The Hill:
The Iran deal’s implementation day is quickly approaching, which makes missile defense, especially for Israel and the United States, all the more important. Demonstrating that this reality is not lost on the Israelis, the Defense Ministry announced last week that it had successfully intercepted a long-range ballistic missile with the Arrow 3 defensive system.
According to Israel’s Defense Ministry, the trajectory of the test target was representative of the kind of long-range missile that an enemy might launch from Iran or Syria, which makes a lot of sense considering Iran continues to test missiles, flouting current U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929 that will be superseded by Resolution 2231, which just so happens to weaken missile restrictions. Although Obama officials have denounced the tests, Secretary Kerry has already made explicitly clear that missile tests, although not desirable, do not constitute a violation of the actual Iran deal. In other words, Iran can keep popping off missiles and rightly expect the deal to move forward and reward it with $150 billion of sanctions relief at the outset, which it can then use to invest in its missile program.
Last year Israel’s work on missile defense became more-well known when its Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted rockets Hamas fired into Israel. Like the United States, Israel has a layered defensive system. Various interceptors are better suited to intercept different missiles, and if one kind of interceptor misses the target, another system might intercept the missile as it descends before it hits its target. Arrow 3 will provide an “upper tier” defense for Israel.
The United States demonstrated the wisdom of this layered approach in a recent test. Several weeks ago the U.S. Missile Defense Agency conducted a complex operational missile defense test involving the Aegis SM-3 Block 1B, the THAAD defensive system, and resulted in the interception of two targets. The SM-3 IB is designed to intercept a medium-range ballistic missile in the midcourse of the missile’s trajectory. The THAAD weapon system is designed to intercept short-range missiles in the terminal phase of flight. Two test missile were fired, one short-range and one medium-range. The THAAD system successfully hit the first one, but then the medium-range target missile escaped the SM-3 IB interceptor, only to be intercepted by the THAAD system.
Some critics of missile defense might call this a failed test but if they do such critics are missing the whole point of having a layered ballistic missile defense system (BMDS). No interceptor will perform with 100 percent accuracy every time it is fired at its target. This is why there should be redundancies built into the overall system, and it is why the defensive systems should also have multiple site deployments and a high number of interceptors to shoot at would-be incoming missiles…
