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Don’t sell weapons to Israel’s enemies, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Russia on a diplomatic visit earlier this week. We’ve blogged about Russia possibly selling weapons to Iran and Syria, enemies of Israel. Iran, which has been sanctioned by the United Nations, says it will buy S-300 anti-aircraft missiles from Russia. Syria currently is negotiating peace with Israel. Will Iran follow suit? (Associated Press)

American allies Kuwait, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates reportedly are interested in buying the Iskander-E ballistic missile from Russia. The missile is a short-range, surface-to-air weapon system. From the article: “Because the missiles are solid-fueled, they can be launched extremely quickly, again reducing to virtually zero the chances of knocking them out before launch with a pre-emptive airstrike. RIA Novosti said the second missile on a TEL could be fired within a minute of the first one being launched.” (UPI)
 
Richard Danzig, Barack Obama’s senior foreign policy adviser, said our country’s planned missile defense bases in Eastern Europe are not offensive moves against Russia. The U.S. will deploy a radar system to the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors to Poland. Russia opposes the bases, and Danzig said the country’s retaliatory actions would have consequences. (AFP)
 
According to the Telegraph, Russia is set to launch its biggest missile test in 24 years. Part of the Stability-2008 strategic maneuvers in Russia and Belarus, the test will last until October 12. East and West are at loggerheads over missile defense, and Russia’s invasion of Georgia and our country’s missile defense plans in Eastern Europe have added to the tension. (Telegraph)

Kevin Mooney at CNSNews has written an informative story about missile defense in the present war in Iraq.

The war in the Gulf has proved a training ground, so to speak, for the U.S. Army’s Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) surface-to-air guided missile defense system. Deployed in Kuwait at the start of the war to defend against Scud attacks, PAC-3 successfully intercepted and destroyed Scud missiles, says the Missile Defense Agency.

There have been problems with the technology, however. CNSNews reports that PAC-3 was involved in “friendly fire” incidents. A British warplane was shot down on March 23, 2003, and in April 2004, a Patriot battery shot down a U.S. F/A-18 Hornet.

An excerpt of the article:

“Only two of the successful intercepts during Operation Iraqi Freedom involved PAC-3s, while the other seven were PAC-2s. Looking ahead to the near future, the U.S. military plans to more emphasis on PAC-3s, especially for ground-based systems, Ellison noted.

‘You have to remember that in the 1990s, missile defense was still a science project,’ he observed. ‘We were still in the research and development stage. This changed after withdrawing from the ABM Treaty [Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972] and we had to a do a lot of adapting with what was currently in inventory.’”

The article includes a brief mention of the threat of Islam and successful tests of other anti-missile technology. Read the whole article.

(Photo credit: Raytheon)