Demystifying Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge Shoshana Bryen •
https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/authors/shoshana-bryen/
The cornerstone of America’s security commitment to Israel, since the administration of Lyndon Johnson, has been an assurance that the United States would help Israel uphold its Qualitative Military Edge (QME). This is “Israel’s ability to counter and defeat credible military threats from any individual state, coalition of states, or non-state actor, while sustaining minimal damages or casualties.” This commitment and the language were written into law in 2008 and every security assistance request from the Israeli Government is evaluated in light of America’s promise.
So, what happens when the United States agrees to sell the F-35 jet fighter – the most sophisticated plane in our arsenal – to the United Arab Emirates after UAE establishes relations with Israel? Is UAE permanently out of the group of “individual states or coalition of states” that QME refers to? Can other states get out?
Following the announcement, Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said that Israel has no power to prevent U.S. sales of advanced weaponry to the Gulf states. Steinitz, in an interview, explained that if countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia “want it and are willing to pay, no doubt that sooner or later they’ll get” the aircraft and other weapons systems.
Historical Reference
I’ll take issue with Qatar later.
But, as a reminder, for a very long time there has been “no doubt” that Arab states that wanted to pay would get what they wanted – the QME formulation of other presidents notwithstanding. In 1981, one of President Ronald Reagan’s early moves was to sell AWACS to Saudi Arabia – engendering a HUGE fight in Congress. The administration presented the Saudis as a “moderating influence” in the Middle East and a helpful factor in restraining oil price rises. The way Israel and its defenders saw it, the Saudis:
· Participated in all of the Arab states’ wars against Israel.
· Exerted pressure on states that had diplomatic ties with Israel – meaning in Europe.
· Mobilized the Arab world against the Camp David accords and urged a boycott against Egypt for having made peace, and
· Bankrolled the PLO
Reagan won.
In November 1981 – after the AWACS vote – the first US-Israel Memo on Strategic Cooperation was signed. It said, “United States-Israel strategic cooperation, as set forth in this memorandum, is designed against the threat to peace and security of the region caused by the Soviet Union or Soviet-controlled forces from outside the region introduced into the region.”
It wasn’t about Arabs and Israel. It was about the Soviet threat in the region. And, by the way, it was suspended the following month when Israel applied sovereignty to the Golan Heights. It was re-established in 1983.
One of the promises Reagan made for AWACS was that “the sale contributes directly to the stability and security of the area and enhances the atmosphere and prospects for progress toward peace. Significant progress toward the peaceful resolution of disputes in the region has been accomplished with the substantial assistance of Saudi Arabia.” In 1986, when the administration was prepared to deliver the planes, Reagan certified that the Saudis had met all the conditions – which included technology security, not letting third parties see the inner workings, etc. At the time, the Iran-Iraq war was hot and heavy – and although Reagan said the Saudis were being helpful in terms of “progress” with Israel, he was really more interested in the Saudi role in the Iran-Iraq war.
Which is simply to say that presidents pretty much do what they want on these things.
But it also says there are two different things – US-Israel security cooperation and Israel’s QME.
Security Cooperation
Security cooperation is broad and deep – including R&D, exercises (did you know that in 2019, the UAE flew in a combined air exercise with Israel, presaging the Abraham Accords?), new technologies, and more. Arms sales to Arab countries are something else. Consider what Defense Secretary Mark Esper said to Israeli Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Benny Ganz following the announcement of the F-35 sale:
It was important for me once again to reaffirm the special relationship between our two countries, the commitment we have made to Israel’s security based on our shared values, our shared history, and I want to thank you for your personal efforts in the past few weeks.
Commitment to Israel based on shared values – not any credible combination of likely military threats.
Gantz thanked Esper for his commitment to Israeli security, saying:
Indeed, over the last few weeks, you and I led, together with other people, very good and very important discussions that reassure the bi-partisan commitment to Israel’s QME. I want to thank you and your people, and the American Administration, for supporting it.”
Now that we are entering an era of positive normalization processes in the Middle East, which actually can face an aggressive Iran across the region, this ability of continued cooperation is so very important…
There is more, but that’s the important part – Ganz mentions QME, but in terms of facing Iran, not any credible combination of likely threats.
There is a new agreement to accelerate deliveries of weapons to Israel that are already planned for, including new helicopters. Ganz said these would “significantly upgrade (Israel’s) military capabilities, fortifying its security and Israel’s regional military superiority.”
Regional, meaning Iran.
Confronting Iran
This accounts as well for what appears to be a decision to sell Israel top-of-the-line bunker buster bombs – something the Israelis have sought since the George W. Bush administration but had been denied. There’s a fairly long procedure involved in this, including reporting to Congress on Israel’s deterrence abilities, and the strategic benefits of a transfer, so it is unlikely to happen soon, but it likely will happen.
Israel, it appears, will also get precision-guided missiles (PGMs) and direct access to U.S. satellite imagery – each a big boost if you’re looking at a broad region.
It re-emphasizes U.S. support for Israel’s qualitative military edge and Israel’s security in the face of the Iranian threat but does not counterbalance F-35s to UAE. So, in effect, the Gulf States – and probably Saudi Arabia – have disappeared from the “coalition of states” in the formulation “credible military threats from any individual state, coalition of states, or non-state actor. We appear to be left with “any individual state” meaning Iran. And this will give Iran hives.
So, you see what the U.S. is worried about. And Israel shares that worry – none of this is to suggest that the U.S. and Israel disagree about what it important in the region – Iran is the important threat and Israel – plus the UAE and others – have to face it.
This leads to the question, what about “other countries” including Qatar, wanting the F-35? The short answer is that they can’t – in my view – have it, precisely because they are potentially part of a credible military threat to Israel. Qatar carries water for Iran everywhere in the region – with Hamas, with Hezbollah, with Turkey. Yes, Qatar has relations of a sort with Israel and with the U.S., but if you’re worried about a country receiving US technology and US training but then using U.S. equipment against Israel – or sharing it with Iran – one country I would be concerned about is Qatar.
The Political Reality of the Region
Well, two actually – I would be concerned about the United States. If the U.S. turns away from its current preoccupation with Iran (a healthy preoccupation, in my view) and returns to the premise that making the Palestinians happy, or creating a Palestinian state, is the goal in the region, American policy toward Israel could take a turn for the less cooperative, more confrontational.
In 2011, an official of the Barak Obama administration told an audience at The Washington Institute:
Neither Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic state nor the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians can be secured without a negotiated two-state solution.
Israel itself is not immune from the winds of change.
Obama outlined a comprehensive vision for peace between the parties, including goals and principles for negotiations. In doing so, he laid a firm foundation for future negotiations. His vision carefully weighs and balances difficult tradeoffs that the parties will need to make, which we believe are necessary to reach our common goal: two states for two peoples.
If that is where you’re going. The new European “Quint Group” on the Middle East (consisting of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain) is going there and the Palestinian Authority (PA) certainly wants to stay on that path and ignore the political changes in the Gulf and elsewhere. Israel appears not to be going there – is the U.S.? That remains to be seen.
That would be, in my view, a mistake.
There was a time that the allure of war and the ideological principle of destroying Israel was a priority for Arab States – the three “noes” of Khartoum in 1967 had nothing to do with a Palestinian State or borders. They were a blanket rejection of the State of Israel. But over the past 30 years, American diplomats have said there could be no peace until the Palestinians had a state – in part, they said, because Arab leaders feared what was called “the Arab street” – rising up on behalf of the Palestinians.
Not quite.
There is – for sure – an “Arab street.” But it isn’t just about Israel. The real watershed for Arab governments was the “Arab Spring” of 2011 – which, it turns out – was not an uprising to be put down, but a river to be managed; it was ugly. It removed the government of Hosni Mubarak and created the terror of a Muslim Brotherhood state that was itself ousted in 2013. Libya crashed in 2011, and the wars since then have killed thousands, wrecked industry, fueled the migrant crisis, and provided weapons for ISIS and al Qaeda in Syria. And, of course, in Syria, the promise of the “Spring” encouraged the uprising that led to the civil war that killed more than 600,000 people and displaced more than half of the Syrian population. A lot of this was funded by Iran’s largesse, but more important for this conversation, was backed by policies of the United States that wanted to win Iran back, but essentially caused chaos across the region – particularly in Sunni states.
Chaos – exacerbated by American policy – frightened governments around the region. No one wanted to be Libya or Syria if they had a choice. They did.
War and ideology pale in comparison with figuring out how to deal with a population that sees the whole world and its possibilities. Arab states – and Sudan – are considering their own national interest – and the interest of their own populations – in the 21st century. You can see that in the Arab criticism of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas first and foremost for corruption and mismanagement.
That is to be encouraged.
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