news

Folks, it's time for the latest installation of "Western media finally says the things the news mega has been saying for 2+ years". I'm just going to highlight a couple quotes I think are interesting, but the article is a quick read.

FT - Israel races to supply anti-missile shield: Intense war demands have left the IDF relying on the US to fill gaps in air defences

Israel faces a looming shortage of interceptor missiles as it shores up air defences to protect the country from attacks by Iran and its proxies, according to industry executives, former military officials and analysts.

The US is racing to help close gaps in Israel’s protective shield, announcing on Sunday the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) antimissile battery, ahead of an expected retaliatory strike from Israel on Iran that risks further regional escalation.

“Israel’s munitions issue is serious,” said Dana Stroul, a former senior US defence official with responsibility for the Middle East.

“If Iran responds to an Israel attack [with a massive air strike campaign], and Hizbollah joins in too, Israel air defences will be stretched,” she said, adding that US stockpiles were not limitless. “The US can’t continue supplying Ukraine and Israel at the same pace. We are reaching a tipping point.”

As it turns out, profit maximization, lean manufacturing, and just-in-time logistics is not compatible with a rapidly expanding warfront. Apparently, stockpiles and excess industrial capacity are kind of important when you want to fight another country with a peer or near-peer industrial base, let alone multiple.

The US-supplied Thaad battery, which is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, will sit alongside Israel’s Arrow system. It bolsters Israel’s overall air defences as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government plans its retaliatory strike for Iran’s missile barrage in October, which Tehran said was to avenge the killing of the leaders of the Hamas and Hizbollah militant groups.

Is "sit along side" metaphorical or literal, here? My gut feeling is that this is literal, and they are going to place the THAAD battery, which will be operated by ~100 US troops, next to an Arrow battery, meaning that the strategy is to use US troops as human shields to deter a strike on the interceptor batteries.

“We are not seeing Hizbollah’s full capability yet. It has only been firing at around a tenth of its estimated prewar launching capacity, a few hundred rockets a day instead of as many as 2,000,” said Assaf Orion, a former Israeli brigadier general and head of strategy at the Israel Defense Forces.

“Some of that gap is a choice by Hizbollah not to go full out, and some of it is due to degradation by the IDF . . . But Hizbollah has enough left to mount a strong operation,” Orion added. “Haifa and northern Israel are still on the receiving end of rocket and drone attacks almost every day.”

Analysts said that defence planners and Israel’s AI-powered air defences were having to choose which areas to protect over others.

More than 20,000 rockets and missiles have been fired at Israel over the past year from Gaza and Lebanon alone, according to official Israeli figures.

“During the October 1 attack, there was a sense the IDF reserved some Arrow interceptors in case Iran fired its next salvo at Tel Aviv,” said Ehud Eilam, a former researcher at Israel’s Ministry of Defence. “It’s only a matter of time before Israel starts to run out of interceptors and has to prioritise how they are deployed.”

We are getting to the point where Israel is having to choose which missiles to let through, which is not a great spot to be in when your population has a very low tolerance for casualties.