Scott Ritter über den Iran
Checkmate: Iran Defeats the US-Israeli Missile Defense Architecture. Scott
Ritter
16.4.2024
The world’s attention has, rightfully
so, been focused on the fallout from Iran’s retaliatory strike against Israel
on April 13-14, 2024. Iran’s purpose in launching the attack was to
establish a deterrence posture designed to put Israel and the United States on
notice that any attack against Iran, whether on Iranian soil or on the
territory of other nations, would trigger a retaliation which would inflict
more damage on the attacker than the attacker could hope to inflict on Iran.
To achieve this result, Iran
had to prove itself capable of overcoming the ballistic missile defense systems
of both Israel and the United States which were deployed in and around Israel
at the time of the attack.
This Iran was able to
accomplish, with at least nine missiles striking two Israeli air bases that
fell under the protective umbrella of the Israeli-US missile defense shield.
The Iranian deterrence posture
has implications that reach far beyond the environs of Israel or the Middle
East.
By defeating the US-Israeli
missile defense shield, Iran exposed the notion of US missile defense supremacy
that serves as the heart of US force protection models used when projecting
military power on a global scale.
The US defensive posture
vis-à-vis Russia, China, and North Korea hinges on assumptions made regarding
the efficacy of US ballistic missile defense capabilities. By successfully
attacking Israeli air bases which had the benefit of the full range of US
anti-ballistic missile technology, Iran exposed the vulnerability of the US
missile defense shield to modern missile technologies involving
maneuverable warheads, decoys, and hypersonic speed. US bases in Europe, the
Pacific and the Middle East once thought to be well-protected, have suddenly
been revealed to be vulnerable to hostile attack. So, too, are US Navy ships
operating at sea.
Don’t Let Misplaced Concerns over Missiles Jeopardize Iran Deal
Israel’s ballistic missile
defenses were given a supercharged boost by the deployment of an advanced
AN/TPY-2 X band radar on Israeli soil. The radar, operated by the US Army’s 13th Missile
Defense Battery, is located on Har Qeren, a height which rises out of the Negev Desert near
the city of Be’er Sheva.
The AN/TPY-2 is a missile defense radar that can detect, track and discriminate
ballistic missiles, discriminating between threats and non-threats (i.e.,
incoming missiles and space debris).
The AN/TPY-2 operates in two
different modes. The first, known as the “forward-based mode,” detects and
tracks ballistic missiles as they are launched. The second—“terminal
mode”—is used to guide interceptors toward a descending missile. The AN/TPY-2
is optimized to work with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)
ballistic missile defense system by guiding the THAAD missile to its target.
The US had deployed at least
one, and possibly two, THAAD missile batteries to Israel at the time of the
Iranian missile attack. In addition to assisting the THAAD missiles in shooting
down incoming threats, the AN/TPY-2 radar data was integrated with Israeli
radar data and other technical intelligence collected by the Ballistic Missile
Defense Organization’s (BMDO) network of early warning satellites deployed for
the sole purpose of monitoring and reporting Iranian ballistic missile
launches. This integrated early warning/surveillance/tracking system was tied
into a multi-layered missile defense architecture which included the US THAAD
and Israeli Arrow 2, Arrow 3, advanced Patriot, and David’s Sling
anti-ballistic missile interceptor systems.
Adding to the capability and
lethality of the US-Israeli ballistic missile defense architecture was the presence
of at least two US Navy ballistic missile defense (BMD) system-capable
Aegis-class destroyers equipped with the SPY-1 S band radar and SM-3/SM-6
interceptor missiles.
The Navy BMD-capable ships are
configured to tie into the ground-based AN/TPY-2 X band radar as well as the
broader BMD system through the Command and Control, Battle management, and
Communications (C2BMC) system. The combination of ground-based radars and
interceptors with the US Navy BMD system provides US military commanders with theater-wide
protection from hostile ballistic missile threats. This integrated system is
designed to detect, acquire, and track incoming threats and, using complex
computer-drive algorithms, discriminate targets and destroy them using
hit-to-kill kinetic warheads (i.e., a “bullet hitting a bullet”).
On April 13-14, 2023, this
system failed. In short, the combination of US and Israeli anti-ballistic
missile defense capabilities deployed in and around the Negev desert made the
Israeli air bases located there the most protected locations in the world from
threats posed by ballistic missiles.
And yet Iran successfully
struck both locations with multiple missiles.
The global strategic
implications of this stunning Iranian accomplishment are game-changing—the US
has long struggled conceptually with the notion of what is referred to as
“A2/AD” (anti-access/area denial) threats posed by hostile ballistic missiles.
However, the US had sought to
mitigate against this AA/A2 threat by overlaying theater ballistic missile
defense architecture like that that had been employed in Israel. The failure of
the combined US-Israeli defense systems in the face of a concerted Iranian
missile attack exposed the short-comings of the US ballistic missile defense
capabilities world-wide.
In short, this means that the
US and NATO forces in Europe are vulnerable to attack from advanced Russian
missile technologies which match or exceed those used by Iran to attack Israel.
It also means that China would most likely be able to strike and sink US navy
ships in the Pacific Ocean in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. And that
North Korea could do the same to US ships and forces ashore in the vicinity of
Japan and South Korea.
Until which time the US can
develop, produce and deploy missile defense systems capable of defeating the
new missile technology being deployed by nations like Iran, Russia, China, and
North Korea, US military power projection capabilities are in a state of
checkmate by America’s potential adversaries.
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Featured image: North Korea conducts a mass
launch of ballistic missiles (Source: Scott Ritter Extra)
https://www.globalresearch.ca/iranian-defeat-us-israeli-defense/5854975