In one of the Myth Adventure series, the heroes join an army with the purpose of disrupting it. They find themselves in charge of the supply chain and immediately begin misdirecting supplies to the wrong units. They outsource the shipping to the local union and the mob to raise costs and overhead. In short they do everything they can to prevent getting needed supplies to the right unit in time and inexpensively.

To make a long story short, in typical Myth fashion, the team gets citations by the army and all the units they ship to.

Suddenly shipments are received on time. Suddenly items that were really needed were received. Suddenly shipping costs dropped to a fraction of what they used to be.

You see, the army they were trying to disrupt was like any typical army. Lots of overhead. Lots of bureaucracy. Lots of wasted resources. Lots of misplaced resources.

Every mistake they introduced just removed the "army" from the picture and introduced the free market (sort of).

I was reminded of this story because the IDF just launched a new internal system.

Hashlamat Tziyud ("Supplies management") is an important skill that one learns quickly in the army - from foot soldier to company commander to cook to driver. Without this skill a soldier might easily find himself without the needed tools or equipment required to get the job done.

Someone in the IDF realized that while this is perhaps not the best (or most legal) way to manage the local supply chain, but realized that it does have a certain level of effectiveness that simply can't be ignored.

So the IDF launched eBay-IDF (whatever it's actually called).

Units in the army can buy and sell their equipment (internally obviously) to other units. The money comes from each unit's budget, and the money only goes to the unit's budget.

Each unit will be allowed to set the price for their equipment they want to sell.

Free market in the IDF.

For example, a unit with extra uniforms can sell them. They can then take that extra money and buy needed boots that they may not have been issued.

I think this is a great idea.

Personally, I'm waiting to hear about the first Merkava tank, or F-16 that gets posted (not to mention tactical nuclear missile).