今回の紛争でイスラエルがミサイルを撃退するIron Domeシステムを本格導入したことは先日の記事でもご紹介させていただきました。こういう情報を耳にすると、それっていったい何？、ミサイル防衛って、レーガンのスターウォーズしかり、パトリオットしかり、金ばっかりかかって効果が乏しいんじゃないのとかいった疑問が沸くと思うんです。そういう疑問を持ちながら、いろいろなメディアをのぞいていると、自分の疑問にまさに答えてくれる記事に出会えることがあります。ある程度いろいろなメディアに触れるメリットはそういうところにあるのではないかなと思っています。
これから抜粋して紹介するのはウォールストリートジャーナルの記事なんですが、このIron Domeシステムの発案から、当初懐疑的ながらも導入が決定されるまで、そしてアメリカの支援を受けて実践で使われるまでの詳しい経緯が紹介されている、大変勉強になる記事でした。まあ、軍事オタクの方にとっては常識だったのかもしれませんが（苦笑）
MIDDLE EAST NEWS Updated November 26, 2012, 7:16 a.m. ET
Israel's Iron Dome Defense Battled to Get Off Ground
By CHARLES LEVINSON and ADAM ENTOUS
Words checked = [2092]
Words in Oxford 3000™ = [79%]
記事の紹介に入る前にYoutubeでIron Domeといれただけですでにたくさん動画がアップされていました。改めて言うまでもないことですが、すごい便利な時代になっています。興味を持って調べる人とそうでない人の格差がますます広がっていってしまうんでしょうね。
このシステムの始まりは8年前に遡れるようです。ただしミサイル迎撃システムを呼び掛けたものの反応は冷淡だったとあります。その理由は数フィートしか離れておらず数秒で届くミサイルを迎撃できるわけない思っていたからです。
In 2004, then-Brig. Gen. Daniel Gold was named director of the Ministry of Defense's Research and Development department, responsible for overseeing the development of new weapons systems. Mr. Gold, who also has a Ph.D. in mathematics, took up the rocket challenge with a zealot's gusto, according to people involved in the project.
That August, he put out a call to defense companies for proposed antirocket systems. Few took notice within the defense establishment.
Israel's Hezbollah foes in Lebanon first turned to short-range rockets in the mid-1990s. The first Hamas-fired Palestinian rocket hit Israel in early 2001. The crude projectiles rarely hit their intended targets, yet over the years they rained down by the thousands—some 4,000 by 2008.
Almost no one in Israel's military brass believed rocket defense could work. Palestinian rockets from Gaza fly erratically and can hit Israeli communities within seconds. Most are just a few feet long and a few inches wide.
そのような流れが変わったのは2006年のレバノンのヒズボラが4000発以上のミサイルをイスラエルに撃ち込んできたことからのようです。軍人ではなく民間人のAmir Peretz防衛相が賛成してくれたとあります。
In the summer of 2006, war broke out with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Over the 33 days, Hezbollah fired more than 4,200 rockets into northern Israel, killing 44 Israelis. Suddenly, stopping rockets was a government priority.
So in August 2006, Gen. Gold and his team briefed the man who was then Israel's minister of defense, Amir Peretz, on Iron Dome. Mr. Peretz had spent most of his career as a labor organizer. As a civilian with little military experience, he had been an unlikely choice as defense minister. He hails from Sderot, a southern Israeli town that borders Gaza and has borne the brunt of Palestinian rocket fire.
しかし、このような開発にはお金がかかりますから、アメリカの支援なくしては無理でしょう。当時のブッシュ政権にお願いをしたものの、懐疑的な反応しか返ってこなかったようです。
But if the government hoped to have enough Iron Dome batteries to provide meaningful protection against rockets, it would need more money than that. Israel's Defense Ministry approached the U.S. administration of President George W. Bush with a request for hundreds of millions of dollars for the system. The reception at the Pentagon was frosty, according to current and former U.S. defense officials.
Mary Beth Long, the assistant secretary of defense who oversaw the Iron Dome review process, sent a team of U.S. military engineers to Israel to meet with the developers. After the trip, in a meeting in her office, the team voiced skepticism about the technology, citing poor performance in initial testing, Ms. Long said in an interview.
Rafael's Mr. Drucker recalls an even harsher U.S. response. He said the U.S. team told them: "This is something that cannot be done."風向きが変わったのはオバマ政権発足後のようで、今まで否定的だった評価が180ど変わるまでになりました。これはイラン核開発の疑惑が本格化したことが大きな原因かもしれませんが、2010年以降2.75億万米ドル（およそ225億円）を資金援助してくれるようになったそうです。
At the direction of a White House working group headed by then-National Security Council senior director Dan Shapiro (who today is the U.S. ambassador to Israel), the Pentagon sent a team of missile-defense experts to Israel in September 2009 to re-evaluate Iron Dome. The decision raised eyebrows in some Pentagon circles. Iron Dome was still seen as a rival to the Phalanx system, and previous assessment teams had deemed Iron Dome inferior.
In its final report, presented to the White House in October, the team declared Iron Dome a success, and in many respects, superior to Phalanx. Tests showed it was hitting 80% of the targets, up from the low teens in the earlier U.S. assessment. "They came in and basically said, 'This looks much more promising…than our system,' " said Dennis Ross, who at the time was one of Mr. Obama's top Middle East advisers.
That summer, Mr. Kahl's office drafted a policy paper recommending that the administration support the Israeli request for roughly $200 million in Iron Dome funding.
このシステムが実践で用いられたのは昨年の2月だそうですが、世間の注目を集めるようになったのは今回が初めてだと語っています。ヒーローのように扱われている最近のPeretz氏を紹介してこの記事が締められていました。
The system went operational in March 2011. It shot down its first Palestinian rocket on April 7. Within three days it had shot down eight more rockets. But it wasn't until the recent Gaza flare-up that the system made its mark on the public consciousness.
Mr. Peretz went to a bar mitzvah earlier this week. When the onetime political pariah walked into the reception hall, 200 people rose to give him a spontaneous standing ovation, according to aides in his office. On the fourth day of the war, Gen. Gold, now retired, sat at a cafe in central Tel Aviv. Two women stopped and asked to have their photographs taken with him.
迎撃ミサイルシステムにしては比較的安価といってもミサイルを迎え撃つのに一回370万円かかるそうなので、今回約400発を迎え撃ったとありましたので15億円近くかかったことになります。
Missiles v rockets
Dome warfare
The Israelis can fend off most of the missiles but some will still get through
Nov 24th 2012 | from the print edition
Though the interceptors cost $45,000 each (some 50 times the price of most of the missiles they destroy), Hamas will struggle to restock with rockets and, after its backing for the uprising in Syria, will get less help from Iran. As part of any permanent ceasefire, Israel will insist that Egypt clamps down on the smuggling of missile parts through Sinai and into Gaza. If it fails to do so, its risks losing the $1.3 billion a year in military aid it gets from America.
人の安全はお金にかえられないのでしょう。イスラエルはすでに新たな中距離ミサイルの迎撃システムの実験に成功したようです。
Israel successfully tests missile defense system
Published: Yesterday
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel successfully tested its newest missile defense system Sunday, the military said, a step toward making the third leg of what Israel calls its "multilayer missile defense" operational.
The "David's Sling" system is designed to stop mid-range missiles. It successfully passed its test, shooting down its first missile in a drill Sunday in southern Israel, the military said.
このシステムが導入されれば、すでに導入されている長距離、短距離の迎撃システムを組み合わせた"multilayer missile defense" operational.が可能になるようです。
Israel has also deployed Arrow systems for longer-range threats from Iran. The Iron Dome protects against short-range rockets fired by militants in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Iron Dome shot down hundreds of rockets from Gaza in this month's round of fighting.詳しい展開予定などもニュースでは触れていました。久しく聞かなかったパトリオットシステムも使っているようです。
"David's Sling," also known "Magic Wand," is developed by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and U.S.-based Raytheon Co. and is primarily designed to counter the large arsenal of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon.
The military said the program, which is on schedule for deployment in 2014, would "provide an additional layer of defense against ballistic missiles."
The next generation of the Arrow, now in the development stage, is set to be deployed in 2016. Called the Arrow 3, it is designed to strike its target outside the atmosphere, intercepting missiles closer to their launch sites. Together, the two Arrow systems would provide two chances to strike down incoming missiles.
Israel also uses U.S.-made Patriot missile defense batteries against mid-range missiles, though these failed to hit any of the 39 Scud missiles fired at Israel from Iraq In the first Gulf War 20 years ago. Manufacturers say the Patriot system has been improved since then.もちろんミサイル防衛システムを確立すれば、和平が訪れるわけではないです。エコノミストもタイムもガザの問題を大きく取り上げていましたが、ハマスとエジプトの新政権のことや、ハマスを支持する国がスンニ派からスンニ派以外に移ってきていることなど、中東情勢もいろいろ変化している部分があるようです。
The Gaza crisis
Will the ceasefire lead to peace?
After a week-long war between Israel and the Palestinians, a temporary cessation of violence has been agreed. But can a more durable settlement be found?
Nov 24th 2012 | CAIRO, GAZA AND JERUSALEM | from the print edition
Hamas puts its highest hopes on Egypt, whose Muslim Brothers have for decades posed as comrades-in-arms to the Palestinians. But in practice, as part of an unspoken deal with the Egyptian army and the “deep state” of the security services that helped clinch Mr Morsi’s installation as president, Egypt’s new government may yet let the old foreign-policy establishment, dominated by intelligence people, continue to set policy. Egypt’s government may still treat Hamas quite warily. In particular, Egypt does not want to give Israel a pretext for fulfilling its longstanding wish to sever Gaza from the rump Palestinian state on the West Bank and dump it on Egypt. Hence Egypt has resisted popular pressure to open its border with Gaza fully. This, however, may have to change.
Further weakening Egypt’s role as an ally, Mr Morsi has been increasingly beleaguered within. His government has only just, after 18 months of talks, signed a deal with the IMF for a loan of $4.8 billion sorely needed to shore up a faltering economy. That should free a lot more Western aid, but it will be contingent on Egypt’s continuing behaviour as a force for moderation in the region, including Palestine.***********
The Gaza ProblemBy Karl Vick / Tel Aviv Monday, Dec. 03, 2012
Those pilgrimages were the one new element in the old story, signaling not only recognition of Hamas but also an important realignment flowing from the Arab Spring. Hamas is now separated from its old non-Sunni Muslim sponsors, Shi'ite Iran and Alawite-ruled Syria, and its most prominent backers have become Qatar, Turkey and, within limits, Egypt. All three are Sunni, and all three are allied with the U.S., as, of course, is Israel. In the lull that follows each cycle of fighting as reliably as spring follows winter, that new reality may hold the possibility of escaping the cycle, perhaps to plant a new idea. Before the soil is exhausted.個人的な感想になりますが、Droneで要人の暗殺が比較的簡単になり、自分の国はミサイル防衛できるようになれば、戦争はやだから少しでも譲歩しようという雰囲気はなくなり、強硬的に出てしまえるようになるのではという心配があります。