On October 1, Iran launched around 180 missiles, of various types, against Israel. Israel promised a response that “will be lethal, precise and above all, surprising.” On October 23, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said that “after we attack Iran, everyone will understand [the Israeli military’s] might.” The U.S. has promised ironclad support for Israel against a retaliation that Iran has vowed “will be stronger than the previous one.” The Biden administration is faced with policy decisions that risk the war in Gaza and Lebanon becoming a still wider war.
In an attempt to limit the strikes and retaliatory strikes and contain the war, the U.S. promised Israel a “compensation package” of comprehensive diplomatic and weapons protection if they restrain from striking targets, like oil or nuclear facilities, that the U.S. deems too provocatively escalatory. That defensive package may have been very attractive to Israel, who replied to the American offer with the promise not to strike those targets.
It may have been especially attractive because, despite the video on T.V. of Iranian missiles being intercepted and the U.S. assurance that “Israel was able to defend itself against the Iranian attack successfully” and that “the attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective,” the actual assessment may be more complicated.
After the October 1 attack, The New York Times reported that Israel’s air defense systems “have found it more challenging” to defend against slow moving drones. The Israeli press reports that “[m]ore and more drones are getting through Israeli defense systems.” On October 19, a drone struck Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s holiday residence.
But the vulnerability of Israel’s air defense system to drones is not the real problem. Theodore Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told me that Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system actually has a high intercept rate against drones. The problem is in the number of drones and their ability to overwhelm the systems.
Drones, Postol explained, are very inexpensive: way more inexpensive than Israel’s very expensive interceptors. They’re very slow and relatively easy to hone in against and hit. But there are swarms of them and only a limited number of Iron Dome interceptors. The drones can overwhelm the air defense systems.
In order to conserve interceptors, Iron Dome is designed only to attempt to intercept artillery rockets that it calculates could land in areas that are designated to be worth defending. That is why you hear so much about missiles getting through that just land in fields: they were allowed to get through. But Iron Dome cannot afford to ignore drones. Drones carry small warheads that can damage their targets and, so, have to be shot down. Because there are so many of them, and because they have to be shot down, they can exhaust the air defense system, leaving it short of interceptors to shoot down the more dangerous ballistic and cruise missiles.
And that points to a more serious problem. Iran’s cruise missiles are precision guided. Postol explains that they are actually more precise than GPS guidance. They use GPS to approach a target, and then switch to cameras to line up what they see to satellite imagery of their target: a technology called optical honing. But Israel’s Iron Dome is actually very effective at intercepting cruise missiles. The danger is that, if Iron Dome has to hit the drones, and there are more drones than interceptors, the air defense system can be overwhelmed, leaving it vulnerable to the high precision cruise missile.
Potentially even more dangerous, Postol says, is that Iron Dome has a low percentage of hits on ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles are not as accurate as cruise missiles, but they are better at evading air defenses. That is why, as The Washington Post reported, despite the claims that “[m]ost of the missiles fired by Iran were intercepted” except for “a few hits,” “[a]t least two dozen long-range Iranian ballistic missiles broke through Israeli and allied air defenses on Tuesday night, striking or landing near at least three military and intelligence installations, according to a review of videos and photos of the attack.”
The Washington Post has verified that 20 ballistic missiles directly struck Israel’s Nevatim air base and three struck the Tel Nof base. Two more landed near the Mossad headquarters. Postol shared video evidence with Antiwar.com of a direct his on a shelter on the Nevatim air base.
Part of the United States’ comprehensive defense package is the delivery of an advanced missile defense system called a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, which is intended to help Israel defend against those ballistic missiles. That THAAD system has now arrived in Israel.
The provocative part from Iran’s perspective, and the part that could risk a wider war, is that the 100 U.S. troops who will be operating it have also arrived in Israel. From Iran’s perspective, that means that U.S. troops could be on the ground in Israel shooting down Iranian missiles. That means both that the U.S. could be seen as a co-belligerent and that U.S. troops could be killed by Iranian missiles. That could potentially put U.S. assets in the region at risk and lead to a wider war.
The high stakes question here is not a question of Israel’s right to defend itself nor of the United States’ right to support its partner. It is a question of weighing the risk of a wider and very dangerous war. It is a question of whether the benefits of the THAAD system outweigh the risks of escalation. And, though sending the THAAD sends a strong message, it may not, according to Postol, be the game changer it is promoted as being. Postol says that a single THAAD can shoot down perhaps forty to fifty ballistic missiles. But Iran, he says, can fire hundreds. And that raises the question of whether the benefit of the utility of a THAAD outweighs the risk of sending it.
As the world awaits Israel’s inevitable retaliatory attack on Iran, and Iran’s promised retaliatory strike on Israel, the Biden administration faces tough policy decisions on calibrating its involvement. One of the most important is whether a THAAD for Israel is game changer enough to risk a wider – and perhaps American – war with Iran.
Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.
