How can Israel become more independent when it comes to their defense industry

In My Humble Opinion
1

Israel has a long history of facing arms embargoes. Right now the US supplies many of their weapons, but politics is making NATO nations less reliable sources of arms. The US, Italy, Spain, Canada, France, the Netherlands, etc are pushing for arms embargoes against Israel. IMO, this is probably one of the biggest existential threats to Israel since the US & French arms embargoes of the 60s and 70s.

https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/sa/sa_00naf01.html

(a)Unreliability of the Suppliers: Israel’s desire for the development of its own defence industry was reinforced by the arms embargoes imposed by the supplier states from time to time. Some of the important embargoes were: United States , Great Britain and several other countries imposed arms embargo on both the combatants during the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948; France imposed arms embargo on Israel on the eve of the Six Day War in 1967. As Israel relied almost exclusively on France both for fighter jets and heavy arms, the embargo had a tremendous psychological impact. At the same time the US too imposed an embargo on Israel. Two years after France’s 1967 arms embargo, President de Gaulle imposed another embargo in retaliation for Israel’s destruction of thirteen Lebanese commercial airliners stationed at the Beirut airport. In 1970, at the height of the “War of Attrition" with Egypt, the US held in abeyance an urgent Israeli request for arms. In July 1971, following the breakdown of negotiations conducted under the supervision of the United Nations emissary, Gunnar Jarring, the US imposed another embargo on a shipment of Phantom and Skyhawk planes that had been ordered by Israel and approved by Congress earlier that year. With the eruption of the fourth Arab Israeli war, Great Britain imposed an arms embargo on the region and refused to ship tank and tanks engines to Israel under previously signed contracts. Again in March 1975, when the US was unable to persuade Israel to pull back from the Sinai passes , the Ford Administration restricted the flow of arms and economic aid to Israel. Likewise, Israel faced similar problems in 1976, 1978, 1981 and 1983. [12]

So the question is if Israel can’t count on the US or Europe for arms, where do they turn?

Russian arms are garbage, and Israel needs a technological advantage over its enemies, many of whom are using Russian arms.

Chinese arms may not be more advanced than Russian arms yet, I’m not sure.

South Korea seems like a good source for Israel to buy arms. I doubt South Korea would have the political winds of change that the NATO nations have.

Could Israel form an alliance with India, where Israel designs the weapons and funds the manufacturing, but the manufacturing is done domestically in India? This seems like a good way for Israel to make sure they get the arms they need.

Israel only has 9 million people, I don’t think they can realistically become totally arms independent. Right now Israel is something like the 9th biggest arms exporter in the world. Its not a huge number (like 2% of global arms sales) but they have a robust domestic arms industry. But with a nation of 9 million people, you can’t be totally independent.

2

I see no debate here. It’s definitely a matter of opinion whether and from where Israel may find reliable suppliers. Its also a matter of opinion whether they should do that versus trying for greater defense autarky than they already have.

My thoughts:

Damn near no nation can be totally independent.

The Israelis are doing a good job of being as self-sufficient as they can be. A problem for any small nation is they need the tech only larger nations can develop in order to maintain tech parity with the state of military art.

Lastly, any country that finds itself embargoed by its allies might profitably consider whether their allies are making a mistake or they are. Each country is free to pursue their goals as they choose. But actions have consequences and you can’t always choose all your consequences.

3

I feel there is a debate.

Should Israel become more independent in its arms supply?

If so, how should they do it? Should they expand domestic production? Should they turn to nations like South Korea and China for arms? Should they create alliances with more reliable nations like India where the Israelis can design and fund the arms manufacture, but rely on Indian labor to make them (since Israel doesn’t have enough people to work in the arms industry)?

4

It seems to me the answer is “expand domestic production”, because the other options aren’t actually becoming more independent; just changing suppliers.

5

How about putting the Orthodox to work? “Build an Uzi a day and pray in your spare time, and we’ll continue to feed you.”

Dan

6

But how can Israel, a nation of 9 million people, be independent like that without experiencing a labor shortage?

7

I agree there’s a useful discussion to be had. I’ve offered my first-roud views to the discussion and will probably add more later as the discussion develops.

But that’s not a debate. A debate has a single fixed affirmative proposition that can be argued for or against. Any open-ended “How can …?” is not a debate.

ETA: I now notice a mod has moved this discussion from GD to IMHO. With that I drop my quibble about debate or not. Additional discussion of the OP’s perfectly cromulent questions will follow later.

8

Is there any realistic threat to Israel’s ability to import US arms today? It seems like we’re probably their strongest ally now, and they don’t seem to have any issue convincing Congress to continue to support them. Sure, the US has a vocal pro-Palestinian minority, but they don’t seem to have any significant influence on the national stage. Israel still has a very strong lobby here, with unwavering support from the conservatives and a pass from the liberals. It’s only a small progressive fringe that’s truly anti-Israel/anti-Zionist.

Israel still gets a massive amount of aid from us, and that number skyrocketed this year. We also cross-train with their military, and they have mostly compatible religious/economic/societal systems as us, making them a natural ally in the region.

Do they really need to be more independent? Doesn’t seem like they’re at risk of losing US support anytime soon, and compared to other volatile US-backed regions (like Taiwan), their military is already doing very, very well, armed with top-of-the-line equipment, training, and constant practice.

9

It probably can’t; which is a problem. At best it would have to make major sacrifices in other areas, quite possibly it just can’t be done. And even it it can it’ll likely have to settle for cheaper, simpler weapons than it uses now.

There’s practical reasons why the world has largely given up on autarky.

10

The public-opinion transformation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict inside the Democratic Party is a huge and almost entirely unheralded victory for the activist left. Twenty years ago, at the height of the Second Intifada, Gallup found that only 16 percent of self-identified Democrats sympathized more with Palestinians than Israelis in the conflict. As recently as 2016, that number was at just 23 percent. But it has subsequently more than doubled, and now a plurality of Democrats—49 percent—say they sympathize more with the Palestinians, versus 38 percent for Israelis. And yet this tectonic shift has seemed to barely register with the party’s senior leadership.

More democrats sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis. this could cause issues for Israel’s ability to obtain arms from the US in the next 20 years when younger people become middle aged voters.

11

I’d think the real answer here isn’t necessarily to become entirely self-sufficient, but rather to possibly build up larger wartime reserves of equipment so that if their allies don’t like what they’re doing, any embargoes will have a lesser effect than they’ve historically had.

I mean, Israel produces a great deal of their own military equipment already- the places where they use a lot of foreign stuff are probably ones where it’s either not cost-effective (small arms, trucks, and other stuff that are cheaper when produced in volume) or where it requires a huge and advanced industrial base (aircraft). They already produce their own AFVs, small arms, etc.

But if they had another few squadrons of planes in hangars in the Negev somewhere, then they’d be able to keep a war going longer without having to go ask the US or Western Europe for more planes.

12

In anything short of a war of invasion where the country’s very survival is at stake, what Israel or any other small country needs is not more planes and ships and tanks. It’s more munitions, and especially the smart expensive kind. And the sort of real-time blanket overhead intel only the big powers can provide.


Cutting back to the OP’s original issue. …

No country can survive a sustained attack by the forces of country(ies) with a larger population or (especially) GDP. Ultimately economies fight, not militaries. If your economy is smaller than your total adversary(ies), you are screwed.

More skill or élan can make up for some shortfall of heft. Nukes can make up for a lot of shortfall of heft. Once you’re cornered enough to be willing to use them and absorb the consequences.

A country with enemies needs allies who may not be arm-in-arm, but at least are reliable enough to take your side when it gets important. Which also means you need to be mindful of always deserving your allie(s)’ support as judged by their standards, not yours.

13

I don’t think I agree with this. Japan kicked the hell out of China in WW2 and Japan had a much smaller population.

Israel had a much smaller population and smaller economy when arab nations declared war on them in 1948.

My impression is what Israel needs is spare parts for their jets for example. I don’t know if they can produce those domestically.

14

Googling, there’s already a lot of defense trade between India and Israel; India is the largest customer for Israeli defense products. (It seems a natural partnership; both countries have actively hostile neighbors, particularly Muslim ones.)

15

That was my thought. Plus India isn’t going to abandon Israel to appease their voters like the west will.

My assumption is moving arms manufacture to India, buying arms from South Korea, maybe buying arms from China, and expanding domestic production is what they will likely do.

16

And yet China is a hostile neighbor of India, even if it’s a customer for Israel. These things are never simple.

17

The Chinese might well be reluctant to sell Israel anything more complicated than a bullet for fear of them promptly handing the stuff, or at least intel about the stuff, to Israel’s other allies from the West.

Witness the kerfuffle a bit ago where Turkey, a NATO member, wanted to buy Russian SAM systems.

18

Israel has been trying to develop a lucrative military military cooperation with China, but this has, until now, been moderated by U.S. demands, such as in the Phalcon deal. Note how more recent multi-billion-dollar air defence deals involve “unnamed customers”.