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U.S. Relying on Israeli Armor to Protect Its Battle Vehicles from Antitank Missiles
(Wall Street Journal) Ben Kesling - High-powered antitank guided missiles (ATGMs) have flooded the battlefields of the Middle East, highlighting a gap in U.S. military preparedness. The U.S., Russia and Iran armed and trained proxy fighters, and sent them antitank missiles. A U.S. program begun in mid-2013 provided weapons including ATGM missiles to rebels fighting the Assad regime in Syria. President Trump later canceled the program, saying it allowed weapons to fall into al-Qaeda hands. "There is absolutely the possibility that the U.S. may face some of the same ATGMs it has delivered in the past to the Middle East," said Omar Lamrani, a senior military analyst with the defense-intelligence firm Stratfor. The U.S. Army is now fast-tracking a program to equip combat vehicles with advanced armor designed to counter the ATGM threat. Israel has become a world leader in devising protection against these weapons, fielding active protection systems that use sensors to detect an incoming missile and shoot back at it, destroying the threat midflight. In 2009, the Pentagon mothballed a multibillion-dollar Army program and eventually came to rely primarily on an Israeli armor system for its top-tier battle vehicles. While the Army works on a homegrown solution, the U.S. military continues to rely on commercial systems, particularly from Israeli companies, for its active protection needs.