The growing nuclear threat from North Korea has rekindled American interest in looking for backup missile defense options, but several obstacles hinder the adoption of Israel’s US-funded, battle-tested system by the Pentagon.
Over the past decade, the United States has invested more than a half-billion dollars into the Arrow 3 high-altitude anti-ballistic missile system as part of a 32-year-old agreement to jointly develop an indigenous Israeli anti-missile capability. Arrow 3 interceptors were delivered in January 2017, and the US and Israeli missile defense agencies successfully tested the system in central Israel last week.
