Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
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Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)

Israel's effective use of air-launched ballistic missiles in its airstrikes against Iran is expected to pique interest elsewhere in acquiring the weapons, which most major powers have avoided in favor of cruise missiles and glide bombs.
The Israeli Army said its Oct. 26 raid knocked out Iranian missile factories and air defenses in three waves of strikes.
Researchers said that based on satellite imagery, targets included buildings once used in Iran's nuclear program, according to Reuters.
Tehran defends such targets with “a huge variety” of anti-aircraft systems, said Justin Bronk, an airpower and technology expert at London's Royal United Services Institute.
Cruise missiles are easier targets for dense, integrated air defenses than ballistic missiles are.
But ballistic missiles are often fired from known launch points, and most cannot change course in flight.
Experts say high-speed, highly accurate air-launched ballistic missiles such as the Israel Aerospace Industries Rampage get around problems facing ground-based ballistic missiles and air-launched cruise missiles - weapons that use small wings to fly great distances and maintain altitude.
“The main advantage of an ALBM over an ALCM is speed to penetrate defenses,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.
“The downside - accuracy - looks to have been largely solved,” he said.
Ground-launched ballistic missiles - which Iran used to attack Israel twice this year, and which both Ukraine and Russia have used since Russia's invasion in 2022 - are common in the arsenals of many countries. So, too, are cruise missiles.
Because ALBMs are carried by aircraft, their launch points are flexible, helping strike planners.
“The advantage is that being air-launched, they can come from any direction, complicating the task of defending against them,” said Uzi Rubin, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, one of the architects of Israel's missile defenses.
The weapons are not invulnerable to air defenses. In Ukraine, Lockheed Martin Patriot PAC-3 missiles have repeatedly intercepted Russia's Khinzhals.
Many countries, including the United States and Britain, experimented with ALBMs during the Cold War. Only Israel, Russia and China are known to field the weapons now.
The US tested a hypersonic ALBM, the Lockheed Martin AGM-183, but it received no funding for the 2025 fiscal year.
Because it has a large arsenal of cruise missiles and other types of long-range strike weapons, Washington has otherwise shown little interest in ALBMs.
A US Air Force official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ALBMs are not used in Air Force operations.
Raytheon's SM-6, an air-defense missile that has been repurposed for air-to-air and surface-to-surface missions, also has been tested as an air-launched anti-ship weapon, said a senior US defense technical analyst, who declined to be identified because the matter is sensitive.
In tests the missile was able to strike a small target on land representing the center of mass of a destroyer, the analyst said. Publicly, the SM-6 is not meant for air-to-ground strikes.
Because ALBMs are essentially a combination of guidance, warheads and rocket motors, many countries that have precision weapons already have the capability to pursue them, a defense industry executive said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“This is a clever way of taking a common set of technologies and components and turning it into a very interesting new weapon that gives them far more capability, and therefore options, at a reasonable price,” the executive said.

 



Harris, Trump End Historic Campaigns with Final Pitch to Voters

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) speaks during a campaign rally on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 4, 2024, and former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (R) speaks during a campaign rally at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan on November 5, 2024. (AFP)
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) speaks during a campaign rally on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 4, 2024, and former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (R) speaks during a campaign rally at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan on November 5, 2024. (AFP)
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Harris, Trump End Historic Campaigns with Final Pitch to Voters

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) speaks during a campaign rally on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 4, 2024, and former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (R) speaks during a campaign rally at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan on November 5, 2024. (AFP)
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) speaks during a campaign rally on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 4, 2024, and former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (R) speaks during a campaign rally at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan on November 5, 2024. (AFP)

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump made their final case Monday in the hours before Election Day, when voters will either choose America's first woman president or hand the Republican an unprecedented comeback likely to rattle the world.

With polls showing a dead heat, Trump promised to lead the United States to "new heights of glory" while Harris said the "momentum is on our side," as the rivals held their last rallies of the 2024 race in crucial battleground states.

The Democratic vice president finished on a high note in Philadelphia in the must-win state of Pennsylvania, with a rally on the steps immortalized by the boxing movie "Rocky."

"This could be one of the closest races in history -- every single vote matters," said Harris, who was joined by celebrities including Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.

She also referenced the film, telling thousands of supporters that "here at these famous steps" she was paying "tribute to those who start as the underdog and climb to victory."

Harris, 60, has repeatedly said she is the underdog, having only joined the race three months ago after President Joe Biden dropped out. But she insisted she would win.

Former president Trump brought several family members -- with the conspicuous absence of his wife Melania -- up on stage at his closing rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

There, as in an earlier swing through North Carolina and Pennsylvania, his speech bristled with dark rhetoric.

"With your vote tomorrow, we can fix every single problem our country faces and lead America -- indeed, the world -- to new heights of glory," he told the crowd, as the clocks ticked over into Tuesday.

- 'Show up' -

Their final pitches reflected the critical importance that turnout is likely to play in a nail-biting race.

Both sides say they are encouraged by early turnout, with more than 82 million people having cast early ballots -- but they now need to mobilize supporters on Election Day itself.

A charged-up Trump said his supporters can "put ourselves in a position to win, which we can do very easily if we show up."

Harris said, "We need everyone to vote in Pennsylvania and you will decide the outcome."

Polls open on the East Coast at 6:00 am (1100 GMT) Tuesday -- although in the tiny New Hampshire hamlet of Dixville Notch they opened at the stroke of midnight, recording three votes for Trump and three for Harris.

In the final days, the Republican and Democrat have delivered sharply contrasting messages.

Speaking earlier in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump pursued his apocalyptic vision of a United States in decline and overwhelmed by illegal immigrants, whom he described as "savages" and "animals."

Harris, meanwhile, hammered home her opposition to Trump-backed abortion bans across the United States -- one of her key vote-winning positions.

But she also took an upbeat, centrist note, calling for a "fresh start" after nearly a decade of Trump dominating US political discourse.

- High tension -

At 78, Trump is the oldest major party nominee ever to run for US president.

But despite being tarred with criminal convictions and the scandal of his supporters' violent attack on Congress four years ago, when he refused to accept the results of the 2020 election, he goes into Election Day with major advantages.

Trump has pressed home on voter concerns about the economy and illegal migration while his harsh rhetoric is catnip to his right-wing base.

His message struck home for first-time voter Ethan Wells, a 19-year-old restaurant cook in Michigan.

Biden "let a lot of illegals in, and they've been murdering and raping our own people," he told AFP. "When Trump was president, nobody messed with America."

Harris has had to build an entire campaign in three months but she has quickly galvanized the Democratic Party and stirred excitement among young voters and women.

"Tomorrow, we will elect the first female president," Luke Little, a 24-year-old server, said in Philadelphia.

The world is anxiously watching as the outcome will have major implications for conflicts in the Middle East and Russia's war in Ukraine, and for tackling climate change, which Trump calls a hoax.

The most immediate fear is that US democracy will be tested if Trump loses but refuses to accept defeat like he did four years ago, when his supporters stormed the US Capitol.

With Trump having narrowly survived an assassination attempt in July and police foiling a second alleged plot, the fears of violence are very real.

In Washington, growing numbers of businesses and office buildings are being boarded up in case of unrest.