What that’s always said to me is that the official exchange rates are a load of bull, and that the real exchange rate is the one where goods and services cost about the same in both countries. Which is still a bit squishy, of course, because there are local specialties, and A might be cheaper than B in one place while B is cheaper than A in another, but it should still roughly hold across an average of a large number of goods and services.
I would note that at least in US professional military circles, one dimension of competence is respecting the rules of war as well as rules of engagement intended to minimize civilian casualties.
If Israel respected the same standard, they probably wouldn’t move as fast or achieve as much, so the definition of “competence” really needs to be considered more holistically here.
They have an uncommon clarity of mission, basically to indiscriminately kill anybody who threatens Israel’s existence, and not to distract themselves excessively with outside alliances, national sovereignty of their neighbors, or the safety of civilians. A military can get quite a bit done when they’re not burdened by those kinds of constraints.
Israel does in fact take extraordinary measures to reduce civilian casualties and follow the rules of war.
Bullshit. Show me any other nation fighting an urban insurgency the way Israel does without these sorts of issues coming up.
Of course, the true number of Gaza civilian deaths is unknown. The current Hamas-supplied estimate of over 31,000 does not acknowledge a single combatant death (nor any deaths due to the misfiring of its own rockets or other friendly fire). The IDF estimates it has killed about 13,000 Hamas operatives, a number I believe credible partly because I believe the armed forces of a democratic American ally over a terrorist regime, but also because of the size of Hamas fighters assigned to areas that were cleared and having observed the weapons used, the state of Hamas’ tunnels and other aspects of the combat.
That would mean some 18,000 civilians have died in Gaza, a ratio of roughly 1 combatant to 1.5 civilians. Given Hamas’ likely inflation of the death count, the real figure could be closer to 1 to 1. Either way, the number would be historically low for modern urban warfare.
The UN, EU and other sources estimate that civilians usually account for 80 percent to 90 percent of casualties, or a 1:9 ratio, in modern war (though this does mix all types of wars). In the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, a battle supervised by the U.S. that used the world’s most powerful airpower resources, some 10,000 civilians were killed compared to roughly 4,000 ISIS terrorists.
Israel has not created a gold standard in civilian harm mitigation in war. That implies there is a standard in civilian casualties in war that is acceptable or not acceptable; that zero civilian deaths in war is remotely possible and should be the goal; that there is a set civilian-to-combatant ratio in war no matter the context or tactics of the enemy. But all available evidence shows that Israel has followed the laws of war, legal obligations, best practices in civilian harm mitigation and still found a way to reduce civilian casualties to historically low levels.
Thank you for the cite. Yes, that’s precisely what I’m referring to.
Not only that, Hamas wants as many dead and maimed palestinians as possible. The more dead, maimed and starving palestinians, the better their propaganda works. I’ve heard some war experts say this is a new tactic in warfare, where one party intentionally tries to put their civilians in harms way for propaganda purposes.
It would be like if during the UK bombing raids of Germany, the Nazis intentionally put large numbers of civilians in or near military installations in the hopes that UK bombs would kill and maim them, so the Nazis could post the videos all over social media to create pressure in the UK to end the bombings.
Yet despite Hamas intentionally trying to get palestinians killed, Israel has a pretty good ratio of militant to civilian deaths. The vast majority of militants in a war are adult men. So going on the gender and age ratio of the dead is a reasonable way to tell how many of the dead are militants vs civilians. Obviously some of the dead adult men are civilians, and some of the adults women are combatants, but its a pretty good metric.
And Again, Israel does all this with a military budget around the same size as Canada or Brazil. Israel apparently has a reasonable ratio of dead militants to dead civilians while fighting in urban warfare against an enemy that intentionally wants their civilians to die. Obviously nobody wants civilians to die, but even nations like the US are not able to get the ratios Israel is seeing.
Correct. The fighting with Iran shows us both what indiscriminate attacks truly look like, with ballistic missiles fired directly at city centers and residential buildings, and cluster munitions being freely deployed towards civilian infrastructure; as well as what happens when the government gives a shit about its people and provides them with adequate shelter.
Ironically, Gaza has some of the most extensive bomb shelter networks in the world, with a network 350-450 miles long, often large enough for a vehicle to drive through, and as deep as 200 feet below ground.
Unfortunately, none of that is for the civilians of Gaza to shelter in.
And some of the teenagers who are under 18 are also combattants.
The fact that Hamas, unlike e.g. Nazi Germany, doesn’t need their own civilians to provide tax funding for the war, nor do they need them to work in arms factories (or other jobs to keep the home economy functioning) makes them far more expendable.
Hamas & Gaza is a very weird case of a client populace and a client quasi-military organization both of which are funded and supplied predominantly by outside actors.
I would suspect that the greatest factors are limited nation size and restricted mission. Not to minimize the threats it faces, but Israel is able to spend the majority of its military dollars to defend limited length borders against limited types of incursions. As well as a capacity to apply force beyond its borders - again, within a limited range.
I am unsure how much of their technology - such as the exploding phones - is subsumed within “military” expenditures. But I assume they have tremendous cyber capabilities to apply defensively or offensively.
Yes, I’m sure the cohesive mindset of Israelis perceiving themselves as in a continuous life or death struggle is likely a factor as well. And, perhaps to a lesser extent, the less impressive assets available to their neighbors. But I think the size of their geography and mission are the primary factors. Having a quite supportive superpower takes at least some of the burden off as well.
For reference, the size of Canada is 9,984,000 square kilometres. Israel is 22,072 square kilometres. Quick search on line says Israel’s defence spending in 2024 was $46.5 billion, US dollars. Canada, $30.5 billion, don’t know if this is US or Canadian.
No idea what to make of these numbers, but supplying them for comparisons, given some of the comments in the thread.
Yes but Israel is currently fighting a war with multiple fronts, so their military spending has gone up. It was about 25 billion a year before the war started in 2023.
Also Canada has about 40 million people and Israel has about 10 million people, but Canada’s military spending is about on par with Israel before the war started.
I think the fact that Israel prioritizes its air force is a major factor. As I said upthread, Israel has a more advanced air force than nations in western Europe. Israel may have the worlds 2nd or 3rd best air force. The US would be the best air force, as far as #2 I don’t know if that would be China or not.
Plus not only does Israel have its own domestic intelligence agencies, but I’m sure a lot of NATO nations are providing them with intelligence too. The entire EU has sanctioned Iran for its nuclear weapons program, so I’m sure they’re giving intelligence to Israel. Plus a lot of arab sunni nations don’t like Iran, so I’m sure they’re giving intel to Israel about Iran too. Plus a lot of the people in Iran do not like the government, so Israel probably has a lot of people living there willing to give intel too.
Size is a double-edged sword, of course. Israel has less land to defend, but it has to defend it - it can barely retreat an inch, or the whole country will be overrun.
As the others said, one reason Israel’s military is so competent is because it has to be. Israel faces severe threats and - up until maybe, say, half a century ago - there was a very realistic chance it could be totally overrun and annihilated. It’s the same reason Ukraine has been so innovative against Russia - the consequences of not innovating or fighting well are disastrous.
The local Arab nations didn’t have to face that kind of pressure. Nobody is really threatening them with genocide, annihilation or whatnot. So since they don’t face that existential-survival-doomism, they have less incentive to improve or be competent.
This is true, but Israel is doing it with a 25 billion dollar a year military (50 billion now due to the war) and 10 million people. Israel has taken air supremacy over a nation a thousand miles away while Russia cannot even achieve air superiority over a nation on its border.
Ukraine has about 110 billion in military spending and 40 million people.
Israel has largely decimated 2 insurgencies, which is something the US struggled with in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sure, but those insurgencies were right next to Israel’s doorstep, giving Israel a much easier direct access to them (bombing them, etc.) and they were cultures, languages and neighbors that Israel was far more familiar with. Israel also had much more incentive to handle these insurgencies with vigor given that they could fire thousands of rockets into Israel. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States was geographically half a world away, the insurgencies posed no direct threat to the CONUS, the US didn’t have as much understanding or motive to understand/care about the insurgencies, etc. - and most importantly, the USA could pull out and withdraw from the region with little consequence. Israel doesn’t really have the choice of ignoring or saying bye-bye to the issue.
An insurgency in densely populated Gaza is a very different problem from an insurgency in sparely populated Afghanistan.
Who’s going to overrun them? How?
They also fought an insurgency in Lebanon. They’ve also been fighting an insurgency in the west bank for years.
They’ve never expected to be able to defend themselves against a superpower in open warfare, so they’ve optimized themselves for irregular warfare. For which a large ground force is more important than expensive anti-air equipment that will just get destroyed right off without accomplishing much.
Plus, politically speaking Israel or the US attacking their cities just bolsters support for the government.
Another thing to point out is that Israel’s military has the luxury of being able to fall back on its nuclear arsenal as an ultimate trump card or security blanket or insurance policy - call it what you will - no matter how bad things get conventionally. As such, the IDF can afford to be freewheeling, daring and aggressive because it has nukes at its back even if its conventional military suffers big losses. Of course, nukes aren’t suitable for every scenario, but they guarantee that Israel itself will never be conventionally overrun by any Arab nation or coalition - not that anyone’s seriously tried since 1973 anyway. That gives far more freedom.