In 1977, the U.S. gave Israel permission to employ foreign military financing funds to acquire the Merkava tank. Seven years later, Washington formalized a program for Israel to designate $250 million in foreign funds for what was termed “offshore procurement.” The program has been in force ever since, reaching a total of $819 million in 2019. It is scheduled to be terminated in 2028, but in 2025 Israel will still receive $450 million to spend on its own domestic military programs.

The U.S.-Israel offshore procurement arrangement is unique to Israel and has been critical to that country’s increasingly sophisticated and expansive arms industry. It is time, however, that even as the Israeli program is wound down, the concept should not be terminated. Instead, it should be extended to Ukraine and even to Poland.

The Ukrainian arms industry has been developing at a remarkable pace, even as the war with Russia drags on. Initially focusing on producing artillery and tank ammunition, it now produces such a wide a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles — both short- and long-range systems — that it is now among the world’s leaders in unmanned system technology. Indeed, some 40 percent of all weapons that Ukrainian forces are employing are now domestically produced, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has projected that figure to rise to 50 percent by years’ end.

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