21 August 2017

Military sees dramatic drop in demand for infantry service

Yoav Limor 

Several weeks ago, the IDF published the statistical breakdown of the August draft class. The trend revealed by those statistics, which indicates a clear and fundamental shift in the priorities of young Israelis, has sparked a great deal of concern. 

In previous years, trends among recruits were mainly internal in nature -- the popularity of one infantry brigade shifted to a different infantry brigade. Following the 1997 helicopter disaster (in which two Israeli Air Force transport helicopters collided in mid-air, killing all 73 Israeli military personnel on board), recruits wanted to serve in the Nahal infantry brigade; after the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the number of recruits wanting to serve in the Golani infantry brigade skyrocketed. 

But today, a clear interest in other paths is becoming evident: More recruits want to join the Air Defense Command, the Border Police and the Homefront Command. Together with the rising number of quality recruits seeking technological units, chief among them cyber warfare units, the IDF now faces a predicament regarding its ground forces, the tip of the spear that is supposed to provide the primary response in any future arena of operations. 

The obvious explanations for this trend, chiefly the current lull in security challenges, provide only a partial answer. The bigger picture reveals a far more complex reality. In the past, military ethos and war stories were enough to recruit new combat fighters. But today's youths are more selective, more skeptical and far more self-serving. Beyond asking themselves what is worthwhile, they ask why it is worthwhile and how it benefits them. In other words: Israeli youths are still willing to serve -- there is not a dramatic drop in overall motivation to enlist -- but they want their mandatory service to have value, not just for the state but for themselves. 

This explains why new recruits want to serve in the Border Police, which is both operational and offers a career path. The Air Defense Command is also seen as "cool" because it combines operational action with aspects requiring more mental acuity. The Homefront Command -- the surprise on the list -- integrates operational duty (in the West Bank) with relatively interesting search-and-rescue training courses. In all three branches, incidentally, men and women serve side by side. Maybe the rabbis do not like the idea of women in combat units, but the recruits apparently do. 

This "motivational migration" has been discernible over several recruitment classes, and has now peaked in the August class. We cannot just put a band-aid over this problem -- it requires major surgery. And it is not just a military problem that affects the Golani Brigade commander or the head of the Military Manpower Directorate. It is a pan-Israeli problem that requires national attention. 

The IDF, along with the Education Ministry, must examine whether the "me" outranks the "we" in 2017; whether the fear of danger outweighs the willingness to face it; and whether this is a specific problem or an indication of something broader; and perhaps, heaven forbid, whether the rifts dividing the Israeli public in recent years have begun permeating the IDF as well. 

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