Missile defense in 2006: now more controversial than ever

If the pronouncements of Iran’s leaders are anything to go by, they will be depending on their force of ballistic missiles as well as their terrorist allies to deliver the nuclear weapons they hope to build. While space-based intelligence satellites can help with the fight against terrorists, it takes active weapons to either destroy a missile on the ground or after it has taken off. There have been reports from some sources of dubious reliability that the Iranians are already moving their Shebab missiles every few hours to protect them from a surprise attack. Obviously if anything happens, the first thing they will do is launch as many as possible against Israel as well as American and other targets within range.

It is likely that before the US launches a campaign of air strikes against Iran’s nuclear capacity it will have to reinforce its missile defense forces throughout the region. This means that the Patriot PAC 3 units that performed pretty well against Saddam’s short-range missiles during the 2003 war will have to be redeployed to face a more challenging set of targets. They will be joined by Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers that now have a few SM-2 and SM-3 missiles with some useful defensive capability.

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