How to tackle defending against Iran, Hezbollah from ex-air defense chief Ran Kochav - exclusive

Israel and other democracies must transform their concept of how to defend against multi-tiered threats, former IDF air defense chief and IDF chief spokesman Brig. Gen. Ran Kochav has written in a journal article exclusively obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

The former air defense chief also gave the Post his first English-speaking comments since recently formally retiring from the IDF.

Kochav, along with Dr. Sidharth Kausal, have published a groundbreaking study in the journal of the Royal United Services Institute, the UK’s leading defense think tank, just in time to provide advice for Jerusalem in the midst of the current potentially unprecedented air defense threat posed by Iran and Hezbollah.

Although Israelis are primarily interested in learning from the new paper to figure out how to balance the mix of ballistic missiles, drones, cruise missiles, and rockets from Tehran and Beirut, the article has significant lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War for the rest of the West.

Kochav wrote that though ballistic missiles initially dominated the threat environment as modern air defense was developed, “Russian and Iranian missile campaigns in recent months have demonstrated, contemporary threats combine ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, UAVs and rockets in a multi-tiered threat environment.”

Next, he warned that, “qualitative improvements to guidance systems mean that capabilities such as ballistic missiles that were previously relatively indiscriminate can now target military assets. For example, Iran’s recent attack on Israel was able to target a specific airbase.”

In addition, the former air defense chief noted “Iran’s use of a Fateh-110 ballistic missile to attack Kurdish separatists and Russia’s use of 9M723 ballistic missiles against Ukrainian surface-to-air systems.”

Moreover, the article said, “certain types of precision strike threat[s] are becoming both cheaper and more lethal. Examples include Russian loitering munitions such as the Lancet-3 series or the Iranian Shahed-136, which feature cheap commercially available components wherever possible.”

Cautioning of the increased danger of drones, he stated, “Improved onboard processing capacity is improving terminal accuracy, and more powerful explosives based on aluminum nano-fibres are also making small UAVs more potent.”

Another new risk is how easily more powerful threats, like Iran, can empower their proxies, such as the Houthis of Yemen, to post substantial independent sophisticated threats of their own.

According to Kochav, “the proliferation of commercial satellite imagery means that precision targeting is no longer the preserve of states. Furthermore, as illustrated by Iran’s support to the Houthi movement, states can increasingly support proxies in developing credible missile and UAV production facilities.”

Further, he noted that while precision strikes “require some financial capital to develop, precision strike capabilities are in many ways simpler to generate than competent pilots, artillerymen or sailors.”

In direct comments to the Post, Kochav addressed in detail the threat of drones which has caught all of the IDF’s multi-tiered air defense off guard.

Essentially, Kochav said that generally the IDF had made the right decision to invest more money into defending against ballistic missiles and rockets than against drones because they are more deadly.

For example, Kochav noted to the Post that when there are warnings and people make it to their safe rooms, drones rarely do damage.

In contrast, ballistic missiles and many kinds of rockets can cause serious and broad harm if they yield a direct hit on a structure. Warnings and safe rooms certainly reduce risks, especially for indirect hits, but these threats often must be shot down to avoid mass casualties.

Kochav, who spent his final year in the military researching the full range of aerial threats, acknowledged that since Hezbollah started using drones more aggressively, strategically, and lethally some months ago, the current serving IDF has been slow to adjust.

He said he agreed with some criticism that the IDF’s processes for adjusting to threats that it was not as focused on and which are lethal, but not the biggest threats, are sometimes too long.

Further, he agreed that it can be hard for top IDF and Defense Ministry officials to sign off on using older and less shiny technologies versus investing in cutting-edge technologies like lasers and the F-35.

In that sense, he confirmed to the Post that the Vulcan anti-aircraft defense systems from decades past or cheap drones identical to the drones Hezbollah is using, along with more lookouts and local sound detection systems as used in World War II, could shoot-down a bunch of the short-range cheap drones that Israel’s fancy long-range radar systems have been missing.

Still, he said that the IDF’s shoot down rate for drones at 75% is not bad considering the challenge and that even implementing all of the low-cost short-range anti-drone measures might get shot down success up to 90%, but it still might fall short of the Iron Dome and certainly would never be hermetic.

Not so simple

One of the hard truths for Israel about any potential war with Hezbollah, and possibly with the Islamic Republic, would be that the Jewish state’s enemies can likely inflict significant harm to Israel’s home front before the IDF’s offensive superiority would be extensive enough to substantially reduce aerial threat attacks.

Kochav stated in his article that the operating environment for offensive maneuvers is increasingly difficult due to Hezbollah’s weapons being concealed in sensitive urban settings surrounded by civilians and because it and Iran can both “deliver a large volume of long-range precision firepower before a ground offensive can achieve its aims.”

With Tehran, it would also take longer for Israeli aircraft to fly close enough to Iran to reach a point where they could start destroying land-based missiles threatening Israel.

Evolving methods of having advance intelligence to prevent or deflect aerial attacks are another key part of the package, noted Kochav, writing that, “since mapping the frequencies of air defense radar is often a key priority for adversary intelligence before a conflict, radar emissions can be used to draw out hostile ISR [Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance] systems, which may themselves reveal details about how they operate in the process.”

Moreover, the article said that “Air defense radars, such as the AN/MPQ-53 used by the MIM-104 Patriot system, can also contribute to intelligence acquisition at the outset of hostilities,” including tracking up to 100 targets and engaging around nine simultaneously by helping locate the hostile missile launch sites in addition to the missiles threats themselves.

For example, the IDF’s LOTEM intelligence big data collection and analysis capabilities saved hundreds of Israeli mourners at a funeral on Oct. 17 from a likely Hamas rocket attack by breaking down Hamas’s rocket firing patterns, which they had gathered using new big data digital gathering tools, and determined where the terror group would most likely need to place its rocket launchers to hit the funeral procession. The IDF was able to then take action to make sure Hamas could not use the location in question.

Not so simple

Regarding shooting down aerial threats, Kochav wrote that “judicious choices will need to be made about the specific types of interceptors that states stockpile.”

Comparing interceptors made to destroy ballistic missiles up around or above the atmosphere to C-RAM (counter rocket, artillery, and mortar) interceptors, he explained in his article that both are necessary since each is tailored to different kinds of threats.

Interceptors made to destroy ballistic missiles, like Israel’s Arrow 1, 2, and 3, are the only kind of interceptors with the range, speed, and sophistication to destroy ballistic missiles.

But they are incredibly expensive and often not even usable against lower-grade simpler threats fired from a short range.

 In contrast, C-RAM interceptors, like Israel’s Iron Dome, are extremely versatile in the kind of short-range threats they can shoot down and are far cheaper than the Arrow air defense systems, but are simply inadequate to shoot down ballistic missiles. Blast fragmentation defense systems, the backbone of many traditional anti-aircraft and lower-grade anti-missile defense systems, have similar strengths and weaknesses to C-RAMs.

What is the best way to balance a long-term acquisitions strategy for both of them, given that even wealthy Western countries have limited resources?

The article stated that “one key determinant will be an assessment of which threat systems could be rapidly destroyed by national or allied deep precision strike assets once fighting starts, and conversely which are likely to prove a relatively enduring threat.”

In other words, while both are needed, whichever weapons the enemy in question, such as Iran and Hezbollah, is estimated to be able to continue to field for use even after days of heavy offensive strikes by Israel’s air force and potentially some land forces, Israel and other countries should purchase more interceptors and systems to defend against that threat than against a threat which offensive strikes can more easily remove.

In a section addressing the arms-race cost problem – that most aerial threats are cheaper for Iran, Hezbollah, and others – than it is to produce a system to defend against the threat – the article does briefly address laser air defense systems.

Noting that England expects to deploy the DragonFire directed energy weapon system with the Royal Navy service in 2027 (parallel though not identical to Israel’s Iron Beam) and that this can help reduce the cost of defense, Kochav also highlighted such defense systems limits “in some ways due to their power requirements and susceptibility to climatic conditions.”

In the long run, though, the article recognized that “these systems can considerably improve the resilience of air defense networks.”

But Kochav has said that a fully operational laser defense could still be a year away, and with the war distracting the IDF in many directions, the deadlines for the laser system keep getting pushed back further.

Some other defense systems were briefly considered, such as high-powered microwave systems against low-cost UAVs that lack hardened electronics. Kochav pointed out that “spoofing and electronic attack more broadly represent another cost-effective way of mitigating the impact of some adversary precision effects” since “they can force opponents to incorporate costly countermeasures,” changing the aerial threat in question to being more expensive.