Missile defence successes in Gulf, Ukraine fuel global urgency to acquire systems
ballistic missile defences facing their first complex, high-stakes combat scenarios in Israel, the Red Sea and Ukraine will encourage militaries globally to invest in the pricey systems, experts say — and intensify missile arms races.
Iran launched as many as 120 intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Israel on April 13, U.S. and Israeli officials say. U.S. SM-3 and Israeli Arrow interceptors destroyed nearly all of them, leaving drones and smaller threats to the Iron Dome system.
In previous months, interceptors fired from U.S. Navy destroyers stopped Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles, while in Ukraine, U.S.-made MIM-104 Patriot batteries have shot down advanced Russian Iskander and Khinzal missiles.
Reuters spoke with six experts who said more militaries would look to invest in ballistic missile defence, a potential windfall for companies such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, which build those types of systems.
«It's undeniable that any wealthy country with the technological wherewithal will continue to invest in missile defence,» said Ankit Panda of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a defence and security think tank. «All of this is a recipe for a conventional arms race.»
European countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Poland already operate RTX subsidiary Raytheon's Patriot batteries, the most common Western advanced ballistic missile defence system.
Saudi Arabia has used its Patriots for years to defend against Houthi attacks; it and the United Arab Emirates
