Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system was almost never built

Some members of the IDF feared that missile defense would lead to a defensive mindset rather than waging war in front of the enemy. But the problem came down to finding those missiles and launchers before they were fired. Hamas and Hezbollah hid their weapons in tunnels and civilian areas, while hitting Iranian missiles was difficult because Iran is a thousand miles from Israel.

“A counterstrike campaign can be effective or swift, but rarely both,” warned Sidharth Kaushal, a RUSI researcher, and Brig. General Ran Kochav, former head of Israel’s air and missile defense system.

Israel’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense, or IAMD, is a layered system: Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 long-range interceptors to destroy ballistic missiles while they are in space before they descend through the atmosphere, interceptors with medium range David’s Sling to hit. short-range ballistic missiles and large artillery missiles and small Iron Dome missiles that intercept short-range missiles, shells and mortar rounds.

However, Israel’s military establishment – the Israel Defense Forces – refused to divert resources from traditional weapons such as tanks and attack aircraft to missile defense when the idea was conceived in the 1980s. “Critics have questioned the technical feasibility and costs of the system and whether it would deliver the promised strategic benefits,” wrote Kaushal and Kochav. Indeed, there was similar criticism in the US about whether President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense would work.

IDF commanders then had a recent victory based on their argument: Operation Mole Cricket 19 during the 1982 Lebanon War. Using drones and strike aircraft, the Israeli Air Force destroyed 29 Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries in two hours, without suffering losses. If the IAF could do this with anti-aircraft missiles, why not ballistic missile launchers?

But politicians like Yitzhak Rabin, a former Israeli chief of staff, persevered in the 1990s, with the help of generous US funding that eased the IDF’s resource concerns. An Israeli-built missile defense system also became more desirable after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein launched Scud ballistic missiles at Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf War: Israel had to rely on Patriot interceptor missiles with American crew stationed in Israel to stop them on the shield – hardly at all. of the 40 scuds were intercepted. Israel’s disillusionment with the Patriot was one of the factors that led them to develop their own air defenses.

Israeli missile defenses have also evolved as threats have changed. Initially, there was the Arrow missile system to intercept ballistic missiles. “The system achieved its first successful interception of a ballistic missile in 1990, marking a significant technical milestone,” RUSI noted. “Despite successful tests, the Arrow project continued to face challenges, including technical issues, budget overruns and delays.”

But then the rise of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon meant that Israel was threatened by short-range missiles and artillery that the high-altitude Arrow was not designed to intercept. By 2011, Israel had rolled out Iron Dome, which proved mostly – though not entirely – successful in identifying and intercepting rockets before they hit populated areas.

But some still insisted that the best defense was a good offense, meaning some sort of control of the terrain from which the missiles were fired, or destroying the opponent’s ability to fire them. “Critics have pointed out that while Iron Dome effectively mitigated the immediate threat of missile attacks, it did not address the root causes of the conflict, nor did it provide a long-term solution to the security challenges facing Israel,” Kaushal wrote and Kochav. “Finally, an argument that anti-aircraft and anti-missile defenses introduced a Maginot mentality within the force emerged persistently,” in a reference to the French defensive lines that Nazi armies bypassed at the start of the World War II.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, missile defense was often viewed as unachievable, a quixotic attempt to hit a bullet with another bullet. But technology has advanced to the point where missile defense is now seen as an indispensable capability. Israel’s missile defense system faced its most difficult test in April, when Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel. The IDF claimed that about 99% were intercepted. But Iran telegraphed that an attack was coming, so Israel had time to prepare. Forces from several nations, including the US, Britain and Jordan, also helped intercept the Iranian attack.

Dozens of nations operate the Patriot, S-300 and other air defense weapons capable of shooting down missiles, aircraft and large drones. In particular, Ukraine has built up extensive experience in intercepting Russian missiles, including hypersonic missiles that Russia has claimed are unstoppable.

Missile defense will always be difficult, not least because it is cheaper for an adversary to build more offensive missiles than for the defender to intercept them all. Integrated air and missile programs “are uniquely susceptible to delays and cost overruns given the inherent complexity of the challenges they face,” Kaushal and Kochav cautioned. This problem is compounded when missile defenses like Israel’s have to deal with multiple threats, including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones and artillery rockets.

Ultimately, the virtue of missile defense may be that it is the least bad alternative. “The problem with counterarguments about the cost of air defense, then, is not that they are categorically wrong, but rather that in many cases there is little alternative to a politically unsustainable doctrine of preemption, especially when when a country lacks strategic depth”. Kaushal and Kochav wrote.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master’s degree in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him further Twitter and LinkedIn.