The American think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, issued a report this Thursday, investigating the reasons why Israel’s air defense systems appeared weak in facing Iranian missile attacks. In the following, some of these challenges that have received less attention have been examined:
1- First, missile attacks should be formulated in the form of two types of cruise and ballistic missiles. Due to flying in the atmosphere, cruise missiles have to rely on the propulsion engine and consequently burn fuel, which limits their range. However, they are cheaper to build and easier to launch.
But depending on the type of missile, ballistic missiles reach a height of several hundreds of kilometers, and after leaving the atmosphere, they rely on the earth’s gravity as a propellant, so they do not need an engine to land on the ground and hit their target. The same gravitational pull makes ballistic missiles have greater speed and range. This high speed makes the missiles difficult to intercept in the phase of entering the atmosphere.
2- Another challenge that exists in the middle stage (extra-atmospheric) against the destruction of ballistic missiles is that in space, it is not possible to create a shock wave due to the lack of atmosphere, so they must be targeted directly.
Of course, this challenge is less for cruise missiles that fly at a slower speed in the atmosphere but have a less destructive effect than ballistic missiles.
3- Another weakness of Israel’s air defense systems is the lack of defense missiles in the long term. In fact, for every ballistic missile, at least two to three defensive missiles should be launched. This means that the defender is more likely to run out of ammunition than the attacker if the fighting time is prolonged. Also, if US warships are involved in missile defense, they must return to shore early to reload their missile stores, which makes them good targets for attacks.
4- Another challenge is the existence of numerous threats from China, North Korea and Russia. If the United States and Israel engage in a long-term, wide-ranging confrontation with Iran, their other allies in East Asia and Europe will be vulnerable to threats from those countries, as the United States’ focus on one region leaves them open to missile attacks by Washington’s rivals.
