On persiste et on signe

Après la “deuxième guerre du Liban”, la force aérienne israélienne ne craint qu’une chose : que quelque réformateur farfelu arrive à faire accepter l’idée qu’il faut renforcer les unités de combat terrestres aux dépens des unités aériennes. Comme l’on sait, la guerre de juillet-août a été la démonstration flagrante de l’incapacité de la force aérienne de “traiter” ce type de guerre dit “de quatrième génération” (G4G). Mais la force aérienne affirme que les prochaines guerres n’auront rien à voir avec ce qui vient de se passer et qu’il faut donc, plus que jamais, mettre l’accent sur la force aérienne.

Cette argumentation entre dans la logique désormais bien connue : puisque la guerre que nous avions prévue, avec les matériels que nous avions, n’a pas eu lieu, c’est donc cette guerre-là, toujours avec ces mêmes matériels, qu’il faut plus que jamais préparer.

La logique des aviateurs est exposée dans un texte d’Haaretz de ce jour :

«Meanwhile, senior Israel Air Force officers warned on Sunday that an apparent move by the General Staff, the Defense Ministry and the government to invest more in the ground forces at the expense of the IAF, as one lesson of the war that followed the kidnapping, is liable to severely harm the IAF's preparedness for future wars, which may well be different from the recent one in Lebanon.

»The sources warned that the impending cuts were liable to force the IAF to cut back on manpower and training, and perhaps even to shut down complete fighter squadrons. Halutz, a former commander of the IAF, has said in the past that he would rather shut down a tank division than a fighter squadron, but the officers fear that the public backlash generated by the war may force him to abandon this stance.

»According to these officers, the principle threats now facing Israel are Syria, which could view the outcome of the recent war as encouragement for attacking Israel in order to regain the Golan Heights; Iran, should it succeed in obtaining nuclear weapons; and Egypt, should President Hosni Mubarak be succeeded by a regime hostile to Israel. Moreover, they said, Israel could face war on two or all of these fronts at once, requiring it to be able to shift forces quickly from one front to another - something at which the air force obviously excels.

»The officers also claimed that ground troops might never be employed at all in wars against any of these countries. However, they added, if ground forces were employed, air force cover would be needed to give them freedom to maneuver.»

Mis en ligne le 18 septembre 2006 à 10H07