The IDF Enters the Era of Laser Warfare

In March, the Israeli Defense Ministry successfully tested its new laser-based defense system—dubbed “Iron Beam”—against rockets, mortars, drones, and anti-tank missiles, showing its viability in real-world situations. Dore Gold explains the significance of this breakthrough:

The U.S. and Israel worked together on the Nautilus laser in 1996. They tested the system at the White Sands testing range in New Mexico. True, it downed everything that was thrown at it, from mortar shells to actual rockets. But it was cumbersome and its technology was not yet ready to make the strategic difference that Israel sought. Nonetheless, the lower cost of laser defense is part of the new advantage that it could provide to Israel.

With Iron Dome, for example, each Tamir interceptor shot can cost $80,000. . . . Today, when the latest-generation laser defense is used, then the military calculus of Israel can change radically. The cost of each laser shot drops down significantly to less than $5.00, according to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

There is another factor that needs to be taken into account. The strategic background of the last effort to develop laser defenses was the cold war. The West recognized that the Warsaw Pact was examining how to deny NATO the ability to reinforce its armies by using ballistic missiles against them. Today, the strategic context has changed. Rockets and ballistic missiles are being employed by Iranian proxy forces like Hizballah, Hamas, and especially the Houthis in Yemen.

The Houthis have also successfully fired armed drones at the heart of Riyadh and at Abu Dhabi. Unquestionably, Bahrain and Kuwait are next in line having faced active insurgencies in the last few years. There is a collective interest among Israel and the Gulf states to deny Iranian allies the ability to hit their most sensitive infrastructures. The Abraham Accords have created new regional possibilities for marrying Israeli technology with the financial power of the Arab Gulf states. This is the real game-changer that is emerging now.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: Abraham Accords, Israeli Security, Israeli technology

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF