The U.S.–Israel Alliance is a Strategic Bargain
The U.S.–Israel Alliance is a Strategic Bargain
One ally holds the line — for all of us.
Aid to Israel is not charity. It is one of the most profitable strategic investments the United States has ever made — and a prototype of Trump’s vision for the rest of our alliances.
There is a small but vocal strain of “America Only” commentary that endlessly repeats a falsehood: “We get nothing from our aid to Israel.”
Au contraire, mon frère.
The truth is, America’s alliance with Israel is not a favor or a handout. It is a major pillar of American strength. It’s a strategic investment, an extraordinarily inexpensive way for the United States to buy intelligence, military innovation, strategic reach, regional leverage, and a reliable democratic ally in the most dangerous and unstable region on earth.
Even if you strip away every moral, cultural, religious, historical, and civilizational consideration — and there are many — the U.S.-Israeli alliance would make overwhelming sense on the coldest possible national-interest grounds.
Israel is not merely an ally. It is a force multiplier. It makes American power cheaper, smarter, and more effective than it could be otherwise.
And that points to something larger still. Israel is not just a valuable ally. It is the prototype of Trump’s vision for the rest of our alliances. A competent, heavily armed, technologically sophisticated regional partner that can handle the ordinary threats in its own neighborhood without direct American intervention. That allows the United States to support with depth, integration, and intelligence, while retaining the ability to apply decisive power when the threat is too large for any local state, or even several acting together, to handle alone.
This worked in the 12-Day War. Donald Trump wants to make it work in Europe and Asia as well, standing up our allies as partners, not dependents.
That is certainly how NATO should work, but too often has not. That is how Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia should work, and increasingly do. That is what a sane American alliance system looks like: not dependence, but partnership; not protectorates, but pillars. Pillars capable of securing their own regions under normal circumstances, so America doesn’t have to do all the lifting, defend everywhere at once, and spend itself into oblivion.
In a world like that, America becomes dramatically stronger. America can concentrate force. America can choose its moments. America can remain the arsenal, the backstop, the guarantor, and the finisher — without also serving as the “policeman of the world.”
Netanyahu’s Israel is the proof of that concept.
Israel Handles Threats Before America Has To
America spends an average of $3.8 billion a year on Israel, or one-fiftieth (1/50) of what we’ve sent Ukraine. Hardly any of that leaves the United States: almost all of it goes to U.S. defense contractors for joint U.S.-Israeli projects. The critics speak as if America is “giving” Israel money. “Partnership” is the correct term, and we’re picking up our share of the bill.
In Washington terms, $3.8 billion is a rounding error, a fraction of our spending on Ukraine and barely more than one-third (1/3) of what we spend on Somali daycare fraud (“Learing Centers”) in Minnesota alone (and wait ’til you see Gavin Newsom’s California!).
By stark contrast, the money we send Israel actually buys something.
One of the least appreciated benefits is this: Israel often acts quickly when America would otherwise be forced to act later, but at a far higher cost.
When Israel destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program in 1981, the whole world howled. But for America to do the same thing would have risked a global war with the Soviet empire. When Israel destroyed Syria’s reactor in 2007, it did the world a similar favor, as became even more apparent once the country fell into civil war. Israel’s repeated covert and overt actions against Iran’s nuclear program, weapons pipelines, terror networks, and proxy infrastructure have likewise delayed, degraded, or disrupted threats that otherwise would have required war ten to twenty years sooner.
The contribution is not theoretical. Israel kills terrorists. Israel degrades missile programs. Israel disrupts arms transfers. Israel penetrates enemy networks. Israel destroys strategic threats before they mature. And every time it does, America benefits.
The alternative is not some peaceful vacuum. There are no vacuums in geopolitics. There are only spaces one power controls until another power fills them.
When America retreats, Iran advances. When America hesitates, Russia probes. When America grows confused, China arrives with money, ports, telecom networks, surveillance systems, and diplomatic cover. That is the actual choice-set. The world does not freeze while Washington holds seminars and struggle sessions.
Israel helps prevent that outcome in the Middle East by being the one country in the region both willing and able to confront the West’s enemies on a daily basis. And because Israel does so with its own soldiers rather than ours, the United States spends far less blood and treasure.
This is the point the anti-Israel Right keeps missing. They speak as if support for Israel “drags” America into war. In fact, a strong Israel is essential to keep America out of unnecessary wars. Indeed, in all of history, only in the last year have U.S. and Israeli forces felt the need to fight side by side in any offensive war.
Israel handles threats locally, with local knowledge, local stakes, and local force. It absorbs pressure that would otherwise move outward. It is not a drag on American power or wealth: it costs less than a single U.S. submarine every year. It is a substitute for American power in precisely those contingencies that should be handled regionally if at all possible, and without an American footprint.
That alone is worth the investment.
Israel Is an Irreplaceable Weapons Laboratory
Now add the military-technological side, which is sure to prove even more important in the decade ahead.
America’s defense-industrial base is formidable, but it has too often suffered from sclerosis: bloated procurement, slow acquisition cycles, doctrinal lag, bureaucratic caution, and peacetime assumptions in a wartime age. Trump and Hegseth are making a difference. But it’s a big aircraft carrier to turn.
Israel has the opposite problem. It lives under immediate threat. Missiles actually fall there, as much in peacetime as not. Drone swarms are not hypothetical. Electronic warfare is not a panel discussion. Interception economics are not an abstraction.
That pressure produces innovation. And America benefits immensely.
Iron Beam, Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow, Trophy, advanced drone warfare, cyber-defense architectures, signals intelligence integration, electronic attack, layered missile defense — these are not merely Israeli assets. They are part of the U.S. strategic ecosystem. Some feed directly into American capabilities. Others offer combat-proven lessons American planners would be fools to ignore.
And — a bit louder for those in the back — all these technologies are joint projects with the United States and essential to U.S. defense.
Iron Beam and related directed-energy systems are revolutionary. The historic problem of missile defense has always been cost asymmetry: the attacker spends little; the defender spends much. Israel is helping crack that equation. Once the cost per intercept falls from hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to $2 or $3, the entire offense-defense balance changes: indeed, every modern missile or drone becomes obsolete. The risk of nuclear war drops to nearly zero.
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