The Gulf war's impact on ballistic missile defense systems

Abstract

During Desert Storm the United States and its allies had an overwhelming advantage over the Iraqi armed forces. Nonetheless, the Iraqis managed to strike Israel and Saudi Arabia with Scud missiles. Because of the changing political climate and the expanding transfer of technology among nations, there is great concern by the U.S. Government about missile proliferation and the ability of any country to obtain weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. Government tried to downplay this concern for many years until the recent events in the Middle East affirmed its seriousness. The truth is that every year countries once thought to pose no international threat are acquiring biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Moreover, state-sponsored terrorist organizations could conceivably acquire these weapons in the future. In response to these concerns and in light of the lessons learned from the Gulf War, President George Bush in January 1991 redirected the SDI Program to concentrate on providing protection from limited ballistic missile strikes, rather than from an all-out nuclear missile attack by the Soviet Union. The Patriot air defense system, after knocking out Iraqi Scuds in the Gulf War with a near perfect record, appears for now to be the working model for the development of advanced ballistic missile defense systems — direct-kill missiles and projectiles instead of laser and particle beams. Even though the Patriot's use in Desert Storm has been argued by some to have been militarily insignificant, it has managed to change the viewpoint of many political and scientific leaders into believing that ballistic missile defense systems are needed to defend peaceful population centers and military installations from missile strikes like the ones on Israel and Saudi Arabia.