What is the secret sauce, deep roots and characteristics, behind Israel’s unbelievable Arms and defense industry?? What are the reasons Israel succeeds time and again in designing such science fiction systems? Education? Mentality? Necessity is the mother of all inventions? “Intelligence” of its engineers? We address this curious phenomenon here.
The Drone, tank reactive armor, the battle management system (Tzayad), Elbits Advanced Pilot and Tank commander smart Helmets, missile defense systems (Arrow series, David’s Sling), Iron Dome, Iron Beam (still in development), Trophy Active protection system, short range cruise missiles (Spike NLOS, Nimrod), the “Artificially Intelligent” Merkava Tank, Uzi SMG, IAI “CIMS” Mine Detector Suite and much more.
All the above game-changing systems / arms became “household” names in military circles and staples of modern warfare, revolutionized it and were all were invented and/or pioneered and developed in Israel (even if not all the specific inventions of the above systems were were actually from Israel). But how did Israel develop such a amazing arms industry?? What are its characteristics that brought out the creative juices to being able to develop such things?
To be sure Israel is NOT the biggest arms manufacturer in the world – it’s the 8th largest arms exporter and some things – like aerial systems (excluding drones!!) – doesn’t even make at all and most of the things it does make are ONLY for its exact specific evolutionary needs, which is the driving force behind its arms industry. In fact Israel has only 3.1% market share of the global arms trade whilst US, China, Russia, Germany and France holding the top 5 slots.
But Israel’s industry is rife with game changing arms and arms systems that time and again revolutionized modern warfare. Frankly only Israel, the US, and Maybe Russia, developed many of the game changing science fiction technologies since WW2. In fact since WW2 we didn’t hear of a single such system which revolutionized warfare that came from any of the European manufacturers – Germany, France or UK, South Korea or China. Many of things the European nations make are normally small incremental evolutionary improvements to their older systems – like to its submarine fleets, ships or tanks. Even in Russia’s case its most famous game changers were the T-34 (which actually was in WW2) and the AK (shortly after). Today some say S-400 can be considered in that league although I would not call it really game changing but mostly the best of its kind Anti-Aircraft missile system, assuming the reputation is correct.
The Drone, until today, aside from the US and Israel, nobody really made drones in the same level as the two countries (although Turkey may have succeeded in joining the club recently). The Spike NLOS or Nimrod short range cruise missile (although officially an ATGM) – seems like no country has developed something similar til date. The Trophy Active protection system – so far, since its inception in 2011, no country has officially successfully developed an OPERATIONAL similar system – the US Quickill was shelved, for some reason, and even the German AMAP-ADS apparently is not mature enough yet to be used operationally by the Germans armored corps…so they are now considering equipping them with Trophy APS systems (which shocked even us cause we thought it was operational). The Iron Dome, so far no country successfully developed a system which can intercept SHORT range rockets like the Iron Dome although both the US and Turkey are working on one.
Video of Korean Spike NLOS
But why, or more like how, did Israel bring itself to being able to manufacturer such science fictions weapons and time after time revolutionize warfare??
After all, Israel is NOT the only country embroiled in territorial conflict – Dozens of countries around the world are. But Israel is uniquely different because of the threats and level of irrational, almost genocidal, hatred it faces sometimes.
What do we mean and what does have to do with the arms it makes?
I don’t think there is a country on the Planet which faced a threat where its enemies said openly, and some still say officially that Israel needs to be destroyed and all its population killed. “Push the Jews into the sea” was a popular phrase of Arab leaders in the 50’s. Kim Jung Un, for example, although not doubt will imprison millions of South Koreans and turn life into hell if he occupied South Korea, however, never called for the extermination of all the South Korean population if he invaded the south and won the war. And in the War between Russia and Ukraine, neither Putin nor Ukraine call for the mutual physical exterminations of each others populations. Same in the cold War, neither the western powers, nor the eastern actually called for the Extermination of each others civilian population, although they did both have a mutual nuclear threat over their heads but neither tried to delegitimize the others political and even physical existence. At the worst if one side one than the other side would change the kind of government in power.
but Israel yes, and seems to be one level above that and the threat is much more extreme. Israel is the only country in the world where other countries don’t recognize her, call for her political destruction and in a few cases call for the extermination of its populaiton. (At least historically like that – although far less today). Even from countries which Israel has absolutely no present or past conflicts with at all and are located in completely different regions like Pakistan and even Malaysia. Neither countries recognizes Israel and even have written in their passport that they can visit all nations “except Israel”. No country in the world country faces such deligitimization and even dehumanization.
These extreme threats, where countries openly call for her destruction and millions of its of its inhabitants are brainwashed for genocidal hatred against and this created, coupled by years of REAL wars and asymmetrical conflict, a real paranoid fear and siege mentality which that, in turn, is certainly one of the reasons Israel develop such an amazing arms industry. This is is real, the people on the other side “want to destroy us”, so we need to have the best weapons there are otherwise we will be destroyed. Read – Necessity is the mother of all inventions – and that is certainly one of the reasons the creative juices are squeezed so good amongst Israels arms manufacturer engineers & designers.
The only things that can are remotely comparable are the soviet and British arms developed in WW2 following the German invasion or threat of invasion. Its true that the first priority of the Nazis behind enemy lines in the invasion of the Soviet Union, was the extermination of the Jews but the Nazis eventually planned to kill off all the Slavic “unter mensch” (Sub humans) and push them to arctic circle where millions of them would starve. And in addition to extermination of all the Jewish populations, the Nazis also did eventually kill millions of Soviets, burned their villages and planned to kill them all off, and the soviets knew this. Hence it gave the rise for some of the most amazing Arms built in WW2, with the best example being the T-34 tank – probably the best in history relative to its times and the challenges it faced – along with the Katyusha rockets, and etc. Also the British developed some of the best arms in WW2 and the best examples are the radars which was a game changing technology and one of the reasons, no doubt, Britain won the battle of Britain. The British didn’t face the same genocidal threats as the soviets (let alone the Jews), but the reality of occupation was sending all the young men to labor camps in Germany so they had a real “reason” to resist a German invasion and bring their creative juices to develop some of those great arms from the war.
Neither Russia, or Britain, or frankly other countries face such irrational threats as Israel ever and still sadly does from some quarters in the world. But it is not only the extreme and almost irrational threats Israel faces – its also actions – these threats were also translated to actual 4 conventional – Independence, Sinai, Six day War and Yom Kippur – and dozens of lower intensity military ops and pretty much an ever ongoing asymmetrical warfare – in the last 17 years almost all of it is in Gaza area (except the 2nd Lebanon war in 2006). So its not only words – Israel had and still has enemies wanting to destroy her, whether entire countries or asymmetrical terrorist organizations or global Jihad terrorists. Sadly, global Jihad seemed to have put Israel higher in the cross hair. For example, NO other country’s Airline is so heavily protected like El Al in foreign airports – and its not that other countries aren’t involved in territorial conflicts – Like Turkey, Russia, France and etc. Kurdish organizations never attacked or threatened to attack Turkish airlines in airports around the world even though far more Kurds were killed in the fighting between both sides. Neither did anybody threaten to attack Russian or Ukrainian Airport stands because of their own conflict. But only Israel’s Airlines is repeatedly threatened by a slew of global terrorist organizations. So the threats and hatred seem to be on at a higher level and include real dehumanization and genocidal tendencies, unlike terrorist threats against other countries. This penetrates deep into the national psyche and ultimately pushes and squeezes the best creative juices that can be mustered out of the engineers of these arms systems.
Another major reason is Israels size and proximity – Physical and socially!
Israel is tiny physically – At the max it takes 7 hours to go from one corner of the country to the other. And most of the country’s political, industrial, economical and cultural hub are located in the triangle of Tel-Aviv – Haifa – Jerusalem. And that includes pretty much almost all the arms manufacturers and their R&D labs, factories, management and etc. For example, in theory soldiers in Gaza using the the Tavor rifles and have immediate feedback what they would like to have improved the the following day, when they are out of Gaza, they can be sent to IMI to give first hand feedback on how to improve it. although obviously course not impromptu by themselves, but coordinated – (and this too much is much easier in Israel than other places, but more on that beneath)
But it is NOT only the physical proximity of the country and the arms manufacturer to the soldiers using their arms. More importantly, it’s the fluidity, inter connectivity, informality and sense of commoradity and solidarity in Israeli society and between the individual and the collective, something only an Israeli can really understand – but we will explain. Israel is a county where everyone, more or less, knows everybody – went to the same schools, served in the same military units, serve together in reserve units, went to the same universities and probably live at the most 10 minute drive from each other. It’s a country where everyone is 2 degree’s of separation from each other, at most. I for example, know Benjamin Netanyahu and knew Shimon Peres – well actually, not really, I don’t know them – but I know people whom know or knew them first hand. But it is not only that – but also the fact that Israel is one of the least formal countries and societies in the world and second in the world in “power distance” index – the index which ranks the level of formality and hierarchy in a society. In the army, for example, saluting is not custom except for basic training or ceremonies and private soldiers tend to call their commanders by their private names, even very high ranks (visiting foreign officers are shocked by this!). Also, suits and ties are very uncommon and almost nobody in Israel wears them (except maybe lawyers or CEO’s in meetings with foreign businessmen). This informality means people in power are very easily accessible to the lowest level of people and vice versa.
This extreme proximity of Israeli society, social and physical, also means, for example, an engineer working on the Trophy Active Protection system was developing it to save the armored core soldier…living down his street – literally! Or the latest upgrade of the Tavor rifle – as another example -needs to be very good and comfortable to use so the developers cousin, whom serves in infantry and uses the Tavor’s older version, will be able to kill terrorists better next time he faces them. Also everybody does reserve service in Israel, INCLUDING the engineers developing those amazing systems – so essentially they are developing weapons to be used by them, or (addressing previous examples) at the most for their cousin, neighbor, classmate. Or sometimes they just develop these systems for their own “comfort” – so everybody can sleep well at night and nobody will be hit by a missile – hence the Iron Dome. And another aspect of that proximity, is that it is very easy to get the important people and fast when developing these systems or when a need to develop it arises – either the soldiers whom want to let the engineers know how to improve their rifles, or the engineers whom want to know if a certain change to a weapon will work for the soldiers, or a soldier down the street of the engineer tells the engineer how to improve or the reservists whom use the system itself.
MAC’S Tavor factory Tour (Military arms channel)
Israel society is extremely fluid, inter connected, well networked and the arms systems are created immediately with no bureaucratic red tape, hierarchy barriers, social distance, formalities and with a high level of personalized and emotional personal dedication going with it. Everything is done fast and everybody and anything are easily accessible and everyone is extremely dedicated to completing the task, now, at least for these arms systems. The “Can Do” mentality at its best.
Can you really imagine a US soldier in Afghanistan, or his commander, calling up colt and telling him what changes are needed to the M-4. What are the chances a US soldier soldier with an M-4 living down the street of a colt engineer and in any case how often does he come home at all after serving far away in Afghanistan? Can you also imagine a pilot in the Apache helicopter telling some engineer in Boeing living down the street from him about his proposed changes just because he is a neighbor of his? And in any case people tend not to bother each others personal space with work related issues as is custom in Israel (some say it is negative but in this case it is personal) and in any case doesn’t have the same level of personalization like in Israel. And even if there was that personal attachment it just doesn’t work like that in the US or in other western armies and there is a structured formal way to make evolutionary changes. Make no mistake, eventually the evolutionary or game changing changes do happen in western armies, but much slower pace also because the power distance between people is much greater, the physical distance and social distance is greater and in any case there isn’t such an immediate threat over their head or personal emotional attachment to the development of these systems like in Israel’s case.
Another issue is the sensitivity to human life, and especially the lives of their soldiers that exist in Israel, which is the highest in the world! And sometimes, pathetically, more important than civilian lives. It is actually a byproduct of the above inter connectivity, societal solidarity, highly networked and personalized society and yet sometimes irrational (and possibly also has its roots in Jewish history too although we won’t get into that here). For example the release of corporal Gilad Shalit, whom was a Hamas POW in Gaza for 6 years until Israel released 1027 prisoners, some of them murders with blood on their hands, for his release. No country in the world would such an irrational thing. All though most example aren’t as extreme as this one but it shows the highly personalized society Israel is and the extremely high value Israel places on its soldiers life. This extreme sensitivity has led to the Merkava being actually one of the protected tanks in the world (and which places protection above mobility and firepower, the 2 other characteristics each tank is judged by). But a better example is the Trophy active protection System – to be sure in actual dry numbers and sheer proportions very few tanks were actually destroyed and very few armored corps soldiers were killed in the 2nd Lebanon war – approximately 15-20 out of 1200 – however, and for a variety of reasons, the psychological effects were great. Hence Israeli engineers worked round the clock and with the highest priority after the war to make the system operational and in 2010 it became such and in 2011 it became battle proven in Gaza when it destroyed an incoming ATGM heading right to the tank.
To be sure, at least for western armies, soldiers lives are always important, let alone for the families whom the importance is exactly like for an average Israeli family whose son is in service. But as a society, the degree is a bit lower and they can “take” higher amounts of casualties compared to Israel which frankly, we think, is a little too exaggerated sometimes (like in Gilad Shalit’s case). The reason is, society is bigger, less interconnected and with a smaller degree of solidarity between people (but that is western armies – in the Russian, Chinese and Arab Armies, a personal soldiers human life is, at least collectively, unimportant).
Also connected to the siege mentality and fear of destruction is a text book example of international geopolitical global betrayal, which left a national collective scar on Israeli society visible until today – The French arms embargo of 1967. A few months before the 6 day war, when there was real fear Israel was under siege, Charles De geulle issued an arms embargo on Israel in its most sensitive time. Most of Israels arms til date were French so the sense the betrayal was real and Israel was taught a lesson it will NEVER forget – never to be dependent anymore on foreign arms and today in fact most of Israel’s arms are in fact self made…in addition most of Israels arms put French arms to shame. This embargo, not only jump started Israels arms revolution, in the long run it actually jump started Israel’s high tech revolution – so the joke is De Geulle not only is the real father of Israels arms industry, but also of its high tech industry as well.
Other reasons – also connected to interconnected, fluidity and informality of Israeli society – in Israel there is NO shame in failing and you can see it wherever you go in Israeli society although It may also be deep inside a byproduct of the Diaspora Jewish Mentality (here too we won’t get into that now). IN the US presidential elections for example, the looser NEVER tries again to run. In Germany if you fail in a startup, it will be very hard for you to try a second time (raise money from angels or banks, get talented employee’s and etc.) and the same as in Arab societies. Yet in Israel there is simply NO negative stereotype on placed on a persons image for trying and failing. You try to develop an a new improvement for an arms system, if you fail you try again. And then a third time. There is simply nothing wrong with it in the eyes of society or your loved ones if you failed once or twice.
But what about Education or intelligence? Societal and emotional fears and support are one thing but can you really make all these arms systems without a good education and without PHD’s in cutting edge sciences around. Well, the results here are mixed. To be sure, the Engineers in Israel are NOT dumb however in most global education rankings Israel is NOT even close to being in the top rankings (while, interestingly, some very poor countries tend to rank very high) and even if there are a few institutions in the top 200 worlds best universities rankings, they are certainly not the best in the world NOT even in the top 50’s. Yet on the other hand Israel has one of the highest ratios of PHD’s per capita. So Israel is certainly very curious and highly educated society but certainly not more than Finland, Japan, and the best example of all, South Korea which develops a lot of its arms but more “main stream” and nothing really game changing systems. So this is certainly NOT the core reason.
And “intelligence” – aside from racist Jewish conspiracy theories – most rankings also do NOT place Israel in the top level of average IQ per Capita but some where in the middle.
We believe the above four are the ingredients for the “secret sauce” for Israel’s Arms industry – Israel is a small society, at least historically under siege and with a horrible history at times, filled with at least partial justifiable paranoia and fear yet with a natural zeal to survive, and where shame with trying – and failing – is NON existent and with a high degree of commorodity and solidarity between the collective and the individual, very fluid and informal and finally a very well educated (although not the most in the world) with the zeal to survive.
Israeli FirePower LTD. 