The U.S. House of Representatives passed the current $1.15 trillion military spending bill, or the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
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Included as Section 224 of the NDAA is the United States-Israel FUTURES Act, or more fully, the United States-Israel Framework for Upgraded Technologies, Unified Research, and Enhanced Security (FUTURES) Act of 2026.
This Act promises to create what will amount to a bilateral flow of technology development. It benefits both countries, and the U.S. no less than Israel.
Two hundred Democrats voted against it; six for it.
Traditional joint or “J-forces” command, and later multi-domain operations, are not unrelated military coordination concepts, and moreover, what is NATO but a mixture of 32 different national militaries all sharing personnel, equipment, intelligence and resources? But based on the hysteria coming from the DNC, you would think the US-IL FUTURES proposal is some earth-shattering, radical program.
Not surprisingly, it has become a flashpoint for progressive Left critics who disingenuously claim that it dangerously intertwines both countries in ways that upset national security and sovereignty (open borders apparently did not). Some progressive public affairs hyperbole goes so far as to call it “the deadly merger.” Such claims appear motivated not only by partisan ideology, and from technical illiteracy, but from ethno religious ignorance and bias.
Beyond the carelessness of critics who do not appear to be reading and assessing the full contents of the proposal, and its strategic argument, something else is being entirely overlooked: the FUTURES Act holds out the possibility of fundamentally influencing U.S. culture concerning military service.
How so?
Readers likely have heard that in Israel, military service is obligatory. Its defense function rests on a unified commitment to national defense and national self-interest. As one writer put it, calling for even broader participation, “being drafted into the IDF and being Israeli are one and the same.”
Can a similar expression be made by Americans?
With few exceptions, the majority of qualified Israeli adults participate formally in some operational component of the IDF or reserves. That kind of behavior does not come from passivity, or from political speeches, media saturation or even education. It comes from active willing participation, thereby creating a tangible, shared experience, and reference, that binds the public together as loyal citizens of a protected country.
By comparison, how many Americans actively serve in the U.S. military?
Less than 1%.
So where is everyone else?
About 6% of the population are veterans. Those in active duty represent 0.04% or roughly 1.3 million. Those numbers have declined 37% since 1980, and 64% since 1968. This obviously accounts for Vietnam and earlier Middle East deployments, but at present, the burdens, and the benefits, of military membership are borne by a tiny minority.
Like Israel, Russia also has mandatory military service with high participation, and aggressive growth targets. And like Israel, the military is respected, and considered by most of the public as a source of trusted authority. Under the U.S. progressive left, the military is a source of contempt.
This underscores two major structural problems that currently undermine American society vis à vis its low military service levels.One involves the higher likelihood of increased U.S. military isolation in both psychological and social dimensions among those small numbers who actually serve, and the other involves a vastly larger U.S. population that has come to rely attitudinally, on “someone else” standing up for them, and fighting.
The entire basis of American constitutional order — participation and competence, as John Stuart Mill argued regarding an effective democracy — is fundamentally undermined by such small active service numbers.
Americans have become systematically removed from military culture, and nearly severed from the military nature of its origins. The founding, and revolution, made the country a military enterprise by definition. America was created by fighting. But as the country’s industrial economy, middle class, and wealth increased, its military has been winnowed down to a small, isolated, nearly unseen class removed from daily view. Unmanned drone warfare makes it more removed. Fighting used to define us; now it entertains us, or is used to divide the country politically.
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This undermines the already self-absorbed, self-obsessed and “selfie” culture of our youth. Added to it, is a U.S. population whose majority is physically out of shape, unacquainted with firearms and self-defense, and whose education system does not even come close to preparing them for military leadership, or for related technical knowledge and skill.
Indeed, nearly 60% of roughly three million students who matriculate in college as STEM majors, switch to non-STEM majors, and for those who remain, only 27% go on to work in STEM fields.
There are exceptions in our university sector that focus exclusively on science, engineering and technology, but they are few. Even the U.S. military academies themselves face critical curriculum reform, as the Secretary of War recently announced.
Ironically, lawmakers in Washington who criticize the FUTURES Act, are uncritical in their silent consent to an effective military alliance with China through our university system, but take issue with Israel, and turn it into political opportunism.
A disturbing level of U.S. defense-related science and technology is openly given away, and more than that, we are also training Chinese engineers and scientists in how to exploit it. And it doesn’t stop with China: India has finally come under scrutiny. Our universities generously extend open arms to numerous countries (and rake in premium tuition revenue) to come and take what science they like.
By comparison, the use of a formal legislative form of military science cooperation between the U.S. and Israel is obviously far more secure and accountable, than creating a de facto military alliance with China by using universities as effective joint military training centers, and as uncontrolled sources of technology transfer, and all without any reciprocity. What technology does China share with the U.S.? They steal ours, and covet theirs.
The FUTURES Act may seem to be strictly about advanced science and technology, but its greatest impact may be cultural: changing American attitudes toward military service, and with that, benefiting themselves with technical and fighting know-how, while creating ownership and protection of that know-how through their personal investment in it.
Moreover, it potentially supports the veracity of the Second Amendment: debating gun rights is one thing. Knowing how to competently shoot and defend quite another. Some readers may know that semiautomatic handguns have four “ready” conditions. Condition two is called the “Israel carry” because so many of its citizens know how to safely use semi automatic handguns from military training. Most Americans by contrast would shoot themselves in the foot, if they could even chamber a round.
While the two countries are very different in size and population, even doubling U.S. military enlistment from its current low level is mathematically significant based on population.
Of course, one is tempted to suggest that a U.S. mercenary army of 20 million illegals be created as “conquered invaders” and deportation be converted to foreign deployment.
Beyond that slightly cynical suggestion, is the possibility of a transformed American culture that recaptures the military code for its citizens, as a path toward unifying a dangerously divided country around a common cause. Based on the White House campaign against radical left terrorism, its first mission may be domestic.
Matthew G. Andersson is a former aerospace CEO and law and policy author. He has testified before the U.S. Senate on technology, and featured in the National Academies of Science. He attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University of Texas at Austin.
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