Monday, November 26, 2012

Iron Dome


By now, you must have heard about the Iron Dome that defended Israel against Syrian missiles.  Most reports say Iron Dome was 84% successful taking out over 400 incoming missiles while losing any six Israeli lives.

Perhaps but as these reports are open sourced, the numbers are probably inflated with some experts suggesting more around 40-50% success rate.  We have no way of truly knowing but one thing is for sure, Iron Dome did not produce 100% kills.  Meaning, Syrian technicians got some things right.  Israel needs to be be concerned that Syria does not figure out what they got wrong before the next upgrade is made to Iron Dome.

Whenever one side scores a technological advantage, that sends the other side into overtime figuring out how to beat it.  Israel will not sit idle but neither will Syria in trying to defeat Iron Dome.

The other problem is one of numbers.  Syria fired over 400 missiles at Israel.  Syria needs to only fire more missiles than Iron Dome can fire.  That leads to the only other option for Israel, to attack and destroy the Syrian Air Force on the ground before they can be launched.

Turkey asked for and received the Patriot system to protect its borders from Syria.  Basically, a campaign of slow escalation is being waged against Syria.  The next concern is how much longer will Israel put up with the threat they perceive from Iran?

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