“Welcome. I am Riki Ellison, hosting this event from the home of the Northern Command, NORTHCOM, here in Colorado Springs. That command is to defend North America and the US homeland. Ladies and gentlemen, our hearts, our empathy, our sympathy, our feelings, the travesty of what has happened with over 1000 lives lost in Israel, 25 of them American, we stand behind Israel.

Israel and every homeland have to have defensive capabilities. I would say all layers, but even the greatest country in intelligence maybe in the world got surprised. And it was fortunate that Israel, though it wasn’t perfect, had capabilities that saved maybe thousands of lives that would’ve been dead if they didn’t have those capabilities. And I think we all saw those Iron Dome rockets. It is critical for that to happen. What we’ve seen is a challenge and a direct attack on World Order. It is a challenge and a direct attack on deterrence.

Regional deterrence has failed just like it did in Ukraine. And it may fail in Taiwan. It failed in Israel. Whether you can say it’s sanctions or incentives or appeasement or military offense, it failed. And deterrence, as I was taught by General John Hyten and most of our STRATCOM commanders, you have to be able to impose cost and they have to believe that you can impose cost and you have to be able to defend and deny their cost on you. And then you have to have the political will to do that.

We have seen our president, President Joe Biden, who has put one of our biggest offensive platforms in the world, the carrier group Ford with Aegis BMD ships in the Gulf, I’m sorry, in the Mediterranean. We’ve seen this. We’ve seen our ability, our capabilities we can give to Israel because it’s bigger than just Israel. Our allies are watching, our enemies are watching and perhaps supporting the other side because it’s a challenge to World Order. And we have two Iron Domes here in this country that should be in Israel today. We have THAAD and Patriot batteries ready to get on a plane in Texas that could fly over there in a heartbeat. We have an EPAA around Europe to defend Europe from Iran should this escalate. We have four BMD ships in Rota, Spain.

We are prepared to defend. This is a watershed moment for Israel and I think for the world.”

• Mr. Riki Ellison – Israel Full Integration of Defense and Offense

“Just this morning there was a siren here where I live, which is not so common. I’m about 30 kilometers north of Tel Aviv. A fragment from a rocket—after the interception by Iron Dome—landed just several meters from my house. So it was an awakening call for this morning, firsthand.

So we saw at the beginning of this unbelievable large-scale savage attack the firing of several thousands of rockets in a timeframe of several hours. This was just a diversion from the ground attack on the first day last Saturday. The range—not only the quantities—but the range of the rockets was larger than ever before for Hamas rockets, with at least one rocket traveling from the Gaza Strip up to Haifa in the north of Israel. Most of the rockets were intercepted successfully by Iron Dome. But as all of us know too well, there is no such a thing as 100% proof; any missile defense system is not hermetic.

We had several casualties in various regions all across Israel, and we saw some firing of rockets from the north as well. During the last days, we saw a minimum, at least for now, use of small UAVs from the Gaza Strip. There was perhaps something in the north that was traveling yesterday and today, and it was not intercepted. In the north there was a use of Patriot missiles, which are another layer, although obsolete regarding to other systems that we are using. But nevertheless, we saw an operational firing of those missiles as well. So we see huge quantities of rockets and the first use in this conflict of small UAVs.

We have to remember that we have Hezbollah on the north, so we are on very high alert on the ground in terms of missile defense, of course. Hezbollah is another story. And of course, what Riki said before is absolutely correct. Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran ideologically and, of course, Iran supports all of these capabilities in terms of weapons, rockets and so on. But Hezbollah has several assets that Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza lacks. For example, actual cruise missiles made in Iran, more capable UAVs, not just crude and rudimentary vehicles like we saw before, even in 2021 from Gaza. And of course several types of actual missiles, which are much more accurate. So this was one of the reasons to develop another layer of defense in Israel, David Sling.

We have to keep one eye on the north, two eyes on the south and be prepared for more surprises to come. This is not yet a two fronts war or a conflict, but we have to be prepared for this.”

• Mr. Tal Inbar – Defending Israel Full Integration of Defense and Offense

“So I’d like to see us, in the United States, do some more, is that we do have capabilities, such as some Iron Dome batteries that we purchased from Israel. I think those should be prepared and be ready. Depending on the volume of fire, it may be something where the US can offer to the Israeli government to not only transfer those, but to man them with American soldiers in Israel as a sign of solidarity.

Moving a carrier battle group is good. I, personally, would love to have seen an amphibious ready group, which provides a marine air ground task force, moved in position off the coast of Lebanon, to send a signal about what that force could do. Which has more capabilities, in some ways, that are applicable to a conflict like this. And I’d like to see us be willing, where we need to, to augment Israel’s defenses. There’s a fine line there, which is the Israelis need to maintain deterrence. They need to restore deterrence. And they need to show that they can handle the defense on their own. But on the other hand, sending a strategic message to all the others that if they think they can bring additional force to bear, that the United States can augment the Israeli forces in a way that would be meaningful strategically.

You are seeing the effects of the buildup of these more advanced missiles and capabilities that, both in volume, sophistication, and accuracy, this is where there’s always a race between the offense and defense. And I can’t help but point out some of these myths about the cost effectiveness of defenses. And, unfortunately, this still persists in some quarters of the United States, this argument that the defense costs more than the offense. That we can’t keep up on the cost equation by firing missile defenses against incoming missiles. I think the conflict in Israel shows the opposite to be true. If the Israelis had not invested in the size and scale of the defense that they had, which, admittedly, as Tal pointed out, cannot do 100%, cannot hermetically protect the country like an astrodome. But, nonetheless, saves lives and allows options for other parts of the conflict to come into play.”

“This has been a continuum, where Iran, and what it describes as its Axis of Resistance, has been funding and training groups all the way from the Mediterranean Sea, through to the Gulf. Whether it’s Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, in the West Bank, supporting other resistance groups which go by a variety of names. Supporting militants in Syria, where there’s been essentially a low grade war underway, sometimes a hot grade war, between the Israelis and Iranian proxy forces now for many years. And then, continuing, whether that’s in Jordan or in Iraq, where there’s a series of militias that the Iranian revolutionary guard has funded, trained and, at times, they are on site to support. It was not an accident that, as an example, when the previous head of the IRGC, General Soleimani, was visiting his proxy forces in Iraq is when the United States chose to remove him from the battlefield and kill him because of that support.”

• Mr. John Rood – Defending Israel Full Integration of Defense and Offense

“The next step in this I think for Israel as you’re going to see is a potential combined arms offensive into the Gaza Strip and we’ll see if that happens and how it plays out, but that’s what we’ve heard the Prime Minister talking about. Hamas must be eradicated. And it’s really for all the reasons John just said. This is, I hate to exaggerate, but maybe I’m not, it’s a clash of civilizations. If people like this are not going to want to be part of the western world, the civilized world, then you’ve got to do something about it.

And this is where I think reestablishing deterrence going forward, it’s got to be an aligned western world. So right now our Secretary of Defense and our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs are in Brussels for what was supposed to be a meeting to discuss support for Ukraine, Ukraine contact group. And it’s been encouraging to see the NATO members come together there and express their unwavering support for Israel. That has got to stand and it’s got to stand not just just to talk to Hamas, but to all the other actors that John mentioned and probably a couple that I don’t know if John did mention. Russia and China are watching too, as is North Korea. So there’s got to be a really strong coordinated response, not just Israeli but Western response to this.

Now going forward, if that combined arms all domain effort happens, then Israel is in a really good position because of the work they have done to organize training to equip themselves and the work that the US has done to support that. So what you’ll see is a continued work along the spectrum of missile defense, both passive, active, and attack ops, but now you’ll see combined in there offensive operations that is going to be very well coordinated through their high end C2 network to ensure that the operations going on across all domains, land, air, and even from the sea to get after Hamas don’t impact the ability of Israel to defend themselves from rockets or anything else coming out of that area.”

• Maj Gen (Ret.) Charles “Corky” Corcoran – Defending Israel Full Integration of Defense and Offense

“Iran is 100% responsible for this event. Iran resources Hamas to 95% of their resources, $100 million a year over the last seven years. They train them. I don’t know whether they gave the go signal or not. I really don’t care. If you train someone and you resource someone, you are accountable. You own what they did, and Iran owns this. And Israel’s smart. They’re putting a pin in it. 

They’ll take care of other business first, but at some point, Iran needs to be held accountable by Israel and the United States for this action. And look, to be clear, Iran is the beneficiary of this. Israel and Saudi Arabia are getting very close to each other. That normalization, the completion of the Abraham Accords that happened under John’s watch, John Rood’s watch, was about to get the real prize – Saudi Arabia. The one country… Like, Saudi Arabia doesn’t care about Lebanon. They’re not required to. They do have to care about Palestinians as part of their ownership of the faith and, as a result, they now have to stand back. It also squirrels the mending of the relationships between Saudi Arabia and the United States. So they were the beneficiary.

I’m not a hundred percent sure why the United States is playing coy about this. Iran is accountable. They’re going to be held. I think eventually we’ll find a smoking gun where they’re really, really accountable, but they did this.

So when you look at this, it’s a dual failure. There’s a strategic failure by the United States and Israel. However, we were monitoring communication big picture between Iran and these groups among themselves. Clearly they found a data stream that we’re not listening to properly, and we’ll have to find out what that is and re-get it. That’s not the first time that’s happened to us, but that strategic one’s up here.

Probably the tactical one is, I won’t call complacency, but it’s a failure in creativity. They built the system around coming outside of Gaza towards the Israeli communities down there. And I think over time there was a belief that through the automation and the putting the surveillance systems in, remotely operated weapons, response times to the police and Army, there became a hole that a fastidious adversary studying daily was able to find and that’s just one of those things you have to go back. And it’s unfortunate when you have a strategic and a tactical failure simultaneously, you can get an egregious event like this.”

• Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery – Defending Israel Full Integration of Defense and Offense

Speakers:

Mr. Tal Inbar

Research Fellow

Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance

Mr. John Rood

Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Department of Defense

Maj Gen (Ret.) Charles Corcoran

Former Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations

U.S. Air Force

RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery

Former Deputy Director for Plans, Policy and Strategy

U.S. European Command

Mr. Riki Ellison 

Chairman and Founder

Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance

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Click here to read the transcript