ONE STEP FORWARD IN ISRAEL...
As its deployment date draws closer, Israel is putting its "Iron Dome" missile defense system through its paces. The Jerusalem Post (July 15) reports that "Iron Dome," which is slated to come online sometime next year, successfully intercepted a series of rockets designed to simulate those fired by the Hamas terrorist group from the Gaza Strip and the Hezbollah militia from southern Lebanon. "Iron Dome," which is designed as a short-range air- and missile defense system, is part of the layered missile defense strategy now being implemented by Israel's Ministry of Defense, and once operational "will provide a layer of protection against short-range rockets," Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said.
...AND THE UNITED STATES
Israel is not the only country charting advances in its missile defense capabilities. Space.com reported on August 3rd that two U.S. Navy Aegis destroyers had successfully detected, tracked and destroyed a target missile fired from the Pacific Missile Test Range in Kauai, Hawaii. The direct hit marks the 19th successful intercept in a total of 23 attempts for the Aegis system, the mainstay of the U.S. missile defense program's sea-based component.
IRAN'S ENDURING INTEREST IN BALLISTIC MISSILES
Iran's powerful clerical army remains focused on expanding the range and sophistication of the country's ballistic missile arsenal, a top regime military official has said. “The center of gravity of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Air Force is ground-to-ground missile power," Brigadier General Hossein Salami, Commander of the IRGC air force, said in comments carried by the Iran Daily (August 2). "Deterrence power constitutes the strategy of the Islamic state so that any spot in the region that emerges as a threat can be taken out." The comments come after Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, in a televised interview, stressed the importance of Iran's new ballistic missile, the Sejjil-II - an extended-range, nuclear-capable solid fuel missile tested by the regime most recently in May 2009.
BACK IN THE USSR
The Obama administration's plans for a "reset" of U.S.-Russian relations, most notably in the arms control sphere, represent a throwback to Cold War diplomacy, two veteran Pentagon officials have contended. "Despite President Barack Obama’s strange, pre-Moscow summit remark last month in a New York Times interview that the U.S. and Russia are continuing to “grow” their nuclear stockpiles, both countries have in fact reduced their stockpiles drastically since the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991," Douglas Feith and Abram Schulsky, both of whom served in the Bush Defense Department and are now senior fellows at the Hudson Institute, write in the August 3rd Wall Street Journal. "Those reductions resulted from unilateral decisions, not from arms-control bargaining." So why, they ask, does the Obama administration appear determined to force the issue? "Mr. Obama seems willing to pay for arms reductions that Russian officials have made clear will occur soon, due to aging or the planned modernization of systems, with or without a new treaty."
A SPEED BUMP FOR U.S.-JAPANESE COOPERATION
Missile defense ties between Washington and Tokyo just became a bit more tricky. Reuters (August 3) reports that the Pentagon's recent decision to kill the Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) program has caused costs for the premier U.S.-Japanese BMD project to go up sharply. Military planners now estimate that development of the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA - a versatile interceptor missile that greatly expanding zones of potential coverage for sea-based missile defenses - will cost nearly $1 billion more than the original projected price tag of $3.1 billion. U.S. defense officials have been quick to say that Washington will cover the resulting cost overruns - a clear signal to Tokyo that the U.S. remains committed to bilateral missile defense cooperation.
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