defense partnership efforts between the United States and Israel, dangerous United States military capability gaps continue to emerge that a more systematic and institutionalized United States-Israel early cooperative research and development program could have prevented. (8) Such a program would allow the United States to benefit from the innovation agility and sense of urgency of Israel, and Israel would benefit from the economy of scale of the United States. Such a program could be carefully designed to reduce the time and cost associated with research and development, assiduously avoiding anything that would slow down or constrain the research and development of either country. (9) Belatedly acquiring already produced equipment or weapons from Israel to fill a United States capability gap is not a substitute for a systematic program that prevents the capability gap from emerging in the first place. (10) On March 4, 2020, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said, We have a very good innovative base, [the Israelis] have a very good innovative base. And I think the more we can cooperate together as allies and partners to come up with common solutions, the better. . Secretary Esper continued, so I think if there are ways to improve that, we should pursue it. . 3. Sense of Congress It is the sense of Congress that— (1) the United States Government has a responsibility to undertake all reasonable measures to ensure that members of the Armed Forces never confront a more technologically advanced foe