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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Reagan Vindicated: Missile Defense Works |
| 2012-11-20 |
| The latest Gaza war is only a few days old, but already one conclusion can be drawn: missile defense works. This is only the latest vindication for the vision of Ronald Reagan who is emerging as a consensus pick for one of the all-time great U.S. presidents. For it was Ronald Reagan who made missile defense a major priority for the U.S. and our allies. His 1983 speech on the subject was widely derided as “Star Wars” because he envisioned that some missile would be intercepted in space. For years critics claimed that it was impossible to intercept missiles in flight, or that at the very least it would be prohibitively expensive to do so. But now the U.S. West Coast is actually protected by a limited ballistic-missile defense system based primarily around satellites, sea-based Aegis and X-band radars, and Standard Missile-3 interceptors. We don’t know how the system would work in combat but it has been vindicated in testing. The U.S. has also cooperated with numerous allies to develop more tactical missiles defenses designed to stop rockets, not in their boost phase, but just before they hit. One of those projects is the Iron Dome system that Israel launched after the 2006 war in Lebanon, during which Hezbollah bombarded northern Israel with thousands of rockets. Today Iron Dome, which is still officially listed as experimental, is operational–and it is blunting Hamas’s missile-offensive against Israel. According to the Israeli Embassy in Washington: “In the last 4 days: 544 rockets fired from Gaza hit Israel + 302 Iron Dome interceptions = 846 rockets fired at us.” The fact that only 302 of 846 rockets were intercepted (36 percent) might indicate that Iron Dome is ineffective. But in fact it is expressly designed to ignore rockets headed for uninhabited areas. Israeli officials say that 90 percent of the attempted interceptions have worked, thus providing critical protection for civilian areas including Tel Aviv, where an Iron Dome battery has just been moved. Somewhere, wherever he is now, the Gipper must be smiling. |
| Posted by:Au Auric |
| #9 IMO Israel's worst-case scenario would be fighting a repeat of 1973's Yom Kippur, where it was attacked in surprise and was forced to fight a multi-front war agz the major Arab League states. Through luck, guts + hard fighting Israel was ultimately able to defeat the mass formations of its opponents but at the cost of using up the bulk of its war reserve materiel. THEN-POTUS RICHARD NIXON HAD TO AIRLIFT MASSIVE QUANTITIES OF US MILITARY EQUIPMENT TO ISRAEL TO STAVE OFF = PREEMPT LOGISTICS-LED BATTLEFIELD, HENCE NATIONAL, COLLAPSE. The post-Arab/Islamic Spring situation in the ME is becoming very similar to 1973, save wid the potential threat of post-Spring Arab-Muslim Govts becoming nuclear ["Nuclear" Yom Kippur], + ONGOING ISRAELI, PERT UNCERTAINTY OVER POTUS OBAMA'S REAL COMMITMENT TO SUPPORT ISRAEL IFF SHTF AGAIN ALA 1973. Israel's alleged "SAMSON OPTION" may end up being its first resort, NOT the last??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2012-11-20 19:36 |
| #8 The ballistic missile defense work is being carried out under the ARROW program - joint US-Israel project. It has gone through a lot of modification since work began. I think RJS explained the general issues. The ARROW is meant to be a terminal defense system. If there would be a defense in the booster or ascent or early descent phase, it would have to be a US system since Israel does not have robust satellite resources. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2012-11-20 14:19 |
| #7 I'm hardly an expert but I'll take a shot at it. A suborbital missile like these is actually pretty slow. ICBMs go into space and pick up a lot of speed on the journey. Hitting them is generally limited to launching (best time because they are slow, but limited opportunity because you almost have to have a finger on the trigger); in space (in which you need a platform up there able to do so and the missile has to pass the platform during the quick transit); on reentry (most prep time but the missile is coming in really fast and by this time is prepared to deploy multiple warheads and other junk to confuse your targeting. I think the military is trying a combination of the first two. HIt it when it goes up with a laser and if that fails hope to hit it on reentry with missiles. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2012-11-20 13:33 |
| #6 LG: I have no special technical knowledge about the field whatsoever. Please explain why the Iron Dome task isn't more difficult than intercepting ballistic missiles. I understand that it's different in key ways, but those differences tend to make me think Iron Dome is doing a tougher job. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2012-11-20 12:19 |
| #5 The rockets from Gaza are not guided missiles and they don't go high enough to be targeted by the strategic Defense systems. Iron Dome intercepts low trajectory rockets (and is doing a good job). The targeting systems, subsystems, etc. used in Iron Dome may be valuable for use by strategic defense systems but that is a technical issue. Missile defense may well work (I hope it never comes to that but if it does I hope it works), but the success of Iron dome doesn't prove it. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2012-11-20 10:57 |
| #4 Targeting of high-ranking Hamas leader successful. Iron Dome testing successful. Iranian rocket supply to Hamas successfully revealed. Mobilization of 75k reservists successful. Hamas rocket inventory successfully decremented. All systems are GO! |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2012-11-20 09:21 |
| #3 Used to work with faith-based lib groups. Held my nose while doing it. You'd have thought seminaries taught orbital mechanics to hear them talk. They were against SDI. They're also against Israel. Seems as if they were prescient--Israel can defend itself--if not successful in stopping SDI whose descendants allow Israel to defend itself. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2012-11-20 09:01 |
| #2 Yeah, they invented it. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2012-11-20 06:34 |
| #1 All you gotta do is put Jews in the position where they have to invent it. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-11-20 01:15 |