Israel Cannot Survive as Sparta Alone
In East Camden, Arkansas, a factory opened last November that should interest anyone thinking about Israel’s future. It builds Tamir interceptors for Iron Dome. Days after the ribbon was cut, the Raytheon-Rafael joint venture that runs it won a $1.25 billion contract to supply Israel with those interceptors. The plant cost $33 million to build and will also produce SkyHunter, the US Marine Corps version of the same missile.
Think about what that arrangement does. Israeli technology, American jobs, one production line serving both militaries. An Arkansas governor now has a direct interest in Iron Dome’s supply chain. That is a different kind of security guarantee from a speech at the United Nations.
Last September the prime minister told a Finance Ministry conference that Israel might have to become a “super-Sparta” with an economy of “autarkic characteristics.” Business leaders answered that Israel is not a manufacturing country and was never built to stand alone. Both sides had a point. Israel does need more of its own production. But Sparta won no allies and left nothing that outlived it. The real question is how Israel combines self-reliance with partnerships that survive a change of government in London, Berlin or Washington.
The money is there. Governments across Europe and the Gulf are spending on defense at levels not seen since the Cold War. The catch is the conditions attached. Brussels has created a €150 billion loan fund for common procurement, and components from outside the EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Ukraine may not exceed 35% of a product’s cost. Other countries can join only after signing a security and defense partnership with the EU. Canada and Britain have one, but Israel is not on the list.
Riyadh reports that local firms already localized 27.3% of military spending and wants that above half by 2030. Washington’s new arms transfer strategy directs foreign purchases toward expanding American production. Nobody is rejecting Israeli technology. They are asking what Israel will build, maintain and employ inside their borders in return for access.
Britain is a case on its own. London suspended around 30 arms export licenses to Israel in 2024 and has tightened licensing since, while moving closer to the EU’s defense-industrial framework. From a Londoner’s perspective, that looks less like hostility than like a government responding to domestic politics and European incentives at the same time. An Israeli production line in the Midlands would change that calculation in a way no embassy briefing can.
Israel’s own numbers show both the strength and the gap. Defense exports reached a record $19.2 billion in 2025, with Europe buying 36% and government-to-government deals passing $10 billion. Demand is not the problem. The problem is what those sales leave behind. A sale puts money in Israeli accounts for a year. A factory, a maintenance depot or a training centre puts a foreign constituency on Israel’s side for a generation.
There is a larger strategic opportunity here. Defense production is no longer simply about who makes the best technology or wins the next contract. It is about who becomes part of whose security architecture. When countries jointly develop, manufacture and maintain military systems, they create dependencies that go beyond procurement. Their engineers work together, their armed forces rely on common supply chains, and their governments acquire a shared interest in keeping those relationships alive. For Israel, that offers something potentially more valuable than another record year of exports: a way to make itself harder for its partners to isolate.
Ukraine pursued this strategy under fire. While the country now produces millions of drones a year at home, Kyiv understands that production is only part of the equation.Under its Build with Ukraine program, Ukrainian companies are opening joint production in Denmark, with Danish investment and Ukrainian designs. The significance goes beyond additional production capacity. Ukraine is bringing its defense industry into the industrial networks of NATO members, giving European governments, companies and militaries a direct stake in its success. Ukraine may not be a NATO member, but through these partnerships it is becoming increasingly embedded in the alliance’s defense-industrial architecture.
Israel should draw the same lesson. Its technological advantage offers capabilities allied militaries urgently need. AI is already spreading across the IDF and defense industry, while Rafael is investing into building quantum sensors that could allow navigation without GPS. Rather than simply exporting these technologies, Israel should use them to build joint programs, shared production lines and systems integrated into allied militaries. Their strategic value lies not only in technological superiority, but in making Israel indispensable to its partners’ defense capabilities.
None of this replaces diplomacy. Joint production will not eliminate political disagreements or prevent every arms embargo. But it changes the interests at stake. A government considering restrictions on Israel would also have to consider the consequences for its own defense industry, military readiness and joint programs. That does not make cooperation irreversible. It makes disengagement more complicated and potentially costlier.
Sparta was feared and then forgotten. Athens left the ideas the world still uses. Israel has once again shown that it can fight alone when it must. The test for the next government is whether it can turn its technological strength into lasting strategic partnerships, making Israel not merely a supplier of weapons to its allies, but an integral part of how they defend themselves.