This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Commission for the Evaluation of the Defense Establishment Budget and the Balance of Power released a report addressing the country’s future strategy, military modernization, industrial expansion and defense spending.

The commission, led by Prof. Yaakov Nagel, a retired brigadier general and a former national security advisor to Netanyahu, includes eight other officers, seven of them retired generals and one of whom is another former Netanyahu national security adviser. That the report has a hawkish tone therefore should not come as a surprise.

Israel is still at war with Hamas — and, for that matter, the Houthis of Yemen. But the report underscores that little is stable in the Middle East — today’s friend could be tomorrow’s enemy.

While the report stresses the importance of maintaining the closest possible ties with the U.S., it also asserts that Israel needs to expand its industrial base, because even America might not be a reliable supplier of military equipment if a Democrat succeeds Donald Trump in the White House.

Most importantly, the commission offers a truism about Israel’s future survival: The Jewish state cannot afford to lose even one major war. In that regard — unsurprisingly given its composition — the commission points to Iran as the country’s long-term primary threat.

Yet it identifies an additional threat that has

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