WSJ OPINION: PRAISE FOR ISRAEL’S IRON DOME…..
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324307204578129261984054132.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
However Israel’s latest war with Hamas ends, the Gaza conflict will long be remembered for images of a military feat in the skies above Israel. Israeli interceptors have eviscerated the Iranian-supplied Hamas missiles heading for population centers. Chalk up an important strategic and technological win for missile defense.
The Jewish state’s Iron Dome system was conceived after the 2006 war with Lebanon, when nearly 4,000 Hezbollah missiles killed 44 civilians in northern Israel; it was deployed only last year. Missile defenses have had vocal doubters since Ronald Reagan championed them in the 1980s, and Israeli critics focused on the price—around $50,000 for each Tamir interceptor—and supposedly dubious reliability. The last week ends that debate.
Iron Dome is designed to protect crowded civilian areas from short-range missiles. A radar attached to each battery determines whether an incoming volley threatens a population center to ensure that interceptors aren’t wasted on unthreatening missiles.
Israel’s system is modest, with five batteries deployed so far. Yet in only six years they’ve managed to make Tel Aviv and other cities nearly impregnable to missile attacks. The hit rate approaches 90%. About a thousand missiles have come from Gaza so far, and according to an official cited by Time magazine, 300 or so were deemed worth intercepting.
The engineering achievement has saved countless lives, but the strategic benefits are also significant. By limiting civilian casualties, missile defenses provide more options and more time for military and political leaders to decide how to respond. If missiles were landing willy-nilly in Israeli cities, the pressure would be great either for a ground incursion into Gaza, or a possibly humiliating accommodation with Hamas. Much as the late strategist Albert Wohlstetter predicted, defenses can deter aggressors and offer the chance to make war less destructive.
There’s a lesson here as well for the U.S. In an overlooked study in September, the National Research Council pointed out shortcomings in current American missile-defense strategy, saying the U.S. needs to do more to protect the homeland against long-range attacks from Iran, North Korea and other countries. The report specifically recommended an additional defense site on the U.S. East Coast to augment interceptors in California and Alaska.
Three years ago, the Obama Administration pulled the plug on a site in Poland and the Czech Republic, bending to Russian pressure. In its place, the White House decided to protect Europe from a short- and medium-range Iranian missile with Aegis interceptors initially based at sea and later on land.
The revised plan’s last, fourth stage would eventually address the long-range threat by putting interceptors in Central Europe. But that’s the issue that President Obama famously promised Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev that he’d have “more flexibility” on in a second term. Missile defense could also suffer from budget cuts.
With missiles proliferating and the world unprepared to stop Iran’s nuclear program, missile defenses are becoming more urgent than ever for the U.S. The Israelis are showing the importance of being protected in an era of rogue missiles.
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