Success of US-funded Israeli missile defense system sparks interest in use inside America
The United States has spent half a billion dollars developing Israel’s battle-tested Arrow 3 system, but its adoption for US use faces several obstacles.
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.
In a press statement, the US Missile Defense Agency called the success of the test a “major milestone in the operational capabilities of the State of Israel and its ability to defend itself against current and future threats in the region.” It wasn’t the system’s first flight, however: An Arrow defense battery was credited with shooting down a Syrian anti-aircraft missile targeting Israeli fighter jets in March 2017.
That record has not escaped the attention of US defense hawks. Some experts have notably urged the United States to adopt the Israeli technology as a backup or complement to the US Army’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems, whose lack of real-world experience have raised concerns.
