ידיעה מדיפנס ניוז )(מאת ברבר אופל - רום) שיתפרסם ביום שני הקרוב. הדגשות אינן במקור.
Yet another Israel Navy acquisition deal has foundered the latest in a decade of discarded modernization options. Tel Aviv was banking on Berlin to subsidize up to one-third of the purchase of a 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) package consisting of the
Navy’s sixth Dolphin submarine, heavy torpedoes, and two 2,700-ton ships based on the German Meko A- 100 design. But after a year of negotiations and personal appeals by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the German government
determined that it could not accommodate the Israeli request.
In July 7 meetings in Berlin, senior aides to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told an Israeli delegation led by ministry of Defense Director-General Udi Shani that it was suspending discussions
on the proposed aid package. “Germany now is grappling with a bad economic situation,” Shani said. “We understand they can’t assist us, which means we have to do a reassessment.” but the collapse of the deal leaves the Navy with dwindling prospects for fortifying its aging surface fleet.
It also revives
disputes between military planners who favor new warships and political leaders who want a sixth submarine for strategic deterrence. “If we have to choose between one or the other,
the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) doesn’t want the sixth sub. But the politicians are trying to force it on us,” a senior officer on the IDF general staff said. He blamed the Navy for “putting all their eggs in the German basket,” and for precipitously discarding U.S. options that could have been funded through annual U.S. military aid. “The Navy has to come back to us with a water-tight plan,” the senior officer said. “Each course correction is costing them.”
Israel’s Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said local licensed production, once floated as an option, “is not going to happen” because it would cost too much to establish a
military shipbuilding industrial base. A champion of sea power from his many years on the Knesset’s defense and foreign affairs committee, Steinitz declined to comment specifically about the capsized German aid deal or on prospects of securing necessary government funding for the additional submarine. Germany has underwritten all of
Israel’s Dolphin subs, picking up all of the costs of Nos. 1 and 2 and half of the price of No. 3 in the 1990s, and one-third of Nos. 4 and 5 in a 2005 deal.
The purchase of the Meko-100- based ships has been complicated by a 2009 reorganization that placed the Blohm Voss design authority under full control of Abu Dhabi, an Arabian Gulf emirate with no diplomatic ties to Israel. Abu Dhabi MAR also owns a controlling interest in ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), the Hamburg-based consortium building the fourth and fifth Israeli Dolphins.
“With Abu Dhabi in the picture, it’s not an automatic show-stopper, but it’s certainly an issue,” a former navy acquisition officer said. It would have been easier to obtain
favorable terms for the combined submarine-surface ship package, the former Navy acquisition officer noted. “But the minute they remove the submarine, there’s little incentive for them to take on the project,” he said. Vice Adm. Eliezer Marom, Israel
Navy commander, declined repeated interview requests and prevented senior officers from discussing modernization plans. Privately, however, current and former officers expressed concern about the Navy’s ill-preparedness in the face of escalating
operational demands.
Expanding Missions The acquisition chaos is coming as the Navy adds missions to its traditional ones of coastal defense and strategic deterrance. The Navy is routinely deploying to more distant waters than the western Mediterranean, including
around the Sinai peninsula and into the Gulf of Suez. Sources here say the service also deploys through the Strait of Tiran for stealthy, anti-smuggling operations off the Sudanese coasts and points along the length of the Red Sea coast, just short of the Gulf of Aden. The service has a growing role in the air-land battle; during Israel’s
2008-2009 anti-rocket campaign in Gaza, warships provided fire support for ground forces and launched precision strikes against rocket sites.
Moreover, the Navy has grown more important as a guardian of strategic depth as enemy rockets and missiles threaten the nation’s air bases. Even the coastal defense mission is getting more complicated, with newly discovered offshore gas fields
and a spate of attempts to break Israel’s naval blockade around Gaza. “No doubt, the Navy is assuming greater strategic importance as it takes on new and varied missions… and it should be building itself up accordingly,” said Ephraim Sneh, a
former deputy defense minister who now chairs the Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue in Netanya.
Following the January 2009 discovery of a large natural gas reserve some 90 kilometers off the Haifa coast and this year’s discovery of a field four times larger and a bit farther south, Israel will become one of the world’s top 10 suppliers of natural gas. “Israel’s economic future is moving offshore, and it’s the Navy that the government will depend upon to protect these precious assets,” Sneh said. “The Navy needs to build a force to deal with the Iranian threat, future flotilla challenges, protection of natural resources and other missions. It needs decisive leadership
capable of fighting for the funding it needs to fulfill missions assigned to it by the government,” said Eli Ronen, a retired officer on the Israel Navy headquarters staff and former director-general of Israel’s Energy and Infrastructure Ministry.
Only Itself to Blame But at a time when the Navy should be capitalizing on an unprecedented growth in roles and missions, it is barely scraping by on
its single-digit share — less than 8 percent, experts here say — of military
investment.
Collapse of the German funding option not only drives the Navy back to the drawing board, but forces it to compete at a disadvantage with other big-ticket programs
further along in the procurement process, including the Namer heavy
armored personnel carrier and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Even worse, Navy supporters say, the service risks losing some $260 million already earmarked for new
ships in the General Staff’s current multiyear budget.
Some active and retired Navy officers blame Marom for failing to chart a credible modernization course that could be defended in budget battles within the defense establishment, the Treasury and, ultimately, the Israeli Cabinet. With a half year remaining in his controversial term, Marom is unlikely to put in motion anything of substance he could claim as a modernization legacy, sources say.
But beyond operational and personal mistakes, former colleagues say Marom’s failure to build a future force is the gravest, most far-reaching stain on an otherwise distinguished career.
Some defense and industry sources denounce Marom for alienating U.S. shipbuilders Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman with his abrupt torpedoing of U.S. options in favor of a misplaced bet on the German package. A retired Navy admiral said the service has “only itself to blame” for the latest acquisition upset. “The Americans are fed up, the German design is much riskier and expensive than expected, and funding is doubtful. It’s back to square one, and it’s not looking good,” the retired admiral said.
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01-10-2009, 20:05
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