Israel is an armory of democracy

(JNS) — Israel devotes a larger proportion of its GDP to arms and security exports than any other country on Earth. That devotion makes it unique in another way. More than 80 percent of Israel’s arms exports support the world’s democracies, including small democracies that need to deter much larger tyrannical regimes.

By acting as these democracies’ armory and their intelligence shield, Israel plays an outsized role in the Western world’s defense against threats that become more palpable by the day. Israel is David confronting the world’s Goliaths—China, Russia and Iran.

Israel, one of the world’s top 10 arms exporters, stands out because of its small size—all other major arms exporters have populations many times that of the Jewish state’s 9.9 million.

Almost half of Israel’s arms exports support Asian countries that are threatened by China, which boasts the world’s largest and fastest-growing military.

Taiwan, which China threatens to invade, has relied on Israeli military assistance for its defense since the 1970s when the United States, under pressure from China, refused to provide Taiwan with fighter jets, air-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles. Israel met Taiwan’s defense needs then and, despite official denials, likely continues to do so today. According to analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, RAND and the U.S. Air Force using war-game models, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would likely fail due to Taiwan’s killer drone technology, which many believe was secretly developed with Israel.

Israel’s largest East Asian arms importer is the Philippines, which China repeatedly provokes at sea. China unilaterally claims almost the whole of the mineral-rich South China Sea, including portions that the U.N. Law of the Sea Arbitral Tribunal determined belonged to the Philippines.

Israel provides the Philippines with most of its military needs, including fast-attack interdiction-missile gunboats, Rafael Advance Defense System’s Spyder-MR air-defense system, long-range maritime patrol aircraft and artillery systems. As a byproduct of helping the Philippines protect its sovereignty, Israel minimizes the chance that Philippine clashes with China will escalate to full-scale war.

Indonesia, which doesn’t have formal diplomatic relations with Israel, nevertheless relies on Israel for military and cybersecurity defenses to manage its dispute with China over the waters around Indonesia’s Natuna islands. Vietnam, though not a democracy, bolsters other Asian nations in contesting China’s South China Sea claims. Vietnam’s coastal defense relies on Israeli rocket artillery and Vietnam’s air force relies on Israel’s Spyder surface-to-air missile systems.

India, the world’s largest democracy, is Israel’s largest arms purchaser. In part because Russia, historically India’s largest supplier, has become increasingly allied with China, India has dramatically shifted its arms imports and military partnerships to Israel and Western nations.

The United States, the world’s second-largest democracy and until recently the largest purchaser of Israeli arms, also relies on Israeli innovations to improve the performance of its F-15 and F-16 fighter jets. To bring Israeli arms inventions such as the Iron Dome and David’s Sling to market, Washington acts as a venture capitalist that finances their development and manufactures them for export.

The European democracies, which account for 35 percent or Israel’s arms exports, want an Iron Dome of their own. To date, 21 countries have joined their European Sky Shield Initiative, ESSI, which has at its heart Israel’s Arrow 3 air-defense system. Arrow 3’s adeptness at intercepting long-range ballistic missiles was demonstrated in August when 99 percent of the missiles, drones and rockets fired at Israel by Iran and its proxies failed to penetrate Israeli defenses.

European countries also favor other Israeli air defense and intelligence systems. Finland just purchased David’s Sling and the Baltic countries seek the Iron Dome. When European parliamentarians were asked, “In which areas would you like to see particularly close cooperation with Israel,” 62% answered “defense” and 46% “homeland security.”

In the Middle East, the tyranny of Iran and its proxies today threatens Israel, U.S. military bases and the West’s shipping routes. Iranian threats also include cyberattacks against Europe and the United States.

Israel’s military and its intelligence services work with America and other Western allies to neutralize these threats. According to The New York Times, Israeli and U.S. intelligence services “operated in virtual lock step” during the Trump administration. As one example, Israel provided the United States with the intelligence needed to assassinate Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force. Israeli intelligence is credited with saving the lives of hundreds of American servicemen stationed in Iraq and Syria in 2020 and 2021 from Iranian attack. It has been considered so valuable over the decades that, according to a former chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Israel’s contribution to U.S. military intelligence is greater than all NATO countries combined.”

Israel has also acted unilaterally to remove threats posed by tyrants. When Iraq under Saddam Hussein and Syria under Bashar Assad came close to acquiring nuclear weapons, and the United States refused to act against them, it fell to Israel to destroy their nuclear facilities. With Iran now close to acquiring a nuclear weapon and with Washington to date refusing to act against it, it will again fall to Jerusalem to destroy its nuclear threat, thereby eliminating Iran’s threats to Israel and other Middle Eastern countries as well as to the United States and Europe.

The United States, which has by far the world’s largest military and is the world’s largest arms exporter, does more than any other country to support democracies. In proportion to the size of its economy, though, Israel contributes five times as much, with little fanfare and less recognition of its large role in thwarting the world’s tyrannies, and in protecting the world’s democracies.