars, and therefore the expenses for our next war (if it should occur at all) can be spread over a longer time span. That makes sense, but it makes no less sense to assume the exact opposite. At times of revolution, armies are at risk of losing international funding -- their weapons could quickly become outdated; ammunition could become rusty; spare parts could be harder to come by. It would make sense, in light of the unrest from within, to gain the favor of the impassioned public by attacking us right away, while weapons are still modern, instead of waiting a few years. This scenario makes just as much sense as the one imagined by the ministry. I'll give you an example: Syrian President Bashar Assad has never taken direct action against Israel, only indirect action via Hezbollah, but should times become unbearably tough for him, he could very well attempt to unify his people and the surrounding Arab regimes in an outright war against Israel. And it isn't just Syria -- a hostile regime could arise in Egypt as well. What will the IDF do then? Go to war unprepared as it did in the Second Lebanon War in 2006? Back then, the sage advice of former IDF Chief of General Staff Moshe (Bogey) Yaalon, who suggested calling up the combat units four days early and using that time to train them, sufficed -- despite the opposition of then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In the next war, the balance of power will be different and a few days of training will not be able to close the gap. The commission to investigate the failures of the next war can already be appointed. This eventuality is not a certainty, but it is nonetheless likely. The earthquake currently shaking the Middle East is generating the kind of uncertainty Israel hasn't known in decades. The Finance Ministry will get its way, arguing that the Arab Spring justifies complacency, unless it tells the truth: that it is actually proposing a cut in the security of Israel's inhabitants. No type of math can procure an equation in which full security equals a smaller budget. There is no such thing.
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