Monday, October 13, 2008

Radar, Miluim and GDP

Where I work, our most valuable asset is our engineers, and many of them serve in "miluim," or military reserve duty.

Their talent is the source of our company's success and economic value. If an engineer in hurt in miluim, we lose--not only irreplaceable, invaluable human value--we lose economic value as well.

Yet GDP (Gross Domestic Product) does not capture this loss in value. The GDP measures goods. And believe it or not, in GDP terms, war, weapon sales and even military injuries are a win/win for a country's GDP. Goods are built, sold, maintained, and consumed. Even injured people consume more medical services, pills, prosthetics and bandages! So on the whole, military activity is good for GDP.

So it was good news for the US GDP when an ultra-high-resolution radar was recently deployed in Israel. Israel requested the system, that can track a fast-moving missile in high-resolution, as part of an overall upgrade in the face of the latest threats from Gaza, Syria and Iran. This X-band radar can detect a baseball batted from Iran.

This is good news, because:
  • The system will feed alarms to our Arrow anti-missile batteries.
  • The US is also providing a data feed from their satellite alert system, through the US Joint Tactical Ground Station in Europe.
  • This gives Israel a few more minutes to scramble (an Iranian Shehab-3 ballistic missile would take about 11 minutes to arrive overall).

This is bad news, because:
  • The facility is closed to Israeli military, to be run only by its American 120-man crew--a first for any advanced U.S. weapon deployment to Israel, and a bad precedent.
  • US personnel now see, in high-resolution and without Israeli military oversight, all Israeli air force and army maneuvers, as they happen, in unprecedented detail. Who do they report to?
  • Does this loan mean the US is to deny our other request for C-RAM (counter-rocket, artillery and mortar) systems, that detect Qassams and other close, small incoming rockets?
  • Is this one step of a two-step dance: Israel gets better radar, so the US gets to talk to Iran, now, without Israeli objections?

Both Obama and McCain are pledged to continue this policy of advanced arms deployments in Israel. But which candidate is thinking of the big picture? Which candidate sees that we need to implement new, more valid measures of economic success, ones that show the true costs of war, weaponry and environmental damages?

I am grateful to America for this show of support. As with any gift, it's the thought that counts. And I continue to hope for new thinking and new economic indicators that show the weapons trade for what it is: a deadly game with very few winners.

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