A relatively unknown U.S. arms depot in Israel has become a stockpile of democracy in recent months, as the Biden administration has transferred its artillery shells to Ukraine. Although the transfer serves Ukrainian interests, it also offers an opportunity for America to replenish the depot with updated weapons and transform it into a valuable hub for the U.S., Israel and other regional allies.
If the war in Ukraine has reminded us of one thing, it’s that building supply chains to deliver weapons to war zones takes time. It is far more effective to pre-position weapons in peacetime. We learned this lesson the hard way during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when by the time America replenished Israeli materiel, it had only limited tactical benefit for Israel’s war effort.
To address this incapacity, in 1984 the U.S. established the War Reserve Stockpile Ammunition-Israel, or WRSA-I, a forward-deployed arms depot that could serve as a readily accessible reserve for American forces in case of regional conflict. The station was also meant to function as an insurance policy for Israel, allowing it quick access to weapons and ensuring what’s known in U.S. law as its “qualitative military edge” over adversaries.
The arrangement worked as designed for several decades. Israel covers the facility’s maintenance costs and has used the stockpile at least twice—during its 2006 conflict with Lebanon, and again in 2014 during its war with Gaza. The U.S. benefited from this, too, in helping a critical ally defend itself against Iran-backed terror organizations.
Yet in recent years WRSA-I has stopped serving its strategic purpose of contributing to Israel’s military superiority. Israeli forces use some of the most sophisticated weapons in the world—including F-35s carrying precision-guided munitions, or PGMs, drones, missile interceptors and lasers. The existing WRSA-I stockpile, however, has become obsolete, housing only shells and other “dumb”—or unguided—munitions that are now of little use to Israel’s advanced forces. Senior Israeli military officials have told us repeatedly that the depot hasn’t been upgraded since before the Obama administration.
That’s not to say that the WRSA-I is entirely useless. Some of its weapons—such as the 155-mm artillery shells—are helpful for Ukrainian forces fighting Russia. In transferring these munitions…
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