A sobering, even frightening, meeting was organized by the Claremont Institute and Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors on April 13 in Los Angeles. The subject was rockets, missiles, how they threaten Israel and the United States, and how we can defend ourselves.
Avi Schnurr, executive director of the Israel Missile Defense Association, explained that Israel’s enemies have changed their strategy. They are investing in rockets and missiles, not planes and tanks. (The difference between a rocket and a missile is that a rocket cannot be aimed, and thus functions as a weapon of pure terror; a missile can be targeted, and thus has greater military capability.) The largest missile and rocket fleet in the world is now aimed at Israel, while Israel has no offensive missile capacity (aside from a suspected nuclear arsenal, which Israel would only use in retaliation for a devastating attack).
The perils include Hamas rockets, which can reach most of southern Israel, including Ashkelon and Beer Sheva; Hezbolla, which has half-ton warhead missiles that can now reach all of Israel; Syria’s tens of thousands of rockets and missiles in hard to hit silos; and Iran, whose missiles have explosive, biological, and chemical warheads. Overshadowing all these menaces looms Iran’s quest for a nuclear bomb, a goal that seemingly is within its grasp.
Thus, Israel’s defense imperative is a missile shield. Happily, there are a number of anti-missile weapons that work and are available today. The Arrow anti-missile missile can shoot down long-range missiles, such as Iran’s. The good news is that Israel has deployed the Arrow system—the bad news is that in fact it is the only missile defense Israel currently has. The worse news is that production has stopped; the United States decided not to share the costs of developing the Arrow-3 upgrade.
Against medium-range threats, from Hezbolla and Syria, the Patriot anti-missile missile works. The Phalanx gun is a short-range rocket and missile defense system. The U.S. military uses it to defend the Green Zone in Baghdad, but Israel has not deployed it. And perhaps best of all, Northrup Grumman has a prototype of a fantastic laser gun that in multiple tests shoots down everything thrown at it.
Still, there is a “missile defense gap”—between what exists and is deployed, and what Israel needs. Israel’s military establishment is not vigorously pursuing all available options, and the question is, why not? Schnurr explained the politics of the matter. Israel’s military doctrine has always emphasized offense, i.e., as a small country, Israel has always tried to bring the fight to the enemy, away from the home front. However, with Israel’s foes focusing on an offensive missile strategy, this is no longer feasible, as the home front has largely become the front line.
This is a potentially monumental crisis. However—and here’s the key point—although a democracy can react effectively to a crisis, it can be very hard to rouse it to avoid a crisis. Lobbying is needed to help politicians grasp the changed paradigm, from offensive to a mixed offensive-defensive military strategy. They in turn must argue with military leaders, who, perhaps counterintuitively, don’t want to be tasked with developing and acquiring new missile defense systems. Why? Because when money is tight (as it always is in Israel), whoever is stuck with developing missile defense must take it out of the existing budget.
That is a problem, but a solvable problem; as Schnurr said, “It’s not large amounts of money involved, either in the U.S. or Israeli context—but we’re talking about heavy political lifting.”
Brian T. Kennedy, the president of the Claremont Institute, dished out blame impartially for why America doesn’t have missile defense. “Liberals are automatically opposed to missile defense,” as it represents American military superiority; conservatives were too busy preening about winning the Cold War; too busy trying to save tax dollars.” Since no one took the menace seriously enough, today we have only a rudimentary system.
Missile strikes are bad enough. When Kennedy turned his attention to the EMP threat, the horrible became unimaginable. EMP, or Electromagnetic Pulse, sounds like science fiction, but is deadly serious. A single nuclear warhead, perhaps launched from an offshore freighter, exploding 300 miles over Chicago, would create an EMP that would destroy essentially all electronics in this country. This includes the great transformers that distribute power across the land. There is no real backup or replacement system. No power, no communication, no transportation. Within several weeks, most people would run out of food and water. The mortality rate could reach 90%. It would be “civilization-ending.”
Not scared yet? Iran has twice tested its capacity to launch a missile from a ship, with a resulting high-altitude explosion. This is precisely the scenario for a cataclysmic EMP attack.
Should we believe Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he says that a world without America is a desirable and achievable goal? Kennedy reminded the audience that during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, Ahmadinejad’s job reportedly was to recruit women and children to rush through mine fields at Iraqi positions. Beforehand, they were given little plastic keys, made in Taiwan, and told these were their keys to heaven. Tens of thousands of Iranians died this way. Ahmadinejad is indifferent to the suffering and deaths of Iranians. He would surely be at least as indifferent to the suffering and deaths of Americans. As Sharansky said in his The Case for Democracy (quoting an aide to Senator “Scoop” Jackson), “a government’s treatment of its own citizens, especially the government of a powerful nation, is an indication of its intentions to the rest of the world.”
There is a very real, very grave danger. But Kennedy estimated that a robust system protecting the nation from missile attack, including protecting infrastructure from EMP attack, might cost in the neighborhood of $30 billion a year, quite a manageable sum for such a pressing need.
The chief difficulty is political—a chief executive who doesn’t seem to take missile defense seriously. Kennedy observed that if President Obama took up the cause of missile defense, he would give the Democrats some needed credibility on defense issues. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be an Obama priority. Most of the Democratic Party and its allies in the opinion media have spent the last generation, since President Reagan first broached the topic, ridiculing missile defense as “Star Wars,” and insisting, contrary to fact, that it could never work.
We must hope that responsible views will prevail. We can’t count on Obama learning from experience. Unlike 9/11, an EMP assault may be impossible to recover from.
UPDATE: a reader suggested that the statement "Israel has no offensive missile capacity" was incorrect. Avi Schnurr of the Israel Missile Defense Association responds: Israel's enemies have approximately 100,000 short-, medium- and long-range rockets and missiles. Israel has no significant stock of ballistic missiles for offensive use. This information comes from a retired commander of the Israeli Air Force--not rumor or speculation.
For more info: Israel Missile Defense Association
MissileThreat.com
Brian T. Kennedy, "What a Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do"
Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack
MissileThreat.com
Brian T. Kennedy, "What a Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do"
Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack
Comments
<i>"The largest missile and rocket fleet in the world is now aimed at Israel, while Israel has no offensive missile capacity (aside from a suspected nuclear arsenal, which Israel would only use in retaliation for a devastating attack)."</i>
Israel, in fact, has had an offensive missile capacity for a number of years via it's Jerhico II MRBM (1,000 kg payload/1500 km range) and is developing a longer range varinat, the Jericho III with a putative range of 4800 km. Besides the nuclear-capable MRBM/IRBMs deployed or in development, Israel also deploys the Lance SRBM as well as a host of subsonic cruise missiles which themselves, have a land-attack capability. See:
www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Missile/3564.html (Country Profiles: Israel Overview (NTI))
and
www.cfr.org/publication/9822/israels_nuclear_program_and_middle_east_peace.html (CFR Report on Israeli Nuclear Capabilties)
w/r,
Steeljaw Scribe
(steeljawscribe.com)
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