we cannot afford to lose a single war
or in this case, a war against crime
To say Israel is a small nation in geographic size is an understatement. Consider this fact: the nation of Israel could fit inside the state of Florida, not once, not twice but seven times! At a certain point within the nation as measured from one side, east to west, the land mass narrows down to as small as three miles. To put that into perspective, a very high caliber rife with a properly packed cartridge could travel from one side of the nation to the other. With a population of approximately 6 to 7 million people, Israel is needless to say, a very densely populated nation. From a risk assessment standpoint, Israel is surrounded by 22 potentially hostile Arab/Islamic dictatorships with combined land masses 640 times its size and a combined population 60 times its size. Needless to say, Israel is considered by many to be more in jeopardy of attack than any other nation in the world.
Considering how small Israel is in size, population and a modest sized full time military strength of only 176,500 men and women, it almost defies logic to think how it's defended itself so well over the years. Israel's Defense Forces, IDF, have won every war they've engaged in which includes the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the 1956 Sinai War, the 1967 Six-Day War, the War of Attrition, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1982 Lebanon War, and the 2006 Lebanon War.
The Reserve Factor
Each and ever able body, non-Arab, citizen of Israel, man and women, over the age of 18 is required to join the IDF. Men serve three years in the IDF while women serve two. Following regular service, men may be called for reserve service of up to one month annually, until the age of 43 - 45 (reservists may volunteer after this age), and may be called for active duty immediately in times of crisis. Virtually no exemptions exist for reservists called up in a time of crisis (war) but experience has shown that in such cases as the recent 2006 Lebanon War, exemptions are rarely requested or exercised.
Currently the IDF's reserve force has approximately 1.2 million men aging from 17 - 49 and similar numbers for their female reserve forces giving it a total potential fighting force of two million reservist. When fully mobilized, this makes for an awesome size fighting force considering the size of its nation and population which may help explain why as of today, Israel is undefeated when it comes to fighting wars.
Lesson learned
Picture yourself one day leaving from home heading to work outside your city. The sun is shinning, birds are singing, children are skipping to school and life is good. The end of a long day comes and when you arrive back into your city limits things have changed. The residents are on lock down in their homes and every major coroner is infested with drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes. The sound of loud rap music is blaring from cars as gang bangers cruise the streets looking for rival gangs to go after. It's almost as if someone named your city to host Gangfest 2009 and they all came.
Your city’s law enforcement agency is on tactical alert and all officers have be recalled and are now working 12 on / 12 off shifts with no scheduled days off. Your police chief has asked for mutual aid help from nearby agencies to help combat this sudden rise in crime and virtual take over of your city. Days turn into weeks and weeks into months and there is no end in site. Your city has turned into a crime wave; now what? There is only so much budget for over time and other agencies can only stay and help for so long and your state's National Guard is mostly deployed overseas in Iraq or beyond, things are looking bleak, what would you do?
Fortunately the above situation is about as unlikely as money falling from the sky but with the current economic downturn and sharp decline in property values, a redistribution of crime is taking place in some parts of our nation. Parents who currently live in crime ridden areas who have dreamed of some day moving out so their children could escape the gang life are now able to do so because of falling home prices. Sadly what some of these parents don’t realize is that moving away isn't solving the problem because all they did was move some of the gang leaders and/or up and coming gang leaders, as in their own children, with them. In some cases you can take the gang banger out of the gang area but you can't take the gang out of him. Worst of all, the area they moved to could very well be your otherwise quiet, middle class neighborhood which will now be a new anchor point for an extension of the gang area their children left.
Should this happen to your town, as it starts to be known as a drug and gang haven, property values will start to fall even greater and businesses will begin to move out for fear of crime. This of course will all lead to a lower tax base for your city to operate on and as such, your law enforcement budget will decline. Fewer officers will be on the street to combat the increased and growing crime rate which if not put in check could spiral out of control until your nice town becomes the town others use to flee from!
The bottom line is this: the Israel Defense Forces mission is to defend the existence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state of Israel. To protect the inhabitants of Israel and to combat all forms of terrorism which threaten daily life. Their number one main doctrine is: Israel cannot afford to lose a single war. To date, Israel has been able to defend its nation through the use of a very large, strong and dedicated reserve force.
For those of you who are in a direct position to, or can influence the size of your law enforcement agencies reserve force, assuming you have one, now would be a great time to consider the expansion those forces to prepare for what could be a long and hard fought battle against crime in your jurisdiction. Hopefully that will never happen and you'll never need to rely on your reserve forces for such a serious situation but wouldn't it be nice to know you have your own back up reserve forces in place, just in case? When all is said and done, it's like the Israelis say, "We cannot afford to lose a single war," or, in this case, a war against crime.
