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Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge – What’s in it for the USA?

Benefits to the US

The reinforcement of Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME) – through the most advanced US military systems – bolsters Israel’s national security, while enhancing the US’ own geo-strategic interests.

For example:

*Israel’s QME has upgraded its capabilities to extend the strategic hand of the US with no need for US soldiers, serving as the most cost-effective, battle-experienced, reliable and democratic force-multiplier; as a US outpost in the inherently explosive geo-strategic junction of Europe-Asia-Africa, between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Persia Gulf.

*Israel’s QME has elevated its efficiency as the most cost-effective, battle-tested and trustworthy laboratory of the US armed forces (sharing with the US unique air, ground and sea battle tactics and intelligence) and providing the US defense industries unique lessons (operation, maintenance and repair), which have been integrated as upgrades, sparing many years of research and development, increasing US exports and expanding US employment.

*Israel’s QME has improved its potential to circumvent the regional and global maneuverability of rogue Middle East regimes and organizations (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah), which have served as epicenters of the global proliferation of Islamic terrorism, conventional and non-conventional military systems and drug trafficking from Central Asia through the Middle East and Africa to South and Central America.

*Israel’s QME has boosted its posture of deterrence, in the face of a multitude of rogue regimes and organizations, thus reducing the threat of regional wars – which could expand globally – while enticing moderate Arab regimes to seek peace, rather than war, with the Jewish State.

*Israel’s QME provides for swift and decisive military victories, with less fatalities, which diminishes the potential of global involvement.

*Israel’s QME facilitates a gradual US military withdrawal from the Middle East, while leveraging Israel’s bolstered posture of deterrence to curtail regional instability, which has the potential to expand globally.

Congressional legislation of QME

The geo-strategic benefits to the US, resulting from Israel’s qualitative military edge, along with Israel’s positive stature in the US, in general, and on Capitol Hill, in particular, yielded legislation (the 1992-1993 Foreign Relations Authorization Act), which required an annual presidential report on all sales of military systems – by any country – to Middle Eastern countries, and the resulting impact on the Israel-Arab military balance.

Congressional support for Israel’s QME was reinforced in 2008 (H.R. 7177, title II, led by then Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Congressman Howard Berman):

“…. The term Qualitative Military Edge means the ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states, or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties, through the use of superior military means, possessed in sufficient quantity, including weapons, command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that in their technical characteristics are superior in capability to those of such other individuals or possible coalition of states or non-state actors….

“Any certification relating to a proposed sale of defense articles, or defense services, to any country in the Middle East, other than Israel, shall include a determination that the sale or export of the defense articles or defense services will not adversely affect Israel’s qualitative military edge over military threats to Israel….

“The President shall carry out an empirical and qualitative assessment on an ongoing basis of the extent to which Israel possesses a qualitative military edge over military threats to Israel….”

Conclusion

Compliance with the US law – as legislated by Congress – enhances Israel’s posture of deterrence, thus advancing major US geo-strategic goals without the need to deploy additional US military personnel.

On the other hand, a departure from the US law would erode Israel’s posture of deterrence, denying the US major benefits, thus undermining major US geo-strategic goals.

However, compliance with the US law depends on interpretation and implementation by the US Congress and Administration, which would be determined by different worldviews: a worldview which considers Iran’s Ayatollahs a lead-threat or a partner? A worldview which refers to Middle East turbulence as “Arab Spring” or recognizes the reality of the “Arab Tsunami”? A worldview which considers Islamic terrorism as a major global threat, or underestimates it as “workplace violence”?

For instance, how does one interpret the following language of the aforementioned 2008 legislation: “[Israel’s] ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat“?

How does one assess minimal damages and casualties,” “sufficient quantity,” ” superior in capability,” “adversely affect Israel’s qualitative military edge over military threats to Israel”?

The language of the law is open to different interpretations and assessments, a byproduct of a subjective worldview, and therefore cannot be perceived by Israel as a cornerstone of its national security.

Furthermore, the military high-tech of today is destined to become the low-tech of tomorrow, superseded by more advanced military systems, some of which may be supplied to anti-Israel countries by Russia, China and Europe, undetected by US and Israel intelligence, as evidenced by pre-1973 Soviet military supplies to Egypt and Syria.

On the other hand, the high-ground of the mountain ridges of the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria will always remain high-ground, overpowering the region and providing Israel with the minimal strategic depth and early-warning time to deploy its reservists, which constitute 75% of its military.

Therefore, no qualitative military edge can replace the critical role played by the Golan Heights and the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria in securing Israel’s survival in the violently unpredictable, shifty Middle East with its tenuous regimes, policies and accords.

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US-sponsored anti-Israel UN Security Council statement – acumen

*The US’ co-sponsorship of an anti-Israel UN Security Council Statement reflects the return of the State Department’s worldview to the center stage of US foreign policy-making. This was the first time, in six years, that the US enabled the UN Security Council to act against Israel.

*This is not merely a worldview, which is highly critical of Israel, as has been the case since 1948, when Foggy Bottom led the charge against the re-establishment of the Jewish State.

This worldview has systematically undermined US interests, by subordinating the unilateral, independent US national security policy (on Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian issue, etc.) to a multilateral common denominator with the anti-US and anti-Israel UN and international organizations, as well as the vacillating and terrorists-appeasing Europe.

*It has sacrificed Middle East reality on the altar of wishful-thinking, assuming that the establishment of a Palestinian state would fulfill Palestinian aspirations, advance the cause of peace, reduce terrorism and regional instability; thus, enhancing US interests.

*However, the reality of the Middle East and Jordan and the rogue Palestinian track record lend credence to the assumption that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, yielding traumatic ripple effects, regionally and globally:

^Replace the relatively-moderate Hashemite regime with either a rogue Palestinian regime, a Muslim Brotherhood regime, or other rogue regimes;
^Transform Jordan into a chaotic state, similar to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which would be leveraged by Iran’s Ayatollahs to intensify their encirclement of the pro-US Saudi regime;
^Convert Jordan into a major arena of regional and global Islamic terrorism;
^Trigger a domino scenario into the Arabian Peninsula, which could topple all pro-US, oil-producing Arab regimes;
^Imperil the supply of Persian Gulf oil, which would be held hostage by anti-US entities, catapulting the price at the pump;
^Jeopardize major naval routes of global trade between Asia and Europe through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal;
^Intensify epicenters of regional and global terrorism and drug trafficking;
^Generate a robust tailwind to US’ adversaries (Russia and China) and enemies (Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) and a powerful headwind to US economic and national security interests.

*The State Department assumes that Palestinian terrorism – just like Islamic terrorism – is driven by despair, ignoring the fact that Palestinian terrorism has been driven (for the last 100 years) by the vision to erase the “infidel” Jewish entity from “the abode of Islam,” as stated by the charters of Fatah (1959) and the PLO (1964), 8 and 3 years before the Jewish State reunited Jerusalem and reasserted itself in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

*Aspiring for a Palestinian state, and viewing Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace, ignores the Arab view of the Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, corruption and treachery. Moreover, the State Department has held the view that the Palestinian issue is the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a central to Arab interests, which has been refuted by the Abraham Accords. The latter ignored the State Department, sidestepped the Palestinian issue and therefore came to fruition.

*The State Department overlooks the centrality of the Palestinian Authority’s hate education, which has become the most effective production-line of terrorists, and the most authentic reflection of the Palestinian Authority’s worldview and vision.

*The State Department has also taken lightly the Palestinian Authority’s mosque incitement, public glorification of terrorists and monthly allowances to families of terrorists, which have documented its rogue and terroristic nature (walk), notwithstanding its peaceful diplomatic rhetoric (talk).

*The State Department’s eagerness to welcome the Palestinian issue in a “red carpet” manner – contrary to the “shabby doormat” extended to Palestinians by Arabs – and its determination to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state, along with its embrace of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood, have been interpreted by rogue regimes and organizations as weakness.

Experience suggests that weakness invites the wolves, including wolves which aim to bring “The Great Satan” to submission throughout the world as well as the US mainland.

Support Appreciated

 




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