Israel's Missile Defense Gap
By Avi Davis
Last week, the number of rocket propelled attacks on Israel initiated from Gaza and falling on Israeli territory passed the 10,000 mark. Someone, somewhere is obviously keeping score, despite the fact that the aggregate number of attacks seems to have little impact on governmental decision making. The milestone would, in fact, go largely unnoticed if it wasn’t for the fact that Hamas has called an end to its six month old cease fire agreement with Israel and that Israeli intelligence had confirmed that the rockets’ range now is now able to penetrate up to 40 kms of Israeli airspace. This brings hundreds of thousands more Israeli citizens within range of Hamas’ Kassam rockets.
The Israeli government’s virtual accommodation of the Gaza attacks reflects one of the strangest paradigms in international relations today. A sovereign nation, possessing one of the strongest and most effective military operations in the world and aided by an unrivalled intelligence service, is either unable or unwilling to curtail terrorist attacks on its citizens. Direct hits on houses, schools, playground and commercial centers elicit little more than a shrug and a prime ministerial candidate has even gone on record as describing the situation in Israel’s south as something the country “ must learn to live with.”
There is of course a certain torpid symmetry with what is happening in the country’s north. Since the August 2006 ceasefire with Hezbollah, that terrorist organization has continued to amass considerable armaments for a renewed attack on the Jewish state, with missiles that can reputedly cover almost the entire country. Given Hezbollah continued and unimpeded build up, a renewed Lebanon war, as almost everyone in Israel acknowledges, is simply a matter of time.
Given the inertia of the Israeli military and the complaisance of the government on the threats emanating from enemy territory, you could be forgiven for believing that one of the prime matters over which the Israeli citizenry would be asked to decide in its coming February election is the issue of the country’s missile defense shield. But you would be wrong. Missile defense is not seriously discussed or debated in Israel, despite the fact that the country has no effective short range missile defense shield . While the Arrow and Patriot defense systems are capable of intercepting long range ballistic missiles
( although those systems are reputedly outdated and are in desperate need of recalibration), the short range missiles, such as Kassams and Katyushas can be fired into Israel unimpeded.
To be fair, the Israeli government has spent millions on the development of two missile defense systems known, respectively, as Iron Dome and David’s Sling, which when operational in an estimated five years’ time, may indeed provide the protection that Israelis demand today.
But Israel may not have the luxury of five years. The July-August 2006 attacks by Hezbollah on the country’s north rained 4,000 rockets on the country within a 33 day period , causing $130 million in property damage, taking with it 133 lives and forcing over one million people to evacuate their homes. The physical, economic and psychological devastation wrought by that conflict could be multiplied 10 times over in a war in which missiles from both the south and north can collectively reach every major Israeli population center.
Certain experts in Israel will tell you that no immediate solution exists to this existential threat and that the technology has yet to cope with the enormity of the issue. But that is patently untrue. Active laser missile defense systems exist and for a relatively inexpensive amount could be deployed in Israel in the next six months, adding substantially to Israel’s deterrent capabilities
Also known as the Nautilus, the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) began in 1996 as a joint project between the U.S. Army and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Nautilus/THEL focuses a high-energy laser beam on flying threats such as rockets, missiles, mortars and artillery shells, destroying them in flight.
On June 6, 2000, Nautilus/THEL became the first, and still the only, missile defense system to successfully shoot down a short range Katyusha rocket. In subsequent tests over the years, the THEL prototype shot down 28 Katyushas, several longer range rockets, mortars and artillery shells, with a high kill probability and limited availability.
The THEL program was followed by MTHEL, a mobile design adaptation which placed the weapon on semi-trailers, making it capable of convenient relocation from place to place according to need.
As effective technology systems, high energy laser weapons like Nautilus/MTHEL are typically more expensive in initial procurement than anti-missile interceptor systems. However, their cost-per-kill is typically much lower (approximately $1000/shot), and their kill probabilities are higher, as indicated by THEL's extraordinary record of success.
While planned for several years as the solution to Israel's problems with Katyusha fire and Kassam attacks, funding for the program was reduced following Israel's May, 2000 pullout from Lebanon and, for a variety of reasons, Israeli and American funding for the program was cancelled in January 2006. In 2007 Northrup Grumman, the U.S. main contractor of MTHEL systems, offered to build and deploy in Israel a number of Skyguard systems, a special implementation of the MTHEL tailored for Israel's needs, including a single Skyguard installation considered adequate for the defense of Sderot. Israel’s Ministry of Defense refused the offer.
Why? The answers are multifold. The first is politics. The millions of dollars which have been made available in research funds for the development of missile defense system have been steered almost exclusively to the Israel Ministry of Defense, which today has a virtually monopoly on them. It jealously guards the development of its Iron Dome and David’s Sling technologies and fears competition from an effective laser system such as MTHEL.
The second reason is one of constituency. Israel’s army and airforce possess extraordinary influence in the country and have advocates both in Israel and abroad capable of bringing pressure to bear on the political establishment. By contrast missile defense has very few adherents or supporters, given that it has never been established as a key military necessity. Proof of this is offered by the fact that the office responsible for missile defense, located in a back corner of the Ministry of Defense, is manned by one man with only a handful of staffers. The Israeli media has therefore not adequately broached the issue and no extensive discussion or debate takes place regarding it on the country’s talk shows and news programs.
The third reason is pure incompetence. Successive Ministers of Defense have not had adequate knowledge or sought to be extensively informed about the systems that could have effectively averted the last Lebanon War or made life immeasurably easier for the inhabitants of border towns such as Sderot. The current Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, a former chief of staff and a former prime minister, has shown only slightly more interest in the Nautilus system, but his priorities have rested on long range threats from Iran, virtually ignoring the present dangers resident in the north and south of the country.
This tale of woe has its mirror, to a certain extent, in the United States. While short range rocket fire is not an issue ( providing Mexico’s drug cartels do not gain hold of missile technology) the country is very exposed to a short range ballistic missile attack launched by a terrorist commanded vessel beyond U.S. territorial waters. To the country’s detriment, Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, known derisively as “ Stars Wars”, by which rockets launched at the United States could be detected and eliminated from space, was cancelled by the Clinton government. This was a significant blow to missile defense in the United States and parallels, for many of the same reasons, the problems in Israel.
Both countries must come to grips now with the accelerated need for effective missile defense. There is no excuse for countries as technologically sophisticated and financially capable as Israel and the United States in not exploring every avenue possible for full protection of their hinterlands. Without question it must be a high priority for the Obama Administration as well as the incoming Israeli prime minister, whoever he or she might be.
The Western Word - An International Weekly Digest 12-26-2008 |
