Can Israel stand alone??

A response to a reader question:

This article states that Bin Laden has said he will stop trying to attack America when we stop supporting Israel. Obviously this would never happen, the Israel lobby is pretty strong and we clearly would never listen to the demands of a terrorist. It is also very unlikely that ceasing to support Israel would actually end up stopping attacks...but regardless, my question: at this point Israel has a pretty diesel military, with a technological advantage over almost every country in the middle east along with a nuclear deterrent. So, would Israel be able to defend itself and survive indefinitely on its own if the US (and for the sake of this discussion other western allies) withdrew their support?

I'll respond in three parts.

1) As far as I'm concerned, the Bin Laden statement is not worth much comment. The idea that Israel is their only grievance with the world and with the cessation of US support for Israel, the jihadists would retire to farming is ludicrous. Al Qaeda and it's off shoots are dedicated to the creation of a world wide Islamic Caliphate that extends far beyond the Levant.

2) While the Israel lobby is very strong, though far less so then conspiracy theorists would have you believe, it is not the only thing holding US-Israel ties together. There are the right wing Evangelical Christians who believe that a Jewish presence in Israel is necessary as a precursor to the second coming of Christ, the historical precedent of Israel as a bulwark of Democracy during the Cold War, Holocaust guilt, and lesser known agreement that the US can deploy from/through Israel and draw from Israeli fuel/ammo dumps in the case of a ME deployment.

3) As for if Israel could survive a reduction/cessation of American aid; the short answer, probably. long answer, no.

US support for Israel has traditionally meant guaranteeing a technological advantage over the Arab militaries to overcome the incredible imbalance in deployable troops, advanced MBT's (main battle tanks), aircraft, artillery, and of course, money. This, along with the incredibly productive and often ingenious Israeli military industries has allowed Israel to pull off some incredible military accomplishments. However, the emergence of Israel as a "mini-superpower" is both recent and a bit of a mirage.

The Yom Kippur war represents the point at which Israel went from underdog to regional power and a closer examination of the war provides useful insight into what a post US support world might look like for Israel. In the lead up to the war, persistent forward deployments and war standing maneuvers by Egyptian troops in the Sinai forced Israel to react by calling up her reservists, which brings the Israeli economy and civilian life to a standstill. Ultimately a big part of the Israeli intelligence failure was the belief that the Arabs were trying to bleed the Israeli economy by forcing call ups (the active standing army is little more then a trip wire to slow an enemy advance long enough to mobilize the reserves) rather then actually attacking, and the hesitance to pre-emptively attack as in 1967 because of dissuasive signals from Western allies, fearing Oil reprisals from OPEC (including the US) indicating that they would not support Israel if she fired the first shot. Once the shooting started, the deployment of a new generation of Russian SAMs in Syria and Egypt effectively narrowed the technological gap enough to hold the IAF at bay (the Egyptians and Syrians did not initially advance beyond their SAM umbrella or try to engage IAF fighters in dog fights but were able to close the air power gap enough that the IAF could not dominate the battlefield as in '67). The IDF basically shot itself dry trying to hold back the devastating early Arab gains and took heavy heavy losses in personnel, MBTs and fighter bombers. Israeli leaders scrambled to Washington to beg for a massive airlift of spare parts and ammo and basically had to threaten nuclear war to secure what turned out to be the biggest airlift in history, far outpacing way the Western airlift during the Siege of Berlin (amazing book on the airlift- http://us.macmillan.com/theyomkippurwar_) that allowed the Israelis to fight long enough to hold off then regain territory initially gained by the Arabs.

The failure during the war essentially eroded the last hopes of the conventional war as a possible Arab avenue towards the elimination of Israel and recapture of Arab lands. In lieu of conventional methods, most Arab governments turned to supporting the unconventional efforts of the nascent Palestinian groups. The Camp David accords in 1979 effectively took Egypt out of the short term equation by bribing the Egyptians with the return of the Sinai and the promise of massive US aid in return for peace with Israel.

Since then Egypt receives almost as much aid as Israel and now fields a very modern military that includes some of the most advanced kit in the world, including M1 Abrams tanks, f-15s, f-16s, a modern navy etc. Saudi Arabia and the gulf states have also been removed from the conventional war equation by US largess including even more modern electronics and weapons systems including AWACS, laser guided munitions etc (all despite the best efforts of the "all powerful Israel lobby").

The change in the threat level from Egypt and the near Arab abroad has allowed Israel to effectively eliminate the Southern and Eastern threats from general war planning and allowed the growth of the Israeli military unimpeded by periodic conventional wars.

However, her power is a bit of an illusion. The Russians and Iranians are now actively upgrading Syrian military capabilities. Political instability in Saudi Arabia and Egypt that loom pending succession issues bring up some terrifying questions about modern military capabilities falling into the hands of radicals (not dissimilar to the Islamic revolution in Iran.--interesting note. the Shah was months away from receiving squadrons of f-16s that were eventually re-routed to Israel and used to bomb Osirak). Israel is a mini-super power, but only because the Egyptians (by far the strongest of the traditional Arab states) and to a lesser extent Jordanians (who wisely sat out fighting in 73) are bought off by the US to not fight. In the fight against terrorists, a de-militarized Lebanon and a weak post Soviet aid era Syria Israel appears much stronger then she actually is and the re-entry of Egypt and the Gulf states as radicalized and western armed is a true threat that would severely disrupt the balance of power in the Middle East.

In a post US aid world, Israel would probably be OK in the short term. The IDF's superior raining, tactics, discipline and technological capabilities serve it well. The Israeli military industries are also already very capable and artificially limited by US import restrictions imposed on aid. They would be able to make up the shortfall following a fall in imports in many facets, especially munitions production capabilities, weapons and electronics platforms and armored vehicles based on the Merkava platform. But at the end of the day being militarily independent is super expensive and Israeli contributions, while far outpacing her size, are just a drop in the bucket of Western capabilities. For perspective, after 1967 when the French reneged on delivery already purchased Mirage fighter parts, Israel embarked on a fighter jet project, the Lavi, that despite widespread support as a answer to dependency on foreigners ultimately almost bankrupted the country. Similarly, the Merkava tank program, while producing one of the top MBTs in the world and almost certainly the most versatile chassis, capable of operating in the surprisingly diverse theatres in which Israel is forced to fight (urban, desert, mountain), and extrapolated to various armoured platforms, is debilitatingly expensive to sustain without many export opportunities (almost any country that might be able to afford them is tied into aid deals with US/Russia or EU and thus forced to buy kit there). Israel is a strong and very technologically advanced country, but it is small and has a lot of economic issues resulting from of large immigrant influx and a disproportionate percentage of GDP spent on military expenditures. Without US aid, Israel would survive on ingenuity and smarts, but progressively get weaker and weaker.

The erosion of Israel's technological superiority, combined with a renewed threat of conflict with newly radicalized states such as Egypt and/or Gulf States and a re-armed Syria and we could easily revert to the pre 73 scenario that almost forced Israel to utilize its nuclear threat to prevent annihilation.

At the least Israel would slowly spend itself to death to try and maintain a technological advantage, at worse a truly weaker Israel would be faced with the strong military threats of American armed newly radicalized enemies and forced to become even more aggressive and willing to use force then she already is.

This is not a good scenario for anyone.