Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system almost wasn't built

• Internal resistance almost derailed the development of Israel's Iron Dome air defense system.

• Some in the Israeli military leadership feared that missile defense would lead to a defensive mentality.

• At that time, missile defense was often considered unfeasible. However, this view has changed fundamentally.

Israel now has the world's most famous and well-tested missile defense systems, including the legendary Iron Dome missile. But decades ago, Israeli military resistance nearly destroyed those defenses, a warning of the difficulties of developing weapons that could one day prove indispensable.

In the 2000s, the Israel Defense Forces decided that the best form of missile defense was a “counterstrike” strategy to destroy enemy missiles before they could be launched, according to a new report by the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, on the lessons learned from Israel's missile defense program. The “Israel Defense Forces' view of the threat was based on the assumption that Israeli precision strikes could quickly reduce the number of threats in a larger conflict, even if they could not eliminate them entirely.”

Some in the Israeli forces feared that missile defense would lead to a defensive mentality rather than taking the war to the enemy. The problem with that, however, was finding those missiles and launchers before they were fired. Hamas and Hezbollah hid their weapons in tunnels and in civilian areas, while it was difficult to attack Iranian missiles because Iran is a thousand miles away from Israel.

“A counter-strike campaign can be efficient or fast, but rarely both,” warned Sidharth Kaushal, a RUSI researcher, and Brigadier General Ran Kochav, the former head of Israel's air and missile defense system.

Israel's Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) is a multi-layered system: the long-range Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 interceptor missiles destroy ballistic missiles while they are in space before they descend through the atmosphere; the medium-range David's Sling interceptor missiles hit short-range missiles and large artillery rockets; and the small Iron Dome missiles intercept short-range rockets, howitzer shells, and mortar shells.

But Israel's military apparatus – the Israel Defense Forces – was reluctant to divert resources from traditional weapons such as tanks and fighter jets to missile defense when the idea was floated in the 1980s. “Critics questioned the technical feasibility and cost of the system and doubted whether it would deliver the promised strategic benefits,” write Kaushal and Kochav. Indeed, there were similar criticisms in the United States about whether President Ronald Reagan's “Star Wars” missile defense would work.

Israeli commanders had a recent victory to base their argument on: Operation Mole Cricket 19 during the 1982 Lebanon War. Using drones and fighter jets, the Israeli Air Force destroyed 29 Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries in two hours without suffering any casualties. If the Israeli Air Force could do it with anti-aircraft missiles, why not with ballistic missile launchers?

But politicians like Yitzhak Rabin, a former Israeli chief of staff, held out in the 1990s, with the help of generous U.S. funding that eased the Israeli military's resource concerns. An Israeli-designed missile defense system also became more desirable after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War: Israel had to rely on Israeli-based, American-manned Patriot interceptors to fend off the Scuds—hardly any of the 40 Scuds were intercepted. Israel's disappointment with the Patriot was one of the factors that led the country to deploy its own air defenses.

Israel's missile defense system also evolved with the changing threat landscape. Originally, the Arrow missile system was designed to intercept ballistic missiles. “The system successfully intercepted a ballistic missile for the first time in 1990, which was a significant technical milestone,” RUSI noted. “Despite successful tests, the Arrow project continued to face challenges, including technical problems, budget overruns and delays.”

But then the rise of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon meant that Israel was threatened by short-range rockets and artillery that the high-flying Arrow could not intercept. In 2011, Israel deployed the Iron Dome missile, which proved largely – though not entirely – successful in detecting and intercepting rockets before they hit populated areas.

Some, however, insisted that the best defense was a good attack—that is, some control of the terrain from which missiles are launched or the destruction of the enemy's ability to launch missiles. “Critics pointed out that while Iron Dome was effective in mitigating the immediate threat of missile attacks, it neither addressed the root causes of the conflict nor offered a long-term solution to Israel's security problems,” Kaushal and Kochav wrote. “Ultimately, the argument was made that air and missile defenses introduced a Maginot mentality within the armed forces,” a reference to the French defense lines that bypassed Nazi armies early in World War II.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, missile defense was often viewed as impractical, an idiotic attempt to hit a bullet with another bullet. But technology has now advanced to the point where missile defense is considered an essential capability. Israel's missile defense system faced its toughest test in April, when Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel. Israel Defense Forces claimed about 99 percent were intercepted. But Iran had announced an impending attack, giving Israel time to prepare. Forces from several nations, including the United States, Britain and Jordan, also helped repel the Iranian attack.

Dozens of countries have Patriot, S-300 and other air defense weapons capable of shooting down missiles, aircraft and large drones. Ukraine in particular has gained extensive experience in intercepting Russian missiles, including hypersonic missiles that Russia claimed were unstoppable.

Missile defense will always be difficult, not least because it is cheaper for an adversary to build more attack missiles than for the defender to intercept them all. Integrated air and missile programs “are particularly vulnerable to delays and cost overruns given the inherent complexity of the challenges they face,” Kaushal and Kochav warned. This problem is made worse when missile defense systems like Israel's must deal with multiple threats, including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, and artillery rockets.

Ultimately, the advantage of missile defense may be that it is the least bad alternative. “The problem with counterarguments about the cost of air defense is not that they are categorically wrong, but that in many cases there are few alternatives other than a politically unsustainable doctrine of preemption, especially when a country lacks strategic depth,” write Kaushal and Kochav.

Michael Peck is a defense journalist whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy Magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers University. Follow him on Þjórsárdalur And LinkedIn.

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