Inadequate U.S. Patriot Missile Force Size Highlighted By Middle East Crisis
There are not enough Patriot batteries to go around, especially if a crisis in the Pacific were to break out.A significant portion of the U.S. Army's Patriot surface-to-air missile force have been or are in the process of being deployed to the Middle East in response to the ongoing Israel-Gaza crisis. This is in addition to many other obligations around the globe. Though this reflects the immense ability of the U.S. military to project power worldwide, it also underscores the stark limitations of its existing ground-based air and missile defense capacity.
Concerns about what this means for the prospect of adequately defending U.S. forces deployed overseas, as well as the U.S. homeland, is something senior U.S. military leaders, as well as The War Zone, have been drawing attention to for some time.
Since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas launched its unprecedented attacks on southern Israel on October 7, the U.S. military has announced the deployment of a slew of forces to the Middle East, including two aircraft carrier strike groups, a Marine Expeditionary Unit, and multiple squadrons of U.S. Air Force combat jets. A senior U.S. defense official confirmed to The War Zone and other outlets today that two full Patriot battalions are among other additional Army air and missile defenses that have also been rushing to the region. U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon's top spokesperson had said last week that the Patriot units would come from Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) in North Carolina and Fort Sill in Oklahoma.
The Army's two Patriot battalions may not look like much of a contribution at first glance, but the service only has 17 of them in total.
Each battalion has a headquarters element and between three and five firing batteries. Each battery can have up to eight trailer-mounted launchers, as well as an AN/MPQ-65 multifunction phased array radar and requisite fire control, communications, and other support equipment. The latest generation of Patriot launchers can be loaded with a mix of different interceptors optimized for various, including cruise missiles and drones flying at lower altitudes and certain types of ballistic missiles in the terminal stages of their flight.
Of the 17 battalions the Army has, two are dedicated training units that are not available for deployment. In addition, at least four of the Army's remaining Patriot battalions are in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. Other Patriot units have been deployed elsewhere in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, in the past, as well.
So, the pair of battalions that have been tasked to deploy to the Middle East represent just over 13 percent of the Army's total deployable Patriots and at least around 20 percent of those systems, and possibly more, that aren't already on station elsewhere outside the United States.
It is also worth noting that the single THAAD battery that is part of the Army air and missile defense package being sent to the Middle East is one of just seven of those units active today. Two more are also deployed outside of the continental United States, one in South Korea and one on the U.S. island of Guam in the Western Pacific. The Army is currently hoping to field an eighth THAAD battery by 2025.
In recent years, senior U.S. officials have also highlighted the growing need for Patriot and other surface-to-air missile systems to help defend the homeland in the face of growing potential threats, especially from China and Russia. There is now even talk about the possibility of having air defense systems permanently or semi-permanently deployed domestically, something that has not been the case outside of the Washington, D.C. area since the Cold War.
In the meantime, the size of the Army's existing air and missile defense arsenal imposes real limits on what it can and cannot offer in terms of air and missile defenses in response to crises and other contingencies.
Regardless, the current tasking for Patriot batteries, which is already consuming the better part of half the available force, pales in comparison to what a major crisis in the Pacific would demand. U.S. and allied forces in this vast theater would be facing an unprecedented set of threats in the air, with long-range drones, cruise missiles, and especially ballistic missiles, as well as hypersonic weapons, putting locales at risk over vast areas.
The distributed model of basing that the U.S. military is pursuing only complicates this further as far more patriot batteries would be needed to cover forward-operating forces. This is a huge departure from the more centralized concept of basing operations that has existed for decades and that the Patriot force is tailored for now. Even major military facilities and population centers far from the front will be at risk of attacks, including asymmetric ones such as from drones. As already noted, the homeland will not be safe in such a conflict, either, and ground-based air defenses will be needed, although they are unlikely to be available.
There is simply not nearly enough capacity in the Patriot system force structure to come close to meeting these needs, let alone dealing with combat attrition on top of them. The Patriot system is in massive international demand, including in Ukraine, and with backorders running deep and being only likely to grow even deeper in the near term, this could present additional challenges for the Army.
Altogether, it is no surprise that additional Army air and missile defense assets are among forces the U.S. military has sent to the Middle East to bolster its posture amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict. At the same time, it shows just how in-demand these capabilities are and how quickly they can become stretched beyond their existing capacity.
Considering the threats that are growing, especially in Asia, this is a major problem.
Inadequate U.S. Patriot Missile Force Size Highlighted By Middle East Crisis
There are not enough Patriot batteries to go around, especially if a crisis in the Pacific were to break out.
www.thedrive.com
Just as I finish this post, reports of more explosions in Eilat.
