Why
Iron Dome Is a Game Changer
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2012/11/25/why_iron_dome_is_a_game_changer_100367.html
A
Facebook friend of mine recently posted: "I love you, Iron Dome, and I want to
have your babies."
Such is the outpouring of love and
appreciation for an extraordinary piece of Israeli technology that has saved
many lives in southern and central Israel.
Nevertheless, despite this
appreciation, there has been little analysis of the true strategic significance
of Iron Dome.
Iron Dome is a game-changer that not
only consigns Hamas' and Hezbollah's current terror model to the trash can, it
completely undermines the military doctrines of all of Israel's
enemies.
Before we discuss this fundamental
strategic shift in detail, it is necessary to address a number of important
misconceptions that are clouding this reality.
Firstly, Iron Dome is no longer just a
short-range missile defense system. The fifth Iron Dome battery, deployed months
early just outside Tel Aviv on Saturday, features a significantly improved radar
system (by Elta, an unsung hero of the Iron Dome story) and software upgrades
that turn this system into a short- and medium-range missile defense
system.
While Iron Dome is regularly described
as being able to hit rockets with up to a 70 km. range, according to the IDF
this new upgrade allows it to intercept Fajr 5 (range 75 km.) and ZelZal (range
200 km.) missiles. Thus, the defense system is already achieving a significant
part of what Israel's forthcoming mediumrange missile defense system, David's
Sling, is intended to achieve.
Secondly, Iron Dome's Tamir
interceptors don't really cost $40,000 to $50,000 each to manufacture. Like any
high technology system, the vast majority of the costs of Iron Dome are systems
development and manufacturing setup.
These fixed costs are spread over the
number of items estimated to be manufactured and priced accordingly. However, if
the number of items produced substantially exceeds the initial estimate, costs
drop proportionately.
The actual marginal cost of production
of a Tamir interceptor is low and reflects the costs of the basic raw materials;
metal, fuel, explosives and electronic components used in its manufacture, and
the labor required to run the assembly line. If the IDF ends up ordering 10
times as many interceptors as originally estimated, then their "cost" will
likely drop to around $5,000. At 100 times as many the "cost" will approach the
marginal cost of less than $1000.
Thirdly, the real cost of the rockets
and missiles which Iron Dome intercepts is vastly underestimated by most
commentators. Grad rockets may well cost Iran only $1,000 each on the open
market, but this is not the delivered cost to Hamas in Gaza.
The supply line from Iran to Gaza is
an extremely convoluted and expensive one which involves huge losses from IAF
action bombing convoys and factories in Sudan, and interception by western
navies. Large bribes have to be paid at every step of the way, particularly to
the Beduin in Sinai and the Egyptian soldiers in Rafah who are supposed to be
stopping the smuggling.
And the losses continue once the Grad
gets to Gaza, with the IDF regularly destroying rocket caches. Thus, 1,000
Grads, which cost Iran $1 million to purchase, may end up as 300 Grads which
cost a further $2 million in "delivery charges." This turns a $1,000 Grad rocket
in Iran into a $10,000 Grad rocket in Gaza.
Fourthly, Iron Dome is fundamentally a
highly advanced computer system with a very rapid upgrade cycle. So far Iron
Dome is matching pace with the iPhone for major software and hardware upgrades,
and consequent performance increases.
This
will not only continue but will actually accelerate in accordance with Moore's
Law and Ray Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns which state that the
performance of computer systems increases exponentially with time.
With
each upgrade the interception rate will improve and the range of missiles it can
intercept may also improve further. It is therefore that we can expect Iron Dome
to reach a 95 percent or higher interception rate in the next year or two, and
to continue to improve as the speed and processing power of the computers that
make up its brain and eyes (radar) advance.
The
practical upshot of this is that the number of rockets per Israeli fatality has
risen from 50-75 (Lebanon and Gaza pre-Iron Dome) to 300 in 2011 (75%
interception) and around 500 in 2012 (90% interception), despite Hamas using
more lethal rockets.
The
strategic implications are that the current rocket-based terror strategy of
Hamas and Hezbollah has been rendered both ineffective and economically
unsustainable. I estimate it is currently costing Hamas (and thus its patron
Iran) around $5m. (500 rockets at $10,000 each) to murder a single Israeli. When
Iron Dome reaches 95% interception rate these figures will double and at 97.5%
they will double again.
Contrary to some suggestions, the
terrorists cannot bankrupt Israel by firing millions of rockets because the real
cost of their rockets exceeds the marginal cost of the Tamir
interceptor.
Moreover, most rockets miss and Iron
Dome ignores them. Indeed, this strategy will bankrupt Iran even more quickly
than President Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense strategy bankrupted the
Soviet Union.
This
is devastating not only to the terror strategy of Hamas and Hezbollah, but also
to the military doctrines of Israel's nation state enemies, such as Iran and
Syria, which have heavily invested in missiles and rockets to compensate for
their weak air power.
Iron
Dome is already 90% effective against many of Syria's medium-range missiles, and
Israel's Arrow 2 missile defense system is similarly effective against Iran's
long-range missiles. The remaining components of Israel's comprehensive
multi-layer missile defense umbrella, David's Sling and Arrow 3, will become
operational in 2013/14 and will follow a similar technological upgrade
trajectory as Iron Dome. As a result, the enemy's missile arsenals will continue
to decline in effectiveness at exponential rates as interception rates of
Israel's missile defense systems increase.
Iran,
Syria and their terror proxies are fighting a losing battle with the exponential
rate of technological progress in a field in which Israel leads the
world.
Iron
Dome is a game-changer that heralds the end of rockets and missiles which are
being used by the less technologically advanced. In a sense, just like the
organization I work for bankrupts terrorism one lawsuit at a time, the Iron Dome
does so one interception at a time.
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