Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

As a programmer and person in high tech, I&#x27;m in awe of the Iron Dome. The speed with which it has to make decisions, and with which it does so, and the number of rockets that it has knocked out the sky, demonstrate what an amazing piece of technology this is. I&#x27;ve been programming for a long time, but still can&#x27;t begin to imagine the complexity of the calculations that these systems are doing, and how well they&#x27;ve managed to pull it off.<p>As an Israeli citizen whose home is in the range of the Hamas rockets, it&#x27;s hugely comforting to know that this technology has been deployed. I&#x27;ll be teaching a Python class in Tel Aviv tomorrow, and while I can basically expect that Hamas will be sending a bunch of rockets aiming to kill me (or anyone else they can), I&#x27;m happy to know that our interruptions will likely be annoying and frustrating, rather than lethal.<p>As an Israeli citizen who doesn&#x27;t want to see our foot soldiers in Gaza (for a very large number of reasons), I&#x27;m also happy that Iron Dome gives our government time before sending them in.<p>The situation with Gaza, and with the Palestinians, is a pretty bad one, although I remain optimistic over the long term. For now, though, anything that reduces the threat of rockets that Hamas is sending at us strikes me as a good thing.

The software design is particularly interesting. I recommend this article: &quot;Typical command-and-control software for military gear is highly customized and hard to modify. The key to MPrest’s success, Barak says, is that the command-and-control software is simple and modular, so customers can quickly adapt it without reprogramming. The Israeli army was able to recalibrate Iron Dome batteries almost immediately, without a software rewrite, when Hamas fighters began to fire longer-range missiles.[1]&quot;<p>[1] - <a href="http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-21/how-to-stop-missiles-the-company-behind-israels-iron-dome" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.businessweek.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2012-11-21&#x2F;how-to-st...</a>

Wow, what an unbalanced article! No mention of casualties on the other side. Disgusting one-sided coverage. I am really disappointed in the Washington Post. Bad job. I find that Israeli news sources like Haaretz are more balanced re: the middle east than the US news is - strange. Al Jazeera is another reasonable source for middle east news. Forget about US news coverage of the middle east.<p>As an American, I find I often feel the need to use something like news.google.com to find articles on any given story from many countries around the world to get a more balanced view. This is a practice that I have introduced to several friends and family members, and once they make the little bit of effort to look at world wide coverage they understand my complaint about the US news industry.<p>In our modern world, I think that it is at least ill-advised, if not dangerous, to live in a <i>bubble</i> and not read many opposing opinions on important events.

Of note:<p>&quot;“The Iron Dome system and its impressive success thus far have had a strategic impact on managing the campaign. It gives us wide options,” said Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. “Having said that, we cannot become complacent.”&quot;<p>Reminds me of when I first read many years about the potential paradox of using a firewall and security - that it also meant you couldn&#x27;t ignore individual security settings (turning off ports and services) on machines behind the firewall assuming that the first line of defense was sufficient.

The &quot;Iron Dome&quot; will not change the current situation in a way that, say, political negotiation will. It&#x27;s really frustrating to watch the same process play itself out. Throw a few more bombs in, stir the ashes (so to say) and repeat in 2 years. Is the ongoing plan to degrade the operational capacity of Hamas _just so_ that they cannot seriously threaten? Does the Iron Dome entail perpetual open warfare?<p>It&#x27;s clear that Israel is doubling down on automation and military technology so that the war can grind on from an increasingly safe distance. They have the tiger by the tail and they cannot let go! So, lock it in the closet, behind domes and fences, etc.<p>I would <i>hate</i> being stuck in Gaza right now. Can you imagine? What a shit-show. There is no &quot;dome&quot; there, naturally. The bombs come flying in with ease. And it seems like 50&#x2F;50 that there will be a ground invasion. Supposedly Egypt has the tunnels to Gaza sealed. Maybe Israel thinks this is the time to completely smash Hamas. All this is something to think about while you sit in a basement, for days.

This scenario, were the population in control has nearly magical technology compared to the nearly useless technology available to those under occupation, reads to me like a dystopian future that is usually written about in science fiction.<p>I wish the scenario playing out here was a blip in history one rather than one that festers for decade, after decade, after decade without significant positive change.

From a regional warfare perspective the relative success of Iron Dome mitigates the use of stand off offensive technologies. This forces the combatants to develop alternative delivery strategies. When there is a lack of control on the ground, IEDs and operator delivered munitions seem to be the next step, but that works poorly when there is a functioning police&#x2F;local military presence.<p>Given the constraints, I suspect the next standoff weaponry will become drone based. Something flying fast enough and high enough to be immune to small arms fire, but low enough to keep out of the kill zone of anti-air and anti-missile defense.

Video summary of the Iron Dome system: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-iron-dome-works-video-2014-7" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;how-iron-dome-works-video-201...</a><p>The only part which sounds odd is the &quot;human factor&quot; claim near the end. AFAIK the system is fully autonomous once deployed and does not require a human to decide whether or not to launch an interceptor missile.

the oppressed people on the other side now engage in a financial war. for the price they would build one rocket with explosive payload, now they can build some 4 dummy ones. making the invading state pay 20k x3 more than before. while also recruiting more people, who would be averse to the violence before.

Building defense at the cost of numerous innocent lives out there in Palestine. Collateral Damage is a means to achieve this. What i find more interesting is that Israel is using Hamas as a cover to clean-up the complete Palestine state. It would have been justified if the casualties were adults, real Hamas members and not kids, women.

If a smaller kid is throwing punches at you but you are able to avoid being hit by holding him at arms length, is it acceptable to throw punches with the other arm?

I&#x27;m impressed by how good of a job Israel does at painting itself as the <i>victim</i> despite being the perpetuator of 50 years of ongoing occupation.