Originally Posted by
Lowslung
Did we though? Yes, we killed something like 95% of incoming drones/missiles. But the Iranians were still able to do significant damage to some very high end systems. They would’ve killed a lot more of our people as well, but thank god we had the foresight to evacuate them (kudos to the leadership that made that decision). I feel like an alternate lesson the Chinese or Norks might take away is that if you saturate our defenses with enough targets, you’ll eventually get through, kill the radars & the patriot batteries & therefore threaten our regional forces & make your main operation that much easier. Caveat: those concerns are based on open source information. I’m sure there’s plenty we’re not seeing…..but still…
ANY ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE DEFENSE CAN BE SATURATED. The defender must defend a whole perimeter while the attacker need attack only a single point on that perimeter - and generally the point they deem least well defended.
Which is why you need deterrence in the form of your own offensive capability, which our NATO allies largely spent the last three and a half decades divesting themselves of.