Iran’s recent strikes exposed critical gaps in Europe’s air-defense systems despite Western technological superiority, Mauro Gilli, professor of Military Strategy and Technology at the Hertie School in Berlin, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
“I think it’s at least fair to say that making European countries recalibrate their defensive capabilities was exactly one of the goals Iran might have had in mind [with the Diego Garcia strike],” he said.
On March 20, Iran fired two long-range ballistic missiles at the Diego Garcia joint UK-US army base in the Chagos Archipelago, a group of seven atolls about 500 kilometers south of the Maldives archipelago. Diego Garcia is about 4,000 km. away from Iran.
The attack indicated that Iran’s firing range far exceeded its declared range of 2,000 km., putting most of Europe within its strike radius, including Paris, Berlin, and Rome.
“We know that since the beginning of the conflict, at least a part of American-made missile-defense assets based in Europe have been relocated toward the Middle East,” Gilli told the Post. “Now, by showing the capability of at least aiming at very long-range targets, Iran showed European countries that they are actually within [its] range.”
European countries had not excluded such a strike range prior to the US-Israel war against Iran, but it was never proven, he said.
“By attempting this strike, it’s fair to say that Iran probably wanted to create a dilemma for European countries that of course, if American-made assets are relocated to the Middle East, then they [the European countries] might be undefended or less defended than they could,” he added.
Regarding whether this is going to create long-term changes in the way Europe and NATO approach air defense, Gilli said this was already happening because of the war in Ukraine.
“I think in Europe, there was already an ambition among multiple countries with Sky Shield, in Italy with Michelangelo, to kind of say, ‘we need to develop more advanced air missile defense systems," he said.
The European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI) is a ground-based integrated European air-defense system that includes anti-ballistic missile capability. It was proposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is now used by at least 24 European countries.
Leonardo’s Michelangelo Dome is an advanced, AI-driven, air-defense system designed to protect critical infrastructure against drones, hypersonic missiles, and swarm attacks. It is set to be integrated into the Italian Ministry of Defense by 2027.
European air defense capabilities
Most European countries possess the technology to defend against missile strikes, Gilli said, adding that the main issue is whether they can defend themselves from repeated attacks over large areas.
“The problem is managing to have full coverage, integrating all the different air missile-defense systems architecture so that two different countries do not try to shoot down the same missiles, and conversely, that two different countries do not assume that the missile is going to be engaged by another country, and then nobody engages,” he said. “This is one of the big problems with monitoring a very large area of the space among multiple entities and countries.”
“With the war in Ukraine, this need has become even more pressing. But committing to developing a military capability doesn’t translate immediately into actual capabilities. And this is due to a number of factors, including budget constraints, organizational challenges, and much more.” he added. “Then, of course, the big problem of Europe is always that for many countries, committing to developing a military capability takes a lot of time, or at least doesn’t translate immediately into actual capabilities. And this is due to a number of factors, including budget constraints, organizational dysfunctionalities, and much more.”
Gil said there has been increased investment in such defensive technology, and defense allocations in general have been increasing since 2022.
“Whether the current conflict has played into this at all, I think at this stage, probably it’s too early [to tell],” he said. “But I think it will reinforce the trends that have happened since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
Russia is playing an important role in the Iran war, particularly with precision targeting, Gilli said.
On March 27, for example, Iran struck and damaged a US Air Force E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System command-and-control plane in Saudi Arabia. AWACS is an airborne radar early-warning system that detects aircraft, ships, vehicles, and missiles at long ranges.
“The destruction of these AWACS was done with an extremely precise missile,” he said. “These AWACS are never in the same spot. So, for Iran to strike with such precision, you need to have the coordinates. And somehow, someone provided them, and it’s very unlikely that Iran has the capabilities to have them.”
Iran’s success in destroying high value military assets in the Gulf states, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar sends an important message, Gilli said.
“Iran managed to destroy some billion-dollar radars [used] for [the] long-range detection of ballistic missiles,” he said. “So, what this kind of suggests is clearly that the countries operating those assets didn’t put enough thought into how to defend them.
“From a military-strategic point of view, if Iran has managed to carry out these strikes, well, what does it say about the Indo-Pacific? So, that is, I would say, a very important lesson that a lot of people are drawing.”
It was not yet clear whether the damage caused was because Iran was more powerful than everyone expected in terms of technology, or whether the threat of its relatively rudimentary missiles and drones was not taken sufficiently seriously, Gilli said.
“There’s no doubt that Western countries and Gulf countries and Israel have way more advanced technologies,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter only the technology you have; it’s also how you employ it.
“Because of modern military technologies, military organizations need to make sure that everything works perfectly. Probably something did not work as it should have in the organization of air missile defense, and that Iran, despite its inferior technology, could take advantage of these gaps. Such accomplishments do not say much about the state of Iranian technology per se, but much more about the ingenuity and organizational aspect of it,” he said.