Israel Defense Tech Israeli Defense

Israel Defense Tech

Israeli Defense Technology: Success Against All Odds

When the full extent of the horrors of the Holocaust had become apparent to the global public, the movement for Israeli independence took center-stage. Upon the world's revelation that more than 6 million Jews had been sent to the gas chambers, the campaign to make Israel the Jewish national homeland earned the full sympathy and support of the United Nations, the United States and Great Britain. In 1948, Israel declared itself independent with the backing of the world community and, conversely, the outright condemnation of the Arab nations which surrounded it. Upon its independence, Israel was promptly invaded by its neighbors. Led by its first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, Israel emerged victorious against its aggressors and gained an even greater expanse of land for its statehood. Israel's existence would continually be subject to territorial dispute from there forward, setting in motion the establishment of one of the most technologically advanced and sophisticated of military and defense industries in the world. The research here identifies Israel's uniquely situated geographical and political circumstances as the imperatives driving its focus on military technology development, the enhancement of communication systems and the extension of its defense contracting industry around the world.

Israel's Military Outlook:

At the end of World War II, when it became eventually apparent to the world that Hitler's death camps had been the cite of a genocidal crusade against the Jewish people of Eastern Europe, longstanding Zionist movements finally achieved the sympathy of the world's powers. In 1948, the newly established United Nations granted statehood to Israel and its founders designated it the Jewish National Homeland. Its founding immediately sparked war on its fledgling borders, with Arab countries such as Egypt, Lebanon and Syria posing strenuous objection to its existence. The reasons for such conflicts are manifold and have come to define Israel militarily, geographically and politically. One of the dominant points of contention, then and today, is the fate of the Palestinean population therein which, like the Zionists, had fought to gain the recognition of statehood from the international community.

Israel, however, had been the beneficiary of American and British support. The Western allies viewed Israel as a valuable strategic ally in the global struggle for ideological hegemony against the Soviet Union. This has contributed to a deep-seeded resentment amongst regional neighbors whose cultural and ideological divergences from American policy have denied them the same favor. The support which Israel enjoyed was crucial to its early survival. It emerged victorious from its 1948 War of Independence as well as the series of regional struggles that would dominate its first few decades. "In the Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973 and in other Middle Eastern crises, the two superpowers contended by proxy. Israel's power was increased dramatically by American aid and support." (Rabinovich, 7) in 1967 particularly, such power even enabled Israel to expand its borders to where they stand at present date.

This, however, was a mixed blessing as Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, primarily inhabited by displaced Palestinian, became an even greater point for conflagration. This would occur regularly from outside of Israel's borders at first, and eventually from within. Today, while Israel has active treaties with some of its neighbors and hostile relations with others, it grapples with the Intifada, a Palestinian uprising which has claimed the lives of countless civilians on both sides and is Israel's single greatest political and security challenge. In many of the conflicts which have occurred since, this has either been the point of origin or the stated motive for aggression taken against Israel. Additionally, by policy, many of its neighbors and most vocally of late such states as Iran have renounced Israeli existence and cited total commitment to the destruction of Israel.

These conditions have together produced a military outlook that drives an Israel highly conscientious of the evolving threats pointed in its direction as a result of Palestinian political action; aggression from neighbors; the strategic, resource and diplomatic support of terrorists from neighbors; the infiltration of espionage; the development of nuclear technology amongst hostile neighbors and the brokering of stability in a Palestinian territory shadowed by divisions of leadership. In its military outlook, Israel is unique, both in its region and in the world. As Potter (2009) observes, Israel "is a special case with significant threats both internally and externally. The new government has come in after what has seemed a failed attempt to deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip it is not surprising that the military budget would grow." (Potter, 1)

And this was the case across the last year of budgetary development for new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has responded to failures on the part of Iran to submit to international demands on its nuclear program, to continued aggression from Hamas out of the territories and re-emergent aggression from Hezbollah out of Lebanon by instigating further deficit spending on the back of a significant defense spending increase. (Potter, 1) Much of Israel's defense spending would be dedicated toward the assumption of large communication grid contracts with domestic military technology producers.

In fact, it is no longer possible to speak of Israel's defense technology without acknowledging that it has also come to host some of the most advanced and respected defense technology contractors on the international market. This is to say that as it has achieved a degree of technology independence from the patronage of the United States and its European allies, Isreal has also come to stake out its own reputation as a seller of arms, missile technology, communication networking and other central elements to a defense, military and security strategy. Indeed, the impression of Israel as a satellite to the United States may be rebuffed by the great success that Israel has experienced in exporting its technology to other nations. This is demonstrating the small Middle Eastern nation to have achieved its own thriving industry, where the vast majority of its own tanks, arms and software innovations are domestically produced. Indeed, Pike (2008) reports that "Israel produces a wide range of products from ammunition, small arms and artillery pieces to sophisticated electronic systems and the world's most advanced tank. Having to fight five major wars in its first four decades, Israel built a comprehensive standing army -- the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) - and furnished it with an arsenal of highly advanced military hardware." (Pike, 1)

This has helped to make Israel both one of the most formidable and one of the best armed fighting forces in the world, let alone in its region. This distinguishes Israel from many of its neighbors, and particularly from many of the Arab states which maintain hostile relations with Israel. For many of these states, weapons technology has historically been infused by the presence of foreign occupiers, military invaders or Cold War proxy-combatants. The result is that many Arab states continue to wage war with outdated American and Russian technology, which has detained many of such states from making the leap into modern technological war-making. This has placed Israel at a distinct advantage to many of its neighbors in the practical regard of engaging combat and has become a powerful deterrent to any real full-scale invasion by an Arab neighbor. Though Israel's history is detailed by invasion or at least the attempt at invasion at the behest of those around it, its relative independence and success as a military and defense technology designer has made Israel that much less vulnerable to an invasion-style attack. This justifies that eventual tactical shift which now sees the majority of Arab states allowing the loosely organized activities of terrorist organizations or guerilla militias to define a long-term strategy of resistance.

This contrasts and Israeli defense industry that has actually come to wield considerable influence even outside of its region. A number of powerful nations have sustained their weapons technologies through large-scale contracts with the Israeli defense technology industry, with some of Israel's most successful and resource-rich contracting companies functioning in a host of foreign markets. As Potter would denote, "its indigenous defense industry which is starting to see significant gains overseas with sales to India and Russia for example. High level so funding will allow greater development of new products that will also lead to more foreign sales subsidizing internal defense spending. Every item sold overseas makes the price paid by the Israeli government lower due to production efficiencies and helps pay for the development costs." (Potter, 1)

This has become an important part of the defense strategy for the military state, which must dedicate no small portion of its annual budget to maintaining, strengthening and extending the fortitude of its military. It is thus that the strategy of aiming for overseas markets in the sale of arms has proven a valuable root to supporting Israel's own needs and ambitions. Quite in fact, the recent hike in defense spending was enabled by this pattern in Israel's private military industries. Funding its own defense projects on the strength of international arms sales has become an increasingly important strategic way of ensuring it the economic capacity to support military needs which are considerable for a nation of its decidedly modest geographical size.

But this also points to another important part of Israel's geopolitical outlook. As a nation often viewed with hostility and contempt by its neighbors and the orbit of natural gas buyers that have allied themselves with these neighbors for economic reasons, Israel's newfound status as an important international arms supplier is softening its relationship with many powerful nations. Altering the course of interests and sympathies of such nations may go a long way to help support Israeli diplomatic goals as well as to solidify its status and alliances in the world community. This is amply demonstrated by its importance to the Russian market in terms of weapons supply. Historically, Russia has allied itself with Israel's enemies as a strategic counterpoint to America's sympathies toward Israel. The relationship forged between Israel and Russia today has prefigured a warming of relations and a change in Russian geopolitical priorities where the state of Israel is concerned.

Indeed, the significant sphere of influence carried by Russia is opening up other parts of the world to softer diplomatic and economic relations with Israel, frequently as a result of the opportunities suggested by Israel's considerable arms manufacturing capability. Countless former states of the Soviet Union, who have almost universally maintained hostile and non-normalized relations with Israel on account of their political culture or their commitment (as we approach the landmass known as Central Asia) to substantial Muslim populations. The needs represented by Israel's growing arms manufacturing capabilities are producing a change in this regard though. For instance, "in September 2008, Haaretz reported that the Israeli defense ministry had signed several contracts "worth hundreds of millions dollars" with the Azerbaijani government for machine guns with ammunition, howitzers, artillery/rocket pieces and defense communication systems armament. The newspaper also reported that howitzers and grenade launchers from a joint Israeli-Kazakhstani project would be supplied to Azerbaijan." (Abbasov, 1)

In spite of these positive steps, Israel continues to face massive opposition both from within and outside of its borders. As a result the continued occupations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian inhabited but Israeli controlled territories since the resolution of the 1967 war, have since evolved into circumstances which amount to the denial of Palestinian statehood. Though Israel's direct behavior is traditionally targeted as the cause of this impasse, ineffective and irresolute Western intervention, a failure to accept compromise on the part of the Palestinians' Arab state allies and a host of self-interested foreign power plays have typically combined to play a prevailing role in the historical impotence of the peace process.

In the time which has passed since, the process has experienced ebb and flow in terms of success, often as a result of the same international efforts which have at points stood in the way of this peace. Accordingly, "Yitzhak Rabin's electoral victory in June 1992 was universally interpreted as the first step in a revived peace process." (Rabinovich, 44) and indeed, the 1993 Oslo Accords, brokered between he and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat by the U.S., illustrated the promise of the movement for peace. Rabin's 1996 assassination dashed such hopes and today, amid a global war on terror and with Israel under a militant body of leadership as a result, the question of the Palestinian future is still very much in doubt. As that continues to be the case, Israel's relationship with the Palestinians, with its Arab neighbors and with the process of peace will be strained and perilous.

This is something which has had direct consequences for all nations in the world, with the conflict today functioning as a centerpiece in the case that many so-called 'terrorist' organization have made against Israel and the West. Indeed, as the U.S. descended into global ignominy during the Bush era, this would also become a lightning rod of criticism on the part of Russia and such European critics as France and Germany. And for increasingly Islamic populations in these nations and in the U.K., governmental support of the U.S. And Israel has been met with popular outrage. Thus, the peace process today, which has seen glimmers of hope in such round table discussion as that held in Annapolis in 2008, remains largely derailed due to the complexity of outside interests. The issues that are today destructive for Israel and devastating to the people of the Palestinian territories are deeply tied into the desires and ambitions of so many other nations that the stall pattern which persists today can be equally attributed to failures on the part of the global community as well as the two primary parties today engaged in clenched fist diplomacy.

Perhaps this is best captures by the hostility that is foremost in the minds of Israeli defense administrators, who are working now to navigate Israeli policy through the mire of a radicalizing and potentially nuclear Iran. Iran's long-standing isolation from the west and its representative leadership as the most stable of Islamic theocracies in the region have made it a genuine threat, and as the United States and other western nations attempt to bring Iran into the fold of the world community, Israel must continue to design a defense policy which bears Iran in mind. Again, as we look at its current outlook and the reason for its recent heightening of expenditures in this area, Iran and its pronounced hostility toward the state of Israel remains highly relevant to its decisions. Indeed, tensions are extremely high at this juncture between Israel and Iran. As DTN News (2009) reports, "with eyes firmly fixed on Iran's nuclear progressions, the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to bomb the country's enrichment facilities out of existence. Tel Aviv accuses Tehran of nuclear weapons development - a charge rejected by both Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog, which has so far made '21 unannounced inspections' of the country's nuclear facilities." (DTN News, 1)

The reality for Israel as it makes key decisions with respect to its military technology orientation is that it must address a set of challenges which have in many ways intensified over the last decade of heightened conflict between the Muslim world and the West. Circumstances in the Palestinian territories and with respect to neighbors like Lebanon and Iran have reached new heights in terms of rhetoric and policy orientation, justifying -- in the perspective of many of its military leaders -- Israel's continued ratcheting up of defense capabilities, military communication dexterity and technology innovation in the areas of weaponry.

Israeli Defense Technology:

The discussion on Iran is of particular importance as we focus on Israel's defense technology interests. Iran has been a major forum for the international debate on nuclear development and the proliferation of ballistic capabilities throughout so-called rogue nations. Through its non-alignment and its declared interest in seeing the state of Israel destroyed, Iran's efforts at developing greater missile capabilities and nuclear weaponization have become a legitimate statement of threat to the West. Israel is often seen as the most immediate point of access for Arab states wishing to demonstrate hostilities toward the United States and its friends and allies. This is an awareness that has driven Israeli military policy with respect to the emphases pursued in the development of defense technology. As Potter denotes, "a priority is obviously defense against ballistic missiles from Iran and Israel has been working on their own system, Arrow, for about two decades. The United States has aided in developing this system through research, technology and funding. It had been thought that possibly with the new Obama administration's focus on cutting defense spending that Arrow would not be funded. Right now this turns out not to be true for the next year at least with Arrow 3 receiving full U.S. planned money." (Potter, 1)

This helps to underscore one of the major reasons for Israel's continued performance in this area above that which might be expected for its scale, size and region. The strategic importance of Israel to the United States as a partner in a region otherwise populated by hostile parties or inconsistent allies has made it a primary interest for the United States to aid Israel's military fortitude in whatever ways possible. In the area of defense technology, early and continued support from the United States has been important in defining Israel's security capabilities. This has been especially so in the last 20 years, where the end of the Cold War would allow the United States to focus on empowering Israel against smaller regional enemies (as opposed to the imposing presence of the Soviet Union in the region). The result would be a set of major military contracts between the two nations such as occurred in the early 1990s, when American President Clinton shared a particularly intimate relationship with Israeli prime minister Yitchak Rabin. Under the mode of this partnership, the two nations would enter into a substantial weapons technology contract that underscores the support which has sustained Israeli security progress. Here, Twing (1999) would report that "the weapons program in question is the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL), formerly known as Nautilus. THEL was provided to Israel as part of a 1996 defense agreement between the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and President Bill Clinton. The stated goal for the U.S.-Israel joint program -- so far funded by the United States with more than $130 million from the Pentagon's budget -- is to enable Israel to shoot down short-range Katyusha rockets fired at them by Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon." (Twing, 1) This helps to reinforce the argument that, in fact, Israel's ability to develop into so compelling a military power in the region is in no small part due to the fact that it has enjoyed unwavering and oftentimes heavy support from the United States. In other words, much of Israel's fortitude comes from its importance to the United States. Commonalities in governmental orientation, economic ambitions and philosophical interests have made the U.S. And Israel natural bedfellows since the Jewish state's declaration of independence just over 60 years ago.

And quite to this point, there is a clear indication that America's longstanding support would not just help it to meet its ambitions in the region. Even further, the U.S. investment into Israeli military capabilities is demonstrated by evidence in the U.S. military as well, where Israeli technology has become extremely commonplace. This is both demonstrative of the reciprocal relationship between the two nations and the success that American investment has yielded by forging a defense technology industry which is viable all on its own. Indeed, "after decades of U.S. military aid and defense cooperation, the U.S. military is permeated by technology developed in Israel -- from the Army's Hunter drones to the targeting systems on the U.S. Marines' Harrier jets to the fuel tanks on its F-15 fighters." (AP, 1)

Of course, it bears noting that the presence of such technological enhancement in the American military is not simply due to the closeness of the relationship between the two nations. Instead, this is a demonstration of the real importance with which Israel factors into the global defense industry. Its reputation as a producer of technology has been considerably elevated in recent years, with the political stigma of its regional activities factoring less and less into the evaluations produced by the international community on the subject. Quite to the point, in 2002, as tensions mounted over a likely conflict in Iraq, at a "trade fair in Paris . . . Israel showed the world's military shoppers fruits of its high-tech arms industry, including its Merkava tank, unmanned spy planes and the planet's most sophisticated missile defense system." (Krane, 1)

Considering the threats demonstrated not just to Israel but to the rest of the world by nations like Iran and North Korea, Israel's focus on missile defense has been welcomed by many outsiders, who view the nation as being in the ideal position to manifest such a system. In this regard, we can see that the combined historical support of the United States and the imperatives naturally created by its constantly threatened borders have made Israel an inherently invested party in the improvement of defense technologies on the whole. Evidence suggests that in spite of the modest size of the nation, it has come to play a proportionally much more significant role in the international defense market. So would this be reported by the Associated Press in 2003, where it indicated that Israeli weaponry would be particularly visible during the invasion of Iraq. All indications were that the American military would be relying heavily on certain Israeli-manufactured technologies in order to wage its war. In light of this, the Associated Press contended that "it would be hard to find a modern military that manages without technology developed by the Jewish state's feisty industry. Israel emerged last year as the world's No. 3 arms and military services exporter -- ahead of even Russia's massive arms industry, according to Jane's Defense Weekly." (AP, 1)