Iran's recent missile campaign against Israel became a stark test for missile defense systems, revealing that even state-of-the-art shields can spring leaks. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at how Iran managed to get more successful at breaking through Israel's vaunted air defenses over a 12-day period, calling it "a cautionary tale for countries with sophisticated missile defenses and those that seek to have them."
The Journal cites data from the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security of America (Jinsa), which found 8% of Iran's missiles hit their targets during the conflict's first half compared with double that—16%—in the second half. There are some caveats, among them that Jinsa's numbers don't "distinguish between missiles that were allowed to strike open areas in Israel and those that Israeli interceptors missed." Indeed, missile experts say Israel would've likely moved to only target the most threatening Iranian missiles as the conflict wore on in order to conserve its costly interceptors.
Still, the Journal sees Iran's learning curve as evident. It reports that the regime moved from conducting overnight onslaughts to favoring "smaller waves during daylight hours and from a wider variety of locations. Tehran further tested Israel's interceptors by changing up its firing patterns, targeting far-apart cities and varying the intervals between attacks." The Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies describes Iran's missile arsenal as the "largest and most diverse" in the Middle East.
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While Israel wouldn't comment on the Jinsa stats, its military acknowledged its interception rate dropped from an initial 90% to 95% to about 86% overall. (Read the full article for an explainer on Israel's layered air defense, a combination of Arrow 3, Aegis, Arrow 2, Thaad, David's Sling, and Iron Dome systems.)
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