Specifically: First, the much-vaunted US-Israeli anti-ballistic shield proved not to be impenetrable: despite the high shootdown rate, the Iranian “priority target hit rate” was significant. Second, it showed Iran’s ability to strike critical targets even when it has alerted the most advanced air defenses.
Thirdly, the downgrading of the role of US forces in the Persian Gulf became visible after the Saudis, the Emirates and others informed the US that they did not allow US operations against Iran from their territory. Finally, fourthly, the unmanned systems, which are much cheaper than other means of defense, they now seem to threaten the primacy of manned air strikes.
Iran’s strategic patience
On April 1, 2024, Israeli F-35 fighter jets bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, where a group of Iranian military personnel were conferring with Syrians and Iraqis. The result was the death of at least 11 people (among them some unrelated to Israeli targets). Israel had two thoughts: First, that as with the previous cases (assassinations of Iranian scientists, airstrikes against Iranian soil), and with the bombing of the consulate there would be no reaction from the West. Second, it would provoke an overreaction by Iran that would give it the opportunity to engage the US in a major attack on its nuclear infrastructure.
As for the West’s non-reaction, Israel was right (after all, it remains historically the only small country to catalyze the policy of a world superpower). As for Iran, instead of the overreaction Israel envisioned, it handled the crisis with strategic patience.
First, Iran did something unusual to show its intentions. He sent a 72-hour warning to the US, and through them to Israel, of the coming attack. Because the biased meddling of the US in every point of tension on the planet has taken the form of a natural phenomenon, President Biden immediately convened the National Security Council in the White House, and everyone together watched the developments minute by minute. They wanted to ensure that Israel would successfully repel the Iranian attack and that the latter would not lead to an out-of-control escalation. They sent General ME Kurilla to Israel to coordinate combat operations, while the US’s global anti-ballistic shield, part of the 5th fleet and hundreds of allied aircraft participated in the operations.
The planning of the attack by Iran
In terms of planning, Iran organized and executed a three-wave, time-matched counterattack that took everyone by surprise. As AlJazeera wrote, the reasons for the resignation of Israel’s military intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Aharon Haliva, include that he “failed to correctly anticipate the Iranian response.”
The first wave began with a barrage of 170 Shahed drones launched from multiple directions (mainly from Iran, but also from Iraq, Syria and Yemeni-Houthis). The Shahed were aimed at misleading and saturating air defenses rather than hitting a target. The Iranians knew that few Shaheds would penetrate US-Israeli air defenses, and one reason was the GPS guidance system they use. It is recalled that before using the Shahed against Ukraine, the Russians removed their GPS systems based on American satellites and replaced them with their own GLONASS guidance system.
The Russians know that the Americans sometimes mislead the GPS systems (Holbrooke’s statement to Pagalo about what the Americans would do to the GPS of the Greek missiles in the Imia crisis is well known). The Iranians have not yet modified the Shaheds accordingly, and so the US-Israelis were able to spoof the GPS of a significant percentage of the numerous Shaheds.
In the second wave, Iran launched about 30 hypersonic Paveh missiles. Their purpose was to engage and, as far as possible, neutralize part of the Israeli air defenses (as reported in the media, they hit at least two Iron Dome launchers and some other missile launch facilities).
The third and most critical wave of 120 Emad ballistic missiles was planned in conjunction with the previous two waves to ensure, as far as possible, that some Emads reach three priority targets: the Nevatim and Negev airbases, and the IDF8200 Information Unit ( working jointly with the CIA). The F-35 fighter jets that struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus had taken off from Nevatim and Negev airbases while IDF Unit 8200 led the attack. So they were well chosen targets, from a military point of view.
The three targets of the attack by Iran
These three targets of the Iranian attack are among the most heavily guarded sites in the world—a fact that seems to have been ignored by the media. All three targets are linked to the anti-ballistic missile architecture based in Colorado, USA. It is also part of the US theater ballistic air defense in the Middle East region linked to the US BMDS (Ballistic Missile Defense System) through Aegis destroyers equipped with X-Band AN/TPY-2 (Army-Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance) radars and OTH (Over-The-Horizon) which direct the shooting down of ballistic missiles coming from all directions.
In addition, these three targets have layered anti-ballistic defenses that included the US Patriot and THAAD, Israel’s Arrow 2 and 3 systems, the medium-range David’s Sling, and the Iron Dome tactical defense system (which for years has been very effective at shooting down its missiles Hamas and Hezbollah).
In short, Israel has the world’s best array of multi-layered air defense systems with state-of-the-art sensors integrated into the overall US defense systems architecture.
Notably, the mainstream media narrative focused on the Iranian attack being a failure since, by their estimates, around 97% of the drones and missiles were shot down or downed. This simplistic approach confuses “shoot down rate,” which includes missiles and drones whose primary purpose is to deceive, saturate, and neutralize air defenses, with the (much more important) “hit rate,” which includes only missiles focused on priority targets and a percentage of them succeed. Under its combined three-wave design, despite the high strike rate, Iran had a very good hit rate in terms of its military priorities. For example, of the 7 ballistic missiles that, according to the Iranian design, had the Nevatim air base as a priority target, 5 were proven to hit their target, a success rate of 5:7.
Similarly, 4 ballistic missiles hit the Negev Air Base, Iran’s second priority target. This fact should worry the military planners of Israel, the US and their NATO allies. The multi-layered US-Israeli anti-ballistic system has been tested and shown to be not impervious to combined multi-wave attacks. What counts is not shooting down outdated technology saturation drones but preventing critical targets from being hit by ballistic missiles.
The permeability of the anti-ballistic system
Furthermore, the permeability of the anti-ballistic system may have been a limiting factor that limited the Israeli response and the American willingness to support it: despite the warning, despite the more sophisticated and dense air defenses, despite the total coverage provided by state-of-the-art sensors, despite the large number of state-of-the-art fighters, some Iranian missiles managed to get through.
This is an important development that goes far beyond the Iran-Israel conflict. Tactical air power seems to increasingly take second place to missile power. Greece needs to pay due attention to and integrate missile power into its defense planning and planning for acquiring new weapons (for the additional reason that it costs much less than other means of warfare).
