For decades, the US-Israel relationship has been defined largely by what America provides Israel: military aid, diplomatic backing, and security guarantees. But that model is no longer enough for the world now taking shape.
As Washington redefines what it expects from its closest allies, Israel faces a strategic question of its own: What unique value can it bring to the United States in the next decade? The answer may determine not only the future of the alliance, but Israel’s place in the emerging technological order.
The new US National Security Science and Technology Strategy offers a clear clue. It states that the United States will increasingly use the scientific and technological capabilities of its allies as a “force multiplier” for national security. In other words, the alliances of the future will not be measured only by military commitments, but by the technologies trusted partners can build together.
This matters because the traditional alliance model is changing. The post World War II model was built primarily around US-provided defense: American military presence, security guarantees and assistance, and above all – American nuclear deterrence. That foundation remains vital. But Washington is also asking capable partners to carry more of their own security burden, while the technologies that determine economic strength, military advantage, and geopolitical influence increasingly sit outside the traditional defense relationship.
A 21st-century alliance therefore needs a second pillar: technology.
Israel is well positioned to be among the first US partners to institutionalize this new model.
The US-Israel relationship already demonstrates why partnership should be understood in terms of mutual value, not simply assistance. According to MIND Israel’s assessment, every dollar of American security assistance to Israel generates approximately four dollars in direct economic value for the United States.
The existing security relationship functions as an investment in a shared security and technological ecosystem, generating value on both sides. The next step is to apply the same logic to the technologies that will shape national power in the decades ahead.
This is the purpose of the US-Israel Tech Alliance proposed by MIND Israel and the Special Competitive Studies Project. Developed through a Track 1.5 process involving more than 50 experts from government, industry, and academia in both countries, the proposal sets out a practical framework for strategic technology cooperation across artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced energy, quantum, bioconvergence, and critical materials. Its core principle is complementarity.
The United States brings assets few countries can match: capital, frontier research, national laboratories, advanced computing infrastructure, industrial scale, procurement power, and global reach.
Israel contributes different strengths: speed, experimentation, and the ability to solve complex engineering problems under severe constraints. Its capabilities in AI efficiency and cybersecurity, semiconductor architecture, quantum systems, advanced materials, energy technologies, and critical-material processing can help address specific technological bottlenecks facing the US.
The point is not that either country should become technologically self-sufficient. The goal is a trusted ecosystem in which each partner contributes differentiated capabilities, creating greater resilience and strategic advantage together than either could achieve alone.
Private companies already cooperate extensively across the two economies. But private-sector cooperation by itself cannot build a strategic alliance. Governments must create the ground on which companies, investors, and researchers can build.
That means shared access to research infrastructure and national laboratories, pathways into federal programs and procurement, regulatory and standards coordination, strong intellectual-property protections, and financing mechanisms appropriate for deep technologies with long development cycles.
Public funding should serve as seed capital, not as a substitute for the market. Its purpose is to reduce risk, remove barriers, signal strategic demand, and unlock much larger flows of private capital. The government provides the infrastructure, incentives, and strategic direction. Industry and academia provide innovation, investment, and scale.
There is also a less tangible but equally important dividend. Alliances endure not only through agreements between governments, but through relationships between people. American and Israeli scientists conducting research together, companies building technologies together, business leaders creating new jobs in both countries and driving economic growth, and young engineers moving between laboratories and institutions create bonds that survive political cycles.
The US-Israel relationship has always been unusual. It has never fit neatly into a simple patron-client model. Its strength has come from shared interests, shared values, and the ability of both countries to contribute to one another.
The new American technology strategy creates an opportunity to translate that history into a model suited to this century.
A US-Israel Tech Alliance could become an early model for strategic partnerships centered on the capabilities trusted allies can develop together. That is not a retreat from the US-Israel alliance. It is how we strengthen it for the age ahead.