Israeli Innovation Exposes Ineffective American Defense Sector

Israel’s recent attack using beepers containing remotely triggered explosives stands out as an incredibly innovative and daring operation. Nothing like it has previously taken place, and it has undoubtedly disrupted the security of its enemies in Hezbollah.

Israel has long been at war with its neighbors, including both nation-states and terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Whether the current war in Gaza, earlier wars in Lebanon and the Sinai, or the long-simmering war with extreme elements among the Palestinians, it is unclear whether their recent operations will have much long-term impact. In other words, these conflicts seem fated to continue indefinitely.

The operation may even backfire slightly. Recall that Osama bin Laden stopped using satellite phones after revelations of American tracking. The now-apparent risk from the simplest cellular technology likely means that Hezbollah’s fighters will be even less able to use modern technology, whether email, phones, texting, or otherwise. This will reduce Israel’s ability to use signals intelligence to determine their actions in the future, but will also reduce operational efficiencies for Hezbollah. Like everything in life, there are tradeoffs.

Our Country is Falling Behind

As an American who contributes taxes so that the CIA and Defense Department can consume a trillion dollars or more of our money every year, it is hard not to feel some envy at the imagination behind Israel’s operation, the incredible skill and secrecy required to pull it off, and the true “shock and awe” it delivered to Israel’s enemies.

Somehow Israel, a much smaller and less wealthy country than ours, infiltrated the beeper supply chain, introduced explosives, avoided third-party detection of these explosives, and selectively blew thousands of these devices up simultaneously. It is obvious how such a capability could achieve significant and strategic results in other circumstances—decapitation attacks of foreign regimes, for example—without the cost and uncertainty of a prolonged war.

The contrast between their intelligence services and our own is manifest. Our FBI is increasingly full of incompetent and partisan hacks. There is rarely a school shooting or presidential assassination attempt where the killer is unknown to the FBI. Yet these would-be assassins live freely among us and proceed with their plans unimpeded.

The very odd man who recently tried to take out Trump on his golf course—the second such attempt in as many months—was already known to the FBI. Calling this incompetence is on the charitable side of possibilities.

Similarly, the CIA has been caught unawares many times. It did not predict the collapse of the Soviet Union, failed to stop the 9/11 attacks, falsely claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and later used our tax dollars to arm ISIS because of mass defections from the so-called moderate rebels.

The CIA and the FBI, along with DHS and the Secret Service, all repeatedly and emphatically declare their commitment to diversity, but excellence and competence no longer seem important criteria to join their ranks. The Keystone Cops at work during Trump’s Keystone State speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, certainly did not convey the kind of competence and professionalism that the Secret Service once embodied.

Legal-Bureaucratic Molasses

Imagine for a moment how an operation like Israel’s recent beeper operation would be received in our national security circles. Immediately lawyers would weigh in, conjuring low-probability, worst-case scenarios the way lawyers do. Layer upon layer of bureaucracy would then join the process: the Justice Department, various law of war experts, and possibly some members of Congress. Before anything got done, the whole project would be shelved.

Many instances of this kind of bureaucratic sclerosis appeared during the War on Terror. Instead of providing broad guidance about proportionality and other humanitarian considerations, lawyers were apparently placed in tactical operations centers, acting like commissars, approving or vetoing a commander’s particular targeting decisions.

This kind of micromanagement was reminiscent of LBJ approving targets for aerial bombing during the Vietnam War. That practice, while not ideal, at least involved the commander-in-chief, who is ultimately accountable for the use of the military. By contrast, lawyers in the government do not have the kind of accountability elected politicians have, so they tend, by training and temperament, to err on the side of extreme caution, even though aggression and audacity are what is often required in military actions and spycraft.

The timid, plodding, and unimaginative spirit of the lawyer-bureaucrat has now infected the entire American defense and intelligence establishment. Nothing grand happens anymore. The America that churned out a Liberty Ship every week, conducted the Doolittle Raid, and undertook the Phoenix Program is no more.

Competitors on the Rise Are Moving Fast

Other nations—self-confident, cohesive, clever, and on the rise—are now able to do more than us. China has built a first-class navy in record time. Russia and Ukraine have each fielded thousands of drones, often inventing new ways to arm and employ them without much guidance or oversight from the top. And Israel has figured out how to infiltrate supply chains and turn ordinary consumer goods into weapons.

This is all very impressive and also very frightening. Anything that takes place overseas could be done here at home, either by a hostile foreign power or our own government. It is unlikely the recently unveiled Israeli mass sabotage technique will be kept in a bottle. It is simply too useful.

This should be a wake-up call that a lot needs to change in the entire national security sector. Excellence and innovation need to be prioritized. This means a streamlined hiring process, with less emphasis on everyone being a Boy Scout and more on simply being smart and loyal to the country.

Procurement must be simplified, open to more companies, and streamlined. Financial incentives need to be made for delivering things quickly and under budget, i.e., no more littoral combat ship boondoggles.

Decisionmakers need to learn from others. A few years ago, Israel used USB drives to plant a virus that wrecked some of Iran’s nuclear fuel centrifuges. Does the US have bugs in electronics being used around the world? Did it develop any after Israel’s successful use of a computer virus? I doubt it.

Our budgets go to things like generous pensions, an army of government contractors, and a workforce that “looks like America.” The tooth-to-tail ratio is completely lopsided in favor of overhead, self-enrichment, and maintaining the status quo.

In war, as in business, there are economies and diseconomies of scale. Our military and intelligence establishments, along with their budgets, are very large. For the same reason, these large institutions are very conservative, slow, lacking in self-criticism, and very expensive compared to “near-peer” adversaries. They are neither agile at innovation—such as the sort demonstrated by Israel’s operation against Hezbollah—nor particularly good at the volume production of basic goods like ammunition needed for a war of attrition.

If we do not change, our nation will be at the mercy of others. While scaling back our foreign policy will reduce some of the pressure on the defense and intelligence establishments, a large and wealthy country like ours will always have national security needs that require discrete and innovative offensive capabilities.

For what we pay, these should be nothing but the best.

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Christopher Roach is an adjunct fellow of the Center for American Greatness and an attorney in private practice based in Florida. He is a double graduate of the University of Chicago and has previously been published by The Federalist, Takimag, Chronicles, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Marine Corps Gazette, and the Orlando Sentinel. The views presented are solely his own.