Oppose Section 224 of the NDAA: Reject U.S.-Foreign Military Integration

Buried in the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act is Section 224 (renumbered Section 219 in the House version), the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” This provision would require the secretary of defense to designate an executive agent tasked with synchronizing U.S. and Israeli military efforts across research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation.

The section directs the Pentagon to expand cooperation in critical areas including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, autonomous systems, missile and air defense, cybersecurity, electronic warfare, biotechnology, network integration, and data fusion. Additionally, it instructs the Department of Defense to identify “jointly developed or Israeli-origin technologies” for integration into U.S. systems.

This unprecedented step toward fusing the two militaries’ technology bases, supply chains, and data systems is not ordinary alliance cooperation. Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, warned that the measure would give Israel unprecedented access to U.S. technology, stating:

We cannot outsource components of our national security to nations that do not share our interests and that is exactly what this proposed scheme would do. By embedding Israel in the production of critical defense technologies, we are creating access and control mechanisms for a nation that has drastically different goals than America does.

The United States provides Israel with substantial military aid. Section 224 moves far beyond that. It creates a permanent institutional pathway for foreign access to sensitive U.S. defense technologies and operational data, reduces congressional oversight, and would embed foreign influence deep inside the Pentagon’s industrial and intelligence architecture.

U.S. national security must remain under exclusive American control. No foreign government should be granted systematic access to our most sensitive military technologies, production capabilities, or data systems.

Urge your U.S. representative and senators to demand that Section 224 (Section 219) be fully stripped from the final National Defense Authorization Act.