JINSA Thanks Senators Cotton and Peters for Support of Enhanced US-Israel R&D

The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) thanks Senators Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Gary Peters (D-Michigan) of the Senate Armed Services Committee for their leadership in requesting that Secretary of Defense Mark Esper establish a permanent U.S.-Israel working group to share defense capability requirements and coordinate joint military research and development efforts.

JINSA applauds the Senators’ February 28th bipartisan letter to Secretary Esper, which warns that “dangerous U.S. military gaps continue to emerge that more systematic and institutionalized U.S.-Israel early cooperative research and development could have prevented.” The Senators’ letter expressly seeks to foster implementation of a 2019 legislative directive by the Senate Armed Services Committee to the Pentagon to identify opportunities for enhanced cooperative R&D with Israel, focused particularly on emerging or advanced technologies.

The directive was, in turn, prompted by the recommendations of JINSA’s U.S.-Israel Security Project, which were briefed to key members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senators Cotton and Peters propose “a permanent and dedicated forum for the two defense establishments to share intelligence-informed military capabilities requirements in a systematic manner.” They also write that such a working group “could develop combined U.S.-Israel plans to research, develop, procure, and field systems as quickly and affordably as possible to meet U.S. and Israeli warfighter requirements.” We recognize and strongly appreciate the Senators’ commitment to ensuring that the benefits of the U.S.-Israel security alliance are enhanced and made permanent.

Since 2018, JINSA’s U.S.-Israel Security Project, chaired by Admiral James Stavridis, USN (ret.), has been spearheading efforts to strengthen the U.S.-Israel Security relationship. The expert group’s widely-read report recommended ways to strengthen the U.S.-Israel security relationship, and closer cooperation on R&D was one of the key recommendations.

JINSA looks forward to continuing to work with our friends in Congress and the Executive Branch to strengthen U.S. defense and strategic interests, the cornerstone of which we believe is a robust U.S.-Israeli security cooperation.