Does Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge Give the United States a Qualitative Disadvantage?
On November 17, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that he would approve the sale to Saudi Arabia of the most advanced US manned strike fighter aircraft, the F-35. The news came one day before the visit to the White House of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has sought to purchase 48 such aircraft in a multibillion-dollar deal that has the potential to shift the military status quo in the Middle East. Currently, Israel is the only other state in the region to possess the F-35.
During the White House meeting, Trump suggested that Saudi Arabia’s F-35s should be equipped with the same technology as those procured by Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly sought assurances from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who sought to walk back Trump’s comment and reiterated a “commitment that the United States will continue to preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge in everything related to supplying weapons and military systems to countries in the Middle East.”
The Trump administration’s approach to the military balance in the Middle East is not determined solely by politics, but also by the requirement in US law to maintain Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME). The policy was originally conceived almost 45 years ago as a way to ensure Middle East stability by guaranteeing Israel’s military superiority over regional rivals. But the QME requirement has created perverse incentives that have the potential to sustain destabilizing military action by Israel, to fuel arms races, and ultimately to undermine US strategic interests in the Middle East.
The Origins of the QME Policy
A formal US commitment to safeguarding Israel’s QME began to take shape in the 1970s. It was first articulated as US policy under the Reagan administration in 1981, when then-secretary of state Alexander Haig testified to Congress that a “central aspect of US policy since the October 1973 war has been to ensure that Israel maintains a qualitative military edge.” The first challenge to Israel’s QME came the same year, when the Reagan administration proposed to deliver the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), a military radar and command and control system, to Saudi Arabia as part of what was at the time the largest foreign arms deal in US history. After considerable opposition from US lawmakers sympathetic to Israel as well as from the Israeli government, President Ronald Reagan reaffirmed to Congress that he remained “fully committed to protecting Israel’s security and to preserving Israel’s ability to defend against any combination of potentially hostile forces in the region.”
It was not until 2008 that Israel’s QME acquired a formal definition in US law. The Naval Vessels Transfer Act of 2008 defined QME as:
The ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties, through the use of superior military means, possessed in sufficient quantity, including weapons, command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that in their technical characteristics are superior in capability to those of such other individual or possible coalition of states or non-state actors.
The Naval Vessels Transfer Act also required the US government to conduct a quadrennial assessment of Israel’s qualitative edge and amended the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA) to require that any major US arms transfer to other Middle Eastern states should not adversely affect Israel’s QME. Amendments in 2014 added a requirement: for such transfers, the administration should also certify “Israel’s capacity to address the improved capabilities provided by such sale or export.” According to the original definition, maintaining the qualitative edge necessitates that Israel remains able to defeat credible conventional military threats from states and non-state actors.
QME in Practice
Since 2008, the Department of State has been responsible for ensuring that proposed arms transfers to the Middle East comply with the legal requirements to maintain Israel’s QME during the arms transfer review process. The Department defines the region as those countries that fall under the purview of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), which covers the area from Morocco to Iran. In practice, because Iran has been ineligible for US arms transfers since the 1979 Revolution, this legislation applies only to the Arab world.
The executive branch notification to Congress of a proposed major arms transfer to the region must include a classified QME analysis as part of the official documentation. The analytical process and the means by which it is considered in the policy process is also classified, but has been described as involving “input from the State Department, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the Joint Staff, the defense intelligence community, the combatant commands, and the services. At the annual Department of Defense Joint Political Military Group meeting, the Israelis typically make a presentation that includes a list of systems they deem threatening to their QME.”
In practice, this legislation applies only to the Arab world.
When considering proposed arms sales to the region that may challenge Israel’s QME, the US government can consider three options:
The first option is to provide Israel with additional military capabilities to remain ahead. For example, when the Obama administration proposed to sell F-16 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2013, it simultaneously proposed to provide Israel with advanced radars capable of identifying incoming F-16s at long range. But balancing arms transfers by bolstering Israel’s purely defensive capabilities is difficult, as the distinction between defensive and offensive systems often depends on context and intent. If Israel’s newly acquired capabilities prompt other regional states to upgrade their systems, the QME rule can help to fuel an arms race across the Middle East. Section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), which pre-dates the codification of QME, requires each proposal to analyze its potential for contributing to an arms race. The opening paragraph of the AECA specifically states that “it remains the policy of the United States to… discourage arms races.” If QME-related arms sales create the potential to trigger arms races, they may be in direct violation of US law.
A second option is to place limitations on a sale. These limitations may be quantitative (such as a limit on the numbers of an article transferred to an Arab state), geographical (based on factors such as on the proximity to Israel of the article and the recipient country), or technological (to ensure that Israel is supplied with more advanced versions of the capabilities in question).
The third option—denying the proposed sale to preserve Israel’s qualitative edge—can be disadvantageous from Washington’s perspective. The US arms export lobby often argues that it is preferable for Washington to supply weapons—while monitoring or constraining their use—rather than allowing states with poor human rights records to turn to America’s competitors. But the legal requirement to maintain Israel’s QME means that denying sales to Arab states is sometimes the only option. In such situations, Arab governments may turn to third countries to obtain the defense capabilities that they consider necessary to respond to security concerns focused on US adversaries such as Iran. From Washington’s perspective, preserving Israel’s QME may produce perverse incentives for partners in the Middle East to shift their defense supply chains to countries such as China or Russia that are not bound by this limitation.
Regional Implications
The legal requirement to uphold Israel’s QME places limitations on US arms transfers to all Arab countries, constraining both the sophistication of the technology and the quantity to be supplied. The QME standard applies to all US defense articles destined for the region—including fully deployable ‘end items’ like aircraft or tanks as well as subcomponents incorporated into systems produced by third countries for Middle Eastern clients. When US-made defense systems surpass the capabilities of what foreign competitors can provide, the US government can, in effect, dictate the ceiling for what technology levels and quantities Arab states are permitted to receive.
The superiority of US military technology therefore grants the United States considerable leverage over Arab states. But if the United States loses its edge in military technology—or if US-origin items are gradually designed-out of partner weapons systems—that leverage may decrease. US limits on arms transfers might then create incentives for Arab states to turn to alternative suppliers (such as China or France) for certain high-end military systems.
Israel’s QME is unlikely to be a permanent fixture of the Middle East’s military balance.
A broader concern is the implication of the QME for Israel’s foreign and security policy. Because Israel remains assured that the United States will help it retain military superiority over the entire region, Tel Aviv may feel able to rely on such superiority rather than engaging in diplomacy. But Israel’s recurrent reliance on military force in regional political conflicts arguably contributes to instability across the Middle East as a whole. In this respect, the QME doctrine inadvertently can feed into the regional dynamics of instability, driving precisely the threats to Israel that it is meant to mitigate.
Does QME Have a Future?
The improved outlook for regional security promised by the Abraham Accords may eventually weaken the perceived need for the United States to guarantee Israel’s qualitative military edge. Does Israel really need a QME over countries with which it enjoys cordial diplomatic and trade relations? Perhaps surprisingly, Israeli officials have themselves made this argument, for example stating in the context of the 2020 proposed F-35 sale to the UAE that “[w]e believe that the UAE is an ally in confronting Iran, and we do not believe that this arms package will violate the US commitment.” Such public avowals, however, do not overcome the underlying statutory requirement. In this author’s experience while serving in the US government, advocates for maintaining Israel’s QME—such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)— opposed such sales behind closed doors.
Proposals to expand the QME definition to include Turkey as a state over which Israel must maintain a qualitative military edge could lead to additional complications by prioritizing Israel’s defense over that of a NATO member. The concept of US responsibility for another country’s QME also creates a troubling precedent that, in recent years, some US analysts have sought to advance in other contexts, such as with regard to Greece (versus Turkey) and India (versus China). Taken out of the Israel context, expanding the QME will likely risk fueling further arms races.
Military analysts have argued that the world is on the brink of a new revolution in military affairs, one characterized by the proliferation of low-cost weapons systems capable of overcoming high-tech capabilities. If correct, this analysis suggests that Israel’s QME is unlikely to be a permanent fixture of the Middle East’s military balance. In future, US and Israeli policymakers would be wise to explore alternatives to Israeli military hegemony and the inherent fragility that it brings to the region. Diplomacy and compromise—including the need for real progress on Palestinian self-determination—promises the only real exit from the isolation that the QME has allowed Israel to impose on itself. If Israel is to step back from using military force as a first resort, it must first realize that its current military advantage is ephemeral. Diplomacy represents the only viable alternative to the current trajectory of instability and arms races.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.