(In an extensive analysis of the two way cooperation between the USA and Israel, my friend Charles Abelsohn writes that unlike the perception that aid to Israel is one way only, the spin off for the USA cannot be underestimated)
Let`s look at several of the mind boggling
Israeli military contributions, conceived, designed, manufactured and operated
by an Israeli army which, a mere 70 years ago, in May 1948, had little more
than out of date rifles and home made bullets, as the world, Czechoslovakia
excepted, embargoed arms and ammunition to Israel in its hour of greatest need. Perhaps it
was this embargo that initiated Israel`s own military industry.
Israel may have recently surpassed the fiction
of Star Wars. This year, in July 2019, Israel`s conceived, designed,
manufactured and operated, and U.S.-backed, Arrow-3 ballistic missile shield
passed a series of live interception tests over Alaska. The performance was
perfect - every hit a bull’s eye.
Jointly manufactured by U.S. firm Boeing Co and
Israel, Arrow-3 is billed as capable of shooting down incoming missiles in
space, at an altitude that would destroy any non-conventional warheads. It
passed its first full interception test over the Mediterranean Sea in 2015 and
was deployed in Israel in 2017.
The Arrow-3 is a bulwark against ballistic
missiles launched by enemies of Israel and now also by enemies of the USA.
America rarely purchase weapons systems from
foreign countries due to national security considerations, and Israel is among
only a small handful of countries from which the U.S. occasionally buys defense
technologies.
Israel`s best known missile defensive system is
undoubtedly the Iron Dome. The Iron Dome provides coverage against rockets with
ranges of between 5 kilometers (3 miles) and 70 kilometers (43 miles), as well
as shorter mortar rounds. The system uses small interceptor missiles to shoot
down incoming threats assessed by a computer as likely to hit a populated area.
Iron Dome ignores rockets likely to fall in an open area. According to Israeli
and U.S. officials, Iron Dome has had a 90% success rate in engagements on the
Gaza border.
The U.S. Army is now planning to buy a number
of Iron Dome missile defense systems from Israel as a system which is able to
protect deployed U.S. military service members against a wide variety of fire
(ground) threats and aerial threats.
Recently, the US military awarded a
multi-million contract to an Israeli entity for the purchase of an
Israeli-developed missile defense system, known as the Trophy, to protect
United States tanks and armored personnel carriers from missiles and rockets.
The system is made up of a radar detection system that spots incoming missiles and predicts their
trajectories, and launchers that fire buckshot-like metal pellets, which cause
the incoming missile or rocket to detonate away from the tank. I doubt whether
science fiction conjured up this scenario.
By now the Israel in America technological
development contribution to the US military is clear. It exists in many other
areas of the military such as but not only aircraft systems, communications,
radar and robots.
No comments:
Post a Comment