US Races to Defend Israel as It Burns Through Missile Interceptors
The U.S. is racing to reinforce Israel's defenses, sending more warships capable of shooting down ballistic missiles to the region as Iranian attacks drain Israel's stocks of interceptors.
An additional U.S. Navy destroyer arrived in the eastern Mediterranean on Friday, joining three others in the area and two in the Red Sea. The ships are operating close enough to Israel to be able to intercept missiles fired by Iran, a defense official said.
Most of the U.S.'s Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers are armed with a range of interceptors, known as SM-2, SM-3 and SM-6, that can shoot down ballistic missiles and other aerial threats. SM-3s, first used in combat last year to counter an Iranian attack, are designed to intercept missiles above the atmosphere in the middle of their flight paths.
The U.S. has also replenished stocks of ground-based interceptors for the Thaad antimissile system it set up in Israel last year. Formally known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, the system is operated by the U.S. Army and designed to intercept missiles inside or outside the atmosphere during their final phase of flight, known as the terminal phase.
The surge of seaborne- and ground-based missile defenses underscores the concerns about Israel's dwindling supplies of the armaments. Israel risks exhausting its supply of high-end Arrow 3 interceptors in the coming weeks if its conflict with Iran isn't resolved and Tehran continues to launch volleys of missiles, a U.S. official said.
Israel uses several different systems to provide a multilayered defense of the country. The well-known Iron Dome works on shorter-range rockets and drones. David's Sling intercepts missiles, planes and drones at a greater distance.
The Arrow 3 is the crown jewel, designed to intercept missiles above the Earth's atmosphere. It can neutralize threats before they cross into Israeli airspace and give other systems time to act if the first shot misses.
'Without Arrow 3, it's problematic,' said Timur Kadyshev, a researcher at the University of Hamburg who has studied the Arrow system. 'You have less time to shoot down an incoming missile because you're shooting them only in the terminal phase.'
Israel Aerospace Industries, the company that makes Arrow interceptors, didn't respond to requests for comment. Israel's armed forces also declined to comment on interceptor stockpiles, but said the military is ready to handle any scenario.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview Thursday with Israel's public broadcaster Kan, declined to answer whether Israel was running out of Arrow 3 interceptors.
'I would always like more and more,' Netanyahu said. He estimated that Israel has destroyed around half of Iran's missile launchers since the current conflict began, thereby diminishing the threat posed by Iran's missile arsenal.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Trump had approved attack plans for Iran, but was holding off on giving the final order to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program through diplomacy.
The waiting period will keep the onus on Israel to continue the fight even as its ability to defend against missile attacks runs down.
'There's no time to lose, and two weeks is a very long time,' said Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Israel is using its control of the skies over western Iran to take out more missiles before they are launched. Its air superiority could also force Iran to fire from farther away, which means using liquid-fueled missiles that take more time to get ready, making them more vulnerable to attack.
Still, Tehran has continued to fire volleys of missiles at Israeli population centers. If Iran keeps up its attacks, Israel in the coming days might be forced to make difficult decisions about husbanding its resources and giving priority to which missiles to intercept, Kadyshev said.
The U.S. is facing its own concerns about supplies of interceptors. Supplies diverted to the conflict in the Middle East are coming at the expense of those available in the event of a bigger conflict with China.
'We are concerned for the number remaining for the high-end fight,' said a U.S. officer who has operated in the Middle East. 'SM-3s will start running low at this pace of operations, cutting into reserves for the next kinetic engagement.'
The U.S. might also face tough decisions about how many interceptors to exhaust if the fighting drags on. It rushed missile defenses to its Persian Gulf partners after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel kicked off what would become more than a year and a half of war.
Those defenses are politically and militarily important. Gulf countries have pressed the U.S. to take a more active role in their defense, and Iran has threatened to hit American bases in the Gulf and elsewhere in the region if the U.S. joins Israel in the attack.
Israel's conflict with Iran is costing the country hundreds of millions of dollars a day, according to early estimates, a price tag that could constrain Israel's ability to conduct a lengthy war.
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