Since Hamas launched its shock assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, missile protection has been a crucial element of the battle within the Center East. Israel’s Iron Dome missile protection batteries have intercepted rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. The Arrow-3 system destroyed, for the primary time, a missile coming from Yemen in November 2023. And twice, the US coordinated the response amongst Israel, European, and Arab companions to counter barrages of Iran’s missiles and drones. Looking back, this battle will show to be as important for missile protection progress because the Gulf Warfare of 1991, which marked the first use of the US Patriot batteries in precise fight, the place they have been employed in opposition to Iraq’s Scud missiles.
Nevertheless, similar to the Gulf Warfare highlighted each the guarantees and limitations of missile protection at the moment (together with a debate over the precise interception fee of the Patriot batteries), the Gaza Warfare additionally serves as a cautionary story about what missile protection can obtain, what it ought to obtain, and the place it falls quick. To make sure, missile protection methods have demonstrated technological developments and the flexibility to stop mass casualties from barrages of enemy missiles. However the Gaza warfare has additionally proven that missile protection will not be almost as efficient in opposition to drones, is usually hindered by the difficulties of worldwide coordination, and can’t by itself present deterrence and regional stability.
What we all know now
To start with, there isn’t a longer a heated debate concerning the technical capability of methods like Iron Dome, Arrow, or Patriot to meet their goal. After greater than a yr of engagement with rockets, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles launched by Iran and its proxies, these methods have confirmed sufficiently efficient at stopping large harm and civilian casualties.
Moreover, the Center East battle highlighted a major leap ahead in collective missile protection operations. On April 14, 2024, the Iranian assault on Israel’s territory triggered a response that concerned the air and missile protection capabilities of the US and Israel, in addition to these of two NATO allies (the UK and France) and Arab states (Jordan, and presumably Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). In the end, the capability of the ad-hoc coalition to intercept most projectiles launched by Iran demonstrated, for the primary time, the feasibility of a regional alliance to defend in opposition to such threats.
Nevertheless, these successes shouldn’t end in complacency. Missile protection is undoubtedly right here to remain within the Center East, however many persistent points stay on the tactical, operational, diplomatic, and, in the end, strategic ranges.
No silver bullet
First, regardless of enhancements within the protection in opposition to missiles, the proliferation of unmanned methods presents a persistent problem. Attributable to their dimension and talent to maneuver, drones can evade detection. Hezbollah and the Houthis have typically managed to keep away from the Israel Protection Drive’s (IDF’s) radars. As an illustration, in July 2024, the Houthis efficiently struck a constructing in central Tel Aviv (close to the US embassy department workplace within the metropolis) utilizing a small kamikaze drone.
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This drone problem might intensify as Iran and its proxies enhance swarming techniques that allow them to combine a number of drones right into a single fleet able to speaking and working collectively. Someday within the coming decade, the introduction of synthetic intelligence might additional speed up the magnitude of this menace.
Second, on the operational degree, missile protection could also be simpler at the moment, however its execution is changing into more and more complicated. To be correct, one ought to confer with missile defenses: no one-size-fits-all answer exists within the area. Intercepting short-range rockets or drones requires methods that differ from these used in opposition to cruise or mid-range ballistic missiles. Because of this, the Center East is supplied with quite a few missile protection methods—equivalent to the US’ Patriot and THAAD and Israel’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow. Future methods are additionally in improvement, together with Israel’s laser-based Iron Beam and a number of US counter-drone tasks.
This presents a collection of operational challenges for the US armed forces, such because the coaching necessities for its personnel and the necessity to guarantee airspace deconfliction. Moreover, US Central Command should navigate the particular wants of every of its companions. US methods are designed with their interoperability necessities. In distinction, different nations observe their very own wants. When the US Military procured two Iron Dome batteries in 2019, it confronted difficulties integrating them into its command-and-control system as a result of the Israeli system adopted completely different technical requirements. French forces within the Center East additionally employed their personal Aster 30 surface-to-air missiles to counter a number of Houthi ballistic missiles within the Crimson Sea. Consultants rightly discuss of a “multilayered” protection, however as extra layers accumulate, the governance of missile protection turns into harder to handle.
Diplomatic difficulties
The multinational nature of missile protection cooperation additionally brings diplomatic challenges. Whereas the success of the ad-hoc coalition in opposition to Iran in April 2024 exhibits that the US and its companions can deal with operational challenges, they confronted political sensitivities. That is significantly evident within the Gulf, the place US companions like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar stay hesitant to deepen the combination of their air protection networks. Advancing these issues has important implications for every nation’s nationwide sovereignty, particularly on the subject of sharing intelligence information amongst neighboring nations or approving the automation of determination making in missile interception eventualities.
These points are already delicate amongst NATO allies. Nevertheless, at the very least throughout the transatlantic context, they are often mentioned and refined in establishments just like the North Atlantic Council, the Navy Committee, or Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. In distinction, the Center East lacks a comparable construction. The group closest to a NATO-like framework is the Gulf Cooperation Council, however its historical past in protection cooperation is restricted. This leaves the US Central Command (CENTCOM) as the one credible entity by default to construct the much-needed collective response. CENTCOM absolutely has the means to handle the operational challenges related to that response, however on the diplomatic degree, it can not substitute for a regional physique composed of its native companions.
These institutional limitations should not coincidental. Whereas Center East companions could also be desperate to collaborate carefully with the US, they continue to be hesitant to cooperate with one another. One shouldn’t neglect that between 2017 and 2021, three Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain) closed their air and maritime areas to Qatar to precise their disagreements with their neighbor’s overseas coverage. Ultimately, Gulf leaders resolved this disaster, however lots of its root causes stay unaddressed.
One other important impediment to formalizing regional missile protection cooperation is the hesitance of Arab states to publicize their navy cooperation with the IDF after the Gaza warfare. True, these states have had no qualms about collaborating with US Central Command and the IDF in opposition to Iran’s missile assaults in April and October 2024. Nevertheless, in each instances, the Gulf’s contribution was restricted to sharing their radar information with US counterparts. On the identical time, the Jordanian air protection unit intercepted Iranian drones that breached the dominion’s airspace. Total, Arab companions minimized their contributions (with the Saudis even denying theirs). This Arab discomfort with cooperating on Israel on missile protection predates the Gaza warfare. In January 2022, Gulf officers remained quiet when Israel’s then Protection Minister Benny Gantz claimed that his nation was constructing a “Center East Air Protection Alliance” with the US and Gulf states.
Protection, not deterrence
However probably the most important problem to missile protection in the end lies on the strategic degree. It comes all the way down to the truth that the deterrence worth of missile protection seems to be restricted after the Gaza warfare. This will likely seem to be a paradox: how can the enhancement of those methods coincide with a diminished capability to discourage adversaries?
The concept of missile protection as a deterrent has all the time been contentious. It presupposed that adversaries would abandon their offensive plans because of the overwhelming superiority of missile protection. Nonetheless, the Gaza warfare demonstrated that this assumption didn’t maintain within the context of the Israel-Iran battle. After a decade of rocket assaults, Hamas was not deterred by the Iron Dome. The group shocked the IDF with a floor offensive on October 7, 2023, through which rocket barrages have been merely a secondary element. Equally, the Houthis continued their harassment marketing campaign in opposition to ships crossing the Crimson Sea all through the Gaza warfare regardless of the numerous efforts of the US Navy and its companions to cease and deter their aggression. This exhibits that missile protection can not successfully deter nonstate actors.
Moreover, the repeated assaults from Iran on Israel’s territory point out that Tehran was additionally not deterred. Iran’s assaults on Israel in April and October 2024 marked the primary situations of a Center Jap state attacking the Jewish state since Saddam Hussein launched forty-three Scud missiles at Israel in 1991—and in hindsight, the Iraqi assault appears minor in comparison with the size of the Iranian marketing campaign. In final yr’s Israel-Iran battle, each nations crossed each other’s mutual pink traces. The efficiency of Israel’s missile protection system was spectacular, nevertheless it didn’t strain Tehran into cutting down or abandoning its assault—arguably, Israeli counterstrikes did that as an alternative.
The truth that missile protection will not be a deterrent doesn’t make it irrelevant: When crucial, intercepting ballistic missiles and different projectiles nonetheless saves lives and buys time for determination makers to arrange their response. Nevertheless, nobody ought to be beneath the phantasm that missile protection progress, equivalent to enhancements in interception charges or higher coordination with regional allies and companions, creates regional stability by itself. Any further, regional navy planners are prone to favor offense, not protection.
Jean-Loup Samaan is a senior analysis fellow on the Center East Institute of the Nationwide College of Singapore, in addition to a nonresident senior fellow on the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center East Safety Initiative.
Additional studying
Picture: A rocket flies within the sky after Iran fired a salvo of ballistic missiles, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, October 1, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen ATTENTION EDITORS: ADDING INFORMATION
