Photo: CSIS
This transcript is from a CSIS event hosted on July 12, 2024. Watch the full video here.
Tom Karako: Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to our event on Israel’s missile defense engagements over the past year, especially nine months, and especially since the events of October 7. So, to talk about these issues, we are delighted to welcome back Moshe Patel, director of the Israeli Missile Defense Organization, or IMDO. He is well-known to everybody in the missile defense world. The IMDO is, of course, part of the Directorate of Defense Research and Development and is in charge of all the development, management, and improvement of Israel’s active missile defense systems.
So welcome back to CSIS.
Moshe Patel: Thank you very much.
Dr. Karako: We’re going to have a conversation – the two of us – but really encourage folks to submit questions online through the event page, and they’ll come to me where I can direct them to Moshe.
You were here just over a year ago, in May 2023, and we spoke about all the programs, and all the research and development, and the operational testing and the like, and we don’t want to redo that. I think we want to do something a little bit different today, talking about – well, a lot has happened in the past nine months. And so hopefully we can – you can tell the story of what has happened, especially since October 7, and what you, what the IMDO, what IDF has been doing, and maybe some of the lessons that we can take away from that.
Before we kind of get to all the missile stuff, of course we want to acknowledge all the folks that were killed in the terrorist attack October 7 and those still held hostage, so over to you, Moshe.
Mr. Patel: Thank you very much, Tom, for the opportunity to be here again. I’m very excited and flattered. Before we start, let me first of all mention we still have 120 hostages; this is why I am wearing this yellow ribbon, among them elder people, young people, women – that we wish to bring them home as soon as possible. This is one thing.
Second, we would like to remember – we are in memory of all the civilians that have been butchered, have been killed, have been raped, beheaded in October the 7th, and we are, with the families, praying for the families – well, praying for the brave soldiers of Israel that fall in the war from the beginning of the war until today. We are praying for all the wounded people that are still in hospitals, that they will, you know, come back home safely as soon as possible. And also, we are thinking about more than 250,000 of Israeli citizens that were evacuated from their home, either from the north or from the south, and wishing to go back home and to still continue and live in peace.
And, of course, we need to make sure that something like that won’t happen again, so this is something that I wish. And, of course, after that, we can start to talk about all the missile defense activity.
Dr. Karako: Of course.
Mr. Patel: So, Tom, in my view, in the perspective of the missile defense, I have some dates – historic dates – to remember. Of course, one is the October the 7th when we have a massive attack on Israel, and all of our architecture worked very, very good. On the first day, of course, David’s Sling and Iron Dome were the main systems that have been working and the first time with so extensive capability and operational successes.
The next day – the next date, important date was October 31st. In October the 31st, for the first time ever, the Arrow 2 weapon system intercept a ballistic missile that came from Iran operationally. Until then, we conducted a lot of flight test, even here in the States – in Point Mugu, and a lot of tests in Israel, but this was the first time that the weapon system actually intercept a ballistic missile operationally.
The next important date is November 9th, which was the first Arrow 3 operational interception of a Houthi missile again. There was – as far as we understand, it was the first outer space, exoatmospheric kind of operational interception of a ballistic missile. And, of course, after all the investments that we received so generously from the U.S. more than 35 years and, of course, all what we together, you know, invest to see that the system is working. And we were very, very happy about that.
The next important date – and this is something that of course I am sure that we will dig into a lot during this interview – is April 13 from U.S. point of view, April 14 from our point of view. Anyhow, between the – it is on the night between 13 and 14 which we have a massive attack from Iran, the first time; 120 ballistic missiles were headed Israel with warheads of half a ton or a ton, together with another 220 – almost – cruise missiles. Anyway, these – everything was synchronized in order to hit Israel population synchronized, and all the proxies that were part of the celebration from the south, from the north, so on that specific night we had more than 550 articles that actually flown into Israel.
And, of course, all of our system worked together. We were connecting to our allies – U.S. allies, and our U.S. allies were connected to other nations, the coalitions that support this war – this day actually. And like what I can say – and maybe this something that we can discuss more deeply – whatever we simulated, tested along so many years, proven itself – proven itself during this night. And, of course, we learned a lot, and we built a huge confidence about our capability and our system, and the fact that we are connected and working together with our U.S. – specifically with our U.S. allies.
Dr. Karako: Great. Lots to go through there. Let’s, I think, start with October 7. I remember we exchanged emails that day, and you said, this is the Israeli 9/11. It took me a while, I think, to appreciate that. There was a lot of well-planned activity on the ground, in the air. How would you characterize the place of various rockets or short-range missiles within the events of October 7 and I guess the days that followed? What was the relative place in that combined arms attack?
Mr. Patel: First of all, our system were fully deployed and ready for this attack. Again, we were satisfied, of course, about the capability of the system, and that they were well-prepared, but the other parts were not working well – I’m sure that everybody knows that.
And again, even with this kind of attack we were ready, and we were well-deployed, and what we faced is scenarios that we simulated and tested, along a lot of flight tests and, you know, we have also previous wars and confrontations that we actually demonstrated the ability of our systems. So this was part of what we – at least the air and missile defense array was ready, and the percentage of interceptions and the success was very, very high. And so with that, at least, we had comfort on that day, that with all what was happening, that thousands of lives had been saved and the – for us it was very, very important.
Dr. Karako: Let me – let me ask the question from the perspective of Hamas. How do you think they were using the rocket attacks and such to shape what was going on, on the ground?
Mr. Patel: First of all, I’m sure that they know that once they were launching those attacks, our populations are going into shelters, and they will less – you know, be ready for the ground attack, for the air attack, for all the gliders and all of that. So, this was part of their planning. A lot of lesson have been learned from this day, and I can assure that it won’t happen again in Israel. I mean, that we learned the lesson, and we fixed what need to be fixed. And something like that won’t happen again.
Dr. Karako: And what’s the “it” that won’t happen again – what you are talking about?
Mr. Patel: That we will be better ready, we will be better prepared; that we will give our population, our civilian people that are close to the border enough security and defense capabilities, besides the air and missile defense array that we are giving them anyhow. So this is the lesson then that we learned, and I’m sure that we are in the middle of a huge debrief of all what was happening in October the 7th. A lot of lessons have been learned, and a lot of lessons will be learned.
Dr. Karako: And in the days that followed – I guess still staying in the October time frame – do you think – were you anticipating that this would be primarily a ground operation? Were you – how were you thinking about – from your perspective at IMDO, how are you anticipating what the near-term future might look like?
Mr. Patel: First of all, once we had this huge, massive attack, there was no choice, and the prime minister of Israel declared that we were in a war immediately on October the 7th, and with that, I can tell you that, at least our organization, worked very closely with the Israeli air force, our brave operators and soldiers, to deploy whatever needed to be deployed, to give priorities to whatever needed to have priorities, to do all the modifications that need to be done. I can tell you that we have ongoing debriefing, and we are proving that our systems, along the way and along the activity, and as you say, we – until now, I mean, our array is ready and it prove itself from day to day. And we were part of all what was going on and, of course, we anticipated that the Hezbollah will also join the party, and our systems are deployed there and also play a major role in the defense of the north of Israel, as well.
Dr. Karako: Yeah, and you mentioned October 31st –
Mr. Patel: Yes.
Dr. Karako: The Arrow 2. I think it probably had been used before, but perhaps not against a ballistic missile. Any takeaways? It’s an older system, of course, but any takeaways from that engagement, for instance?
Mr. Patel: First of all, I can tell you that – you know, Iron Dome, that has been very, you know, extensive operational use along the years. The operators are very trained well and, you know, they – for them it was easy.
With the Arrow weapon system since until October 31st, they, you know, do a lot of training, a lot of simulations, and we – even we, in IMDO, when we are preparing ourself for flight test or for simulation, you know exactly what is on the scenarios, and you are – and, of course, we were very glad that we – let’s call it, with the surprise attack from the north from the Houthis, you know, we didn’t anticipate that they will join the war. We have nothing to do with the Houthis or with Yemen or whatever. And again, they joined the party as part of the Iranian proxies. We were very glad that the system, without any additional preparation, was ready and intercepted. We’re talking about interceptor, that it is more than 20 years –
Dr. Karako: Right.
Mr. Patel: – you know, waiting for this event, and then more than that, it’s opportunity to say thanks to all my predecessors and especially Dr. Uzi Rubin that was the visionary of the missile defense organization, the missile defense activity, that, you know, together with David Ivry at that time, and a lot of people in the IAI – that they have the vision to join the President Reagan initiative back the ’86, ’87, and to build the system to be ready exactly for this moment. So, of course, we were very glad that it was a success, and again, it’s something that – we were not surprised that it was a success, but at least we were very confident that all what was done until then was ready for this.
Dr. Karako: Yeah. Well, first thing in the October time frame – October-November time frame – you know, the saying goes that in a crisis the American president always asks where’s the carriers. But it seems like the second question has become, where are the destroyers, or where are the Patriots? And a lot of that began steaming to the Red Sea shortly after October 7. Can you talk about, in that time frame, cooperation, information sharing between yourself and the United States, for instance, that was perhaps helpful to some of this – at least indications of warning, launch warning, things like that?
Mr. Patel: We have extensive dialogue specifically with the Missile Defense Agency. We have also with Army, with Navy, with the Marine Corps, but specifically with the Missile Defense Agency – that, you know, from day one, are walking with us, shoulder to shoulder. They are not just sending the money and that’s it. And we are managing the program together.
I can tell you that the first conference call that I conducted on October the 7th – it was Saturday – I just called my colleague in Missile Defense Agency and update her and her team immediately of what was happening, and what we were expecting, what are – even the lesson learned from the first day and what we are planning for the future. And almost every day – until today – we are doing the different debriefs together and understand what can be done better.
Of course, with U.S. assist and participation, and their information sharing in real time and offline, are essential to this kind of success, and we are trying to improve ourselves along the – and, of course, April 13th demonstrate this capability a lot, so.
Dr. Karako: Yeah. Yeah, and in terms of the – we’ve had, for instance, Admiral Pyle from the U.S. Navy come over and talk about operations in the Red Sea and all the many historic firsts that the United States has had – SM-3, SM-6 – lots of occasions in the past nine months. And you’ve – I’ve heard you emphasize – and you, just now, talked about, you know, we’ve been doing these simulations, we’ve been doing these exercises; this was real. It has been real, and not that you haven’t been shooting down lots of stuff with Iron Dome and David’s Sling over the years, but this on a different – a different scale.
And I think I pointed out that every – I think just about every U.S. missile defense system has been operationally used in the past two years, all the way up to THAAD – from CWIS to THAAD, for instance. So your takeaways, then, as you moved in the past nine months from that past era to this, you know, heavy engagement period, you’ve emphasized the utility of the modeling, and simulations, and exercises. Anything that surprised you – things that perhaps you’ve needed to adapt to contend with moving from theory to reality, as you’ve said?
Mr. Patel: First of all, when you are doing your flight test, you are limited. You cannot do, you know, a flight test that can emulate whatever was done in April 13. But the simulation tools are essential in order to make you ready, and whatever we conducted internally in Israel, and together with a lot of joint exercises and joint simulation activities – we have ground-testing simulation activities; we have, like, Juniper Cobra, that are exercises that, you know, U.S. forces are being deployed in Israel, we demonstrate the ability to work together. We have our battle lab, test beds that we are connecting them.
And so I can tell you that, you know, after the – on April 14 when I debriefed my colleagues in MDA, I showed them the slides that actually represent what was happening, and I told them, listen, it’s an exercise. I took it from an exercise that we conducted a few weeks ago, and they laughed, and it was very similar. I can tell you that we are having simulation much, much, you know, heavy and condensed compared to what happened. The simulation really played a major role. But – and I need to have caution on that – there are some surprises of your weapon system, of your – sometimes with your communication and, you know, that the real life, actually teaching you, and you need to adapt.
So, my recommendation to the whole community: do a lot of simulation, whatever need to be done. Don’t be afraid that, you know, maybe during your simulation that your system maybe won’t react the best way. You learn from that. You need to be prepared 200 percent in order to be ready for the 100 percent.
The second thing is to be ready for surprises, and the fact that with Iron Dome, with David’s Sling, with Arrow, we – my organization, the Israeli Missile Defense Organization under the Directorate of DR&D, which part of the missile defense, that are walking shoulder to shoulder with the operators, with industries to let them know what was going on, even with a success interception, and to make it better for the next time. It’s very important – the closed loop to do very fast adaptations. It’s very, very important.
So this is my recommendation to the whole community: Try to be flexible and adapt according to what is going on.
Dr. Karako: I think that’s a very interesting comment because I think the scorecard of flight-test intercepts, for instance, is sometimes used to say, well, the effectiveness of the system is X percent on the basis of these big flight tests, things like that. But you are really underscoring the simulations as an essential part of the test enterprise. I appreciate that. The other thing that you emphasized there – Arrow 3. Was it November 9, November 11 –
Mr. Patel: November 9th.
Dr. Karako: November 9.
Mr. Patel: The first operational exoatmospheric ballistic in the world, as far as I will know.
Dr. Karako: Right. Well, there again, anything that surprised you? Yes, there’s always sort of some things that you didn’t anticipate, but this of course coming at a much higher altitude than the others – takeaways from that engagement, for instance.
Mr. Patel: I can tell you, you know, we test the Arrow 3 in Alaska. It was – we conducted three consecutive flight tests here, and we conducted it with U.S. systems. I didn’t bring any radar here to Alaska; I used the wonderful AN/TPY-2 that you have, and the U.S. C2BMC in order to make the detection and helping. And we gained a lot from these flight tests.
I can tell you that on November 9th, and of course – of course, on April 13, what was actually tested and simulated along the years was very, very helpful in order to have a success there. And again, you – and I can tell you more than that. Even from the wonderful successes of Alaska flight testing, we learn a lot. Even with a huge success of interception, you see a difference here and a difference there, and you want to understand it, understand it better because whatever you are doing, you know, in your simulation – in your wind tunnels, in your – all the test devices that you have, the real physics, the real life give you another point, another area to make it better, to shape it better. But I can tell you that we didn’t have any major surprise at all with this.
Dr. Karako: OK, interesting. And, of course, the reason you are doing these tests at Point Mugu or in Alaska is it’s – you need space.
Mr. Patel: (Laughs.) Of course.
Dr. Karako: You can’t be firing off these ballistic missiles in your particular neighborhood. You need to spread things out. Well, let’s go to April 14. As you may recall, we were going to have you here the week of maybe April 16 or something like that. I got a call, and you said, oh, I don’t think I’m going to be able to come, Tom. In the days before that, there was a lot of buzz, right? There was buzz here in Washington. Everybody seemed to know that Iran was going to do something. How would you characterize telling your story in the days prior? What was going on, and what were you thinking about, and doing, and hearing?
Mr. Patel: What we were doing is to prepare our operators much better. We have excellent dialogues with our U.S. partners of what need to be done. We shape again the training, the simulations and, you know, I can tell you that each shift of our systems train itself for different kind of scenarios in order to be prepared well. And we make sure that everything is working according to the plan. And this is it. I mean, there – it’s not that we made any kind of revolution because all of our systems are operational, and this is what’s beautiful about it. You don’t need to start from beginning, because there was some feeling that something will happen – but to shape the operators, to shape the systems, to make sure that everything is working, to make sure that the logistic chain will work correctly. So those are the things that we were concentrating, during the war and even now.
Dr. Karako: And so the indications of warning, the intelligence sharing allowed – contributed to that. The cooperation that you’ve emphasized so many times with partners and allies, other folks in the region, the United States, could you comment, perhaps, on how it’s gone in the shift from working with EUCOM versus CENTCOM, for instance?
Mr. Patel: First of all, I can tell you that the shift conducted in parallel. I mean, we conducted a lot of exercises with CENTCOM and EUCOM so that transit between EUCOM to CENTCOM was very, very smooth. And I can tell you that, you know, we are – for many, many years we are building the highway of interoperability between our forces, and of course we train it and we exercise it. And, as a matter of fact, I just came back from Huntsville, Alabama. We had a debrief meeting with all the operators – CENTCOM, MDA, Israeli air force, all of our industries; of course, the Ministry of Defense, my organization – to do a debriefing of what was happening on April 13, and it was a wonderful openness of sharing the information, and how to be better, how to improve ourselves – even with the success, and we are talking about, you know, very, very high success during this day.
I can tell you that one thing, also, was happening, is that, from kind of a ballistic missile defense architecture, we moved to air and missile defense architecture, and CENTCOM were leading that. And the success of the air and missile defense architecture helped a lot. Again, we are not talking only about our ground missile defense capability; we are talking also about – according to all what was published – that a lot of airplanes were involved, and the information sharing was very, very important, and contributed to the success. And, you know, everything was headed by the United States, and we felt that it is not just, you know, giving us generous support with budget and money, helping us to develop our system, it is when we need you, you are there to support us. And this something – we have – you know, we have the capability to buy our own, and we are independent, but the fact that you were there, together with the coalition that actually you gathered, was very important.
Dr. Karako: OK, great. All right, so that was kind of the advance preparation. How would you describe how the attack on April 13, 14 played out? It was a synchronized attack, all these different types of delivery systems synchronized in terms of time and space. How do you characterize that attack playing out?
Mr. Patel: From the Iranian point of view, it was planned excellent. I mean, they synchronized the attack of the ballistic missiles together with the UAVs, together with the cruise missiles in order to, of course, overload our systems. The proxies, you know, in the north, in the south were part of this celebration, as well, and with that, I’m glad that, you know – that we have our capability in order – our architecture in order to be ready.
And as I mentioned, things like that – being, you know, trained and simulated, even in worse scenario than this, and we were ready with all of our systems, and of course, with the coalition, and the support from your systems, as well. And there was also – well, here we are talking about the success of, you know, the Israeli architecture, the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow 2, Arrow 3. There were other systems that – other U.S. systems that evolved and participated successfully. And I am not going to elaborate more than that, but we are very glad that also U.S. and these systems successfully participated and helped to intercept part of the attack.
Dr. Karako: And you as officials have talked about those, so you don’t have to.
You’ve used the phrase, well, you know, Houthis joined the party, Hezbollah joined the party, but this was missile defense-a-palooza here. I mean, notwithstanding the Russians’ very best efforts in Ukraine the last couple of years, this has to be, you know, the biggest – from a numbers perspective – engagements. And, you know, there was a lot of engagement. You just emphasized a moment ago the heavy importance of the air defense piece of that.
Mr. Patel: Yes.
Dr. Karako: Lots of UAVs – hundreds of them. Tell me why you emphasize that so much. Is that – you know, you have been focused, MDO has been focused – IMDO has been focused on the missile – ballistic missile sides of this thing. But you put a point of emphasis on that, and it would seem to be where the threat is. And how do you see perhaps the need to adapt on that front?
Mr. Patel: First of all, what we saw and what – by the way, what we saw in Ukraine as well, that we are talking about a combination of ballistic and you know – and airborne targets. By the way, we anticipated it in the past, and this is why we adapt in our systems – in the, of course, Iron Dome and David’s Sling system – the capability to counter those kind of threats. And we even improve our communication, first of all, inside Israel and with our communication to U.S. systems to have much better capability against those kind of airborne targets.
So this also was part of the simulation, and I mentioned when – actually, you know, CENTCOM adopted us, we emphasized during our exercise with them the airborne parts, of course, together with the ballistic picture.
Dr. Karako: The hang gliders, however – (laughs) – wasn’t so much on the world’s radar.
Mr. Patel: Yes.
Dr. Karako: I think this might be a good time to ask a question from Jakob Rousøe, the defense attaché from the Danish Embassy, and he asks, could you comment on Israeli considerations of how your air defense systems can get better, and also handle the cost challenge of all these ubiquitous UAS’s – I’m paraphrasing slightly there.
Mr. Patel: First of all, I can tell you that we are trying to expedite the process of the production and to lower the prices of our systems. I can tell you that, you know, all the time we have the, you know, expression that you need to counter or you need to take into account what is the price if you don’t have a defense compared to the price of, you know, the system, and the price of – so again, once you counter those kind of threats and you’ve succeeded, you save, first of all, a lot of lives, you save a lot of property damage. And, you know, the fact that – you know, April 14 the stock exchange in Israel continued to work, and people went to work on that day. You know, with all the expenses that we had until that day, I think that they were worth it, so this is how we are looking at it.
Dr. Karako: And you corrected the number – you know, sort of 330-some objects that has commonly been used, but you emphasized, no, it’s more like 550, I think, when you include everything from Hezbollah and the like. So what has – what has the IDF said about the engagement rates of this 550-some set of objects? How many were successfully engaged?
Mr. Patel: What I can tell you that we’re talking about high number of success. Again, I don’t want to get into the exact details. There was some declaration by the spokesman of the defense forces, but we are talking about very, very limited leaks that didn’t cause so much damage, so it was a huge success, yes.
Dr. Karako: But a big number of those were air threats –
Mr. Patel: Yes.
Dr. Karako: – UAS and cruise missiles, and they kind of blend together a bit. So, on that front, here’s a question from Tony Osborne of Aviation Week, and he says there was a concern over coalition aircraft able to engage dozens of drones outside Israeli airspace during that raid. If the airspace in Jordan or elsewhere had not been available, do you think that the missile defense array would have had the same level of success? In other words, what’s the significance of being able to engage so many of these things forward and early?
Mr. Patel: First of all, of course there was a huge advantage of the capability to engage far away and early enough. We have – even without connecting to any system, just looking at our systems by themselves, we are standing behind what we are obligating to our Israeli air force with the performance-supported system. And, of course, here you are talking about much higher numbers than what we are obligated – and this is of course because of the coalition and the capability that we had as a help for our system.
Dr. Karako: And without getting into names of countries, is it fair to say that there’s a number of different folks who contributed to that result?
Mr. Patel: Yes, of course, headed by the U.S., and of course we are very, very thankful. Most of them have almost the same enemies and the same interests, so CENTCOM was leading that, and of course we were very happy.
Dr. Karako: Now, this is perhaps a question of intent or it’s perhaps a little bit of a speculation, but I know for a while there had been a kind of discussion, well – I mean, the success was so dramatic that there was speculation, I would say, here in the United States that, oh, well, maybe Iran didn’t really intend for these 550 things to get through. Maybe they just wanted to have a show of force, and knowing full well that Israeli air defenses and everybody else would clean it up. What do you think about that?
Mr. Patel: First of all, it’s their call what they have their expectation or not, but we will be ready if they are intent or not intent – we were ready and we will be ready in the future.
Dr. Karako: Gotcha, gotcha. Another aspect of this was – you began to talk about it – the interoperability –
Mr. Patel: Yes.
Dr. Karako: – between some other number of countries and the United States on April 13, April 14. What did you see in terms of the interoperability, and whether it’s between U.S. and Israeli missile defense systems or components or otherwise?
Mr. Patel: Let me start with some of history, if I may. You know, when Uzi Rubin signed the first ever interoperability program, he mentioned, you know, the Americans have asked me to put interoperability capability in our system. I don’t know what is interoperability? What do they want from me?
Dr. Karako: (Laughs.)
Mr. Patel: Of course, I needed the money, I signed the contract. Please support – I was a lieutenant colonel at that time, you know. I was sent to Hanscom Air Force Base to learn the Link-16, and to learn the capability, and since then, you know, all of our system have their Link-16 capability and their communication capability, and the interface that is needed. And we demonstrated, in a lot of flight tests, a lot of exercise, a lot of simulation – even in Alaska. I mean, you know, since we didn’t bring any radar, we had full engagement remote with U.S. systems.
I can tell you that all what we learned, all what we gained, all what we paved the way for the operators show itself on April 13 in a very, very high level of good communication. And I mentioned that we had a debriefing in last week in Huntsville, Alabama, with all the participants, and it was very, very interesting to see the openness from all the U.S. systems that were part of the activity, and the sharing of information, and the lesson learned, how we saw the U.S. systems, how the U.S. systems saw us, how everything is orchestrate together. It was for me an historic event to conduct such a meeting, and of course, everyone went out – and of course we have a lesson. When we have an action item we will improve ourselves. But I think it was – it was – it’s like where a huge battle lab that was conducted in 20 minutes of attack.
Dr. Karako: Well, I want to pull thread on that because you just said, yeah, we were kind of frustrated with this interoperability thing, but you made us do it, and as it turned out, it was pretty useful, all right? There was a number of other U.S. partners and allies that perhaps chafe a little bit at that from time to time. Tell me how it made you better. How did the interoperability, and the closeness, and the ability to share information – how did it make you better and more effective on that attack?
Mr. Patel: First of all, I’m sure that you know that in each of our new blocks of new capability we are going over a huge certification by the U.S. authorities, the (inaudible) that goes over anything to see that everything is supposed to orchestrate well. The sharing of information, the fact that you receive – you have common sky picture, and everybody see – without need to do the talking – the same picture, and to have full integrated coordination.
So I’m saying to you, please help me with this kind of threat, or please support me – somebody else help support me, or somebody will say, listen, I’m going to take care of it; don’t send any – those kind of discussions that are being done, first of all, you know, by the means – the communication means, and of course, by verbal coordination, as well, was essential to be more efficient. You are more efficient with your detection systems, with your interceptors – much better.
Dr. Karako: Yeah, and given the fact that many of these things were slow moving, perhaps it gave more time for a lot of that. The number of ballistic missiles from Iran was relatively – in the scheme of things, relatively small. Would you imagine that if it had been more heavily fast-moving threats as opposed to slow-moving threats, that the verbal communication might be stressed more?
Mr. Patel: Yes, but this is why the algorithms and the structure of the interoperability is built so good that, first of all, the system can do the recommendation, and the operators can see and approve what has a need to be approved of to intervene whatever need to be intervened. And I can tell you that in a lot of cases, the operators really intervened and changed the recommendation from the system for the good of – for better success of the system.
Dr. Karako: So I think this is an important takeaway here, is that it’s the interoperability, the closeness of that, would you say, is a fair ingredient of the degree of success that you had.
Mr. Patel: Of course. Of course.
Dr. Karako: OK, good.
Mr. Patel: And, you know, talking about interoperability, our internal systems are also interoperable between themselves because we have different systems that we need to do full coordination within themselves, even without talking about external systems that are being part of the architecture.
Dr. Karako: Right. So, a couple of months ago, the U.S. passed the supplemental bill and a substantial amount of aid for – especially for the missile defense procurement and also modernization, including some of the energy stuff specifically for Israel.
How post of – you know, this has been in the works for a long time – since October 7. It finally got passed. Are there any reactions from the April 13, 14 attack that are going to shape, do you think, your path on future modernization, other than interoperability? Other insights on the modernization path forward from that event?
Mr. Patel: First of all, we are not – you know, we are not standing and saying, OK, April 13 was, and that’s it; we can rest. We are continuing to improve our systems. We are continuing to expedite the process of production, expedite the production capability. And we did it from – we are doing it from the beginning of war, and we are – continue to do that, and of course, with the U.S. support that we supposed to receive, it will help us a lot. I can tell you that we receive also from the Ministry of Defense a generous budget in order to start all the replenishment that need to be done and, you know, beside the fact, we are – we signed two contracts – by the way, during the war – part of them were during the war: one with Germany with Arrow 3, the second one with Finland with David’s Sling weapon system.
So, I can tell you that at least the direction that I receive is do whatever you need to do for the defense of Israel, but continue to fulfill whatever you are obligated to Germany and Finland. And this is what we are doing with huge efforts from the industries that are part of these efforts to have, you know – to fulfill whatever is needed for those countries and of course the need of Israel.
Dr. Karako: And that’s an interesting comment. I mean, a lot of interceptors were expended in the past nine months, in April. A lot was expended by the United States. That is a massive capacity problem and inventory problem, and yet, what you just said there is we’re still going to be pushing the FMS – or Israel’s sales to these other countries, which is – which is interesting; like, just a couple of weeks ago, the White House announced that the U.S. would be pausing all FMS of Patriot and NASAMS to everybody except for Ukraine and maybe a couple of other folks because of capacity problems.
You know, as you think about that – hearing what you just said about Finland and Germany – do we need anybody that’s in the missile defense business to move to an inventory kind of approach as opposed to only building things when the contract is signed? I mean, those are the kind of capacity issues that everybody has to be thinking about now.
Mr. Patel: First of all, I can tell you that we are lucky enough that, besides the Israeli industries, we have wonderful U.S. industries that support us with the production of all of our systems – Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow. And also, whatever we are going to deploy to Finland and Germany will be in the U.S.-Israeli production. So we are receiving a huge support from U.S. industries, and I can tell you that we are receiving also support from the Missile Defense Agency in giving the priority that are needed, first of all for the defense of Israel is the top priority – and support us with all the licensing that are needed for Israel and for third-party sales.
We are not sure that everybody knows, but part of the agreements that we have – and the contracts that we have with Finland and Germany – I contract MDA back with FMS case to support me with the production that we need for Finland and Germany because we are talking about a lot of U.S. subcontractors that are involved, and they are supporting me with the licensing and all of that, so it’s a kind of – they are not part of the obligation to those countries, but they support me and, you know, in cases that they are joining our meetings. And it looks like, you know, at least from the point of view of what we need, we receive the priorities that we need.
Dr. Karako: So in terms of U.S. industries – that you just highlighted there – what would you – what would you highlight in terms of ways of cooperation? You know, there’s some co-production, for instance, that’s going on in Arkansas for, for instance, of SkyHunter. What would you highlight in terms of cooperation with U.S. industry specifically?
Mr. Patel: First of all, when we’re talking about Iron Dome, until now, we were – like, co-produced the Iron Dome interceptor, like, 55 or 60 percent of the components are being produced in the States.
We are now moving – and I think that this was one of the topics that we discussed in my previous interview with you – we are moving into approach in Camden to have a kind of facility to have all around capability of Iron Dome. So this will be very, very supportive for us; that full Iron Dome interceptor can be produced in the States together with all the co-production that we are doing. With David’s Sling and Arrow 3, again 50 percent of the components also are being produced here in the States with U.S. companies, and we are trying to extend it as much as we can because we feel that it will be very, very supportive to support our industries to expedite the process of production.
Dr. Karako: Given all of the context in which this has happened – a lot has happened on the political side. Things have gone up and down, sideways in the past nine months. How would you characterize kind of the many political pressures – positive or negative – that is affecting perhaps your missile defense piece of the pie?
Mr. Patel: I am working with the missile defense almost for 30 years. On those 30 years there were a lot of changing in the politics here in the States and in Israel. For first time, I didn’t find any political pressure either way from this side of the ocean or the other side of the ocean that prevent this beautiful kind of cooperation, this strong relationship that we have with the Missile Defense Agency, and the support that we receive from the Congress – bipartisan support. And the fact that everybody understands the need to support this missile defense effort is something that, I can tell you, I don’t feel any whatsoever kind of effect – let’s call it this way.
Dr. Karako: Well, are there any particular messages that you want to communicate to, say, a U.S. audience – a broader U.S. audience in terms of our partnership?
Mr. Patel: First of all, I think that U.S. government or U.S. systems also benefit from this kind of cooperation because all the common lesson learned are being, first of all, shared and hopefully make your system – U.S. systems much, much better. So this is something I want to emphasize. I can tell you that, without the U.S. support that we receive from you for more than 35 years, we were not where we are, so it’s a – it’s, again, another opportunity to say thank you very much for all the support, and the support, as I mentioned, is not just sending the money. It’s also a being part of the development, part of the efforts to help – to help shape our system much better.
You know, in Israel, we are doing it in a more – let’s call it a more short-cuts way, and trying to, you know – to make the bureaucracy less. Here you have more procedures where I think that the fusion between those two cultures make the product much, much better. And I hope that we can contribute to you with these kind of advantages that we have, and I think that that’s it. I think that’s it. I think that the lesson then from, you know, what happened during the war, and the preparations, and to be much better – how we can become much better is something that, of course, will be continued to be shared, yeah. And we are very, very glad to have – let’s call it – family like you, OK? It’s not just friends; it’s family.
Dr. Karako: Well, I like to ask folks kind of what sources of kind of intellectual framework that have shaped them over the years. Is there something that you would recommend, for instance, that people read, or something that has shaped your thinking over the years?
Mr. Patel: I think that a lot of people in the ’80s didn’t believe in the missile defense capability, the fact that a bullet can hit a bullet. I suggest to read – and there are a lot of books. I know that – I mention again Uzi Rubin, published a book like that as well.
Dr. Karako: (Laughs.) Yes, three times.
Mr. Patel: Yes. But there are a lot of books out there, and to understand what was the processes, what was – I mean, how – there were a lot of people that were against investing so much money on missile defense from the beginning, and I think it’s good to see what was the controversy at that time compared to what we are knowing now. I think that you can learn a lot.
Dr. Karako: All right, so go read some histories of that vision when it – again, as you say, there were a lot of – a lot of skeptics. Well, hey, good shooting. There’s been, as you say, operationally realistic testing of just about every system we’ve got now in the past couple of years.
So, thank you, Moshe, and thanks for coming back, and kudos on the successes.
Mr. Patel: Thank you.
Dr. Karako: So please join me in thanking Moshe Patel.
Mr. Patel: Thank you very much, Tom. (Applause.)
(END.)