WASHINGTON, March 16 (UPI) -- Writing in the respected Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz on March 5, analyst Yossi Melman noted that in July 2007, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak questioned Shmuel Kern, director of the research and development department of the Israeli Defense Ministry, as to exploring the possibility of buying Raytheon's Vulcan Phalanx super machine gun from the United States as an anti-ballistic missile weapon against very-short-range rockets, such as the Qassams fired from Gaza.
In the words of the Israeli state comptroller's report this year, the defense minister asked Kern to find out "whether we could have a parallel effort (to the development of the Iron Dome) to get an operational system within a year and a half that could partially intercept steep-trajectory rockets with an emphasis on strategic installations."
However, Melman wrote that the Defense Ministry's research and development department, Mafat, merely played for time, claiming that it did not have enough data to assess the Phalanx. Even so, the state comptroller's report continued, Barak decided that the Vulcan Phalanx was "the only system that is ready and could (protect) specific sites."
"But the officials and the senior officers ignored Barak," Melman wrote. "Despite his decision, and the incessant firing of rockets on Gaza border communities, and in spite of the fact that this system is used by the U.S. Army, Mafat, Defense Ministry Director General Pinhas Buchris and Israel air force officers continued behaving as if they had all the time in the world. They checked, met with U.S. officials and formed committees."
The Bush administration and the Pentagon, which by then was headed by its current chief, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, were happy to cooperate with the Israelis. The Americans were convinced from their own highly successful experience using the Phalanx in Iraq that the weapon could do the job of defending the Israeli towns targeted by the Qassams.
"In April 2008, the Americans said they would provide Israel with the Vulcan Phalanx but said Israel had to write a request letter," Melman wrote. However, "the Defense Ministry did not send the letter. Three months later, it sent a letter asking 'to receive additional information' instead."
Israel's State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, in his annual report to the nation this year, documented a dispiriting picture of small-minded bureaucrats minding their own turf when the weapons system to protect their suffering fellow-Israeli citizens was easily available from the United States, Melman concluded.
"The bottom line is that the tail is wagging the dog. Defense Ministry officials -- Director General Pinhas Buchris, Kern and senior (Israel Defense Forces) officials, especially in the IAF -- do almost whatever they please. They don't bring plans for government approval. If they want, they ignore the ministers' instructions, procrastinate, allocate budgets without approval and approve work plans for developing billion-shekel defense systems," he wrote.
The "not invented here" syndrome is a common affliction of virtually all major military establishments, especially when they have domestic military industries working hand in glove with them. It is, in fact, surprising how often the fate of nations has been saved over the past century by their willingness to buy "off the shelf" weapons or crucial military technology from other countries.
The legendary British Supermarine Spitfire air superiority fighter of World War II flew with Swiss instrumentation and American Browning machine guns. Japan's great Zero fighter owed its basic design to a brilliant British aircraft designer, just as the T-34 tank of the Red Army, the outstanding combat tank of World War II, used an American design that the U.S. Army had rejected.
Ironically, Israel has developed a brilliant reputation over the past half-century for improving and upgrading weapons systems it either bought from other countries or, in the case of the United States, that it co-produced with them.
But the passion of Israel's military bureaucrats for their own "Iron Dome" very-short-range ballistic defense system prevented any such fruitful collaboration on the Phalanx.
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(Next: Why the Phalanx could defend Israeli towns better than Iron Dome)
