State of the art: How effective is Israel's defense technology?

Israel’s wars changed fundamentally in January 1991.

Why January 1991? Israel was not at war with any of its Arab neighbors at that time.

No, it wasn’t, but the US – under President George H.W. Bush – was. As a result of the US invasion of Iraq, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein decided to launch Scud missiles toward Israel, primarily at Tel Aviv and Haifa.

From that moment on, Israel’s confrontations with enemies beyond its borders changed forever. It was no longer Israeli tanks against Egyptian tanks in the Sinai or Syrian tanks on the Golan Heights; rather, it was their rockets and missiles against Israel’s population centers, their missiles against Israel’s kindergartens.

So what was Israel to do? It did not do back then what it did for the first time in its history after October 7 and emptied large swaths of its territory. Instead, it embarked on an ambitious project to develop a three-tiered missile defense system so that if the enemy would launch missiles or rockets, Israel would be able to swat most of them out of the sky.

Israel’s missile defense system actually started a few years earlier. In 1988, following the purchase by Arab countries of surface-to-surface missiles and the use by Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war of a Scud with a range of 600 km. that could hit Tel Aviv, Israel joined Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly known as “Star Wars.” A contract was signed with Israel Aircraft Industries to develop an experimental missile that could hit an incoming rocket. Real movement on that project, however, did not begin until 1991, when the need became critically apparent as a result of Saddam’s Scud attacks on Israel.

The three-tiered missile defense system that Israel developed since then is made up of the Arrow, designed to intercept ballistic missiles from Iran that fly above the earth’s atmosphere; David’s Sling, intended to intercept medium- to long-range rockets, cruise missiles, and drones in the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon; and the Iron Dome, to take out the short-range rockets that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fire from Gaza.

April 14, the night of Iran’s drone and missile attack, is a landmark in that it demonstrated that this anti-missile defense umbrella actually works, and this – like those Scuds in 1991 – could have a lasting impact on how wars will be waged here going forward.

The Arab world, in the beginning, believed it could defeat Israel through the use of conventional armies, trademarks of the 1948, 1967, and 1973 wars. When it became clear that Israel could not be defeated through traditional warfare, the country’s enemies shifted to a different tactic: terrorism, with the belief that terrorism would wear down the will and resilience of the nation.

When that, too, failed, the focus turned to rockets, in the belief that raining down hundreds and perhaps thousands of rockets on the country would lead to its demise. As a result, developing a system to prevent exactly that from happening became a top priority, one that relied on cutting-edge technology.

The faith of Israelis in its military’s cutting-edge technology took a battering on October 7, however, when all that vaunted technology – all the hi-tech bells and whistles that were supposed to make the Gaza border impenetrable – failed and were no match for 3,000 well-armed and well-trained terrorists intent on breaking through the border wall.

Not only did the technology fail in preventing a massive terrorist infiltration, but the intelligence community, which relies heavily on technology to gather intelligence, failed to warn of an impending attack. All of a sudden, placing enormous amounts of faith in the ability of state-of-the-art technology to keep the country safe seemed like a terrible mistake.

On October 7, technology and intelligence failed Israel. On April 14, it saved it.

Well, at least the technology did.

Despite intelligence failings, technology continues to ensure Israel's safety

The initial intelligence upon which the IDF reportedly acted on April 1 to kill the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Damascus was flawed. Israel reportedly – and not without reason, given past experience – did not expect the type of Iranian reaction that followed, and definitely not an attack from Iranian soil. That assessment, as is now painfully evident, was way off base.

Nevertheless, Israel – thanks to the cooperation of the US and regional allies – did have exact intelligence Saturday night of an impending attack. On October 7, the military received signs of an imminent attack but did not act on that information. On April 14, it had the information and mobilized fully to act on it.

Unlike what happened on October 7 when all the hi-tech wizardry failed to block Hamas, this time, all that wizardry did the trick – and the ability to shoot down a missile above the earth’s stratosphere with another is nothing less than wizardry. The impressive show this missile defense system put on was important not only for Israel’s enemies to see, but also for Israelis to see themselves.

It is clear why Hezbollah and Iran needed to witness the effectiveness of missile defense systems. This helps to restore Israel’s deterrence, which suffered a blow on October 7. Despite enduring a terrible setback then, Israel with its intelligence and technology proving penetrable and far less robust than expected, the capability on Sunday morning – with assistance from allies – to intercept 99% of the projectiles fired from Iran must be sobering for its enemies. They view their rocket arsenal as the most effective way to attack the Jewish state.

As important, however is the impact of this technological success on Israelis themselves.

It was striking to see how quickly Israeli citizens returned to themselves within hours of watching missiles and rockets and drones in real-time headed in their direction. Once the all-clear signal was sounded, life went back to normal as the country saw that the system worked and that hundreds of rockets, missiles, and suicide drones fired at the same time could be batted away.

Yes, it’s expensive, and no, the country can’t do it all on its own. But this showed that the umbrella works, and having a working umbrella is hugely reassuring when – as is currently the case – the regional forecast is for storms ahead.