Iran’s recent strikes exposed critical gaps in Europe’s air defense systems despite Western technological superiority, Mauro Gilli, senior researcher and professor of Military Strategy and Technology, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
The Post contacted Gilli after Iran fired two long-range ballistic missiles at the Diego Garcia joint UK-US army base on March 20. Diego Garcia is the largest island of the Chagos Archipelago. The atoll lies approximately 4,000 kilometers away. This indicated to the world that Iran’s firing range far exceeded its declared range of 2,000 kilometers, and could put most European countries within its strike radius; Paris, Berlin, and Rome all fall within that radius.
“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],” Gilli told the Post.
“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. 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.”
While Gilli said European countries had not excluded such a strike range prior to the US-Israel war against Iran, it was never proven.
“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.”
Regarding whether this will create long-term changes in European and NATO countries with regard to air missile defence, Gilli said this was already happening in part 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.’”
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
Despite these systems, are European countries capable of defending against missile strikes? Gilli explained that most European countries possess the technology to defend against missile strikes, but the issue is whether they can defend themselves against repeated attacks or cover 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. 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. 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, organisational dysfunctionalities, and much more.”
Gilli said there has been increased investment in such defensive technology and that defense allocations in general have been rising since 2022.
“Whether the current conflict has played into this at all, I think at this stage, probably it’s too early [to tell]. But I think it will reinforce the trends that have happened since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
Russia is also playing an important role in the Iran war, particularly with regard to precision targeting, Gilli explained.
For example, on March 27, Iran struck and damaged an important 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. These AWACS are never in the same spot,” he said. “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.”
Thinking broader, not just with regard to this strike, Gilli said Iran’s success in destroying high-value military assets throughout the Gulf states, in Jordan, in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, sends an important message.
“Iran managed to destroy some billion-dollar radars [used] for [the] long-range detection of ballistic missiles. 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.”
Gilli said it was not yet clear whether the damage caused by Iran was because Iran was more powerful than everyone expected in terms of technology, or whether the threat of Iran’s relatively rudimentary missiles and drones was not taken sufficiently seriously.
“There’s no doubt that Western countries and Gulf countries in Israel have way more advanced technologies. But it doesn’t matter only the technology you have, it’s also how you employ it.”
“You have an organization working seamlessly to make sure that everything works perfectly.
“And what I think I can feel confident concluding is that probably the organization of air missile defense was not perfect, it had significant gaps, and that Iran, with inferior technology, could take advantage of these gaps. It is not so much the technology per se, but much more about the ingenuity and organizational aspect,” he said.