Israeli Defense minister approves IDF multi-year plan.

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said Momentum Plan will make the army more flexible, intelligent and lethal but the funding of this plan is unclear.

The IDF will focus its training exercises more heavily on urban combat (Picture source: Israeli MoD)

On Sunday, Jan.26, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett approved the army’s latest multi-year Momentum Plan, paving the way for its acceptance by the security cabinet, despite significant budgetary uncertainties, Judah Ari Gross reports in The Times of Israel.

The multi-year plan will serve as the general framework under which the IDF builds up its arsenals and trains its troops in order to confront the threats it expects to face in the coming years. The guiding principle for the plan, which was developed under IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi, is that a future war must be won as quickly as possible, requiring the military to be able to constantly have at the ready a concrete list of targets, the weapons and equipment needed to strike them, and the ability to do so rapidly.

This Momentum Plan will require a significant increase to the Defense budget, something the interim government has not been able to approve. Bennett said in a statement that the Momentum Plan would soon be brought before the security cabinet for official approval.

The proposed Momentum Plan will see huge investments in developing the IDF’s arsenals, including increasing its collection of mid-sized drones, obtaining large numbers of precision-guided missiles from the US and purchasing additional air defense batteries. The IDF will also focus its training exercises more heavily on urban combat.