President Harry S. Truman recognized Israel 11 minutes after Prime Minister David Ben Gurion declared the Jewish state’s independence. The State Department was furious. It believed that the White House action would undermine U.S. relations with the Arab world.
The situation was more complex. The Soviets also voted for Israel’s independence, and Arab states were no monolith. Still, Israel was tiny, and every Arab state sought its eradication. Arab states could lose wars and fall back on United Nations, Soviet, and European leaders to return them to the status quo ante. Israelis understood that to lose a single war would mean a second Holocaust. Yet, despite this reality, there was no way that Israel could ever match the Arab armies in either manpower or sheer numbers of guns, tanks, or aircraft.
If the United States sells missiles or jets to either Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, they will more likely be used to defend Jerusalem than to attack it.
It was against this backdrop that the Pentagon formulated the Qualitative Military Edge. It was a formula, later written into law, to ensure that military sales to Arab states would not erode Israel’s technological advantage. If Arabs had both quantity and quality, they could extinguish the Jewish state and its entire population.
That QME formula persists, but it is a relic of a different age. Indeed, Israel is increasingly on the same side as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the conflict with Iran. If the United States sells missiles or jets to either Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, they will more likely be used to defend Jerusalem than to attack it.
Still, the logic of the QME remains valid, even if it needs revision to consider shifting geopolitics.
The problem today is not Arab rejectionism but Turkish warmongering. Turkey may be a NATO member, but it is neither an ally nor a force for peace. Indeed, on March 30, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared, “May Allah destroy Zionist Israel in his holy name.” Turkey today poses as great if not a greater threat to Israel as Iran. That Turkey is an increasingly formidable drone and naval power, claims to be building stealth fighters, and may also pursue nuclear weapons fundamentally changes the strategic calculation across the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East.
Even if Trump can hold Erdoğan at bay, the military capabilities Erdoğan may acquire in these four years could forever change the region.
President Donald Trump enables the Turkish threat by playing into Erdogan’s megalomania. Speaking to Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office on April 7, Trump told the Israeli leader, “Any problem that you have with Turkey, I think I can solve. I mean, as long as you’re reasonable, you have to be reasonable. We have to be reasonable.” Even if Trump can hold Erdogan at bay, however, the military capabilities Erdogan may acquire in these four years could forever change the region.
Accordingly, it is time for Congress to set parameters for peace and security and reformulate the QME to account for the security calculus of Israel and Greece. Turkey should neither have missiles nor aircraft capable of outperforming those belonging to the Israel Defense Forces or Hellenic Armed Forces. This means no F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for Turkey. If France proceeds with its immoral and cynical sale of Meteor missiles with which to equip the Rafale jets it sold Ankara, then the U.S. should ensure both Athens and Jerusalem have access to even more precise, lethal, and long-range missiles capable of ensuring continued Israeli and Greek dominance over Turkey and its new proxy Syria.
Trump may see himself in Erdogan and believe he can deal with the Turkish despot, but neither Republicans nor Democrats should respond with deference. Rather, it is past time for Congress to establish the legal guardrails to prevent Trump from doing the equivalent of arming a serial killer.
