Israel Matzav

Guess who has the second most air force firepower in the world

Israel has expanded its firepower by four times over the last two years, and now has the second most air force firepower in the world, trailing only the United States.

So while Hezbollah may have as many as '100,000 rockets' from Iran, they can only launch a limited # of them per day, while Israel could rain-down thousands of missiles and smart bombs on southern Lebanon, setting back Hezbollah capabilities 'by decades' while they struggle to perhaps fire off a few rounds towards Israeli population centers.

To enable this strategy, Israel is currently in the midst of a radical air-power expansion that has brought a 4x increase in her striking power over the span of just two years:

The firepower of the Israel Air Force (IAF) will be four times greater by year’s end than it was two years ago, according to its commander, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, enabling Israel to bring another round of fighting with Hezbollah to a swift end.

“We can destroy [Hezbollah’s] military capabilities and the infrastructure that supports its activities on a scale that would take decades to rebuild,” he told a conference on national security, “an unimaginable scale”. ...

Eshel acknowledged that Hezbollah now has precision rocketry capable of hitting Israel’s northernmost air force base and to interfere with operations. However, he said, it would not diminish the IAF’s offensive capabilities, which can be projected from other bases as well....

The use of precision munitions and upgraded intelligence, based in part on satellites, accounts in good part for the increase in the IAF’s effective firepower... the air force could carry out thousands of accurate strikes in a single day.

By the end of this year, the air force will be able accomplish in 24 hours what it took three days to accomplish in the war with Hezbollah eight years ago...

And if the Lebanese national government -and Army- get involved? It's now pretty much controlled by Hezbollah anyway, so it's not hard to envision the entire country dragged into a war with Israel. And which side would Obama take? Good question!

Yet this would probably be a grave error for the Lebanese, as already back in 2010 Israel had fully prepared a plan for the IDF to wipe the entire Lebanese military off face of the Earth in just four hours... one can only assume they're still ready to do that -and more- if circumstances demand it.

I wonder whether US Secretary of State John FN Kerry discussed this with the Lebanese government while he was there this week.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Hezbullah, Hezbullah rockets, Israel Air Force, John Kerry, Lebanon, Second Lebanon War, US Air Force

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:19 AM