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Subject: The office of conflict management
battar    10/11/2005 5:51:59 PM
The press reported that the Israel air force is to retire it's Fouga Magister primary training jets and is looking for a replacement aircraft, probably owned and operated by private industry , like the Elbit operated Grob intitial training light aircraft. Thid id another in a long line of "outsourcing" opertions, where more and more of the IDF's tasks are contracted out to industry. It started with the catering. How long before the IDF becomes the Office of Conflict Management, and hands out the gun-toting jobs to private security firms (whose employees's earn less than a career soldier)? Is this a good idea ?
 
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jastayme3       11/30/2007 12:23:49 AM

The press reported that the Israel air force is to retire it's Fouga Magister primary training jets and is looking for a replacement aircraft, probably owned and operated by private industry , like the Elbit operated Grob intitial training light aircraft. Thid id another in a long line of "outsourcing" opertions, where more and more of the IDF's tasks are contracted out to industry. It started with the catering. How long before the IDF becomes the Office of Conflict Management, and hands out the gun-toting jobs to private security firms (whose employees's earn less than a career soldier)? Is this a good idea ?

It's an old phenomenon. Alternating between contractors and military organizations doing support jobs. It always goes back and forth and neither option ever satisfies and they always shift back. Like a see-saw.
As for giving line jobs to contractors, no that's not a good idea. It hurts standardization of equipment and training. They might be well enough as auxiliaries even in this capacity. But not as the main body.
The chief advantage of traditional military force is that it can generate and direct violence more efficiently then other  forms, allowing them to be sure they can always escalate higher then an opponent useing another method. Being able to do this is essential to occupying territory and you need to occupy territory to have a State. A Partisan group is often more tactically efficient the the traditional structure at a given time. But it always has to run away sooner or later and therefore cannot occupy territory permanantly.
Using contractors as the chief basis of defense(as opposed to auxiliaries, as I said) would render Israel a giant Palestinian Authority. Or for a better anology, they would be like Hashomer bands. The only defense they could mount against terrorists would be retaliation-which is all very well, but a positive ability to hold territory is better. Even worse it would render Israel helpless against Arab conventional forces.
However I highly doubt that Israel will go that far. Besides the fact that the IDF knows all this at least as well as I do, defense organizations like all such things have a tendency toward inertia, which is not always good but at least prevents errors as grave as this. However whether support is done by contractors is probably no more then interesting. It does have the advantage of giving line troops a distinction from supports. As Napolean said, "With such baubles men are won".
 
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battar    You are late today   11/30/2007 11:08:20 AM
Jas,
         You just replied to a post dated 11/2005, thats' two years ago.  Where have you been all this time?
 
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jastayme3       11/30/2007 1:01:13 PM

Jas,

         You just replied to a post dated 11/2005, thats' two years ago.  Where have you been all this time?

I scrolled down and found the title intrigueing. And I didn't notice the date.

 
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Shirrush    Keep diggin'!   12/1/2007 4:46:12 PM

Jas,

         You just replied to a post dated 11/2005, thats' two years ago.  Where have you been all this time?

Battar, just in case you haven't noticed, Jastayme3 is our beloved Resident Thread Archaeologist.
And he's been taking his job seriously of late...

 
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jastayme3       12/1/2007 5:24:08 PM




Jas,



         You just replied to a post dated 11/2005, thats' two years ago.  Where have you been all this time?



Battar, just in case you haven't noticed, Jastayme3 is our beloved Resident Thread Archaeologist.
And he's been taking his job seriously of late...

Not quite that, but I pick out threads for personal interest-and the title intrigued me. Actually what I originally thought it would be about was a suggestion that Israel form a Think Tank for studying COIN and operations-other-then. Not a bad idea by the way, but likely already done.

 
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