Pakistan is facing a major crisis. As our honorable Prime Minister, Imran Khan noted, the future is going to bring a fascist Indian state that has to be dealt with, otherwise they will become a bigger and bigger problem.
India has a huge army, with 1.3 million active personnel, and a million more in reserve. Pakistan only has an active force of 600,000. India has far greater resources, allowing better equipment and larger quantities of equipment. Pakistani economy is in shambles and we are not able to match them.
One possible solution is to bring in conscription. Conscription is compulsory service for the state. Many countries use conscription in their armed forces, including countries like Switzerland and Israel. Israel essentially took the Swiss model and developed it according to their own needs. More on that later.
Conscription allows a country with meager resources to field a large army, at minimal cost. It also helps with nation building. Citizen conscription has been used in history from the earliest records of nation states. They were spectacularly used by the Romans to build one of the most successful empires in history.
Here is a short report on what Pakistan could learn from the use of a citizen army by israel:
What Pakistan can Learn from the IDF
Executive Summary
This report gives a short overview of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and what lessons can be learned for Pakistan. The IDF is a hybrid force made up of a professional standing army and a conscript citizen army, being largely the latter. The IDF is an integrated force that can rapidly mobilize its citizen reserves within 24 hours. While the IDF professional service is small, it is composed to a great extent of officers and technically experienced people, to support the citizen army. If Pakistan adopts this strategy to a small extent, it could significantly lower personnel costs, allowing funds to be allocated for modernization and other critical activities. This paper includes a plan that would allow a citizen army of 100,000 to be raised within 5 years. Such a citizen force would not only help national defence, but also help national integration and nation building projects.
Introduction
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) faces a similar challenge to the Pakistan Army - fighting a significantly larger opponent with limited strategic depth. This paper gives a quick overview of the IDF, particularly features that may be useful for Pakistan to adopt. The IDF is influenced itself both by the professional volunteer-based British Army and the Swiss army, which is a conscript army with a “nation at war” philosophy. In some ways, it is a hybrid of these two concepts.
The IDF has about 6 lac soldiers of whom approximately 18 percent are full-time professionals, similar to the Pakistan armed forces, while the rest are conscript forces that largely serve as reserve. This reserve can be rapidly activated, within 24 hours, and is fully integrated with the professional forces.
Reasons why this structure was chosen by the IDF include the ability to create large forces at low cost, to help national integration and engage in nation building projects using such forces, and to face larger opponents.
Structure of the IDF
The IDF is organized into a single force that includes an air force and a naval force, along with the land forces. This joint and integrated structure, keeps rivalry among the services at a minimum, and helps efficient coordination and integrated joint operations during war.
Pakistan has an Office of Joint Chief of Staff (OJCOS) but this plays a nominal and ceremonial role mainly.
The general staff of the IDF has five branches:
1. Operations
2. Logistics
3. Manpower
4. Intelligence
5. Planning
Operations Branch is responsible for Research & Development, Training and Doctrine and Senior Service School. Manpower is responsible for Personnel Data Processing Systems, Civil Engineers, Military Police, Civilian Education and Youth Scouting (Youth Battalions). The Planning branch controls strategic long-term planning.
The IDF also has a separate Women’s Corps, commanded by a female brigadier general. The IDF attempts to keep women soldiers in duties that are not at the front.
A key characteristic is that both the professional and the conscript forces are intermixed and interchangeable within each of the three commands. The conscript forces are not treated as an addition to the regular forces, but a key component that is well integrated. A total of 82.6 percent of the force is represented by this reserve force, representing 494,000 of the 598,000 forces. In contrast, regular forces are only 104,000. Both Active Component (professional) and Reserve Component (conscript) officers command divisions and brigades.
Method of Conscription
The IDF recruits both men and women for compulsory national service. A nationwide announcement is made by birth date for those who have reached their 18th birthday. Service is 3 years for men and 20 months for women. Conscripts are tested and sorted into 14 classifications. Basic training is done for every recruit, even for those earmarked for the navy and air force.
If they qualify, citizen-soldiers can enter specializations. They may also join elite units on the basis of the same, or for officer candidacy. However, getting such a specialization or placement extends the service term by one year.
To become an officer in the IDF, service as a citizen soldier is a must. Officers are recruited from the best of the conscripts that show talent and willingness. Unlike Pakistan, there are no elite military academies, creating a more even playing field for talent to rise. A striking characteristic of the officers of IDF is their youthfulness.
To get degree educated and technically skilled recruits, the IDF has a separate program to gain college-educated recruits, who can then serve on a wide assortment of specializations, from doctors to scientists. The citizen-soldiers of the IDF continue after their conscription term as reservists who can be activated in case of an emergency. For men, this continues until the age of 55, and for childless women, till 34.
Reservists are called up for 45 days of annual service. However, if they are 39 year old men, or 29 year old women, then this period is dropped to 14 days a year for enlisted soldiers. Reservists are generally assigned to a position near their home and compatible with their specialization (if any).
Reserve soldiers have the following characteristics in the IDF:
1. They may or may not be issued with the latest equipment available
2. They still enter combat alongside the
Keva units.
3. Active duty of reserves vary widely depending on the political climate of the region
4. Activities during active duty can vary from training in traditional combat skills to riot control or border patrol. In this sense, it acts similarly to the Pakistani paramilitary forces.
5. IDF reserves helps to assimilate diverse groups of ethnicities. This is one area where Pakistan could benefit from a conscript reserve, particularly regarding ethnic and sectarian differences.
6. The minimum time required in peacetime is 45 days of duty for the Reserve
7. IDF also has a paramilitary youth scouting section
8. A social-welfare program to take slum dwellers and gang leaders, and educate and train them
The Professional Service
While less than 20 percent of the fighting force, the IDF maintains a professional army alongside its citizen-soldiers. 16,000 in number, they are primarily officers, with some soldiers and specialists. Professional service soldiers occupy senior and key operational command positions as well as command all installations and schools. They also maintain the equipment and facilities needed for the reserve units to rapidly activate.
Some Best Practices from the IDF
Best practices of IDF, according to Charles E. Heller:
1. Acceptance and practice of a Total Army concept
2. Flow-through system (active to reserve service)
3. Enlisted service required prior to commissioning
4. National Service
5. Significant equipment modernization through modification
6. Peacetime missions that are domestic nation building in nature
7. Joint organizational structure of the IDF
8. Youthful senior officer leadership
9. Brigade as the basic building block of the Army’s force structure
Some Additional Salient of the IDF
Overseas Israelis are often instantly called back in event of war. They are also trained and organized for propaganda, and for social media. This includes a smart phone App that allows them to be directed to time-sensitive and critical social and political events.
Pakistan Army lacks a dedicated Airborne/Air Assault force composed of Regular Infantry units, which could augment Special Forces (SF) like SSG in their operations. Even though the Pakistan Army boasts 5 lac+ troops, there is no Paratroop Brigade composed of Para-infantry units. Both IDF and Indian Army maintain Para troop brigades apart from SF units. Pakistan Army may face difficulty in setting up such a brigade due to lack of transport aircraft as well as transport helicopters.
IDF is instrumental in employing its Air Force in every conflict it enters. IAF’s inventory includes world’s best aircraft such as F-15, F-16 and F-35. These are all 4th and 5th generation aircraft. For a small country like Israel, IDF deems it necessary to employ 300+ fighter aircrafts in it inventory. PAF on the other hand still flies a mix of 3rd and 4th generation aircrafts, many of which are slated for retirement. The airframes have outlived their service life and the avionics is considered only satisfactory, not top notch, such as induction of FLIR, AESA Radars, HOBS missiles etc. PAF also lacks a long range deep strike aircraft apart from a stealth aircraft, which could give edge to PAF over the Indian Air Force.
IDF is supplemented for weapons and weaponry from its thriving defence industry such IAI, Soltam etc. Israel has more than 150 defence related firms to support IDF. The avionics of IAF F-16’s have been upgraded by local companies. IAF designed Lavi fighter program and IDF introduced Merkava MBT long before Pakistani JF-17 fighter and Al-Khalid MBT came into existence. A lot of components used in JF-17 and Al-Khalid are imported from China or other companies. Pakistan Military establishment should increase R&D in all sectors of defence, not just a few selected departments.
IDF has a permanent military supplier in the form of USA. Same could be said about China for Pakistan but Pakistani Military has a diverse range of suppliers such as China, France, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Italy etc. In all major wars, IDF has instantly received reinforcements from USA to replace losses in equipment with almost exactly the same equipment that IDF has trained it soldiers on. Since Pakistan employs a diverse range of weapons for all three services from different suppliers, therefore to accomplish this, Pakistani Military needs to move towards closer interoperability with its allies such as China and Turkey. For this it has to develop a long-term plan for its standards, logistics, design, manufacturing and purchasing decisions.
What this Means for Pakistan
If Pakistan adopts a mixed professional and citizen army, it can lower costs while increasing the capacity to meet a larger and better funded opponent. It can also help with national integration and in implementing nation-building projects. Moving from a purely professional force, Pakistan would be able to move towards a “nation at war” concept.
General Kayani noted that
75% of the armed forces budget goes to salaries and related operational expenses. This means that Pakistan barely has the money for proper equipment and training, and meaningful research and development. In addition, it has even less margin for constant military operations.
A Potential Solution
Based on the IDF, Pakistan could adopt a citizen army to supplement its professional armed forces. Pakistan Army presently has about 30 divisions, with about 560,000 active soldiers. Conscription could either replace some of the professional divisions, or supplement them. Conscript divisions could also be assigned to nation building projects in peacetime.
One solution could be along the following lines. A program (“Program A”) to enlist 10,000 conscript youth as citizen-soldiers bi-annually could be started, with an active conscription term being for 1 year. This would be conscripted from all matriculating students. Some basic and minimal remuneration would be paid, along with various benefits.
A second bi-annual conscription of all degree graduates (“Program B”), equal to 1500 conscripts, could each serve a 1 year term. Both conscript categories could later serve as reserve soldiers, with mandatory 30 days of active duty per year. If we assume the annual attrition rate to be 3%, this would create approximately a conscript reserve army of 100,000 soldiers within 5 years, equal to approximately 20 brigades.
Conclusion
With India spending an ever larger defense budget and rapidly modernizing its armed forces, and Pakistan now facing a threat from multiple axis, it is important for Pakistan to look for alternative solutions to the structure inherited from the British. At the same time, to galvanize and unite the nation, and to integrate our society from a nation of distinct groups to citizens of Pakistan, a platform is needed for social engineering. Finally, we can utilize a conscript citizen-soldier force for a wide variety of defense, security and civilian tasks, ranging from border control to nation-building projects. Pakistan has a lot of human resources, and the longer they stay under-utilized, the greater the chance for its misuse. With that hope, it would be a positive utilization of our human resources if we build a citizen-army on the lines of not only Israel, but of nascent Rome.
@Irfan Baloch
