JNS.org – The Israeli and US militaries are in the midst of a large-scale missile-defense exercise, designed to simulate responses to a Middle East war on multiple fronts.
The scenario at the center of the planned, biannual drill involves Israel coming under heavy enemy fire from several directions simultaneously.
The Juniper Cobra 18 exercise, which has been held since 2001, practices the rapid deployment of American air-defense units and equipment to Israel from Europe in the event of armed conflict. It also rehearses the integration of US capabilities into Israel’s air-defense layers.
Brig.-Gen. Zvika Haimovich, who heads the Israeli Air Defense Command of the IDF, said that this was the largest US–IDF exercise to date, adding that it is expected to play out in the course of more than four weeks.
Some 2,500 American personnel are taking part in the endeavor. Most were mobilized to Israel, while some stayed in Europe and the United States. Around 2,000 IDF personnel are taking part as well. The United States European Command, based in Germany, also sent a number of American air-defense systems to Israel.
“Savlos, and more accurate, precise, multidirectional fire — those are our assumptions” of what a war will involve, he said. “It doesn’t matter if these come from the south, north, or east. … Unfortunately, we live in an environment in which we need to keep up our skills every year,” he said.
The exercise costs millions of dollars, and takes two years to plan. The commanders declined to provide specific details on the threat scenarios they were simulating — but the general scenario they described would appear to outline a war involving Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas firing heavy barrages of rockets and missiles on Israeli cities and towns.
The arrival of accurate rockets and missiles in enemy inventories has played a role in the planning of the drill.
The first part of the drill involves computer simulations, in which Israeli and American air-defense systems are linked to one another, and practice shooting down computer-generated threats. In the second stage, live-fire targets will be shot down by US and Israeli Patriot systems, and by an Israeli Iron Dome battery.
Israel is fielding all of its air-defense systems in the exercise. These include Iron Dome; the recently deployed David’s Sling system, designed to intercept medium- and long-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles; and the Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 systems, which intercept missile threats in the atmosphere and in space, respectively.
Col. David E. Shank, commander of the 10th Air and Missile Defense, US Army–Europe, told JNS that two versions of American Patriot systems are in Israel for the drill. America’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, which is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles as they descend, was also deployed. A powerful transportable radar was also brought by the Americans to Israel.
Clark told JNS that the American Aegis Combat System, which is a ship-based missile-defense system, is also playing a “key and critical part” in the exercise.
Meanwhile, the US Navy’s Mount Whitney, a command and control unit, arrived from its base in Italy and docked at the Haifa port to take part in the drill.
Ultimately, said Clark, the ability of America and Israel to moor their systems will define success. He acknowledged that this would have to be done under fire during wartime.