‘The Reserves Will Hold’

Abstract

Changes to conflicts involving the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and its design in the Gideon and Tnufa (Momentum) multi-year plans necessitate a profound examination of how army reserves will be employed in aspects such as order of battle, organisation, fighting and support equipment, training, competence, and readiness for fighting scenarios and situations. In practice, the IDF’s operational concept for the reserves in emergency and war situations seems to have changed years ago, but it should be clearly defined and explained to all relevant entities, and in particular to the reserves themselves. Dotan Druck argues that the current concept is no longer ‘the regulars will hold’, as it originally was, but now ‘the reserves will hold’ or ‘the reserves will allow the regulars to decide’.◼