What the US gets for all that aid to Israel

Every once in a while, a commenter will come on here and harangue me about how the US gives us so much money every year and gets nothing in return. I usually let the comments through, partly because I want you all to appreciate how many nasty comments I get (I reject about 10-20 comments a day that are either spam, link pimping or people whose comments I just won't let through) and because I often hope that someone will answer the attacks. I barely find time to post here when work is busy (as it is now), let alone to answer all the comments.

Robert D. Blackwill, deputy national security advisor for strategic planning in the George W. Bush administration, and Walter B. Slocombe, undersecretary of defense for policy in the Clinton administration, are authors of the new report "Israel: A Strategic Asset for the United States" (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy). They have written an op-ed in Monday's Los Angeles Times, which ought to put a serious dent in the arguments of those who claim that our relationship is "the US gives and Israel takes." It's not like that at all.

Today, Israeli contributions to U.S. national interests cover a broad spectrum. Through joint training, exercises and exchanges on military doctrine, the United States has benefited in the areas of counter-terrorism, intelligence and experience in urban warfare. Increasingly, U.S. homeland security and military agencies are turning to Israeli technology to solve some of their most vexing technical and strategic problems.

This support includes advice and expertise on behavioral screening techniques for airport security and acquisition of an Israeli-produced tactical radar system to enhance force protection. Israel has been a world leader in the development of unmanned aerial systems, both for intelligence collection and combat, and it has shared with the U.S. military the technology, the doctrine and its experience regarding these systems. Israel is also a global pacesetter in armored vehicle protection, defense against short-range rockets, and the techniques and procedures of robotics, all of which it has shared with the United States.

In missile defense, the United States has a broad and multifaceted partnership with Israel. Israel's national missile defenses — which include the U.S. deployment in Israel of an advanced X-band radar system and the more than 100 American military personnel who man it — will be an integral part of a larger missile defense spanning Europe, the eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf to help protect U.S. forces and allies.

...

In sum, we believe that Israel's substantial contributions to U.S. interests are an underappreciated aspect of this relationship and deserve equal billing to shared values and historical responsibility as rationales for American support of Israel.

Read the whole thing.

Blackwill and Slocombe will be doing a live webcast on November 1, 2011, 12:30 p.m. EDT, to discuss their new study, ISRAEL: A Strategic Asset for the United States. I will not be at my computer then, so if any feels like watching and sending me a summary, I'd be happy to post it.