Introduction

In recent weeks, a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) seeking to advance cooperative defense initiatives with Israel has drawn both support and rancor among lawmakers and advocates. For fervent supporters, Section 219 of the House NDAA would allow the United States to tap into the Israeli defense research, technology, and production capacities that have made its military such a tactically sophisticated force. For the most outspoken opponents, the provision would “merge” the United States military with Israeli defense and security forces responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians and accused of gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL). Both positions overstate the practical consequences of Section 219, and while detractors are justified in citing Israel’s well-documented pattern of abuses in explaining their opposition, their critiques miss the more important point that the executive branch has long had the authority to engage in cooperative defense initiatives with Israel, all without sufficient safeguards, oversight, or accountability.   

What Exactly Would Section 219 Do?

Section 219 of the FY2027 NDAA deals with cooperative projects — an umbrella term for initiatives in which the United States government develops an agreement with a foreign partner to share the costs of researching, developing, and/or producing defense articles. More common nomenclatures like co-development, co-production, and cooperative production all fall under the broader definition of cooperative projects. Specifically, Section 219’s most consequential directive is a requirement for the Secretary of Defense to designate an “executive agent” charged with synchronizing and expanding cooperative projects between the United States and Israel. The act goes on to instruct how the agent should advance that engagement, ranging from identifying Israeli capabilities with relevance for U.S. defense needs, to establishing frameworks for joint ventures between the two countries. The bill subsequently lists a set of domains for cooperation, including areas of past cooperation like missile defense and new areas like artificial intelligence and biotechnology. 

In addition to requiring interagency coordination between the Secretary of Defense and other executive branch bodies, Section 219 establishes several reporting requirements. This includes a progress report related to the activities of the “executive agent” and developments in the US-Israeli cooperative defense partnership. The provision also requires an annual report on the implementation of cooperative efforts between Israel and the United States as well as the establishment of a publicly accessible website for periodic updates on any such initiatives. 

Section 219 in Context

On its own, it’s easy to see how Section 219 could give the impression of setting the stage for a substantially different kind of US-Israeli defense relationship. Those concerns are underscored by reports that cooperative projects are likely to be a key tenet of the next Memorandum of Understanding the two countries have begun negotiating, which lays out Washington’s political commitments for multi-year security assistance packages to Israel. However, situating the provision within the existing framework for cooperative defense projects points to a less profound set of developments.

First, Section 219 does not establish any new cooperative defense authorities because those authorities already exist. The Arms Export Authorization Act (AECA) of 1979 provided the president with the authority to engage in cooperative defense projects with NATO members, a power that was expanded in 1986 to include any “friendly foreign country.” A 1980 executive order delegating these powers to the Secretary of Defense as well as auxiliary authorities provided in the 1986, 1990, and 1991 NDAAs effectively gave the Department of Defense significant latitude to initiate, develop, and implement cooperative defense projects on its own initiative and without specific congressional authorization. The U.S. share of these projects is funded through annual defense appropriations, including longstanding cooperative project funding for Israel. Indeed, cooperative defense has been a feature of the US-Israeli relationship since at least the 1990s, totaling more than $16 billion in U.S. appropriations, primarily for missile defense projects.

Accordingly, Section 219’s most immediate consequence would be bureaucratic — the establishment of an executive agent within the Department of Defense to coordinate and explore opportunities to expand cooperative defense initiatives between the United States and Israel. To be sure, that development is not insignificant, and would create a potentially powerful champion within the Department for deepening US-Israeli defense ties and for driving appropriations to the Israeli defense sector. In that sense, Section 219 does present new risks, including deepened ties and discrete interdependencies at a time when Israel continues to engage in a pattern of abuses and finds itself at odds with Washington over key regional issues.

Nevertheless, the claim that the NDAA provision would “merge” the U.S. and Israeli militaries is a significant overstatement. Not only does the provision not require any specific cooperative projects nor create any new authorities, it also has no bearing on issues of U.S. command and control, force posture, readiness, or joint operations. Moreover, even to the extent that prospective co-production and co-development arrangements could create certain industrial, commercial, and political entanglements, they would still be relatively minor in comparison to the scale of the U.S. industrial base and the vastness of its security cooperation enterprise.

For their part, proponents consistently overstate the likely value of cooperative initiatives with Israel. Past co-development and co-production arrangements have resulted in a number of capabilities, but they have centered on Israeli defense requirements and threat landscapes. U.S. investments in missile defense systems like Arrow, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome may have provided Washington with access to certain technologies and operational combat data, but none of those systems have been fielded by the United States and it is not clear that there were no other, more economical means to realize those benefits.

The Risks of Section 219

What opponents of Section 219 do get right is in identifying cooperative defense initiatives as a perpetuation of U.S. security assistance to Israel. In recent years, the Netanyahu government’s conduct has eroded U.S. political support for the billions of dollars in annual taxpayer-funded military aid provided to the Israeli government. U.S. lawmakers from both parties have grown increasingly confident in voicing their opposition for continued Foreign Military Financing (FMF) support, a U.S. security assistance program that provides grants for foreign partners to buy U.S. weapons. The Israeli government and its supporters in the United States seem to have read the writing on the wall and are attempting to get ahead of the issue by voicing their own desire to transition from a one-way “aid”-based relationship to a partnership centered on shared contributions to cooperative projects.

But cooperative production would still drive potentially billions of dollars of appropriated U.S. funds to the Israeli defense sector, which would likely be the principal beneficiary of any jointly developed or produced capabilities. Moreover, cooperative projects add complexity and stumbling blocks for existing oversight and accountability frameworks. The variable nature of cooperative projects provides the U.S. executive branch with the opportunity to circumvent existing reporting, transparency, or human rights safeguards. For example, the executive branch may claim that Israeli contributions to cooperative projects mean the initiatives do not constitute assistance and are, therefore, exempt from human rights safeguards like the Leahy Laws. It is a dubious legal interpretation, but one that the executive branch has used in the past to avoid the application of Leahy Laws to U.S. arms sales. In other cases, ambiguities surrounding what aspects of cooperative projects constitute arms sales may facilitate the circumvention of congressional notifications or other protections.

It remains to be seen what will come of the NDAA over the near term. In July, the House passed its version, which includes Section 219, but it is distinct from a parallel provision in the stalled Senate version that excludes the establishment of an executive agent. A compromise bill will likely include some version of the provision, and while the potential passage of Section 219 may not be as consequential of a development as some critics have suggested, it nevertheless reflects the eagerness on the part of some stakeholders to sidestep the growing political unease surrounding U.S. military support to Israel. But presenting cooperative projects as a less one-sided means of security cooperation that diminishes U.S. complicity in Israeli abuses is a misrepresentation of how US-Israeli cooperative projects have worked in the past and how they are likely to work in the future. Ultimately, re-orienting U.S. assistance towards cooperative projects does little to address the underlying problems, abuses, and divergent interests that have generated growing political discomfort with continuing U.S. support for Israel’s security sectors.