Arms Transfers to Israel The Strategic Logic Behind American Military Assistance
David Rodman
David Rodman is
the author of Defense and Diplomacy in Israel’s
National Security Experience: Tactics, Partnerships, and
Motives (Sussex Academic Press, 2005). He has also
published articles on the Arab–Israeli conflict in various
professional journals, including Middle Eastern Studies,
The Journal of Strategic Studies, MERIA Journal, Israel
Affairs, Defence Studies, and Air & Space Power Chronicles.
This book dispels two
common myths about the American–Israeli patron–client
relationship – that arms transfers to Israel have been motivated
by American
domestic politics rather than national interests and that these
arms transfers have come without any political strings attached
to them.
The first part of the book describes and analyzes the institutionalization
of the American–Israeli arms pipeline during the Johnson administration,
demonstrating conclusively in the process that arms transfers to
the Jewish state were based primarily on American national interests.
The second part of the book consists of four case studies that clearly
reveal that American arms transfers to Israel, whether in wartime
or in peacetime, have always come with a diplomatic price tag attached
to them.
The book is based largely on American government documents from the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, from the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, and from the United States National Archives.
