אינדקס
Today, Israel has become synonymous with military prowess. The tiny West Asian nation has a reputation for always deploying a qualitative edge on the battlefield and tactical chutzpah, an appropriately Yiddish word. Many states the world over, bigger and richer, struggle to replicate what the tiny Jewish state of eight-and-half million people has achieved within a short time. In The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower, Yaakov Katz, editor-in-chief at the Jerusalem Post, and Amir Bohbot, military editor at Walla, describe Israel's journey from independence in 1948 when the new state had barely two shekels to rub together to its emergence now as a destination for high-tech military equipment.
Some of Israel's success is due to its rather unique situation – from the moment of independence, the state has constantly been at war. The nature of Israel's wars may have changed from state to non-state opponents but the threat still remains. As Haim Eshed, the father of Israel's satellite program, casually remarks, "the shadow of the guillotine sharpens the mind". Material adversity, numerical deficiency and geographical disadvantage forced the Jewish people to compensate with motivation, intelligence and innovation. As former deputy national security adviser Reuven Gal commented, if Israel is not creative in its thinking, there is a chance that it will not survive; therefore, with its meagre resources, it had to become the ultimate jugaad nation.
There is, of course, the human element. As Katz and Bohbot explain, the greatest strength of Israeli society is its informality and absence of hierarchy. Contrary to expectation, mandatory military service has not made Israelis regimented. In fact, most revel in their casualness and indiscipline. New recruits into the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) address their superiors as 'Sir', but after a while are encouraged to refer to their commanders by their first names and are not obligated to salute them. As US Air Force Lt Gen Ronald Kadish found out, in Israel, it is not uncommon to see aircraft mechanics argue with generals over the performance of a fighter jet – even in front of international visitors! What mattered Kadish's hosts was only that the lowly officer made sense.
Israel also benefits from the fact that its population seems to always be floating between active service and reserve duty. Along with the circulation of manpower, the IDF also benefits from the skills and networks this manpower brings in from the professional sphere. Their military experience gives them a perspective most weapons developers lack elsewhere in the world and helps them come up with innovative solutions to a fast-evolving battlefield. Some countries like the United States second military officers to defence contractors but personnel parachuted in run the risk of being seen as outsiders. The seamless flow of talent between civilian and military realms gives Israel a distinctive edge over other states.
The IDF does not take this inflow of talent for granted. “Reservists come for a set period of time, and the last thing you want to do is make them feel like they are wasting their time,” Shuki Ben-Anat, former head of the IDF Reserve Corps, explains. Much like their full-time brethren in the military, they often chase a problem up the chain of command until it is resolved. The emphasis is always on the workable practical rather than the perfect theoretical. “Harvard graduates might get a first-class education and a doctorate but it is all theoretical. In the IDF, soldiers get a doctorate in life," David Ivry, a former commander of the Israeli Air Force told the authors.
The Weapon Wizards is thematically divided into chapters around certain technologies, weapons platforms or tactics. The book begins with the smuggling of arms for the fledgling state of Israel in 1948 when no one except Czechoslovakia was willing to sell it weapons. Even government officials were involved in the web of deceit Israel wove to acquire precious weapons and technologies that could hopefully be replicated at home. The United States, Britain and France had put an embargo on arms sales to Israel in the hope that it would produce restraint in Moscow from supplying the Arab states with weapons.
