On July 17, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced that it had signed a contract to accelerate the acquisition of Arrow interceptors. The ministry said in a statement that the Arrow system, which was developed and manufactured in cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA), “demonstrated significant interception capabilities during the Swords of Iron War, especially during Operation Rising Lion.”
The decision to acquire more of the interceptors would seem obvious. However, it’s part of the much larger series of lessons that have been learned in the recent 12-day war. A month after Rising Lion, what are the technological lessons learned? What should Israel expect in a future war with Iran?
Iran launched an estimated 550 ballistic missiles at Israel between June 13 and June 24. Most of the launches took place in the early days of the war. The Israeli attack caught Iran by surprise. It appears that the Islamic Republic struggled to keep up a volume of missile fire during the 12-day war.
This is in contrast to the two attacks Iran carried out against Israel in 2024. Iran targeted Israel with ballistic missiles and drones in April that year. It also carried out another mass attack in October, using ballistic missiles. These attacks were both planned in advance by Iran. There does not appear to have been much effort invested in suppressing Iran’s ability to launch missiles at Israel.
Israel learned from the 2024 attacks.
During the 12-day war in June, Israel focused on taking out Iranian missile launchers. It appears likely that many of the launchers were destroyed in the war. This prevented Iran from carrying out large-scale attacks with hundreds of missiles at a time. Instead, it was forced to carry out a few attacks with launchers that had to be increasingly positioned in central or eastern Iran.
Israel’s ability to carry out a large number of aerial sorties over Iran, along with the use of drones as part of the make-up of the sorties, successfully suppressed Iran’s threats. Of more interest is the fact that around 99% of the Iranian drone threat was intercepted, or failed to reach Israel.
In warfare, it’s very rare to get to a 99% figure.
For instance, for Iron Dome interceptions, the percentage is usually assumed to be in the 90s, but not 99 percent. The interception rate of the Iranian ballistic missiles was not nearly as high; it is estimated at 88%. Some missiles penetrated Israel’s air defenses with devastating results. Around 30 people were killed and thousands wounded in the Iranian attacks.
In essence, the war has taught Israel that 40 years of investments in air defenses have paid off.
The Arrow program has its origins in the 1980s. The 1991 Gulf War, which saw Saddam Hussein launch Scud missiles at Israel, showed that Israel needed air defenses. The US-made Patriot at the time was not enough, and it was subsequently shown not to have performed well in 1991. That indicated that the US, Israel and the West had a lot to learn.
Luckily for Israel, there were not more Saddam Hussein-type regimes in the 1990s that posed such a threat. Israel had time to work on technologies for defending the country. The Second Intifada distracted it a bit from this course because of having to deal with an insurgency in the West Bank and Gaza.
The 2006 war with Hezbollah showed that Israel badly needed to play catch-up in terms of improving its air defenses. The result was the Iron Dome system.
A decade later, David’s Sling, a medium-range interceptor, and then Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 were ready to see action. David’s Sling and Arrow have proven themselves in the Israel-Hamas War that began with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and in Rising Lion. David’s Sling and Iron Dome are produced by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Arrow is produced by Israel Aerospace Industries.
Air defense technology is not the only thing that Israel has seen succeed in the recent war. Israel’s Air Force also performed phenomenally in the war on Iran. Not all the technologies are known, however some of the details have been revealed.
Israel’s Channel 12 noted that “the Air Force carried out dozens of attacks on nuclear facilities in Iran and the capital of the Islamic Republic, Tehran. Today (Wednesday, July 16) it can be revealed that during the attacks by the Air Force aircraft in Iran, the aircraft were equipped with ‘self-defense suites’ manufactured by Elbit Systems, which constituted an additional and critical layer of protection against threats to Israeli fighter jets - which recorded unprecedented success.”
Israel had a lot of time to troubleshoot and learn what worked and didn’t work in the lead-up to the 12-day battle.
First of all, it had to deal with the Hamas attack on October 7 and the subsequent war. That war has dragged on and is mostly a grueling ground war using tanks and infantry. While some new technologies were rolled out in Gaza, they are mainly designed to deal with insurgent threats.
Where Israel got to learn how the Iranian challenge might play out was in the war with the Houthis and Hezbollah. Israel carried out around half a dozen major air raids on the Houthis. These were long-range strikes over more than 2,000 km. That meant that Israel used drones, various types of F-16s, F-15s, and F-35s, as well as refuelers, in the strikes. It also carried out long-range strikes on Iran in October 2024, in response to the Iranian attack. In addition, Israel was able to successfully suppress a large volume of missile fire from Hezbollah, partly by destroying rocket and missile stocks and by hitting Hezbollah command and control.
A major lesson of the conflict with Iran is that the Islamic Republic’s military model is not as relevant as it seems.
Iran pushed to arm its proxies in the region. Those proxies are dangerous and have bedeviled other countries, such as Saudi Arabia. Iran also launched a direct attack on Saudi Arabia using drones and cruise missiles in 2019. This was a curtain raiser into Iran’s way of war.
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq also attacked US forces with drones and rockets. Iran may have improved its drones and missiles over time, but it was possible to defeat its arsenal.
Iran’s drones, primarily the Shahed 136, have been exported to Russia for use against Ukraine. However, the Ukrainians have shown that the drone threat can be mostly neutralized. They have not reached Israel’s apparent 99% interception rate, but Kyiv has been successful in stopping many drones.
Iran’s drone and missile technology may have peaked in this war. Iran will continue to try to make the missiles more precise and increase their range or their features; however, the missiles have been shown to be a false hope for Tehran. Iran has boasted in the past of developing “hypersonic” missiles. Most ballistic missiles reach hypersonic speeds by virtue of their trajectory; however, that doesn’t mean they have the capability to maneuver. It is the maneuver element in the “hypersonic” threat that matters most. Iran likes to talk about its accomplishments, but its missiles and drones continue to show signs of vulnerability.
Missiles and drones also don’t win wars on their own.
The Nazis developed the world’s first widely produced ballistic missile during World War II. This was the V-2. They also developed the first version of a type of cruise missile, called the V-1. The two systems terrorized the United Kingdom but didn’t win the war for Germany. Saddam’s experience with Scuds should serve as a cautionary tale for regimes that trust in this technology. It isn’t the game changer it seems to be.
Iran’s regime includes many intelligent people who will still want to create new threats for Israel. They continue to traffic arms to the Houthis, as revealed by a recent shipment that was seized. The shipment included engines for drones and a wide variety of technology for drones and missiles. Clearly, Iran hasn’t learned its lesson. It will continue to go down the path of missiles and drones because it doesn’t have much else to invest in.
Israel should be wary of Iran’s asymmetric threats, such as plots abroad. However, Iran’s conventional forces will need to rethink their defense technology in any future round.