When Passover coincides with Ramadan, there is always a ball in Jerusalem. Jewish and Muslim worshipers flock around the Temple Mount and tensions rise. One spark at the Al-Aksa mosque and rockets rain down on Israel again – this past Easter weekend from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Israel once again demonstrated the success of its anti-aircraft defenses, which it has perfected over the decades.
The feat of the Israeli air defense is the Arrow component – to safely intercept ballistic missiles far from their targets, even outside the atmosphere. Israel developed this system with US Boeing (and US tax money) since the 1980s and now has the third version in use. Earlier, Israel and the US refused to sell the system – with a price tag of 3 billion – for political or economic reasons to the United Kingdom, Turkey, Japan and India, among others. But now it seems that Germany will get the desired system.
During an unusual visit to Washington early last month, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of President Joe Biden is said to have been given the green light after months of insistence. Their meeting lasted only an hour and was not accompanied by a press conference, meal or ceremony. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Berlin two weeks later, he said – emphatically vaguely – that Israel is “of course” interested in the sale and that Israel and Germany “are in agreement on the way forward.” Nothing has been confirmed so far about possible countermeasures from the German side.
Close gaps
Germany, wary of taking the military lead because of its history, has long been under pressure to put its neglected defense system in order. After the Russian attack on Kyiv last February, Chancellor Scholz promised as part of a true Zeitenwende to allocate an extra 100 billion euros to defence.
In addition, in a speech in Prague at the end of August, Scholz promised to take the lead in closing the gaps in Europe’s air defenses. Six weeks later, Germany and fourteen other countries, including the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, signed the so-called European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI). Recently, Denmark and Sweden also joined. The intention is that the result of this initiative will ultimately be transferred to NATO.
The NATO mission to defend member countries against ballistic missiles has been officially established to defend threats outside Europe. The mission is explicitly “not directed against Russia and will not undermine Russia’s strategic deterrence”, said NATO. In recent decades, the mission has been designed with the Iranian missile arsenal in mind. For example, the US operates two American missile defense systems in Romania and Poland, aimed at Iran.
Formally, the NATO mission is unchanged, but the Russian war in Ukraine changes everything. The Iskander missiles that Russia has stationed in Kaliningrad, more than 300 miles from Germany, only need a few minutes to reach Berlin. Germany, which always takes Russia’s wrath into account in its aid to Ukraine, is powerless in such a case. The American Patriot anti-aircraft system that Germany has purchased is not suitable for intercepting ballistic missiles with a nuclear, biological or chemical payload at an early stage. The Israeli Arrow 3 should offer a solution.
Gift to Kyiv
Berlin has the ambition to house three radars as well as the command center and several launch installations of the Arrow 3. The system should also be able to protect neighboring countries, if they station a launch installation. In addition to the Arrow (with a range of more than 100 km) and the Patriot (with a range of up to 70 km), Germany wants to introduce the IRIS-T, a new system from the German arms manufacturer Diehl that can launch missiles within a range of 40 km. intercept. Germany recently gave a battery to Kyiv as a gift, and wants to quickly purchase a number of them for its own Bundeswehr.
With the range of these three additional missile defense systems, the German plan seems airtight. But it is still far from being called a serious European missile shield. The ESSI is merely a declaration of intent for coordination and cooperation between seventeen countries. In theory, this could reduce the costs of purchase, maintenance and logistics. But it has not yet been said that the signatory countries agree with the German choice of these three anti-aircraft systems.
In addition, the main German allies, France and Poland, are not participating in the German initiative. Poland prefers to arrange its air defenses bilaterally with the US and the UK. And France, as an advocate of boosting the European defense industry, is not a fan of American or Israeli equipment. France and Italy have developed a European alternative to the Patriot system (SAMP/T), which Germany ignores a bit.
ESSI signatory Finland showed last week how the German leadership stands. A day after joining NATO, Finland announced that it will acquire – on its own initiative and so far the only one – a completely different Israeli anti-aircraft system, which also serves as an alternative to the Patriot. David’s Slinger, with a reference to the Biblical story of David and Goliath, can intercept missiles from a distance of forty to three hundred kilometers and, according to the Finns, is ideally suited for defense against Russian Iskanders. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has already asked Israel for such an effective ‘slingshot’.