Former U.S. And Israeli Admirals And Policymakers Want Israel To Become A Maritime power

Three Sa'ar 5 class missile corvettes of the Israeli Navy cruise off the shore of Israel during a training exercise. Wikipedia

Times of Israel: Can Israel become a maritime power?

A commission of former Israeli and American navy admirals and policymakers is calling for the Jewish state to take a far greater role in securing and administering the Eastern Mediterranean, so the US doesn’t have to

Several years ago, before the onset of the Arab Spring, the eminent historian Bernard Lewis suggested that Israel’s future in the Middle East was more secure than many assumed. In measurable ways, the nearer Arab and Muslim states were sinking into ever deeper political, social and economic dysfunction and despair, while Israel, for all its innate tensions and divisive culture wars, was politically and economically sound and socially cohesive.

It was an argument about the way these nations conduct themselves: By conscious choice, the wealthiest Middle Eastern economies rely on oil for their prosperity, whereas Israel relies on technological innovation as its single largest export. As technological advances slowly but surely sideline Middle Eastern oil as a keystone of the global economy, economies that rely on little else will sink further, he argued, while Israel, which has transformed itself into an engine for those very advances, will only rise.

The history of the past few years has largely borne out this assessment.

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WNU Editor: For Israel to become a serious maritime power it will need money, resources, and a long term commitment. For this to work the U.S. will need to increase its military aid to Israel .... but with the U.S. budget being what it is, I seriously doubt that such a commitment will ever come out from Washington.