Last week the Knesset passed a law meant to improve conditions for reserve soldiers. It will limit the number of days reservists in the Israel Defense Forces are required to serve and provide them with a number of financial benefits.
The law is intended to seriously improve the conditions for the tiny percentage of those who still do active reserve duty - those who today often find themselves torn away from their normal lives and sent off to serve for over 100 days every three years.
One of the improvements is raising the minimum compensation for reservists from the equivalent of the minimum wage to NIS 5,300 a month at least. This is good news for the unemployed and students who today are paid for a month of 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week service closer to NIS 3,700.
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Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, who was responsible for the law on behalf of the government and IDF, said the law's cost will run at about NIS 800 million a year, though a number of MKs said this forecast was exaggerated.
It would be interesting to know if these sums include the savings the IDF will make by replacing expensive reservists with much cheaper conscripts now that the number of reserve days will fall. If the new law really means that reservists will serve less time, then the army will have to reimburse them and their employers much less.
Exactly the same week, the media reported on a large recruitment into the security forces - but in this case a slightly different force. The Palestinian Authority signed up hundreds for its security apparatus, after a long process to choose the people they wanted - because supply far exceeded demand. And this happened even though the salary the PA was offering, NIS 1,400 a month, is even lower than what the IDF pays recruits.
But the economic situation in the Palestinian territories has turned service in the security forces into a very attractive undertaking. The status and nationalistic ideology, along with the money, are likely to motivate recruits enough to overcome even the dilemma between supporting the PA or Hamas.
At the same time, the growing Israeli economy is slowly - or not so slowly - eroding motivation to serve in the IDF. The army can only fantasize about how much money it could save if the IDF could hire foreigners who would make do with such low wages.
At a separate event last week, Tel Aviv University held a conference where among other things the economic cost to Israel of 40 years of occupation in the territories was discussed. This helped remind us of the connections between politics and economics.
The transformation from a "people's army" to an army compensated nicely for its service may spur economic efficiency, but will certainly cost us in many other ways. The move to an army where not every segment of the population serves is very likely to lower what those who do not serve see as the price tag on a number of political decisions.
There are those who say the American public's apathy toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan results from the transformation of the U.S. military into a paid professional force, and those who serve are mostly from the lower classes.
According to this theory, the fact that in the Vietnam War draftee children of the entire public died - children of senators alongside those of the common people - is what raised the American consciousness about the war and brought about its end. But today's soldiers serving in Iraq don't have the political clout to bring them home.
Regardless of the identity and status of those serving in the U.S. military in Iraq, the war there is likely to be affected very quickly by the world economic situation, much more quickly than anyone had expected. The monthly U.S. trade deficit is almost $60 billion. The federal budget deficit hit $175 million in February. These numbers, and many others, are taking their toll on the U.S. economy.
The only way to close such gaps is buy cutting spending and raising taxes. It makes no difference who wins the U.S. election in November, whether Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John McCain. There is no doubt that whoever takes office next year will have to implement a policy of cutting back.
And speaking of cutbacks, a major item in the federal budget is the cost of maintaining hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, even before talking about supplies, weapons systems and everything else involved in a war. Just as the Cold War ended at the end of the 1980s because the Soviet economy collapsed, the current U.S. economic crisis will in the end force reductions in U.S. forces spread out around the world - and reduce American involvement in the Middle East.
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