Tag Archives: Missile defense

Russia To Send Advanced Anti-Aircraft Missiles To Syria, Warns Israel Of “Catastrophic Consequences”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on April 26, 2018 | 1 comment

The result of the US’s most recent bombing of the Syria may be that Israel will no longer be able to bomb Syria with impunity. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Israel continues ratcheting up its rhetoric this week in response to Russia’s Defense Ministry signaling it will likely move forward in arming Syria with the advanced S-300 missile defense system, bringing both Israeli and Lebanese airspace to within targeting range of Syrian missiles. 

On Tuesday Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in unambiguous terms that his country would attack such missile sites should Russia move forward on supplying them.

Liberman told Israel’s YNet, “What’s important to us is that the defensive weapons the Russians are giving Syria won’t be used against us,” and threatened further, “one thing should be clear: If someone fires on our planes, we will destroy them.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in the past years of war in Syria – of which Israel is a significant player, especially given its longtime support of al-Qaeda linked anti-Assad insurgents to the south of Damascus – made it clear that transfer of the S-300 would constitute a “red line” on which Israel would act.

In 2013, when Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly first considered the move, marking a major and exceptionally advanced update to Syria’s current Soviet-era deterrent systems, Netanyahu warned, “We’ll destroy your missiles if you deliver them to Assad.” He said that Israel would hit them before the system came online.

Though displaying an early reluctance to derail its delicate diplomatic relationship with Israel, Russia changed its tune on the very morning after the US-led coalition strike took place overnight on April 13. Russia’s first deputy chief of staff, Sergei Rudskoi, said at the time that Russia would “reconsider” whether to supply the air defenses to Assad – an issue previously thought dead as a result of prior Israeli-Russian summits in Sochi.

To continue reading: Russia To Send Advanced Anti-Aircraft Missiles To Syria, Warns Israel Of “Catastrophic Consequences”

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US CENTCOM Chief Makes “Secret And Unprecedented” Visit To Israel As Russia Mulls Arming Syria, by Tyler Durden

Posted on April 24, 2018 | 2 comments

In response to the most recent American missile-shoot on Syria, Russia may upgrade Syrian missile defenses, to the consternation of both the US and Israel. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Increasingly it appears that the recent US coalition missile strikes on Syria have utterly backfired: instead of weakening Syria or degrading its military capabilities, the attack may have actually served to strengthen Syria’s defenses. 

Since the massive strike which involved the US, UK, and France launching over 100 cruise missiles, Russia is rumored to be moving forward on delivery of its advanced S-300 missile defense system, which would be a monumental upgrade allowing Syrian defenses to far surpass current capabilities which utilize the Soviet-made S-125 and S-200 air defense systems.

Crucially, S-300s have a range of up to 150-200 kilometers (or 120 miles), bringing Syrian deterrent reach easily to within Lebanese airspace (as Israel has routinely struck targets inside Syria while firing over “neutral” Lebanese airspace in recent years), and could even extend airspace coverage into Israel itself.

Could this be the reason for some major behind-the-scenes diplomatic scrambling?

On Monday VOA News chief White House correspondent Steve Herman announced that US CENTCOM commander General Joseph Votel is in the midst of “a secret and unprecedented visit to Israel.”

Knowledge of the “secret” visit was based on exclusive footage broadcast by Israel’s Kann News, which first reported, “the commander of the American Central Command arrived for the first time to Israel, and met with senior security officials, including the Chief of Staff.”

No doubt the potential for what weapons experts have commonly described as the “exceptionally advanced” Russian-supplied S-300 in Israel’s backyard is making Tel Aviv and its allies nervous. Israel has repeatedly called delivery of the S-300s a “red line” for which it would act, however, plans for just such a scenario could be hastening.

To continue reading: US CENTCOM Chief Makes “Secret And Unprecedented” Visit To Israel As Russia Mulls Arming Syria

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President Trump Confident in Missile Defense: In the Grip of Dangerous Illusion, by Andrei Akulov

Posted on October 30, 2017 | 1 comment

The US’s missile defense systems are not foolproof. From Andrei Akulov at strategic-culture.org:

President Trump Confident in Missile Defense: In the Grip of Dangerous Illusion

The US is pushing ahead with expansion of the nation’s homeland ballistic missile defense (BMD). The effort enjoys strong bipartisan support in Congress and among experts. Many allies place a high value on BMD cooperation with the United States. However, there are ample reasons to question the efficiency of US missile defenses, especially the capability to protect against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

“We have missiles that can knock out a missile in the air 97% of the time,” President Donald Trump said in his interview with Fox News on October 11, adding “and if you send two of them, it’s going to get knocked down.” He was talking about the threat coming from North Korea to be repelled by the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) in Alaska and California – the $40 billion project administered by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

The US military conducted the first-ever missile defense test involving a simulated attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile in May. The ICBM-type target was fired from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands toward the waters just south of Alaska. The mission was to prepare for countering an intercontinental missile launched by North Korea. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) described the test as an “incredible accomplishment”. According to Vice Admiral Jim Syring, director of the agency, “This system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat.” The assessment appears to be exaggerated as the test was not conducted in a realistic environment.

The next test of the GMD system is scheduled for late 2018 and, for the first time, will involve firing two interceptors against one ICBM target. It makes unsubstantiated the president’s affirmation that two interceptors are enough to knock out a North Korean missile as no such tests have been conducted so far.

The US currently deploys 36 interceptors – 32 at Fort Greely, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. By the end of 2017, there will be 44 deployed GBIs. A majority of the interceptors use the CE-I variant of kill vehicle that has scored only two successes in four tests. At least ten interceptors are to be equipped with the CE-II Block I vehicle, which has had two successful intercept tests in three tries.

It is generally believed that it takes at least four-five interceptors to hit the target. It means President Trump is off base saying the hit probability is 97%. Prior to the ICBM test, the GMD system had successfully hit its target in only ten of 18 tests since 1999. A success rate is about 56%, not 97%. But even 56% is almost certainly an overstatement, given the less-than-realistic nature of the tests.

To continue reading: President Trump Confident in Missile Defense: In the Grip of Dangerous Illusion

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Mutual Assured Destruction, by Philip M. Giraldi

Posted on October 29, 2017 | Leave a comment

Take those claims that anti-missile defense systems can knock incoming missiles out of the sky with many grains of salt. From Philip Mr. Giraldi at strategic-culture.org:

Sometimes it is possible to read or view something that completely changes the way one looks at things. I had that experience last week when I read an article at Lobelog entitled “A Plea for Common Sense on Missile Defense,” written by Joe Cirincione, a former staffer on the House Armed Services Committee who now heads the Ploughshares Fund, which is a Washington DC based global foundation that seeks to stop the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The article debunks much of the narrative being put out by the White House and Pentagon regarding missile defense. To be sure, it is perfectly reasonable to mistrust anything that comes out of the federal government justifying war given its track record going back to the War of 1812. And the belligerent posture of the United States towards Iran and North Korea can well be condemned based on its own merits, threatening war where there are either no real interests at stake or where a diplomatic solution has for various reasons been eschewed.

But the real reason why the White House gets away with saber rattling is historical, that the continental United States has not experienced the consequences of war since Pancho Villa invaded in 1916. This is a reality that administration after administration has exploited to do what they want when dealing with foreign nations: whatever happens “over there” will stay “over there.”

Americans consequently do not know war except as something that happens elsewhere and to foreigners, requiring only that the U.S. step in on occasion and bail things out, or screw things up depending on one’s point of view. This is why hawks like John McCain, while receiving a “Liberty” award from Joe Biden, can, with a straight face, get away with denouncing those Americans who have become tired of playing at being the world’s policeman. He describes them as fearful of “the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, [abandoning] the ideals we have advanced around the globe, [refusing] the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain ‘the last best hope of earth’ for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism.”

To continue reading: Mutual Assured Destruction

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