Justin Leopold-Cohen - Should America deepen its military ties with Israel?

A new provision in the annual defense bill would expand military technology cooperation between the United States and Israel. Supporters say it strengthens a key ally, while critics argue it could blur the lines of American sovereignty.

Justin Leopold-Cohen, Senior Research Analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center on Military and Political Power, joins the show to discuss what the proposal would do, why it's drawing bipartisan attention, and what it could mean for U.S. defense policy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hey, welcome back to the Lawrence Larson show. I probably had more emails and more questions about this new policy that is part of the NDAA that would link both the United States and its ally in Israel in both intelligence and to some extent in weapons design as well. So that new provision would tie American weapons development much closer to Israel than it ever has been before. I thought we'd get the lowdown on this from Justin Leopold, who is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Center on Military and Political Power. Justin, welcome back to the program. I've had a lot of people who are very concerned. They say, well, this is going to give over a control of our military to Israel. And I said, no, it's not. I mean, and would it be fair to say uh both countries have cooperated very, very closely for at least just about the last 50 years, uh, and that this would tighten that cooperation. But then it raises the question, do we need to have more cooperation than we have already? And is there any downside to this?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yes, that that is absolutely a fair assessment. There's no sort of merger, integration, or some of the things that you're hearing. This is really a streamlining of a process that we we already have this robust relationship that you you've mentioned, and it's it's taking the areas that we do collaborate, and it's sort of it's an effort to make them faster and increase them because, as you noted, for years now we have all this collaboration and we've been seeing the benefits of it, and it's an attempt to you know continue down that path.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

So, where does it fall short? I mean, in other words, if if you say we already have this real working relationship, where is the evidence that, well, but it's got to be tighter if we really want it to work well?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

So I don't know if it's really an attempt to fill a gap so much as to make more of a good thing. Because, you know, especially recently, we're seeing a huge return on investment for the American relationship with Israel. We're seeing a lot of advanced technology that's you know protecting our servicemen. We're seeing, you know, and that also on the ground. We're seeing our efforts in Iran, the Israelis struck thousands of targets, which helped our efforts. You know, burden sharing is a big issue of the president. So it's sort of how can we make this better and how can we learn from some of the things the Israelis are doing? How can they learn from us and sort of just make us both stronger together? And one of the things I think we're hoping to learn most of all is the Israeli sort of defense industrial base is very good at taking idea to product, and that's an area where we struggle with, but we have the manufacturing capability and sort of can we take our strengths and their strengths and put it together? And I think that's maybe if I had to pick a gap, that's something that this would fill.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

I mean, does that mean that uh there have been some famous examples of things that started out, you know, private sector building it, the Pentagon involved in the design, and by the time they're done, it's a giant mess. It's you know, like they say, a camel is a horse designed by a committee, and that that's how the United States has had some weapon systems go really, really wrong. You're saying they're better at getting it from idea to actually producing what you wanted to produce as a tool for the military.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah, I I don't know that analogy specifically, but that is absolutely a strength of the Israeli defense industrial base because so much of their population serves, they see the gaps on the field and they're able to take that, you know, idea directly to production. What they don't have is a strong manufacturing capacity. They're not a manufacturing superpower the way we are, and that's something that we can help them. When we've seen this before, we've seen in Arkansas we produce iron dome components that then go and help Israel and they help us, and that sort of air and missile defense is good for both countries.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

And so if we've already got that kind of cooperation, what does how does this advance it and how much?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

So the big change in this bill is what it would do is it creates a new official in the Department of Defense whose job would be to identify new opportunities for this collaboration and then accelerate it. So it's taking a lot of what we do, you know, whether that is cybersecurity or AI integration or air and missile defense, and it's trying to add to those portfolios. And it's instead of doing it in this office or that office, it's putting it all under one person, and that would ideally help speed up the process.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Should we be comfortable with this kind of situation, Justin, when we've had instances where the United States has spied on Israel and Israel spied on us, and we're you know, we're friends or we're allies. You know, we we work in uh in concert and yet we've ended up spying on each other. Is is that the kind of relationship where we say we want to make those ties even deeper than they are right now? And and maybe those days are gone by?

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Yeah, so there's certainly been issues. They're we're great friends, as you said, we align on almost everything, but not everything. And I think if people who are concerned, if they look at some of the actual language in this section 219 of the NDA, they'll see there are safeguards in place. There's talk about a reporting structure, and there's this is the exact wording, I'm reading it from it now, is that the collaborative efforts would be done, this quote, in a manner that protects sensitive and information and the national security interests of the United States and Israel. So it's in there in the law that we have to be careful about this, and there's that transparency of the reporting, and this new office, just like all offices, is going to be subject to congressional inquiry.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

I'm almost, I guess I'm almost uh hesitant to cite, you know, the great rocket scientist from Boston University, Alexandria Casio-Cortez, because she's not exactly God's gift to uh intelligent commentary. But she actually is saying, oh, we ought to reject this part of the NDAA because it would merge parts of our military with the IDF. Is there any accuracy to that at all?

SPEAKER_01 6:38

So I think that's a misunderstanding of some of the language. There's sort of a cherry-picking of words like synchronization and integration, and that makes people think of this merger concept that you mentioned. But it's nothing like that. There's no situation where Israeli officers are going to be in command of American forces. This integration, or vice versa, exactly. It's attempts to learn how both militaries are doing those things and what we can adapt. There's not going to be any sort of cross-command like that.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Well, I guess we don't have to worry about AOC until she, I guess, runs for commander-in-chief one of these days, which I think is probably one of those things that's likely to happen, but not likely to succeed. Uh, Justin, thank you so much. I appreciate the time. Thanks for the work you do at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Thank you so much for having me, Lars.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

You bet. That is Justin Leopold Cohen, who's a senior research analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, FTD on military and political power. Glad to get your calls at 866-Hey Lars. That's 866-439-5277. Send your emails to talk at LarsLarson.com. And of course, you can always vote in our ex poll. You'll find that at Lars Larson Show. Coming up on the Radio Northwest Network, a prime Portland Riverfront Hotel just sold for 83% less than its price a decade ago. What does that say about downtown Portland? We'll get to that next.