by chiggerbit » Tue Jul 12, 2005 6:09 pm
<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=156">www.washingtoninstitute.o...hp?CID=156</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>"....In the past, little attention has been given to this idea that the capabilities of Middle Eastern powers must be taken into account when planning for the defense of the Eastern Mediterranean. U.S. military planners tended to rely instead on the increasingly unstable arrangements with the NATO allies -- Turkey and Greece. In particular, little attention appears to have been given to Israel's role as an Eastern Mediterranean power capable of contributing to NATO's defense of that region. <br><br>Since November 1983, however, when President Reagan and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir announced the establishment of the U.S.-Israel Joint Political Military Group, a serious effort has been undertaken to define areas of common interest where Israel can assist the United States. This new relationship, dubbed "strategic cooperation," has focused on the Eastern Mediterranean because it was here that the U.S. perceived a growing vulnerability and need. <br><br>The idea that Israel's formidable air and naval power -- to which the United States had made a substantial contribution -- could be utilized in the Eastern Mediterranean seems obvious. The fact that it was not seriously considered until 1983 is testimony to the compartmentalization that had developed in U.S. strategic planning. Put simply, Israel was perceived as a power capable of deterring conflict in the Middle East. Beyond that role, however, cooperation with Israel on the strategic level was regarded as something which might jeopardize already fragile strategic arrangements with friendly Arab states. <br><br>Indeed, even now, four years after the formal announcement of U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation, there is little public understanding of Israel's contribution to the defense of the Eastern Mediterranean. Commentators in the press and analysts in the defense and foreign policy journals still tend to dismiss the development as something the United States is doing for Israel in response to domestic political pressures. The fact that the Sixth Fleet now makes regular port visits to Haifa, that carrier-based aircraft practice on Israeli firing ranges in the Negev desert, that joint anti-submarine warfare exercises have become a matter of routine, that U.S. and Israeli military planners meet every six months, and that U.S. material is now being prepositioned in Israel, all this seems to have gone unnoticed....."<br><br>"......The absence of protest from friendly Arab countries provides one explanation for the lack of public attention and understanding in the United States; the other explanation lies in the secrecy which surrounds the new relationship. Because both sides place a high value on strategic cooperation, neither has an interest in publicizing or politicizing it......"<br> <br><br> <p></p><i></i>
