“We’re here to discuss what happened last Tuesday and the relevance of that to the world not only to Israel but to the world because that looks like the way real combat is happening and it’s happening in a way of overmatch. It’s not happening that we don’t have the right capabilities, we have the right capabilities, we just don’t have the capacity, and we are using capacity that we’re unable to produce as quickly as possible. This is where Israel leads the world at on this because they are judicious they understand that and they’re they take more risk than any other nation in the world to let missiles go that aren’t targeted specifically on infrastructures or on people and that was developed with the Iron Dome system so they could be judicious with that aspect of it. We’re not that judicious, as we look at this thing that happened on Tuesday you have the Israeli defenses in the back but in front of that is CENTCOM and its allies that Israel is part of that that do the capabilities of sensing warning tracking and intercepting prior to them getting to Israel. We’re using some of our best stuff such as the SM-3 Block 1B off our ships to specifically hit systems, but this is the wrong end of the cost curve. That is a you know 10:1 cost ratio that we can’t afford we’re doing this, this was only a couple hours of attack and the amount of money spent on one side versus the other is completely lopsided and you’ve got our government that’s stopped the development and deployment or production of the SM-3 Block 1B that they’re using so it is a really interesting place that from our perspective this is not being addressed correctly. We are not being addressed correctly, this threat the capacity limitations that we put on Israel put on ourselves because of this.”
– Mr. Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder of MDAA
“The second strike on October 1st, the Iranian side just used ballistic missiles. Roughly 200 missiles or something in that vicinity of a number were fired on Israel at 7:31 PM. This was called by Iran, True Promise 2. The attack was some kind of retaliation from Iran for the assassination of the Hezbollah leader in Beirut and the death of IRGC General from the Quds Force. Roughly 200 ballistic missiles were launched by IRGC against several Targets in Israel. 181 missiles reached their targets or at least where some of them or most of them were engaged. We know from official sources in the US that at least 12 SM-3 interceptors were used by two Sixth Fleet [guided] missile destroyers, the USS Cole (DDG 67) and the USS Bulkeley (DDG 84). The Nevatim Air Force Base, for the second time, was the main focus of the attack together with two other Air Force bases and according to Iranian sources and international media the Mossad HQ north of Tel Aviv.”
– Mr. Tal Inbar, Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance Research Fellow and Board Advisor
“Deterrence is gained by having, let’s say, attack capabilities or attack means. As a wise President once said, “speak softly and carry a big stick”, but it’s not enough to carry the big stick you have to show your willingness to use it if it’s necessary. What we’ve seen in the last decade, in the entire world and here in the region, is the loss of deterrence and that drives the conflict. We saw it in Europe, we see it here now in the Mediterranean. Though it’s a vague thing, the deterrence, I think when the president of United States is trying to ask Iran not to do something and they are still taking the care to attack Israel like we saw few days ago I think it has to ring an alarm.”
– Brigadier General (Ret.) Shachar Shohat, Former Commander, Israel Air Defense Forces
“I think it would be borderline criminal to withhold weapons, to withhold effectors from either Israel or Ukraine because of our capacity issues. We need to build more, and we need to rethink how we’re using them like you just said JD and we need to restore deterrence. We need to go on the offense, but we can’t sit back and not defend Israel or Ukraine or try to make a choice between the two and try to kid ourselves that that’s going to make the world a safer place. These aggressors got to be stopped and it’s better to stop them in Ukraine and over there where they’re trying to attack Israel than to sit back and wait for them to attack the United States or some other Ally.”
– Major General (Ret.) Charles Corcoran, MDAA Board of Directors Member
“What we have to do is integrate, not coordinate right, we have to truly integrate with their scene, the data that they’re producing, into the means of delivering effects. That could be an Israeli system, that could be a US Navy system, that could be an army system, it doesn’t matter, right. The point is to make engagements agnostic of the sensor. So, a lot of this policy, a little bit is the mechanism, how we share that data; but we need to sit there and have an honest conversation about you know how can we evolve the mechanisms of which we can take stuff sensing piece and actually turn to something that’s a contributing to the defense design, right. Defense in depth is real, defense in depth provides deterrence as we’ve seen, if we don’t demonstrate defense in depth, multi-tier engagements, then we’re just talking about it and that reputational deterrence only last so long. So, we have to go out there and demonstrate the ability to go out and touch somebody and reach somebody.”
– Mr. JD Gainey, MDAA Board of Directors Member
“This has to be a lesson. We have to do it because guess what, it’s coming to our country, it’s coming to the United States, and we are not even close to what Ukraine has what Israel has, not even close to defend our population defend, our infrastructure across our entire country, in Hawaii, in Guam. We’re not there because we don’t spend money on missile defense at all. We spend less than one to one and a half percent of our budget, it’s the department of offense, and the populations of every one of these nations deserve their tax dollars, their governments, to defend them first and foremost and that’s going to have to be addressed across this world because it’s common and we’ll see.”
– Mr. Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder of MDAA
Click here to watch the virtual event
Click here to read the transcript
Speakers:
Mr. Tal Inbar, Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance Research Fellow and Board Advisor
Brigadier General (Ret.) Shachar Shohat, Former Commander, Israel Air Defense Forces
Major General (Ret.) Charles Corcoran, MDAA Board of Directors Member
Mr. JD Gainey, MDAA Board of Directors Member
Mr. Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder, Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance
