Advocate - Not disagreeing with most of your statements, but just to clarify: Isreal has an active force of about 200,000 which rises to 600,000 or so when fully mobilized. The three Dolphin submarines are sub-harpoon capable. There have been suggestions made that the Israelis will convert some of these to have nuclear paypoad, or develop their own indigenious nuclear tipped cruise missile. However, at this point there is no evidence that they have done so.

ex-98c by half a million i meant to include members of all the services not just the army, the actual number of available reservists really is closer to 700000 and thats not including the people that are normally exempt from service (only child) that can be conscripted in time of war. If you include all those the nummber reaches closer to one million. now about the dolphins, they are specially equipped with 650-millimeter tubes in addition to the normal 533-millimeter tubes. Those larger tubes can only be meant to launch the turbo popeye for which they are a perfect fit since the normal torpedoes are launched by the 533 tubes. The turbo popeye is especially designed and built to carry a nuclear warhead, so you can see where i draw my conclusions from.

lol, accidently logged in with my old account sorry, i am advocate of reason

The point is simply that the Israelis have never faced a modern, well equipped, motivated foe with solid economic resources. Their adversaries (be they Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis, Iraquis, Iranians, Beduins and assorted Camels) have always proven to be the opposite. Their success in the Middle East is due to American aide and the fact that most Arab countries are in a Coma. They can beat the Muslims in the same way that the Russians were able to beat the Germans in WWII - with lots and lots and lots of foreign aid. The notion that Israel could sustain a conventional war against most European countries is absurd.

I guess the arab armies didn’t have the most advanced soviet weapons at the time of each conflict along with soviet satellites and military advisors. It want until after the 67 war did the Israelis began to receive the more advanced American weapon systems. this is six years old from jane's but you get the point. Physically, the IDF is in excellent condition,” says Jane’s Intelligence Review. “The Israeli Air Force is one of the world’s most powerful deployed tactical air forces, and the Israeli Army has more combat-ready heavy divisions than NATO can deploy in Europe.” In the last five years, Israel has received almost $5 billion in arms shipments from the United States and Germany. These deliveries are in addition to $9 billion in U.S. military aid and about $11 billion in additional domestic military procurement and R&D. Israeli armored brigades are made up of powerful Merkava III tanks, Achzarit assault infantry carriers and Puma combat engineering vehicles, supported by Apache helicopters, upgraded M109A6 howitzers and MLRS rocket launchers. Jane’s calls them “the world’s best-equipped heavy ground-combat units.”

sorry for the miss spelled word

This is from today's (6/12/2004) FYEO: ARMED FORCES OF THE WORLD: Who Has the Most Combat Power June 12, 2004: Which country on the planet has the most powerful armed forces? It's not a matter of numbers, although that's a major factor. By size (number of troops), the top ten looks like this; By Armed Forces Size China United States India Korea, North Russia Korea, South Pakistan Israel Turkey Iran But anyone who has studied military history knows that the number of troops is a misleading measurement. There are several factors that make the troops of one army more effective than others. The most obvious modifying factor is weapons and equipment (quantity and quality). Closely related to this are the “combat support” elements. The most important of these are logistics (being able to move troops, and their supplies, long distances and in a timely manner) and maintenance (keeping things in repair and running under all conditions.) Then there are the intangibles, like leadership, training and the most intangible item of all; military tradition. Apply all of those and you get a different top ten. This number is called "combat power." By Combat Power United States China Israel India Russia Korea, South Korea, North United Kingdom Turkey Pakistan The most unusual entry here is Israel. But this is because Israel is one of the few nations to have a reserve army that can be mobilized for action more quickly than most countries can get their active duties into shape for combat. The mobilized Israeli armed forces number over half a million troops. In addition, the Israelis have world class equipment and weapons, as well as exceptional intangibles. The downsize of this is that mobilizing its armed forces also cripples the Israeli economy. Under these conditions, Israel must conduct a war that ends within a few months. After that, supplying the armed forces becomes difficult and actual combat power begins to decline. The other nations in the top ten have large armed forces that are well equipped and trained, at least compared to most nations farther down on the list. Britain’s armed forces, like Israel’s, are better equipped, trained and more experienced than most. Turkey benefits from having a strong military tradition and excellent leadership at the small unit level, as well as good combat training. Overall, the U.S. combat power is about three times that of second place China, and ten times that of tenth place Pakistan. But another modifying factor is how you plan to use that combat power. Wars are not fought in a vacuum, but in places that often inconvenient places for one side. Most armed forces are optimized for fighting on their own borders; for defending the homeland. Only the United States is capable of quickly moving lots of combat power to anywhere on the planet. Moreover, given a few months, the United States can put enough combat power just about anywhere, and become the major military force in that neighborhood. swhitebull - sure to raise a few hackles, n'est ce pas?

good post but i would think The UK would have to be at least in the top five on the second list

"The notion that Israel could sustain a conventional war against most European countries is absurd." -ABsolutely not. When was the last time a European country went up against aell equipped, motivated foe with solid economic resources??? ww2? look at what happened there. Europe in its entirety would be speaking German if it werent for the UNITED STATES. YOu are right that Jordan Egypt ( who now has a modern army but war wouldnt happen) syria iraq et c did not have very good capabilities, however COMBINED they pose[d] a very severe threat to Israel. You also need to understand that most European countries are pacifist and barely contain a military. Germany cannot begin a war unless it is ATTACKED. By the way, the Muslim countries that you listed were/are EXTREMELY MOTIVATED- their main goal is to drive Israel/ the jews out of the middle east, Most muslim extremeists hate Israel more than the United States. Also, I truly believe the French would never engage themselves in a conventional war. They are wussies.

"The notion that Israel could sustain a conventional war against most European countries is absurd." -ABsolutely not. " You lead absolutely the troll category here! Nice achievement! France spend only 0,8%of GNP in military procurement and is air force is on the same category than Israel.Our aerospace industry civilian and military , have one fourth the capcity of US!And dedicated to civilian for 80%. If we scale up we could field alone 10 time Israeli forces easily. ANd we have the will to fight in case of problem. But we have no real foe except some internal arabs but it is matter for police and not army. Israel problem is arroguance and its refusing to agree to its prime responsability in the arab-Israel conflict by expelling palestinian of their zone after doing massacre like in der yasin in the same way that nazis does previously agaisnt some population (but in a much more total way I agree). If you want Israel in peace, make some compromise and excuses first. Israel will have a problem in 15 years if it continue like that: imagine saudis giving their weapons to syria after monarchy replaced, or state of Iranian military industry selling low cost hight tech weapons in 15 years and having nukes and ICBM! I 'm not agaisnt Israel population but they should change their mind.However I don't like arabs and their primitive and some time barbarian mentality. If you are an israeli citizen you are a bad example.