Would a missile shield like Israel’s Iron Dome stop a Russian attack on Britain?
Experts are in two camps over whether the system would be effective, writes Rob Hastings
With warnings growing louder of us stumbling into a Third World War, a rare consensus in British politics right now centres on the defence budget. Labour and the Conservatives both say that it must rise – so what should we spend the money on?
After watching Israel fight off Iran’s attack last month, and seeing the impact of Russian air strikes in Ukraine, many politicians and military chiefs believe that a UK anti-missile defence system like Israel’s Iron Dome is a priority.
But other experts fear it could become an expensive folly. They argue that our limited funds should be dedicated to offensive weapons to prevent conflict breaking out.
Among the technology’s strongest supporters is Air Chief Marshal Sir Clive Loader. The retired head of RAF Air Command, who flew Harriers over the Falklands, Iraq and Bosnia, thinks that investing in homeland defence is an integral part of convincing the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, that attacking Britain with missiles would be ineffective.
Comparing the situation now to the years preceding the Second World War, Sir Clive (inset) says: “Rather sadly, we’re in the early 30s again and need to be really careful. They say: ‘He who forgets the lessons of history is condemned to repeat them.’ I’ve got a nasty feeling that we’re not a million miles away from that.”
With Russian forces able to hit British targets from thousands of miles away, the ability to protect “strategically important areas” with our own interceptor missile batteries is essential, Sir Clive believes.
He says: “This is an insurance policy that we cannot afford to not take out.”
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the British Armed Forces, expects a missile defence system
“will be needed in the future”. Deciding what kind of technology to buy is “a live conversation,” he told LBC radio recently.
Several prominent MPs are strongly in favour, including the Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, who has been impressed by Israel’s Iron Dome system.
A former chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, Tobias Ellwood, has called for “an Iron Dome for the UK” to provide a“permanent umbrella of security”, and former defence minister James Heappey says that it is “inescapably necessary”.
This political clamour frustrates some analysts, however. They fear that it gives the public the impression that we can build a single impregnable system that could protect the whole country from airborne attack. Iron Dome, the smallest of three systems in Israel’s overall Aerial Defence Array, has been highly effective at stopping short-range rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah.
But on 13 April it did not shoot down any of Iran’s more sophisticated 120 ballistic missiles and 30 cruise missiles.
This misuse of the term “Iron Dome” does not invalidate the argument for buying other systems and using them differently, says Sir Clive, adding: “I don’t think we would have an Iron Dome everywhere. We’re not a tiny state like Israel, so it would be around strategically important areas.”
The UK is not defenceless. The Royal Navy’s six Type 45 destroyers, for example, are armed with Sea Viper missiles, currently undergoing a £405m upgrade. These are designed “to defend against supersonic, stealthy, highly manoeuvrable missiles“, according to the Navy.
The Army has Sky Sabre missiles, transported by road on mobile launchers. Each unit can control 24 missiles simultaneously, all of them able to pursue separate targets which may be travelling at twice the speed of sound.
Typhoon fighter jets can carry Amraam and Meteor missiles. These are capable of shooting down conventional cruise missiles travelling at about 500mph. Yet, these do not comprise a comprehensive shield like Israel’s, especially because it depends on Type 45s and Sky Sabres not being stationed abroad when an attack begins.
Of course, the UK doesn’t stand alone. Several allies in Europe have missile defences which can be coordinated by Nato, said Wes Rumbaugh, a fellow in the missile defence project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank in Washington DC.
However, most European systems were not envisioned to fight against Russian attacks, Rumbaugh tells i. “Because of deterrence calculations and cost, those are designed to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles.”
The UK and several allies agreed the European Sky Shield Initiative in 2022, aiming “to jointly develop an air and missile defence system”.
But researchers at the European Council for Foreign Relations warned last year: “Extending an effective missile shield over the entirety of Nato’s European territory would be both infeasible and prohibitively expensive.”
Jonathan Boff, a professor of military history at Birmingham University, is among those who believe that we risk creating a 21st century version of the Maginot Line – the advanced French fortifications designed to stop a German invasion, which the Nazis avoided in 1940 by advancingthrough Belgium instead.
People calling for a shortrange Iron Dome equivalent are “barking up the wrong tree”, he warns. Longer-range systems are “horrendously expensive and horrendously difficult” to develop.
“It’s easier to find other ways to deter enemies than to try defending against missiles which could come any time, from any direction,” says Professor Boff.