Star wars

Outer space is currently where bitter rivals Israel and Iran are also at each other’s throat.

Startling as that may sound, clashes have already taken place and are continuing, even after the US dramatically inserted itself into the hostilities by bombing Iranian nuclear sites.

Experts expect the outer space clashes to last until the combatants run out of missiles.

Consequently, many of us can only gawk and mark this new chapter in modern warfare as a historic moment, says noted historian Adam Tooze in a substantially significant Substack newsletter last week, from which I will quote and paraphrase liberally.

Filipino policy makers should seriously consider and familiarize themselves with this grim new chapter and its impact on the safety of Filipinos in the Middle East.

This unprecedented outer space combat burst into chilling view, Tooze says, when Iran angrily retaliated against Israel by launching hundreds of long-range hypersonic ballistic missiles and cruise missiles towards Israel, some 1,609 kilometers away.

Israel then intercepted some of these ballistic missiles in outer space using hypersonic missiles from their touted three-layer “Iron Dome” defense system.

In the first days of the hostilities, the Associated Press quoted Israeli army estimates that Iran had fired 450 missiles and launched 1,000 drones at Israel.

The estimates are quadruple Iran’s first-ever missile attack on Israel on 13-14 April 2024 when Iran launched 120 ballistic missiles and nearly 220 cruise missiles.

As to where the outer space combat is happening, it is estimated at some 400 kilometers above the earth.

“At the apogee of their flight, Iran’s missiles hurtling towards Israel at speeds exceeding Mach 5 regularly cross the Karman line,” says Tooze. “At 100 kilometers above the earth, the Karman line marks the dividing line between the earth’s atmosphere and the exo-atmosphere or outer space.”

“Some of Iran’s missiles are credited with reaching a maximum apogee of 400 km, before reentering for their final plunge towards their targets,” he adds.

Social media videos of incoming Iranian missiles “capture only the final moments of flight paths that are unprecedented in the history of warfare. Exo-atmospheric (missile) trajectories are a radical novelty for sustained missile attacks under actual wartime conditions,” says Tooze.

To knock out the Iranian ballistic missiles at their apogee, Israel uses its Arrow 3 interceptor system built with US assistance.

Following the concept of using a bullet against another bullet, the Arrow 3 “achieved its first operational interception of an actual missile on 9 November 2023 when it shot down” a ballistic missile launched by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

In the current hostilities, there are still no estimates on how many expensive Iranian missiles the similarly expensive Arrow 3 knocked out.

But obviously a significant number of Iranian missiles pierced the Israeli defenses, causing havoc and casualties.

Tooze says Israel estimates “its interceptions of incoming missiles during an intensive bombardment cost as much as $285 million per night.” Its stocks and production of Arrow 3 missiles are limited.

Iran’s missiles are not unlimited nor cheap either. “A large salvo of ballistic missiles might run to $200 million,” says Tooze.

Using missiles, however, is far cheaper than the billions Israeli long-range jets and bombers burn up when they attack Iranian targets.

Militarily, the attacks and retaliations mean a “strangely asymmetric mode of long-range warfare, with expensive air forces squaring off against cheaper one-way cruise and ballistic missiles,” says Tooze.

Against this backdrop, Israel’s continuing conventional aerial bombardment of Iran is therefore no more than a “ground game” compared to the unraveling “hypersonic contest raging on the edges of the atmosphere and beyond.” Star Wars is now real.