Transcript: Webinar – America’s Third Carrier in the Middle East: F-22s at Israeli Base
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PANELISTS
Lt Gen Joseph Guastella, USAF (ret.)
Former Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, U.S. Air Force; 2023 JINSA Generals and Admirals Program Participant
Lt Gen Charles Moore, USAF (ret.)
Former Deputy Commander, U.S. Cyber Command; 2024 JINSA Generals and Admirals Program Participant
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin
JINSA Distinguished Fellow; Former Commander, Israeli Air Force
The discussion was moderated by JINSA Fellow for American Strategy Jonathan Ruhe.
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Hello everyone, I’m Jonathan Ruhe, JINSA’s Fellow for American Strategy. Thank you all for joining today’s timely webinar on ‘America’s Third Carrier in the Middle East’. On Tuesday, news broke that 11 U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth aircrafts were en route to Israel from air bases in Europe. Those F-22s arrived at Ovda Airbase in Israel’s far south, marking the first-ever operational deployment of U.S. combat aircraft to Israel. JINSA first recommended U.S. basing options at Ovda in a report last fall entitled ‘Base for Success’. As part of the research for this project, a JINSA Task Force conducted a fact-finding mission to Israel, including flying in to see Ovda Air Base first-hand on the ground. That report is available on JINSA’s website, along with a shorter brief we issued yesterday with updated context for JINSA’s report in light of this new F-22 deployment to Ovda.
To discuss the significance of these events, JINSA’s work on facing options in Israel and the larger context of Iranian tensions with the United States and Israel, I’m pleased to be joined by our expert panel here today. Lieutenant General Joseph Guastella is a former Deputy Chief of Staff for operations at U.S. Air Force headquarters. He was a coauthor of JINSA’s ‘Base for Success’ report. Lieutenant General Charles Moore is a former deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command and a member of JINSA’s Iran Policy Project. Both Generals Guastella and Moore have been participants in JINSA’s Generals and Admirals Program in their capacity as retired U.S. Air Force General Officers. IDF Major General Amikam Norkin is former commander of the Israeli Air Force. He is also a JINSA Distinguished Fellow and provided invaluable support and context for our task force on the Ovda base issue.
For our audience, everything discussed here today will be to the fullest extent possible, given that this is a public and unclassified setting. For our audience, please feel free to type any questions you may have into the Q&A box on the bottom of your screen, and we will do our best to get to them in the time we have.
So General Norkin, I’d like to start with you. Can you indeed clarify for our audience that these F-22 aircraft are at Ovda and this is the first combat deployment, or operational deployment, of U.S. combat aircraft to Israel? I ask that because that still seems to be a question, at least here among some people here in the United States.
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin:
Well, thank you very much, and I’m honored to be part of this webinar with the two lieutenant generals as friends. First of all, it’s not the first time that the American Air Force or the American military deployed combat jets to Israel, but it’s the first time that we [have] got here the F-22.
I would like to start, to put us all on the same page. First of all, to deploy by the United States such technology to the Middle East like the F-22 is new. It’s not part of the American Air Force routine and is not part of the region. I think that the best place to deploy this to is Israel. Why?
Israel is the only one flying F-35s, and there are some common technologies between the F-35 and the F-22, and Israel can support the American Air Force by logistic technology and other areas. So from the tactical level, to be part of [an] American fleet like the Israeli Air Force with the F-15, F-16 and others, is almost to be at home.
Secondly, we just visited this base. General Guastella and myself, as part of the team that work on the report about the American base in Israel. In part of this report, we mentioned that to build such a base and to bring American assets to Israel is a power projection. Now the F-22 in Israel, I think, is another layer that the American military is projecting, especially from Israel.
The third part of my answer is that it presents the American commitment to Israeli security. Once you land with your best airplane in Israel, I think that everybody here in the Middle East and around the globe understand the very strong commitment of the American government, military, and President, to the national security of Israel. So this is from the tactical level, to the strategic level, in three points. To have such capabilities like the F-22 means that on the battlefield, once something might start and happen, it will support not just Israel, but also the nations around us, like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE with the best technology. The American Air Force can secure borders with the best technology from cruise missiles or drones. The defense mission and the offensive mission can be part of the very wide spectrum of capabilities that the American military holds in the Middle East right now.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, General Norkin. I’m glad you touched on some of the larger issues, not just the details of this deployment itself, but I want to circle back to those later on in the webinar. General Norkin, just a quick follow up question: you mentioned, this is the first time AmericanF-22s have been to Israel. Have there been other American combat aircraft in Israel for exercises like the F-35 or F-16?
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin:
Yes, for many years, the American Air Force, the American Navy Aviation, and Army Aviation, have all been in Israel. General Guastella himself flew into Israel maybe 25 or 30 years ago. So it’s not something new that we are flying and doing exercises. Here we do the blue flag, like the American Red Flag we do in Israel with eight different nations, and the American Air Force is the major partner. So it’s not something new. We also deployed with the Israeli Air Force to the American bases as part of our exercise, at least in the last 25 or 30 years or so, we have been flying together and we can do missions together, but for the first time, it’s the best American combat aircraft, the F-22.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, General Norkin. General Guastella, I’ll turn to you now. First of all, kudos for wearing your JINSA Generals of Admiral swag on the webinar always, always appreciated.
So, let’s look at the American perspective now, since it is an American plane. I do realize, and I’ll caveat for our audience, we have a panel filled with F-16 pilots here and I’m going to be asking about the F-22. With that caveat included, General Guastella, can you offer our group some idea of perhaps why F-22s? We often hear about it being a cutting edge plane, one of the best in the world. Why is that?
Lt Gen (ret.) Joseph Guastella:
Thank you, Jonathan, and thanks to JINSA for this opportunity. Yes, there’s a couple F-16 pilots, myself and Charlie. We know the F-22 is one heck of an airplane and it is phenomenal to see America’s top air dominance fighter there in Israel, right there at Ovda. You know, the F-22 is indeed the most air-to-air capable fighter in the world. Nothing comes close to it in the air-to-air role, and just like Amikam said, it’s there as a deterrent role. Initially, it’s there to allow the United States to negotiate with strength because everyone knows that aircraft is designed to establish and maintain air superiority, their dominance, frankly. That’s what it’s capable of doing. So it’s a very clear deterrent signal and a very clear defensive signal to Israel. It obviously has a very powerful war fighting role, if it got to that point.
So, just to see it based there in Ovda which, by the way, is a great piece of real estate from a air power lens. The Israeli hosts have built and maintained a phenomenal location to base out of. That’s why we’re it’s exciting to see what was proposed in the JINSA report that you led, Jonathan. Actually, you know it has now come to fruition. So, who knows what will actually happen, but the fact that it’s there is a very powerful tool for the United States, as well as for Israel.
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin:
Jonathan, if I may, just for our audience: Ovda base, Base 10, is a southern base in Israel. It’s near the border of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. It’s a completely American standard base, because the American troops built this base after the peace agreement with Egypt. Once Israel withdrew from Sinai, part of the agreement was that the American military will build two new Air Force bases, and this base is one of them. So the standard is a completely American standard. So when an American Air Force pilot landing in Ovda, he feels like he is at home.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. That anticipates one more question I have for General Guastella before we start pulling the aperture back a little bit., General Norkin gave a very good table setting there. General Guastella, could you describe as an American Air Force officer, when we made the on-the-ground visit to Ovda, what struck you as key takeaways from the infrastructure, or the setting, or the other elements of the base itself, that now lead to the fact that we have F-22s?
Lt Gen (ret.) Joseph Guastella:
Like I was saying before, it is an outstanding piece of real estate from an air power perspective. For starters, the landing surfaces, runways, the taxiways, are all pristine, which is important for fighter aviation. You need quality, prepared surfaces. The support aspects of it including fuel, munitions, air traffic control, all of that stuff is tip-top. So, in terms of allowing the U.S. fighters there to operate and generate air power unhindered is exactly what Ovda enables them to do. You don’t have to wait on a lot of things that you may have to do at a more austere location. It is right there. So, like General Norkin said, it feels like being home. It feels just like a world-class facility, which is what it is for power projection and aviation.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. General Guastella. General Moore, I’d like to turn to you now. So I do want to jump back before too long to ask our panelists about how Ovda fits into the larger context of U.S. force posture and basing architecture in the region. But first, General Moore, especially tapping into your background, taking a global look at U.S. forces; how do you see the deployment of the F-22s, and I believe it’s only just meant to be a dozen or 11 of them, how does this dozen F-22s fit into the larger build-up region from an Air Force perspective? I’ll note for JINSA’s audience, we have a great previous webinar with Admiral John Miller that looked at the US Naval component of the force build up. General Moore, please.
Lt Gen (ret.) Charles Moore:
Well, I think we’ve covered really well the incredible capabilities of the F-22 Raptor. Why it’s so significant and why this first time deployment to Israel is so important. The other thing that this deployment, along with all the other assets that we’re moving into the region, is really signaling to our other adversaries, or potential adversaries around the world, be it China, North Korea or Russia, [is] that the United States, if there’s any doubt, still possesses the capability and the willingness to surge our combat capability into any region, anywhere on the globe, so that we could sustain combat operations.
You know, with the recent military excursions like Midnight Hammer, which was an in-and-out type of operation where we achieved surprise, and we were able to very precisely take out the targets. The same with absolute resolve down in Venezuela, we achieved surprise again, with the added complexity of having to put a team on the ground to do a snatch-and-grab type of operation. This also reminds folks that we can posture ourselves and be prepared for a long-term type of deployment and sustainment of combat capability, if that’s what the President decides he wants to do. The other aspect that I would add to Ovda is that it also gives us a little bit more flexibility based on some of the restrictions that we’re hearing from some of our allies in the Gulf about the type of operations we may be able to exercise from their locations and we don’t have those same potential types potential types of restrictions.
The other thing I’ll add is, obviously, right now we’re focused on the Gulf region. We’re focused on Iran, but over time, if this becomes a more persistent rotation of forces in and out of Israel, we do posture ourselves very well for any type of operations that we need to conduct in the eastern or mid portions of North Africa, or even in southern parts of Europe.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you, General Moore. That last bit I do want to come back to at the end, to look beyond immediate tensions, the crisis in front of us, or where we could go from here.
I guess I could sort of address this one way or the other in terms of sequencing, but General Moore, I’ll stay with you. We talked about posturing ourselves against against Iran, and this is a very wide open question; to what extent, we’ve heard the President has gotten lots of lots of advice and given lots of options about what he is trying to achieve in Iran and how to go about it, can you give us any sense of what we might expect operations to look like? I know you mentioned that Midnight Hammer and Absolute Resolve. I imagine we’re not thinking along those lines in terms of scenarios we’re forseeing now.
Lt Gen (ret.) Charles Moore:
Now I think it’s really interesting. So, if you go back several weeks ago when we first started seeing the protests rise and the comments by the President about not harming the protesters. There was a lot of folks, not just the United States, but elsewhere, that were very interested in the United States taking some type of specific kinetic actions.
I think the one thing that the President said during that time period, which was really important, is that if we’re going to take action, it needs to be decisive. Taking decisive military type action using our air, cyber and space forces, which is what we’re really contemplating here, is very difficult in terms of having the decisive outcome to directly support the protesters or to result in some type of regime collapse or change. That’s a very difficult thing to do.
Recently, you’re hearing a lot more discussion and concerns about the Iranian nuclear capability, the reconstitution of that program, and, of course, their ballistic missile capabilities that don’t just threaten Israel, but threaten our personnel, our assets, and our other allies in the region. Those military capabilities are obviously much more attuned and capable to have decisive types of outcomes, to go after those types of targets.
So I think that there’s an opportunity though to have a little bit of both. If that becomes our focus and those are the goals that the President wants to achieve, the latter that I talked about, there are some targets that we could hit that also continue to undermine the regime and support the protesters, such as going after IRGC or besieged internal security forces that probably aren’t sitting in dormitories anymore. They’re probably pretty well just dispersed. Going after any depots or any of their command and control capabilities, their ability to arm themselves, I think, would be very beneficial. Any type of strategic targets that continue to really put pressure economically on the regime. Taking out targets like a Kharg island or any other refineries, is going to continue to increase that pressure from an economic standpoint, which is really what led to the protest to begin with.
Now, which of those options the President selects, we don’t know. I think what’s good is that there is a lot of combat capability that’s been moved into the region, and that’s important for a couple reasons. Number one, I’m sure the Chairman of Joint Chiefs is being very specific that we do not want to limit the decision space for the Commander-in-Chief. So the more capability, the more assets we put, the more options that the President has. We don’t box him into that type of the decision that he has to make depending on where he wants to go.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you very much, General Moore. Because that is such a massive question, General Guastella I want to give you a chance if there’s anything you want to add to that on this question of what kind of operations might we expect, given that it’s such a wide open question. I want to give you a chance to tackle that before I go to General Norkin.
Lt Gen (ret.) Joseph Guastella:
What can be accomplished in terms of affecting the regime’s collapse from the air component is a very difficult thing to do, but I think it does send a very clear signal that we’re there in support of the protesters, and there to warn the regime that more crackdowns against them could result in some significant damage to what they value, and what do they value? We’ve already seen their value greatly diminished in their power projection capability, their offensive missiles that can threaten the partners in the region that was significantly degraded before, but there’s more left. That’s certainly something that could be targeted, as well as a lot of the other counter value things. Look at the economic targets that General Moore was talking about.
So the advantage of the large force that’s there can hold almost almost any target in Iran at risk, which means we can take out almost anything there, if that’s what the President wants to do. It allows him to negotiate from a position of strength and a track record of strength. So keeping all those options on the table, being very sober about the fact that there are limits of what air, space, cyber and maritime power can do, in terms of a regime collapse,
Jonathan Ruhe:
General Norkin I’ll turn to you now. A question from our audience: does the arrival of American aircraft at Ovda undermine the concept of the U.S.-Israel partnership, which is based on not having American boots on the ground.
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin:
Well, it’s not the first time that America is on the ground. As you remember, in the 12-Day War the American air defense system supported us. So it’s already been done. I think that the Iranian threat is not just an Israeli threat. It’s a regional threat. The American forces support the region, not just Israel. Now we are speaking specifically about Israel, but the American forces defend Jordan and others. So we should understand that it’s a regional issue.
If I may, with my friends, as Guastella and General Moore mentioned, the American Force can support the President’s decision with a very wide spectrum of capabilities. The President will take the decision, but I think that if there is a military activity as part of this decision, it should be quite a wide step, not a minimal or limited act, because Iran is quite a big nation geographically and with a very large distance between the different targets. If we would like to support the process of replacing the regime by military activity, the military attack from the air, maritime and cyber, shouldn’t be a limited step that some of the media platforms talked about in the last few days, as I understand in the American media.
Jonathan Ruhe:
General Norkin is referring to headlines we’ve seen in the last week or so that the administration potentially is considering a limited initial strike to convince Iran to accommodate U.S. demands and then opening up the option for a larger operation based on Iran’s response.
So General Norkin, just a quick follow up question with your comments there and with the deployment of these F-22s. Does this indicate to you that perhaps a long war is indeed being planned or certainly guarded against?
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin:
Well, I think that a long war would be a mistake. We should plan a short one. I think that the 12-Day War was the right timeframe for such war. If we can do it in an even shorter one, that’s better. This is, I think, both an interest for Israel and other nations in the Middle East, and, of course, for the American forces. This is my personal opinion. With such a wide spectrum of capabilities that now surround Iran, we can plan a short campaign. I think that this is the right thing to plan.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. General Guastella, jumping back to you. So we’ve covered the potential sort of conflict scenarios and what Iran could do to make that a problem. I want to now situate this in the context of, maybe why Ovda is somewhat unique in terms of a place to position U.S. forces or rotate them.
Could you talk about how Ovda is part of a larger U.S. force posture in the region, in terms of where we have access, where we can do overflight? The American public has heard a lot about all the aircraft and naval power we’re moving into the region. But to what extent can these forces be used for offensive versus defensive operations against the Iranians?
Our report covered how Israel would pose no restrictions on our access. How does this compare to the rest of the region?
I’ll just note for our audience, in recent days, and I think even this morning, there’s been articles about British decisions not to let the United States use the base of Diego Garcia and the Indian Ocean in the context of this build up. So, General Guastella, please.
Lt Gen (ret.) Joseph Guastella:
The key aspect of air power is to be able to base your aircraft in multiple different, diverse locations that are appropriate for the campaign you’re trying to wage. Distances from the countries that we are going against are critical, not too close, not too far. Also you need the autonomy to be able to do what you need to do to pursue your campaign. So there are a lot of options in the Middle East, but all of them, anytime the United States bases aircraft in another country, it’s allowed by that country, which grants us access basing and overflight.
Therefore they have a say in what we can do with those airplanes and and so depending on what the administration decides to do, what Israel offers the United States. As General Moore was speculating, and I’m speculating as well, is that access, basing an overflight that Ovda provides, gives us a lot of leeway. It gives the US a significant amount of leeway, regardless of the campaign it wants to pursue, because Israel knows the United States will always be there to defend it and protect it, as well as address the enemies that they affect the region. So basing is a very critical aspect. Ovda offers a pristine physical location, well defended and maintained by Israel, and as was stated before, a perfect location for a lot of different effects across the region.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. General Guastella. So General Moore, I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you a question along these lines, given your past position with U.S. Cyber Command. I think for JINSA’s audience, we hear a lot about cyber in the context with Iran and the Iranian regime’s ability to shut down the internet in the country, quash protests, basically a black out what’s happening for the outside world.
Again, we’re in a public, unclassified setting. But could you give us, you mentioned it earlier in the webinar, how cyber operations might fit into a lot of more scenarios we’ve been discussing so far, from planning perspective at least.
Lt Gen (ret.) Charles Moore:
Happy to talk about it in some general terms. The first thing to remember is that there’s a huge defensive cyber component to all of this. The Iranians do have some serious game when it comes to cyber operations. They’ve demonstrated that in the past. They continue to demonstrate that up to today. You have to be able to harden and make sure you have resilience in our bases that we’re operating from, from our comms networks, our ISR assets, our critical C2 nodes, our data links. All of those types of things we have to make sure are defended, and that we have resilience in that regard, so we can operate regardless of what we encounter from the Iranians.
Then on the offensive cyber component, there’s obviously a lot of things that can be done. I would guess, again we’re in an unclassified environment, you can imagine that cyber would be very beneficial to go after the exact things that I just mentioned that we would be trying to defend. Our weapon systems, our command and control networks, our integrated air defense systems, their ISR platforms. All those types of things would be obviously military-type targets that cyber operations could be used against and to support the overall campaign.
Then there’s a third bucket, which is cyber enabled information operations that I would suspect you would see, and probably are seeing, a lot of information operations being conducted using cyber against IRGC, or Basij, senior leadership, mid-level commanders and the like, explaining to them what’s going to happen if we end up in a kinetic environment, what’s potentially going to be the end game for them and their families, and what those alternatives might look like.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. General Guastella, we had a question from our audience that picks up on a theme we were already discussing, which is overflight and access. What routes are available to reach Iran in view of the overflight denials or restrictions that you’ve discussed, if the US can’t refly certain routes?
Lt Gen (ret.) Joseph Guastella:
Well, I am not involved in or aware of what each country’s particular restrictions may be in this particular circumstance. So I can’t comment on operational issues. Frankly, I don’t know them.I do know that there are multiple paths to to project power in that in that region. It could involve flying directly over neighboring countries. It could involve flying around them using tankers. The United States has a tremendous tanker force, and that’s really what enables that power projection at distances, and enables the flexibility of air power to fly around restricted areas or through paths that are maybe not permitted by certain nations. The fact that we’re there in the region, at Ovda, with what Israel’s granted us, the ability to base there, and the other parts of the air component, allows us to project wherever we need to. SoI can’t comment on the actual restrictions as I don’t know them.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. General Norkin, I’d like to go back to you. We’ve heard a lot of American perspective on how to think about a conflict with Iran. I haven’t had the privilege to ask you yet the view from Israel. Unlike last summer, where Israel had a much more urgent sense of the threat that motivated the start of Operation Rising Lion. Maybe today, that balance has shifted a little bit. What is, from Israel’s perspective, maybe leaving aside the F-22 deployment, what is the current sense of urgency and scale of the threat from Iran look like from an Israeli perspective?
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin:
Well, first of all, I think that we cannot act against the nuclear capabilities every year. So it is the wrong strategy. We need to do something that will be behind us. Secondly, we learned that the amount of the ballistic missiles, a real threat on a small nation like Israel, we have less strategic assets and our population is under threat, so we cannot allow ourselves to be under such a threat, like thousands of ballistic missiles that can threaten the Israeli population.
The third parameter is that the Iranian involvement in the regional terror activities. Last time, I think that Israel started the war because of the urgent threat from the nuclear program and ballistic missile plan. So those threats are still there, not at the same level, but still there.
Now I think that the Iranian story, become a global one. A regional threat, a global threat, as the President mentioned, the missiles can reach Europe. They can reach the United States.
This is something that we cannot allow ourselves. This is not the right future for the nations here in the Middle East.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. General Norkin. A quick follow up; if Israel and Iran returned to war, to what extent, is it a threat, or how urgently or significantly do you view the threat from the Houthis?
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin:
I think that we should consider the Houthis as a threat, and we might see some ballistic missiles and cruise missiles that the Houthis are going to launch toward Israel. This is my assumption.
Jonathan Ruhe:
So thank you, General Norkin. General Moore, I’d like to turn back to you. So we heard General Norkin talk about the missile threat to Israel which, as we’ve seen in three rounds of conflict in the last two years, and then Iran’s rebuilding since the June war, remains a potent threat. There’s also another Iranian threat, which is a threat to the Gulf, to Hormuz. So this builds into a question from our audience; do you think Iran could contemporarily threaten or actually close down the Strait of Hormuz?
Lt Gen (ret.) Charles Moore:
I don’t think we’d let that happen. I think they could try to conduct some operations to make it difficult. But I think, especially considering the posture that we’re in right now, I don’t think that we put up with that. I think that would be met with a quick reaction from the United States. That’s just my guess.
Jonathan Ruhe:
General Guastella, is there anything you would want to add on that one?
Lt Gen (ret.) Joseph Guastella:
No, I agree with General Moore. You know, we can make it very, very painful if they did try to close the straits. It is tremendously costly for them, and I think we’d be able to reopen it very quickly if it did happen. It would be a significant risk for them to try to do that, given the posture that we have there and all we can hold at risk in terms of targets.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. So I want to get a few more questions from our audience before we sort of look more prospectively to the future, about the US-Israel partnership. So again, this is an unclassified setting, but the question we’ve gotten from our audience, and also more generally in the press, concerns about the sustainability of U.S. ammunition stocks for a potential conflict with Iran without asking. Without asking how long you think a conflict with Iran could go, because that would depend on a number of scenarios.
General Moore I’ll ask you first, if you could give our audience just a general sense of this. Why this is a discussion point in general. Maybe your extent of how you view these concerns about the durability of U.S. munition stocks, both for offensive and defensive systems. I know for our audience, I’d like to flag that JINSA has done a lot of work on this in the previous context of Iran’s attacks on Israel, and then the joint U.S.-Israeli defense of that. General Moore, please
Lt Gen (ret.) Charles Moore:
I think that obviously there’s not an infinite amount of arms that exist. Back to General Norkins’ position, there’s many reasons why any type of operation, if we elect to conduct one, you want it to be short. This is obviously another factor in that.
I’m confident that we have the number of munitions that are required to achieve military objectives in Iran, if and when the President decides that’s the route that he wants to go down. I also know this has become a really important factor for the current administration, and they’ve been dealing with industry a lot about this specific issue. How do we replace stockpiles as we use them, especially during time of conflict? We saw similar discussions right after the 12-day conflict.
Then broader strategically, how do we do this if we find ourselves against even a more formidable foe? At the end of the day, it’s an interesting situation, because a lot of our precision-guided munitions and capabilities that we have are not things you can stockpile forever. They do have shelf lives that do affect their reliability rates. So when you get to some of the less precision weapons, or dumb weapons, or basic bomb bodies, or artillery shells, you can build those and stockpile them all you want, but when you get to your precision type of weapons, you can’t just build over time, over many different budget cycles, and store them up for a time of conflict and expect that they’re going to all work the way that you need them to. So how do you have industry respond and be able to generate the type of capabilities that you need when you’re in those circumstances? This is something that’s getting a lot of attention right now.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. So, General Norkin, to ask the Israeli version of that, because it’s relevant to a lot of discussions about looming conflict with Iran. We’ve heard since the June war, but also even before it, in light of some of Israel’s lessons since the 7th of October, calls for Israel to become as independent as possible, in terms of munitions production, supply chains, things like that. In the current context, how do you view Israel’s situation here, in terms of its ability to fight? I know you said we should not plan for a long war, but in general, given that Israel has only finite interceptors, how this drive for more independence going in the context of the current tensions.
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin:
In the last two and a half years, we used ammunition like we never planned, but we are still fighting. So as General Moore mentioned, you need to have the basic capabilities in a very big storage. It’s not just the storage, but also the capacity of the production line and the contracts that might be better or more wise contracts with the companies that can provide you the ammunition that you need in conflict or in emergency time. Much earlier on, we learned those lessons and we shared them with our friends from the American military. I think that today we have a better understanding how to build our ammunition and operational capabilities and for the future conflicts.
Still, it takes time to produce, to buy and to develop, and to take all those lessons into your working plan. It’s become part of our routine, every time that we move forward since October 7th. Once we took the decision to move to a full-scale war with Hezbollah. The amount of ammunition was on the table. Once we decided to open the 12-Day War, the ammunition amount was on the table. So, now it’s part of the many other power methods that the commanders should be aware of.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. So I want to shoehorn in one quick question from the audience before I ask the final question to our panelists. Particularly in the context of the F-22, we started out at the start of the webinar talking about some of its capabilities, especially it’s a stealth fifth generation combat aircraft. Generals Guastella and Moore, I’ll ask you; to what extent do you think Iran has anti-aircraft capabilities? Are the F-22 a unique capability in terms of dealing with potential anti-aircraft air defense threats from Iran? General Guastella, I’ll ask you to address that first.
Lt Gen (ret.) Joseph Guastella:
The F-22 is a Fifth Gen stealth fighter and an incredibly capable fighter to design for air-to-air. It was used in the Midnight Hammer campaign. There’s been significant degradation of Iranian air defenses in the 12-Day war. A lot of it was done by Israel, most of it. Suffice it to say, the F-22 is part of the air component. The entire effort will be to establish air superiority, and part of that is to destroy enemy air defenses. So suffice it to say, the F-22 is more than capable of operating in Iranian airspace.
Jonathan Ruhe:
General Moore, is there anything you want to tag onto that before I go to the final question?
Lt Gen (ret.) Charles Moore:
I think General Guastella summed it up very well. It was designed to specifically deal with what we see from Iran, even with as much of the integrated defense system that’s been attrited. Specifically, a double-digit mobile, advanced waveform, surface-to-air missile system, this is the environment that aircraft was meant to operate and survive and be successful in.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Thank you. So we will go around the horn, one final question that attempts to look beyond the current situation and context. Looking forward, not just at Ovda, but also what the possibilities are that it opens up for the future of the US-Israel defense partnership.
So General Guastella, I’ll ask you first, we’re talking about the deployment of combat F-22 aircraft, to Ovda. Beyond that, looking ahead, what other missions could US-basing options help with there, what are other purposes that perhaps help serve the U.S. Air Force and the joint forces’ needs, not just in the Middle East but even more globally?
Lt Gen (ret.) Joseph Guastella:
Well, Ovda is a tremendously strategic location in Israel, as everyone knows in the Eastern Med[iterranean] there. Clearly it offers direct access to the Gulf countries and into Iran and beyond. It allows you to project power south, into Yemen, into North Africa, as well as the Med itself, and into Europe. So it is a very strategic location, and it’s a welcoming ally there with Israel. So the options are significant beyond this. I would also say that it’s also a phenomenal opportunity for the U.S. to continue training with the Israeli Air Force and and other Gulf air forces in the region that are willing to work together for the common good of interoperability and readiness and deterrence. That’s the message that that militaries want to telegraph: is a message of of interoperability and strength through coalition and deterrence. I think this offers a lot of different options, both in terms of true combat capability as well as training.
Jonathan Ruhe:
Wonderful. Thank you and so General Norkin to you, I would love to get the Israeli perspective on where what Ovda can do for the partnership going forward. Maybe the Israeli perspective of what General Guastella talked about, or other things you might have on your mind go.
IDF MG (ret.) Amikam Norkin:
I completely agree with my friend Guestella mentioned and nothing to add. It’s both a tactical and strategic opportunity that we should move forward. But for the second part of your question, what should be around the corner? I think that there are many areas that the American Air Force and the Israel Air Force, the American military and the Israeli military, the American companies and the Israeli defense industry can share. We can designate the space as a domain that we can do a lot together for both nations and, of course, the cyber, we already did. That’s a very open future and high potential of cooperation,
Maybe to move out from the military frame, I think that beyond this conflict with Iran, the Middle East now is a different Middle East compared to October 6th. Now, after two and a half years of military campaign, this is the right time to diplomatically plan and campaign to build a better region for all the nations. Especially for Israel, with the right decision, we should have a better place to live, for our children, for our grandchildren, and we can bring a much better future to the region.
Today, the Indian Prime Minister Modi, just left Israel after a historical two-day visit. We are speaking again about Iran from India to Europe, about energy, water and data centers. The future is there. It is much more achievable than October 6th, because the strategic situation, from my perspective, is much better once we are beyond this current conflict with Iran. Hopefully we are going to finish the conflict in a much more positive situation. As always, thank you to the American Air Force and the American military for supporting Israel. Thank you very much for that.
Jonathan Ruhe:
It’s not often I get to end these things on a positive note. I’m going to go ahead and thank all of our panelists for joining here today to discuss this very timely topic. Again, for our audience, I’d recommend to you on our website, the report is called ‘Base for Success – U.S Basing Options in Israel’. Also stay tuned for future webinars as continuing events unfold. I’d like to thank again, Generals Guastella, Moore and Norkin for their time and thoughts today. Thank you to our audience for joining. We’ll see you again soon. Thank you very much.