The government commission headed by former national security council chief Jacob Nagel issued its report for reframing the future of the IDF on Monday.
While the report does contain a number of ideas for change, it did not involve any probing of the October 7 failure, and as such, some critics will view its conclusions as missing a large piece of the puzzle for improving.
A major recommendation of the commission is to shift the Israeli defense establishment and its budget from a deterrence and defense posture to a much more proactive and preventative attack posture regarding threats.
Nagel said that this shift would involve shifting resources to a 70% attack versus 30% defense balance.
In order to accomplish this and to provide for the IDF’s immediate ongoing larger needs, Nagel recommended adding nine billion shekels to the 2025 budget and keeping at some level of increased levels until around 2030.
For 2025, the additional nine billion would bring the joint IDf and Defense Ministry budget up to NIS 123 billion.
After 2030, the defense budget would still be increased, but at steadily reduced levels.
Also, Nagel suggested that even budget levels for 2026 would start a process of reduction and returning to more normal levels, whereas for 2025 he was against any process of reduction.
All of these budget approaches assume that Israel does not engage in another major war, though Nagel did not clarify what impact keeping IDF forces in Syria for all of 2025 or a new major invasion of Gaza City for a month would have on the budgetary picture.
Moreover, all of this additional budget is far below the much larger new budget the IDF requested.
At press time, the IDF had not issued any response.
Still, if in 2015 the IDF was fighting with the Finance Ministry over the Locker Commision report regarding whether its budget would be around NIS 59 billion or NIS 61 billion, having a budget debate where the low figures for the IDF for future years are in the NIS high 70 to mid 80 billion range shows how much the world has changed since October 7.
Besides a more proactive and preemptive attack approach to threats, Nagel said that the IDF’s funding and force buildup for confronting threatening countries further away, especially Iran, was highly inadequate and needed increased resources and funding.
This last comment was noteworthy given that Israel has managed two successful direct attacks on Iran in 2024 and four direct attacks on Yemen.
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett has been given credit for investing significant funds and human resources into such long term strike capabilities. In summer 2023, with Netanyahu already prime minister again, the IDF established an intelligence target bank collection division specifically for Iran.
At press time, Nagel had not clarified what was insufficient about these efforts or what additional efforts were needed.
One specific point he noted was that Israeli efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program should be targeted more at its weapons group issues, such as detonation and delivery, and less at its uranium enrichment, given that that battle is mostly already lost.
Need to invest larger resources into security issues
Further, Nagel said that Israel needs to invest much larger resources into security issues related to space, cyber warfare, artificial intelligence, and technology in general.
Interestingly, Nagel did not think that the IDF’s size was inadequate on October 7, 2023, but does think it is inadequately small now in light of the seven fronts it faces challenges on.
Nagel pushed for a full integration of all Israeli citizens into the IDF, with a special emphasis on Haredim.
At the same time, he said this integration could occur gradually.
He did not clarify whether gradual meant over close to two years as some have recommended or over seven years, as Defense Minister Israel Katz has proposed and for which he has received heavy criticism as being a cover for burying the issue.
In addition, Nagel suggested that the burden on reservists could be significantly alleviated by creating a larger number of short career officer track jobs, lasting only around two years.
Such officers would have the expertise that many reservists have, but can be paid lower salaries.
At the same time, Nagel said that especially combat officers and fighters must be paid more to be able to keep them in the service in an age when dying in battle is much more frequent than before October 7.
Simply trying to motivate soldiers and officers to serve longer without competitive salaries compared to the private sector will no longer work, he said.
He recommended permanently extending male mandatory service to 36 months, but that has been accepted by almost all defense officials, and is mostly being held up pending a move to expand the service of Haredim in the military at the same time.
Another major point he made was the need for Israel to produce and manufacture more of its essential weaponry independently.
This is a point which many defense officials and experts have made since the US froze some weapons shipments to Israel in May 2024 over the invasion of Rafah in Gaza, but in his press conference Nagel did not give an indication of how such a revolution could be managed.
Sources in the past have told The Jerusalem Post that it could take around a decade to develop certain weapons and industries, such as in the aircraft sector.
Regarding rehabilitation of wounded soldiers, Nagel suggested adding 250 additional employees to the Defense Ministry to help with that future expanding and gargantuan problem.
Nagel rejected the Finance Ministry's wish to have more control over the defense budget process, recommending only to grant the ministry greater transparency.
He also rejected the ministry's directive to him to decide how to pay for each additional defense budget item, saying he believed this is the ministry's role.
14 experts and former high ranking defense officials also served on the committee with Nagel.
Out of the 130 page report, all but around 20 pages are being made public.
Exactly how many IDF forces are needed in the different fronts is one major topic which will remain classified.
The commission started its work in August.
Its mandate did not include anything relating to probing the October 7 failure, but rather only a forward looking view to preparing the IDF for the future.
After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich received the recommendations of the Nagel Committee, Netanyahu thanked the members of the committee for "doing important work for the security of Israel."
"We have known for years that Iran is the greatest threat to us, both directly and through its proxies. Of course, we took care to strike this axis very hard. But we have been witness to the fact that a) it still exists and b) additional forces have entered the field, and we always need to be prepared for what may come," Netanyahu said in a statement.
The prime minister added that the work the committee has done has prepared Israel "for what may come."
"Our internal organization, the underground, and many other questions are detailed in the report. We will study it, and we will use it to formulate decisions," Netanyahu said. He concluded by thanking the committee again for their work.