Is Israel really moving towards military self-reliance – or is the US-Israel “special relationship” being transformed into something even more deeply integrated?

Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that Israel must become a “Super Sparta” was presented as a response to growing international isolation. The message was stark: if Israel could no longer depend upon an international order willing to arm it, finance it and defend its policies indefinitely, then it would have to become sufficiently militarised and economically self-reliant to withstand the pressure. Israel, Netanyahu suggested, would have to produce more of what it needs and reduce its vulnerability to foreign governments that might eventually impose arms restrictions or other forms of pressure.

But there is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of this vision. Israel may be capable of producing an extraordinary range of sophisticated weapons, surveillance systems, drones, missiles, cyber technologies and air-defence systems. It is, after all, one of the world’s major arms exporters. Yet the idea that Israel can simply withdraw into military autarky and continue its present scale of warfare is considerably less convincing.

The more interesting possibility is that “Super Sparta” does not mean separation from the United States at all. It may mean something almost opposite: the transformation of the old US-Israel relationship from one based primarily on military assistance into a much more deeply integrated military-industrial partnership. Israel would manufacture more, but within a technological, financial and procurement ecosystem increasingly intertwined with the American defence establishment. Dependence would not disappear. It would become institutionalised.

This distinction matters enormously.

For decades, US military assistance has helped preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge. The existing ten-year US memorandum of understanding provides $3.3 billion annually in Foreign Military Financing, alongside $500 million for cooperative missile-defence programmes. Washington has also supplied Israel with aircraft, missiles, bombs, armoured vehicles and other major systems. The latest SIPRI figures make the structural dependence even clearer. Between 2021 and 2025, the United States supplied 68 per cent of Israel’s imports of major arms, with Germany supplying most of the remainder. That is hardly the profile of a country preparing to wage an indefinitely sustained regional war in complete independence from foreign military support.

Yet Israel possesses something that makes the relationship different from a conventional client-state arrangement. Its military-industrial sector is highly developed and technologically sophisticated. Israel itself was the world’s seventh-largest exporter of major arms in 2021–25, according to SIPRI, while its exports rose substantially during this........

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