“Long live the democratic arsenal,” says former Israeli general Yaakov Amidror

“We will become Athens and surpass Sparta; we have no choice,” said Benjamin Netanyahu last autumn. It sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy, seen in a new light following the announcement that the Trump Administration had shelved military escalation against Iran for fear that the Pentagon’s already depleted stocks of Patriot interceptors might run out (Trump denies this and says that “we have more ammunition than anyone else”).  Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal cited a report from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies: it is estimated that 1,500 Patriot interceptors have been deployed since the start of the war with Iran and that 1,000 remain. An analysis by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, a think tank with links to British intelligence, explains that Israel too is said to have used up 122 of its 150 Arrow missiles, as well as 22 of its 48 THAAD missiles. Each Arrow costs two million dollars and takes months to manufacture, whilst a THAAD costs twelve million. This is also a problem for Europe: the Old Continent’s only air defences are made in Israel. Germany has relied on the Arrow, whilst Greece has just purchased a system from Israel worth five billion. Yaakov Amidror, a former Israeli general and head of the National Security Council under the Netanyahu government – now at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies – denies that Israel is running short of interceptors. “They’re like money and women: the more you have, the better, but we’re not short of them for another round against the Iranians,” Amidror tells “Il Foglio”.

“There are enough interceptors in Israel,” Amidror tells us. “Perhaps we will need to be more tactical and, in some cases, instead of launching two, we will launch one, or instead of using a certain type, we will use another.” Eran Ortal, former commander of the Israeli Army’s Dado Centre and head of the Military Studies programme at Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Centre, explains that part of the current crisis stems from the decline in Western industrial capacity. “Over the last fifty years, the West has exported much of its manufacturing capacity to the East and is only now waking up to this. The West did not take sufficient account of the possibility that, even though it entered a war with a technological advantage and sophisticated interceptors, the situation would become dire once the war dragged on.”

Netanyahu invoked Sparta to justify military self-sufficiency. Since 7 October, Israel has begun expanding its military production lines. “If anything, the crisis concerns how much of its budget Israel will have to allocate to defence needs,” says Amidror. “Before the war, five per cent of the budget went to defence, and that figure will rise to six per cent.” The former general does not believe that Tehran has more missiles than is estimated. “The number of missiles and launchers they have today is at least between a third and half of what they had at the start of the war. And we have lost none of our ability to continue destroying them in the next round, should it come to that.” Amidror does not know how the war might resume. “It’s between the Americans and the Iranians. What I know for certain is that the Iranians have not found a solution to American superiority. They have failed to prevent the Americans from destroying even a single target that the Americans had decided to destroy. What they have done is try to blackmail the Americans by attacking their allies throughout the Middle East. But there’s one they didn’t attack, and do you know who that is? Israel. And do you know why? Because they realised that if they’d drawn Israel into the war, they’d have ended up with twice as many targets destroyed as those destroyed by the Americans on their own. So they decided not to take the risk of dragging us into the war. And they realised why.”

The debate over interceptors, Amidror admits, conceals a certain stance that could prove dangerous. “The first time the Iron Dome managed to intercept a missile, someone in Israel wrote that it was a bad success, because it would lead Israel to adopt a more defensive stance in the war rather than being more offensive. And there is some truth in that. But it’s like in football. Ultimately, you win if you’re strong in attack. But you can’t play without the defensive side of the team, because the other side is constantly trying to attack you. So it’s exactly like that: if your team is purely defensive, you won’t win. But if you don’t have a strong defence, you could lose.”

Athens must be protected. “Anyone who thinks that all the money should go towards culture, the good life and so on is mistaken. We need to put more money into defence. If you want democracy, you must be prepared to protect it.”