America Handcuffed: How the New NDAA Would Merge US and Israeli Defense
Congress added Section 224 in the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. Here's why it's fundamentally different from decades of traditional military aid.
Frank Figliuzzi hosts The Frank Figliuzzi Show on Lincoln Square. He is an FBI Assistant Director (retired); 25-year veteran Special Agent; and author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way, and Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Subscribe to his Substack.
There’s a spot on the horizon that merits our attention before it vanishes into classified obscurity. And deep within last Tuesday’s release of their 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the House of Representatives included an innocuous sounding section labeled, “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” Section 224.
Since Israel was founded in 1948, it has received over $200 billion inflation-adjusted dollars in military aid from the United States. If you think that represents the pinnacle of historical global defense partnerships, you haven’t seen Section 224. The draft NDAA isn’t about increasing the amount of money we spend on Israel’s military. It’s about increasing Israel’s influence over, and integration into, the U.S. military industrial complex to an unprecedented level beyond that of any other partner nation.
Section 224 as currently drafted would fully integrate another country into America’s most sensitive research and development, weapons production, defense licensing agreements, and potentially every key facet of Israeli and American military industries. If not reconsidered and redrafted, the two nation’s defenses and related economic complexes could be so wedded, indistinguishable and mutually dependent, as to preclude separation or divorce when this ill-advised marriage inevitably falters.
For national security professionals, concerned citizens, and lawmakers, it’s time to speak now or forever hold our peace.
I write this column as an advocate of Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself, and, as someone who understands America’s interest in coming to Israel’s aid when it’s attacked. Yet, my concerns about Section 224 are also informed by 25 years of national security experience and my former role as head of counterintelligence at the FBI. It was my job to protect our nation’s future by protecting its most valued secrets and preserving our capacity to share what we wanted, when we wanted, and with whom.
Section 224 seems to undermine that essential independence. That’s my first reason for concern over this NDAA.