ABSTRACT
The development of the regular officer corps during the decade 1973-1982 illustrates, perhaps better than anything else, the trend toward inflated overheads—the most prominent characteristic of military force construction between wars. The development of the officer corps was also unbalanced with respect to its internal composition: only a small proportion of the additional officers were trained for combat command and assigned to the combat echelon. By a gradual and uncontrolled process that went unnoticed during the decade 1973-1982, the profile of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) officer corps underwent a significant change. A representative sample of authorized rank distribution in the IDF's regular officer corps in the years 1972 and 1982 shows the exaggerated internal shift from the lower grades, which are the base of the pyramid, to the higher ranks at its peak. In 1982, the number of generals and brigadiers per 10,000 other ranks in the IDF was double that in the US Army.
