After Ehud Barak was appointed as the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces in 1991, I had an off-the-record conversation with him at his home in Kochav Yair. In barely a whisper, Barak told me he believed a war would not break out during his term and he would lower the IDF's level of preparedness for all-out war and instead focus on arming the military with weaponry needed for the battlefield of the future. I asked him what would happen if, contrary to his assessment, a war did break out in the near future. The victory would be tougher and more painful and afterward there would be commissions of inquiry, Barak replied. Fortunately, Barak's assessment was correct and no war broke out. But even if a war had occurred and ended with unsatisfactory results, Barak's decision would still have been justified, albeit erroneous. Such was also the case with chiefs of staff forced to cope with budget cuts, including Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon, the current defense minister who served as chief of staff from 2002 to 2005. When the Second Lebanon War in 2006 turned into a failure bordering on defeat, the government of then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unjustly tried to place the blame on Ya'alon, who was already out of the military at the time. During his stint as chief of staff, Ya'alon had built the best military he could, given the budgetary conditions. During the Second Lebanon War, it was Olmert and then-Defense Minister Amir Peretz, not Ya'alon, who didn't understand that IDF armored forces didn't have the capability to cross through Wadi Saluki (the site of a failed advance by the IDF toward the end of the war). This is worth remembering today. The government has decided to lower the level of security of its citizens. It's entitled to do so, but it shouldn't throw sand in our eyes. If national security won't be harmed by such an extensive cut to reservist operations and training, does it really matter? Is training unnecessary (which of course isn't the case) or does a military that fails to train lose its self-confidence and ability fulfill missions during times of war? The public has the right to know. Let every Hebrew mother know, to paraphrase David Ben-Gurion, that during a time in which the Middle East is burning and the Iranian nuclear project is advancing, Israel is signaling a lowering of its military readiness. The IDF will be weakened, as will the credibility of the threat of Israel becoming involved in Syria or attacking Iran. The verbal clich will be that the cuts won't harm national security. That is nonsense. The cuts in reservist operational duties and training in 2014 will be worse than in 2013. It's supposed to comfort us that in 2015 the military is meant to get back the funds that were taken from it. But nothing of the sort will happen. After the Second Lebanon War, the Brodet Commission drew up a plan guaranteeing the IDF's budget for the next decade. Everyone applauded. But there was absolute silence when that promise was broken in one fell swoop. This will happen again in the future. Whenever an election approaches, to whom will the finance minister rush with wholesale checks? A hidden secret intelligence facility or a port workers committee that can promise him thousands of votes? The question mark is unnecessary. This is worth remembering today as reservist operations and training are cut and we are left to pray that a war doesn't break out and we won't have to again ask Eliyahu Winograd and his friends to hold another commission of inquiry.
