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A Skeptical View of Israel's Iron Dome Rocket Defense System
Lasrick (2629253) writes It isn't as if real analysis of Israel's "Iron Dome" isn't available, but invariably, whenever Israel has a skirmish the media is filled with glowing reports of how well the system works, and we always find out months later that the numbers were exaggerated. John Mecklin at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists looks at the coverage of Iron Dome in the recent exchanges between Israel and Hamas and finds the pattern is repeating itself. However, 'Ted Postol, an MIT-based missile defense expert and frequent Bulletin contributor, provided a dose of context to the Iron Dome coverage in a National Public Radio interview Wednesday. "We can tell, for sure, from video images and even photographs that the Iron Dome system is not working very well at all,"' Includes a good explanation of the differences between Iron Dome (a 'rocket defense system') and missile defense systems pushed by the U.S.
Stay on topic and discuss the technical aspects of the missile system, at least that is what should be discussed here.
The article itself hardly touches on the technical merits of the missile system. It mentions how there are hardly any public releases of technical aspect to discuss, and that the handful of images of the system in operation show intercept angles that are highly unlikely to be successful. The core argument of the article is that the whole situation is nothing more than a PR campaign on both sides.
Hamas fires inaccurate artillery rockets, unlikely to actually hit anything, at Israel, under the hopes Israel counter-attacks and causes lots of collateral damage that looks bad to international press.
Israel produces a defense system and makes precision counter-attacks to prove their technological and military prowess, and restraint in its use, to international press.
No, in recent history, these conflicts are resolved by pressure from the international community. It's how apartheid in South Africa ended, to a great extent.
I don't know if you're old enough to remember Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher referring to Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist" and his party as a "terrorist organization". It turned out they were dead wrong. Last year, the philosophical progeny of Reagan and Thatcher hailed Mandela as a hero.
History is not going to be kind to the government of Israel in the first decades of the 21st century (if not longer).
It didn't have to be this way.
You are welcome on my lawn.