Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak approved an order for 20 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in a deal valued at around $2.75 billion, according to Haaretz. The Israeli Air Force expects to take delivery of the first aircraft in 2015. The article quotes Barak saying the F-35 costs $96 million a copy. The entire deal will be funded by American military aid.
The F-35 deal had dragged for more than two years as the IAF wanted access to the plane’s hardware and software; they also wanted to install Israeli electronic warfare and configure it to carry Israeli-made missiles. The JSF program folks said no, that the deal was a “closed package.”
Although, if the Israelis place a larger order down the road, the JSF program said more Israeli-sourced components could be installed. To sweeten terms of the deal, Lockheed Martin agreed to buy more component parts for the JSF from Israeli firms; at a price of around $4 billion.
So, the IAF gets a squadron of F-35s, Israeli industry gets more orders for JSF components, and its all paid for by American taxpayers; certainly a win-win for the Israelis.
– Greg Grant
August 16th, 2010 | Israel, JSF Watch | 219 Comments
Yesterday, Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah claimed Israel was behind the 2005 bombing that killed Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Al Hariri. Part of the evidence for that claim, produced by Nasrallah for reporters, were still photos and video feed taken in 1997 from Israeli aerial drones hovering above Hariri’s home. While that might not be sufficient evidence to implicate Israel, it does show that Hezbollah was able to intercept Israeli drone feeds as far back as 1996.
Nasrallah said intercepts from Israeli UAV’s helped Hezbollah fighters ambush and kill 16 12 Israeli commandos on a mission in southern Lebanon in 1997. He said following that ambush, all Israeli drone feeds were encrypted; so it’s unknown whether Hezbollah is still able to hack the transmissions.
Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iraqi insurgent groups had intercepted U.S. drone transmissions using commercially available software via an unsecured communications link. Interestingly, the U.S. military discovered the vulnerability when they captured a Shiite militant whose laptop contained hours of intercepted video. Military and intelligence officials have said that Hezbollah agents provided bomb-making and other guerrilla know-how to Shiite insurgent groups in Iraq.
Hezbollah is considered the hybrid threat archetype: a non-state group armed with weapons and technology that has heretofore been the exclusive preserve of advanced militaries. During the war in south Lebanon in 2006, Hezbollah was able to listen into Israeli troop communications; although these were largely intercepts of cell phone conversations rather than hacking into encrypted radio communications.
Updated: This story on the Ynet news site provides more information on Nasrallah’s claims about Hezbollah’s 1997 ambush of Israeli commandos. The incident, known as the “Shayetet catastrophe,” resulted in the deaths of 12 commandos when Israeli troops walked into an ambush prepared with an assist from intercepted Israeli drone footage.
“We succeeded in analyzing these pictures, and assumed Israel was planning on operating there,” Nasrallah said. “Our men waited there for a few weeks, and on one of the nights the commando soldiers walked into the ambush we prepared.”
– Greg Grant
August 10th, 2010 | Assymetric Warriors, Hybrid Wars, Israel | 42 Comments
Iran’s Fars news agency, which is described as a semiofficial new agency (I guess that means they speak for the Iranian government, except when they don’t), says Iran has obtained four S-300 surface-to-air missiles from Belarus and some other unidentified supplier. I’m assuming the report means four S-300 systems, and not just missiles; the system includes the launcher and tracking and targeting radars.
Israel has long suggested that Iran’s acquisition of the S-300 would constitute a red-line that would compel Israel to launch an air attack. Steven Simon of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a brief back in November that S-300 deliveries to Iran would almost guarantee Israeli air strikes.
As Simon and other analysts note, Iran’s current air defense system is so weak and the S-300 is considered so good that if the system became operational it would greatly raise the costs of any Israeli strike. Most of Iran’s SAM systems are leftovers from the Shah days, such as their large inventory of U.S. built Improved Hawk, a medium range, mobile SAM system, that was delivered in the late 1970s.
What’s missing from Iranian air defenses is a modern, long-range SAM. That’s where the S-300 comes in. Iran announced in December 2007 that it had contracted to buy an unspecified number of the systems from Russia. The high-altitude, long-range S-300 is considered by some accounts to be comparable to the U.S. built Patriot air defense missile.
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August 4th, 2010 | Iran, Israel, Missiles | 62 Comments
Talk about border tensions: Israeli soldiers went out to trim a tree along its northern border with Lebanon and came under sniper fire from Lebanese soldiers. The IDF responded with tank and artillery fire, the Lebanese soldiers shot back with small arms including RPGs.
So far, the toll stands at one Israeli light-colonel, a battalion commander, three Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist killed; reports say an Israeli captain and five Lebanese wounded. UNIFIL peacekeepers have urged both armies to exercise “maximum restraint,” which seems unlikely at this point.
Already, Syrian President Bashar Assad said his country will stand by Lebanon in the face of Israeli “criminal aggression.” Some reports say the Lebanese casualties resulted from an Israeli helicopter firing missiles at an armored personnel carrier.
In a number of online conversations, people are wondering why an Israeli Lt. Col. and Captain were trimming trees along the Lebanese border.
– Greg Grant
photo: Haaretz
August 3rd, 2010 | Hybrid Wars, Israel | 94 Comments
CSBA’s whip smart strategist Jim Thomas contends that as precision targeting and guided weapons proliferate, both high-end and low-end wars will unfold in far less “permissive” operating environments. Battlefield advantage has swung back in favor of the defender, he says, with the further maturation of reconnaissance-strike networks warfare may be entering the “post-power projection era.”
The weapons acquisition choice, Thomas said, is either to go cheap and disposable, with drones, long range missiles and robots that can be thrown at an enemy’s missile magazines without much regret, or ultra-costly, high-end and stealthy and try to slyly maneuver your way past an enemy’s defenses.
A good example of that debate is going on right now in Israel as it considers whether to spend $2.7 billion for the first 19 of a larger planned buy of the stealthy fifth-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, or, to upgrade the current fleet of attack jets with better sensors and very-long range guided missiles. Not to say that Israel’s current fleet of modified F-15s and F-16s are cheap and disposable, but as Aviation Week’s David Fulgham reports, some in the Israeli brass think hanging newer and more standoff missiles on the jet’s wings is smarter than spending so much on the platform itself.
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July 30th, 2010 | Air Force, Air-to-Air Combat, Israel, JSF Watch | 74 Comments
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak arrives in Washington, D.C., next week. And he’s coming with a list of demands for U.S. defense officials. Topping that list: Israel wants money to build-out its multi-layered missile and rocket defense shield and it wants to get its hands on advanced technology from the Joint Strike Fighter program.
If it gets what it wants, Barak suggested Israel wouldn’t oppose the proposed U.S. sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia; although perhaps not in the numbers being discussed. In an interview with the Washington Post last week, Barak evoked Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME), suggesting that Saudi Arabia’s acquisition of dozens of brand new F-15 fighters could tilt the regional military balance.
“[W]e would appreciate it if we could be compensated and the qualitative edge will be assured as well as certain aspects of the quantity. Beyond certain point, quantity turns into quality especially when the planes themselves are extremely sophisticated one.”
Israel isn’t in a position to dictate who the U.S. sells advanced weaponry to, Barak said; although it really is. If Israel so desires, it can mobilize its powerful allies in Congress to hold up arms sales to Arab nations, especially when it’s something as big as the sale of 84 F-15s.
So what does Israel want for compensation? Barak said he wants money to erect a multi-layered rocket and missile defense shield over Israel, which has been his “vision from day one” in office. Hostile non-state actors such as Hezbollah and Hamas have turned to the poor man’s strategic bomber, the rocket, to menace Israeli cities.
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July 27th, 2010 | Israel, JSF Watch | 151 Comments
