Since Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, missile defense has been a critical component of the conflict in the Middle East. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense batteries have intercepted rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. The Arrow-3 system destroyed, for the first time, a missile coming from Yemen in November 2023. And twice, the United States coordinated the response among Israel, European, and Arab partners to counter barrages of Iran’s missiles and drones. In retrospect, this conflict will prove to be as significant for missile defense progress as the Gulf War of 1991, which marked the first use of the US Patriot batteries in actual combat, where they were employed against Iraq’s Scud missiles.
However, just like the Gulf War highlighted both the promises and limitations of missile defense at that time (including a debate over the actual interception rate of the Patriot batteries), the Gaza War also serves as a cautionary tale about what missile defense can achieve, what it should achieve, and where it falls short. To be sure, missile defense systems have demonstrated technological advancements and the ability to prevent mass casualties from barrages of enemy missiles. But the Gaza war has also shown that missile defense is not nearly as effective against drones, is often hindered by the difficulties of international coordination, and cannot by itself provide deterrence and regional stability.
What we know now
To begin with, there is no longer a heated debate regarding the technical ability of systems like Iron Dome, Arrow, or Patriot to fulfill their purpose. After more than a year of engagement with rockets, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles launched by Iran and its proxies, these systems have proven sufficiently effective at preventing massive damage and civilian casualties.
Furthermore, the Middle East conflict highlighted a significant leap forward in collective missile defense operations. On April 14, 2024, the Iranian attack on Israel’s territory triggered a response that involved the air and missile defense capabilities of the United States and Israel, as well as those of two NATO allies (the United Kingdom and France) and Arab states (Jordan, and possibly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). Ultimately, the capacity of the ad-hoc coalition to intercept most projectiles launched by Iran demonstrated, for the first time, the feasibility of a regional alliance to defend against such threats.
However, these successes should not result in complacency. Missile defense is undoubtedly here to stay in the Middle East, but many persistent issues remain at the tactical, operational, diplomatic, and, ultimately, strategic levels.
No silver bullet
First, despite improvements in the defense against missiles, the proliferation of unmanned systems presents a persistent challenge. Due to their size and ability to maneuver, drones can evade detection. Hezbollah and the Houthis have often managed to avoid the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF’s) radars. For instance, in July 2024, the Houthis successfully struck a building in central Tel Aviv (near the US embassy branch office in the city) using a small kamikaze drone.
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This drone challenge could intensify as Iran and its proxies improve swarming tactics that enable them to integrate multiple drones into a single fleet capable of communicating and operating together. Sometime in the coming decade, the introduction of artificial intelligence could further accelerate the magnitude of this threat.
Second, at the operational level, missile defense may be more effective today, but its execution is becoming increasingly complex. To be accurate, one should refer to missile defenses: no one-size-fits-all solution exists in the domain. Intercepting short-range rockets or drones requires systems that differ from those used against cruise or mid-range ballistic missiles. As a result, the Middle East is equipped with numerous missile defense systems—such as the United States’ Patriot and THAAD and Israel’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow. Future systems are also in development, including Israel’s laser-based Iron Beam and several US counter-drone projects.
This presents a series of operational challenges for the US armed forces, such as the training requirements for its personnel and the need to ensure airspace deconfliction. Additionally, US Central Command must navigate the specific needs of each of its partners. US systems are designed with their interoperability requirements. In contrast, other countries follow their own needs. When the US Army procured two Iron Dome batteries in 2019, it faced difficulties integrating them into its command-and-control system because the Israeli system followed different technical standards. French forces in the Middle East also employed their own Aster 30 surface-to-air missiles to counter multiple Houthi ballistic missiles in the Red Sea. Experts rightly talk of a “multilayered” defense, but as more layers accumulate, the governance of missile defense becomes more difficult to manage.
Diplomatic difficulties
The multinational nature of missile defense cooperation also brings diplomatic challenges. While the success of the ad-hoc coalition against Iran in April 2024 shows that the United States and its partners can handle operational challenges, they faced political sensitivities. This is particularly evident in the Gulf, where US partners like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar remain hesitant to deepen the integration of their air defense networks. Advancing these matters has significant implications for each country’s national sovereignty, especially when it comes to sharing intelligence data among neighboring countries or approving the automation of decision making in missile interception scenarios.
These issues are already sensitive among NATO allies. However, at least within the transatlantic context, they can be discussed and refined in institutions like the North Atlantic Council, the Military Committee, or Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. In contrast, the Middle East lacks a comparable structure. The organization closest to a NATO-like framework is the Gulf Cooperation Council, but its history in defense cooperation is limited. This leaves the US Central Command (CENTCOM) as the only credible entity by default to build the much-needed collective response. CENTCOM surely has the means to address the operational challenges associated with that response, but at the diplomatic level, it cannot substitute for a regional body composed of its local partners.
These institutional limitations are not coincidental. While Middle East partners may be eager to collaborate closely with the United States, they remain hesitant to cooperate with each other. One should not forget that between 2017 and 2021, three Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain) closed their air and maritime spaces to Qatar to express their disagreements with their neighbor’s foreign policy. Eventually, Gulf leaders resolved this crisis, but many of its root causes remain unaddressed.
Another significant obstacle to formalizing regional missile defense cooperation is the hesitance of Arab states to publicize their military cooperation with the IDF after the Gaza war. True, these states have had no qualms about collaborating with US Central Command and the IDF against Iran’s missile attacks in April and October 2024. However, in both cases, the Gulf’s contribution was limited to sharing their radar data with US counterparts. At the same time, the Jordanian air defense unit intercepted Iranian drones that breached the kingdom’s airspace. Overall, Arab partners minimized their contributions (with the Saudis even denying theirs). This Arab discomfort with cooperating on Israel on missile defense predates the Gaza war. In January 2022, Gulf officials remained quiet when Israel’s then Defense Minister Benny Gantz claimed that his country was building a “Middle East Air Defense Alliance” with the United States and Gulf states.
Defense, not deterrence
But the most significant challenge to missile defense ultimately lies at the strategic level. It comes down to the fact that the deterrence value of missile defense appears to be limited after the Gaza war. This may seem like a paradox: how can the enhancement of these systems coincide with a diminished ability to deter adversaries?
The idea of missile defense as a deterrent has always been contentious. It presupposed that adversaries would abandon their offensive plans due to the overwhelming superiority of missile defense. Nevertheless, the Gaza war demonstrated that this assumption did not hold in the context of the Israel-Iran conflict. After a decade of rocket attacks, Hamas was not deterred by the Iron Dome. The group surprised the IDF with a ground offensive on October 7, 2023, in which rocket barrages were merely a secondary component. Similarly, the Houthis continued their harassment campaign against ships crossing the Red Sea throughout the Gaza war despite the significant efforts of the US Navy and its partners to stop and deter their aggression. This shows that missile defense cannot effectively deter nonstate actors.
Additionally, the repeated attacks from Iran on Israel’s territory indicate that Tehran was also not deterred. Iran’s attacks on Israel in April and October 2024 marked the first instances of a Middle Eastern state attacking the Jewish state since Saddam Hussein launched forty-three Scud missiles at Israel in 1991—and in hindsight, the Iraqi attack seems minor compared to the scale of the Iranian campaign. In last year’s Israel-Iran conflict, both countries crossed one another’s mutual red lines. The performance of Israel’s missile defense system was impressive, but it did not pressure Tehran into scaling down or abandoning its attack—arguably, Israeli counterstrikes did that instead.
The fact that missile defense is not a deterrent does not make it irrelevant: When necessary, intercepting ballistic missiles and other projectiles still saves lives and buys time for decision makers to prepare their response. However, no one should be under the illusion that missile defense progress, such as improvements in interception rates or better coordination with regional allies and partners, creates regional stability on its own. From now on, regional military planners are likely to favor offense, not defense.
Jean-Loup Samaan is a senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore, as well as a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.
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Image: A rocket flies in the sky after Iran fired a salvo of ballistic missiles, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, October 1, 2024. REUTERS/Amir Cohen ATTENTION EDITORS: ADDING INFORMATION