Visiting Israel during the recent Iranian attacks, several times I saw Israeli interceptors hurtling single-mindedly through the night sky over Tel Aviv towards an unseen Iranian ballistic missile. I’d been in active warzones before, but even so, in my experience it is a uniquely reassuring sight.
The IDF Air Defence Command shot down around 86 per cent of some 500 missiles Iran fired during the twelve day war, and stopped 99 per cent of over 1,000 drones. If drones are the future of warfare, they were a busted flush in this conflict, when faced with the most sophisticated air defence system in the world. That system is made up of a wide range of expensive and precisely directed and coordinated interceptors including Arrow, David’s Sling, Barak and Iron Dome, supplemented by US Thaad launchers and SM interceptors fired by US warships near Israel.
Ever since Saddam Hussein fired 42 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, Jerusalem has been working assiduously to defend its people against all forms of air attack. Thirty four years of research and development and tactical and technical innovation accompanied by heavy financial investment has more than paid off in the face of missile and drone attacks from Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Israel’s strategy is not just to meet threats from the air but to overmatch them, and the IDF continues to work flat out to maintain its qualitative edge as its enemies learn from their own failures.
Visiting Israel during the recent Iranian attacks, several times I saw Israeli interceptors hurtling single-mindedly through the night sky over Tel Aviv towards an unseen Iranian ballistic missile. I’d been in active warzones before, but even so, in my experience it is a uniquely reassuring sight.
The IDF Air Defence Command shot down around 86 per cent of some 500 missiles Iran fired during the twelve day war, and stopped 99 per cent of over 1,000 drones. If drones are the future of warfare, they were a busted flush in this conflict, when faced with the most sophisticated air defence system in the world. That system is made up of a wide range of expensive and precisely directed and coordinated interceptors including Arrow, David’s Sling, Barak and Iron Dome, supplemented by US Thaad launchers and SM interceptors fired by US warships near Israel.
Ever since Saddam Hussein fired 42 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, Jerusalem has been working assiduously to defend its people against all forms of air attack. Thirty four years of research and development and tactical and technical innovation accompanied by heavy financial investment has more than paid off in the face of missile and drone attacks from Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Israel’s strategy is not just to meet threats from the air but to overmatch them, and the IDF continues to work flat out to maintain its qualitative edge as its enemies learn from their own failures.