Israel's military culture and economic impacts of mandatory service

Israel's Military Culture And How It Affects The Economy

According to one definition of military culture, it is a distinct closed system of behavior according to which the members of the military are supposed to act. It consists of written as well as unwritten rules and regulations along with discrete beliefs and symbols (Cosmo, 2009).

When we talk about military culture in Israel, we refer to the whole military situation in Israel and how it affects the society and the economy. The determinant of the military culture of Israel is the Israel Defense Forces. IDF are the military forces of the State of Israel and they are formed by the ground forces, navy and the air forces. Being the only military wing of the state, it does not have any civil jurisdiction within the country.

IDF is not similar to most of armed forces of other countries. There are many differences that include the recruitment of women. Moreover, the structure of the forces pertaining to the relationship between the navy, air force and army is also different. IDF has been designed to specifically suit the military situation of the country. Being the most prominent institution of Israel's society, it influences the economy, political scene and culture of the country.

IDF makes use of the high tech weapons that have developed in Israel. Moreover, IDF has established strong ties with the military of the United States. It is considered to be one of the most battle-trained army of the world because of the military conflicts that Israel has to face from time to time (The State: Israel Defense Forces, 2009).

In this paper, we shall see how the military culture in Israel influences the culture, economy and society. We shall also see what factors determine the establishment of military ties with the U.S. army.

Without Military Culture Involved

Military culture always has an impact on the society. This impact may be negative or positive. In Israel it is a trend that every man and woman has to serve in the army when he or she is above the age of 18. Mothers and religious women are exempted from this recruitment. Moreover, men have to serve in the army for at least three years whereas the women have to serve in the army for at least two years. They may then extend their services in the IDF if they wish to do so. Meanwhile, the religious people are also exempted from being a part of IDF.

On the other hand, the countries in which there is no such military culture, people have the right to do whatever they want to when they are above the age of 18. There is no compulsion on them to join the army or serve in the army. In a way, it is not a bad thing to serve your country (being part of the military), but the pressure that builds on the shoulders of young people above the age of 18 makes things hard for them.

Moreover, when parents of young children serve in the army for prolonged periods of time, they are grow up without the attention of their parents. When a family lives in a military culture, they are unable to live in a safe, stable and nurturing environment that is essential for a healthy development of body as well as mind. Also, the parents cannot educate their children and send them to university before they serve in the army for at least three years. This is one of the most significant drawbacks.

On a positive note, from a very young age, the people of Israel learn to be responsible citizens. They all know what they have to do in future and plan their life accordingly. These people, after serving their required tenure in the army, turn out to be strong and composed citizens. They have the emotions of being loyal to the country and have the spirit to serve in the hard times when needed.

Layout of Education in Israel

The education system in Israel has always been the center of conflict. Before the year 1948, there were four different Jewish sectors of education that were commonly referred to as "trends" (U.S. Library of Congress). The educational segregation that was favored by the orthodox Jews was protected by the state because of the status quo deals among Ben-Gurion and the Orthodox Jews. Intense conflict and competition stemmed from this system especially when a lot of people started migrating to Israel from 1948 through 1953. The various parties that had formed in the region begin fighting over those who had migrated to win over their votes and secure their own political future.

Because of the many parliamentary crises that resulted from this educational conflict, reform legislation was introduced in 1953 that was called the State Education Law. This reform resulted in decreased number of trends; making them only two from four. These two trends were the state-supported religious system and the state-supported secular system. Nonetheless, there were also some other small systems outside these two, which were not supported by the state. These systems were run by the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel along with others. These schools were also operated by different kibbutz federations as well as traditional religious schools including yeshivot. According to a survey, in the academic year 1986-87, almost 6% of Jewish primary schools were a part of yeshivot, 22% were enrolled in state religious primary schools, whereas almost 72% were enrolled in state secular primary schools. These figures were also consistent with the secondary education.

The youth of Israel are required to attend school for at least ten years apart from the preschool years. The education system is based on four levels. Children of ages between three and six went to preschool. It was made obligatory for children who were five years of age. Through grades one to six, primary education was given. Grades eight and nine were the responsibility of the intermediate education; meanwhile the secondary education was handled in grades ten through twelve. Once the students turn eighteen, it is mandatory for them to attend the army as mentioned above, after which they can attend university.

Defense Budget

An average of 9% of the GDP was spent on IDF during 1950-66. After the 1967 and 1973 wars, the expenditure on defense did increase dramatically. It went as high as 24% of the GDP in 1980s. However, it did come back to 9% (Seitz, 2008). In the year 2008, Israel spent $16.2 billion on its defense. This makes Israel the country with the largest fraction of defense expenditure. 6.3% of the expected GDP was spent on defense in 2010; meanwhile 15.1% of the overall budget was spent on defense. Nonetheless, in 2011, the Prime Minister of Israel has ordered cuts in the defense budget so as to divert the finances towards the social programs (Israel: Generals say defense cuts perilous, 2011). There are many taxpayers who are of the view such a huge percentage of the GDP and general budget should not be spent on the IDF because this directly and indirectly affects the social programs. These people claim that the ratio of defense expenditure should be decreased and more should be spent on the health, education and social betterment of the Israeli public. On the other hand, many Generals of the IDF claim that it is not possible for IDF to maintain its battle readiness and equipment under the new proposed decrease in the defense budget. Also, the orthodox Jews reckon it's important that this amount of money should go to IDF so that the survival of Israel is made ascertain.

Israel's Technological Boom

It is indeed intriguing to note that despite of the not-so-favorable security conditions, Israel has been successful in nurturing itself to become a high-tech hothouse. This is because the country is blessed with all the factors that are required for a country to experience a high-tech boom. These factors include well-educated, innovative and enterprising people. Israel has more engineers than many other countries in the world (according to the size of the population) including the U.S. Nonetheless, it is needless to say that the stimulus for the growth of industry has always been national survival; military as well as economic.

Senor and Singer (2011) have written beautifully how Israel, only a country of 7.1 million people, was able to make to the riches countries of the world by mending its foreign policies and focusing on innovation.

After the wave of immigration from different countries in the 1990s, Israel became full of skilled scientists and engineers. It then became the responsibility of the government to provide employment to these skilled workers as well as benefit from their knowledge and skill. Thanks to these immigrants, Israel started performing very well in the high-tech industry and then experienced a high-tech boom after the year 1998. However, later in the 1990s, Israel's high-tech had to suffer because there was a shortage of the skilled workers. Then the government, along with the industry, introduced many educational as well as vocational programs to meet this shortage.

Another important factor that has had a significant effect on the high-tech industry of Israel is the foreign investments by companies like Motorola, Deutsche Telekom, Intel, Cisco System, Nortel, IBM, Microsoft and many other aviation and space companies. These companies have set their research centers in Israel because they recognize the high-tech innovation that can be found within the country. These companies have also invested in the technology incubators and local companies of Israel.

Military Culture's Role in Development of High-Tech Industry

It is the need of Israel to make sure that it is safe from all sides. After experiencing so many wars, the high-tech industry has taken a toll from this process and emerged as a successful one. In the war that was called Six Day War, fought in 1967, Israel made use of the French weaponry. After an arms embargo was imposed by the president, Israel had to turn to itself and the U.S. Blades Technology was one of the very first companies to establish and manufacture engine parts for IDF's Mirage aircraft. Now this company makes sales worth of $90 million every year and also has joint ventures with Rolls Royce and Pratt & Whitney.

Then during Yom Kippur War, Israel was astonished by the technological developments of the enemy. Moreover, it also had to face a lot of trouble in obtaining the important weaponry material from its suppliers outside the country. As a result, it launched a project to develop the Lavi jet fighter. When Israel started the development of this fighter jet, it had to abandon the project half way because it was unable to cover its costs. When this project was dismissed, hundreds of trained engineers were released in the market and that meant greater technological boom. The Israeli defense industry then paid more attention towards the development of electronic and avionic systems. This also gave the industry an edge in the civil sector where it was able to develop electronic, security and computers software. After the Iraqi Scuds hit Tel Aviv back in 1991, Israel began to develop the Arrow anti-missile missile. This was a great advancement in the high-tech industry.

By the 1990s, Israel had become the eighth country in the world to have developed and launched satellites, which began with Amos civilian communications satellite and were followed by Ofel military satellites as well as the Eros civilian photo-reconnaissance satellite. Israel has now made partnerships with NASA, Russian space program and ESA, to name a few. These satellites were completed for civilian and scientific uses. In the year 2002, two of Israel's six biggest industrial firms by turnover were called high-tech companies. These included the Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), Intel Electronics, moreover also the pharmaceutical company Teva (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE:TEVA). The most significant exporters in terms of sales included high-tech companies IAI, Teva, Intel Electronics and Vishay Intertechnology, with more than $1 billion in exports.

Israel's Global Standing

Because Israel has very few natural resources, it has to focus on export of high-tech products to maintain a Western standard of living. Textile industries are now disappearing from Israel because it has recognized that its position on the global market is that of a country with innovation high-tech products and this is what the country has a competitive advantage in.

It can be rightly said that the mainstay of Israel's economic future depends on high-tech. It is evident by looking at the statistics that the economy of Israel is getting restructured from a traditional one to a high-tech one. In the year 1995, high-tech exports accounted for 45% of the total exports, meanwhile in 2000, the figure rose to 57%. There was also an increase of exports of electronics communication components, medical equipment, IT and software products and communications components. Therefore, high-tech is the key factor for the economic growth of Israel and its integration in the global economy.

American Support

Although America supports Israel for strategic reasons that it does for economic reasons, it is important for us to note the economic growth of Israel is somewhat directly dependent upon the high-tech and military industry of Israel. As a general trend, it can be seen that America's support for Israel grew as the country became stronger.

Moreover, Israel only became stronger when it developed its own weaponry and stopped depending on other countries for military aid. Therefore, it can be concluded that American support for Israel is not solely because it is economically very stable but because it has been able to make a firm footing the global economy of the basis of its lessons that it learnt after fighting many wars with different countries.

Economic Imperative

As mentioned before, partly the economic necessity of Israel had been driven from a military one. The defense budget of the country is not considered to be enough for IDF to maintain its military advantage. The other solution to meet the military demands is export. Israel is fortunate to be successful in both civilian as well as defense high-tech exported.

Nonetheless, the defense market is shrinking globally. On the other hand, the civilian use of software in communications, process control and imaging, to name a few, have been derived from the military industry and therefore have become very important items of export.

For instance, when the need for enhanced night-vision equipment resulted in local engineers becoming more skilled in the field of image processing, two if the Israeli high-tech companies were established. These companies are called Scitex and Elscint.

Conclusion

Without doubt, the Israeli army has had significant influence on the society of Israel. When we talk about the matters of security and foreign affairs, the involvement of the army can be justified. After the Yom Kippur War of 1973, there was significant increase in the economic role of the military as Israel began to develop a military-industrial complex that also includes IDF and the government defense industries. Public and private firms can also be included in the aforementioned complex that produces the military equipment.

Nevertheless, there has been a reverse in this trend lately because of the end of the cold war and the development of the peace process in this region. There are also many budget constraints and many controversies are taking place pertaining to the security issues in the country and have also led to the reduced effect of military in the society.

Even though, the army has significant effect within the country on almost everything including the society, the people and the economy, the army cannot be considered to be a separate entity from the Israeli society. From the above discussion it is evident that the economy of Israel is dependent upon the development and establishment of its high-tech industry and that this industry was initially driver by the military process. Therefore, it can rightly be said that the net effect of the military culture in Israel on its economy is a positive one. However, the number of lives that this culture has claimed through wars and other operations cannot be paid for in any way.