I wrote the following article in September 2014, just after the Operation Protective Edge conflict with Hamas in Gaza, where Iron Dome shot down missiles fired towards my Tel Aviv apartment.
It is interesting to review my predictions in this article and note the ones that have come to fruition:
- Hamas has basically abandoned the rocket threat to Israel because Iron Dome has made it ineffective and too expensive;
- Both Russia and the US have started to understand the game changing implications of the Trophy Active Protection System (APS) "force field" system for tanks. An advanced APS is a key part of Russia's new Armata T-14 tank and the US is buying Trophy for a brigade of M1A2 Abrams to be based in Europe facing Russia.
- Russia has also realised the threat of missile defence force fields to its nuclear deterrent and has invested heavily in hypersonic weapons.
But it will probably take a major ground war where APS equipped tanks prove completely unstoppable to forces relying on anti-tank missiles, for the penny to fully drop that the (APS equipped) tank again reigns supreme on the battlefield.