How America benefits from its security partnership with Israel

OPINION:

Anyone who has spent time on a playground knows it is good to have friends when bullies come along. That also holds true in international relations.

China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are increasingly cooperating with one another to undermine the United States and its interests. Unfortunately, despite our large economy and powerful military, the U.S. lacks sufficient resources to confront this growing axis of aggressors alone.

Fortunately, the United States has an unparalleled network of allies with whom we can work to defend common interests and counter common adversaries. In the Middle East, America’s most reliable, capable and motivated ally is Israel.

Years ago, while working as a Senate national security adviser accompanying a congressional delegation to Israel, I asked a U.S. military colonel assigned as an attache to the Israeli military what Americans should know about our relationship with Israel. He told me that we Americans get far more than we give in the relationship with Israel. 

The more I have learned since then, the more I understand how right he was and how supporting Israel is a wise American investment.

Consider two categories: enemies and military technology.

All of Israel’s enemies are America’s enemies, and Washington has no more capable or determined ally than Israel when it comes to going after that subset of U.S. adversaries, including Iran and its terror network.

Last weekend, more than 100 Israeli fighter jets, air refuelers and reconnaissance aircraft conducted a complex, long-range military operation that severely degraded Iran’s strategic air defense capabilities and destroyed a significant portion of the regime’s missile production capabilities.

For years, U.S. administrations of both parties have said that the United States will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. If Iran decides to make a sprint for a nuclear weapon and leaves the United States no choice but to intervene, Israel just made the mission for the Department of Defense easier.

In addition to the skill of the Israeli pilots, Israel just demonstrated the superiority of American aircraft and weapons over Russian air and missile defense systems. The Israelis used American-made F-15I, F-16I and F-35I aircraft (with Israeli enhancements) in the strikes against Russian-made S-300 air defense systems.

Any country that has ordered Russian air and missile defenses may want to request a refund. That would deprive dictator Vladimir Putin of revenue for his war of aggression in Ukraine and increase orders for American weapons. That will employ more Americans, bolster our economy and help revitalize our defense industrial base. Thank you, Israel.

Moreover, American engineers, military planners and pilots will undoubtedly draw from their Israeli counterparts the lessons learned in the recent military operation on improving U.S. technologies, systems, operations, tactics, techniques and procedures. That will save American lives in the next conflict.

Israel also brings the same effectiveness when it comes to battling Iran’s terror network — including groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, which have killed hundreds of U.S. citizens and service members.

Consider the case of Fuad Shukr. He was a top Hezbollah commander who the U.S. government says played a key role in the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing that resulted in the deaths of 241 U.S. military personnel.

As part of the Rewards for Justice Program, the United States offered a $5 million reward for information that would bring him to justice. That U.S. effort did not yield any results.

But on July 30, as part of its military operations against Hezbollah, Israel killed Shukr. He will never again harm American troops — thanks to the Israelis.

Israel also helps Americans when it comes to military technology.

Israel may not have one of the largest economies in the world, and it is not an industrial superpower, but Israel is a technology superpower. It consistently creates world-class weapons and capabilities and exhibits an impressive ability to field them quickly.

Technologies, for example, that Israel developed and honed years ago to detect, map and destroy Hezbollah and Hamas tunnels were shared with Americans. The United States then used these Israeli technologies to find and neutralize drug-smuggling tunnels under our southern border that could also be used by terrorists to infiltrate the United States. These same technologies developed in Israel also helped U.S. troops deployed to the Middle East to defeat the Islamic State group and other terrorists that use tunnels to approach, surveil and attack U.S. military bases.

Due to necessity, culture and size, Israel is so effective at developing cutting-edge military technologies and fielding them quickly that Congress authorized the establishment of the U.S.-Israel Operations-Technology Working Group in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2021.

Understanding the value of working with Israel, the Department of Defense established the working group with Israel’s Ministry of Defense on Nov. 1, 2021. Then it established six sub-working groups on artificial intelligence/autonomy, directed energy, counter-unmanned aerial systems, biotechnology, integrated network systems of systems and hypersonic capabilities.

These efforts with Israel can help ensure that Americans will not confront better-armed adversaries in the future, whether in the Middle East, Europe or the Pacific.

Iran and its terror proxies who hate the United States as much as they do Israel are attacking the Jewish state on seven fronts — yet our ally Israel is fighting and winning. As the United States confronts difficult days ahead, that’s just the kind of friend we are going to need.

At a moment when authoritarian bullies are circling and have discovered the value of partners, Americans should not take our ally Israel for granted.

• Bradley Bowman is senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He served as a national security adviser to members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, as well as an active-duty Army officer, Black Hawk pilot and assistant professor at West Point.