
The evidence that shows Iron Dome is not working - lsh123
http://thebulletin.org/evidence-shows-iron-dome-not-working7318
======
eytanlevit
Israeli here, and this is not going to be a very subjective opinion, but
rather a simple observations after being through a few wars with thousands of
rockets shot each.

In the 2nd Lebanon war(2006), Hezbollah shot ~120 rockets/day at north Israel
and Haifa, and the destruction was both visible and painful. 44 civilians
dead. Multiple buildings in Haifa destroyed. I remember the pictures, so many
of them. We had the alarms, we had the bomb shelters then, but still, the
rockets destroyed and killed.

In the current conflict, almost zero dead, almost zero buildings destroyed,
and this is while Hamas is shooting roughly the same number of
rockets(~120/day), bigger rockets and to a far more densely populated areas
than ever targeted by either Hamas OR Hezbollah(Tel Aviv, Rishon Leziyon where
most of Israeli population and commerce is).

There is a reason why Hezbollah and Hamas equipped themselves with tens of
thousands of rockets, because it used to work, but not anymore.

I've even had a discussion previously today with my dad that if accuracy of
Iron Dome would increase to 99%, we could actually turn off the siren system
and maybe just ignore Hamas rockets, keep living normally, thus preventing the
need to use offensive military force and prevent casualties on both sides.

Unfortunately we've recently learned that Hamas has already developed a new
tactic, building tunnels under the border into Israeli towns and have 10-20
Hamas soldiers come with handcuffs and syringes with anastasia to kidnap
Israeli civilians. We've already discovered ~15 such tunnels, and there is
much talk that we need an "Iron Dome" for discovering tunnels in the very
special geological structure of the sand around Gaza.

I personally need an Iron Dome for my soul, after seeing so many pictures of
Israelis and Gazans dead, having difficult conversations with my kids and
having a difficult time building my startup when all I can think of is this
war. Fucking war.

(While writing this I was interrupted due to 3 rockets shot at Tel Aviv, 2
intercepted, 1 hit a house, the first time for central Israel in this war..
the irony).

~~~
jzwinck
> Hamas has already developed a new tactic, building tunnels under the border
> into Israeli towns and have 10-20 Hamas soldiers come with handcuffs and
> syringes with anastasia to kidnap Israeli civilians.

I tried to dig up a source for this, and while I did find an article published
just today [1], it says the tunnels have been used to (try to) kidnap Israeli
soldiers, and on a rather smaller scale (a few intruders, not 10-20). Has
there been any incident (successful or interrupted) of civilians kidnapped via
these tunnels? It surely is a terrifying prospect, but how practical is it?

[1] [http://www.smh.com.au/world/how-hamas-uses-its-tunnels-to-
ki...](http://www.smh.com.au/world/how-hamas-uses-its-tunnels-to-kidnap-fight-
israeli-soldiers-20140722-zvko3.html)

~~~
eytanlevit
This happend just 24 hours ago: [http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-
defense/1.606531](http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.606531)

"The incident in which the four IDF soldiers were killed near Nir-Am occurred
at about 6:30 Monday morning, when at least 10 Palestinians entered Israeli
territory from the tunnel and split into two groups, one tried to make its way
to Kibbutz Erez and the other to Kibbutz Nir-Am."

Kibbutz == a civilian community or village.

Also, in a different tunnel incident:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10979467/Gaza-
conflict-Israelis-living-in-fear-of-Palestinian-tunnel-attacks.html)

"According to the Israeli military, the purpose of the militants was not only
to kill but also to kidnap, as was evident by the equipment they carried,
which included, arms, syringes, tranquillisers, plastic handcuffs and even IDF
uniforms."

------
absherwin
This article is based on the flawed assumption that where the rocket explodes
is irrelevant. His criteria for success is frontal impact which the author
claims is the only way to destroy this midair. Regardless of this, if the
impact alters the trajectory to bring down the rocket in a less populated
area, fewer people die.

The author has been a vocal critic of missile defense systems for decades.
While that doesn't negate his arguments, it suggests a potential motivation
for his artificial definition of success.

Edit: As the comment below points out, the rocket's trajectory could be
changed so as to increase casualties. While that's true, it won't do so on
average for several reasons. A rocket is only targeted if the system believes
it has a high probability of striking a populated area. Since the expected
losses are high, average will be better. In fact, average should be much
better because the distribution of population density is so skewed. A small
percentage of land is in dense regions. In this particular case, there's the
added advantage that the most populous cities are relatively far away from
Gaza so early impact is better.

~~~
sjtrny
> alters the trajectory to bring down the rocket in a less populated area,
> fewer people die

It might also cause more deaths.

~~~
erikb
It might but it is unlikely, considering that a rocket is aimed to be most
efficient. Deviating it from it's course should be enough to decrease the
effect.

An exception to this might be that the rocket aims a city of thousands, who
get sheltered successfully, which means the rocket would kill about zero
people. When the rocket now gets deviated it might hit a target with hundred
people who didn't get sheltered. Therefore the result for the population might
be worse. My feeling (and I am definitely _not_ an expert) is that this is
comparatively unlikely, though.

~~~
jdotjdot
You also may be giving too much credit to Hamas and Islamic Jihad's ability to
aim rockets at the intended targets. Plenty of the time they hit the middle of
nowhere, or they've actually even hit Palestinian-dominated areas (Hebron and
Bethlehem) [1][2]

In many situations, it makes far more sense to save the Iron Dome counter-
missles.

[1]:
[http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=712463](http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=712463)
[2]:
[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4542242,00.html](http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4542242,00.html)

------
beloch
Interesting analysis. If the Iron Dome is mere security theater then it makes
it makes sense that the IDF won't simply sit back and let Hamas fire away
until they run out of rockets. Enough property damage may make Israelis'
behind the Iron Dome realize that it's only the shelters that offer real
safety.

I'm curious about Hamas' choice in rockets though. Would larger rockets
present as easier targets for the Iron Dome? If so, then the Iron Dome does
indeed serve an important purpose by limiting Hamas to rockets small enough to
be harmless to shelters. If not, then why would Hamas not use rockets large
enough to penetrate a shelter?

Finally, let's assume the ineffectiveness of the Iron Dome was commonly known.
Given the sharp increase in IDF casualties after the ground invasion started,
would it still have made sense to invade if there was no fear that Israelis
might lose confidence in the Iron Dome?

~~~
thesimpsons1022
It is important to consider that Hamas doesn't have much "choice" in their
missiles. They just use whatever they can get their hands on.

------
nrubin
From what I understand, many of the statistics quoted about Iron Dome are for
"attempted interceptions". This skews the effectiveness of the system towards
high-priority scenarios, maybe those that are more likely to produce a winning
outcome for Iron Dome.

As an Israeli, I've always heard the Iron Dome rockets are stupid expensive to
fire, so the IDF really only wants to fire them during scenarios that are high
risk -- e.g., a rocket fired toward the Negev is much lower priority than a
rocket fired at Tel Aviv.

On another note, I think that as programmers it's an interesting exercise to
speculate as to the nature of the computer systems Iron Dome employs in order
to mitigate attacks. AFAIK, Iron Dome rockets are only fired when high-value
areas are targeted or there is a high probability of success. Can you imagine
the kinds of online learning models we employ nowadays, being able to evaluate
a set of inputs in <10s ? Even a complex Bayesian inference algorithm that
could solve for a probable strike area in that short time with reasonable
accuracy is incredible.

As colloquial evidence, a family member of mine recently posted a photo of
Iron Dome intercepting a rocket almost directly over his home. So maybe it's
not that accurate or that effective, but when it does work it's worth almost
every dollar or shekel spent.

~~~
kamaal
>>As an Israeli, I've always heard the Iron Dome rockets are stupid expensive
to fire

I was wondering how they deal with DDoS scenarios. Lets say the enemy just
mixes genuine rockets with dummy one's and keeps firing. They could
essentially create a scenario where a lot of Iron dome missiles can be wasted
destroying dud rockets.

~~~
salberts
Why on earth would they do that? If you can launch 9 dummy rockets and 1 real
or 10 juts real rockets, wouldn't you just launch real rockets?!

The effort and risk involved in launching any kind of rocket is about the
same...

~~~
kamaal
I don't have much knowledge in this domain. But it might be worth firing dud
rockets if they cost lesser than the actual ones.

If you can fire 10 rockets in the same cost as 1 genuine rocket. Then
essentially the enemy can drag you into a war of attrition.

~~~
ars
A dud would cost the same - the warhead is the cheapest part of the rocket.

------
gojomo
A meta-point about understanding hostilities-in-progress:

As curious analytical types, or as motivated participants in political debates
about proper defense systems and policies, we'd like to know what's really
going on, and sooner rather than later.

But note that in the "fog of war", confusion about what's really working and
what isn't can be important. Lots of bad information will circulate, either
due to natural misunderstandings or the calculated propaganda efforts of
affected groups.

Maybe a myth of Iron Dome potency serves other purposes, covering for other
tactics or shifting enemy behavior usefully. Or alternatively, maybe a myth of
Iron Dome _im_ potency and cost-ineffectiveness serves other purposes.

This of course makes contemporaneous democratic, open-society discussion of
war a nearly-intractable task. It could be years (if ever) before outsiders
and laypeople get a reasonable idea of what's really going on. This doesn't
mean it's not worth discussing, just that confidence in any evidence or
conclusions should be kept very, very low for quite a while.

------
erikb
It's painful to see someone try a scientific approach (which is good!) but
already fails in the assumptions. There are probably many ways a defense
rocket could harm an incoming missile without hitting it directly up front.
Destroying it's back might and should result in the warhead not reaching it's
designated target, which is already a success. Even exploding near a missile
might change the air environment of this rocket enough to harm it's target
trajectory. Last but not least every kind of pressure might result in damage
to the rocket's proper functioning and thereby result in it's early triggering
or not triggering at all.

While I also believe that a tool like the Iron Dome might be inefficient for
it's pure militaristic purpose (it might have psychological purposes as well)
the article is not much help in deciding whether this assumption is true or
not, because the assumptions are already flawed.

~~~
Arnt
Name some of the ways?

Speaking as layman, it sounds plausible that a hit on the back would work
while the target missile is ascending, but not when it's already descending
towards the target.

~~~
erikb
I'm far from being an expert, so everything I say could be wrong and I am
aware of this! But I assume that because of wind influence, etc, I suspect
that a rocket needs to have manoeuvring capabilities to reach a specific
target, even on their descend. I also assume that works with little wings on
its side and GPS. Destroying those wings or the GPS might be enough that it
lands tens or hundreds meters aside from it's designated targets. Maybe even
kilometres, but I really don't know enough about that to say.

------
bpodgursky
There's no evidence to speak of in the article--just calculations speculating
that the success rate should be low. At best, it calls for Israel to produce
evidence that the system is indeed working.

~~~
thesimpsons1022
[http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-21/israels-
iron...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-21/israels-iron-dome-
weapons-expert-warns-of-major-flaws)

------
codezero
There have been a shockingly low number of deaths on the Israeli side, does
this mean that if the Iron Dome wasn't even deployed, that the rockets
launched from Palestine would cause little to no human losses? I had assumed
that the large imbalance of deaths between Israel and Palestine was because of
Israel's technological advantage (Iron Dome), and not that the Palestinian
rockets were largely ineffective.

~~~
honzzz
It's caused by multiple factors (some of them are based on Israel's
technological advantage) - shelters are everywhere, Israelis are trained
really well (even falling to the ground before a rocket impact reduces
casualties), they have sophisticated warning system - they even have an app
for that [1]

Obviously I cannot tell how efficient Iron Dome is but they certainly have
other effective tools at their disposal.

[1]
[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249866/Red_Alert_app...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249866/Red_Alert_app_warns_of_imminent_missile_attacks_in_Israel_)

------
spingsprong
If it's not working, that's a pretty bad sign for the US ballistic missile
defense system. I'm assuming it's easier to hit a Mach 3 Grad than a Mach 20
ICBM

~~~
jarin
It's not pretty, but that's why we have ballistic missile subs as a deterrent.
There are always more counter-countermeasures than countermeasures.

------
junto
Out of interest, what is the trigger mechanism for the rockets warhead? Would
an Iron Dome missile have a higher success rate if it had a strong enough
blast radius that meant it only needed to explode near an incoming Hama's
missile, rather than actually having to hit the warhead directly?

------
bigbee
Another Israeli here. I watched those intercepts taking place over my head.
Add to that the numerous YouTube videos of such intercepts and let's call the
lot "experimental evidence". That should trump the article's theoretical
analysis imo :)

------
trhway
technology-wise the thing like Iron Dome could have and should have been
deployed 20 years ago. Today the missile based defense system against short
range relatively slow missiles is becoming obsolete (and thus whether the Iron
Dome missiles are effective is becoming not that important) with coming up of
the systems like this [http://defense-update.com/20131214_us-army-tests-high-
power-...](http://defense-update.com/20131214_us-army-tests-high-power-laser-
weapon.html#.U84AjLH08rw)

------
cup
I've seen quotes that suggest the missiles cost between 20 and 100,000
dollars. How is it suitanable to continue using the Iron Dome at such a high
cost?

~~~
scarmig
In the USA, a human life is typically valued (for risk analysis etc) at $5M or
so.

Break even happens if a single missile would prevent a death 2% of the time.
That excludes the psychological costs, property damage, and other possible
negative results.

~~~
aroman
Source, or is this sarcasm?

~~~
mehwoot
This has been calculated a number of times using various methods but it
usually averages in the $5-10 million range, talking about the practical cost
of someone dying.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life)

------
thesimpsons1022
The only way the Iron Dome works is as a propaganda tool for Israel.

------
giladbau
Sounds like the Israeli government has joined the American government in their
favorite pastime: covering and manipulating. Just like 9/11, the moon landing
and the JFK "assassination", here is yet ANOTHER proof that our governments
are making up stories to keep us docile and complacent. Well done, Israel.
Well done.

