As of: March 23, 2024, 4:48 p.m
By: Karsten Hinzmann
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The cover over NATO's skies is leaky.
The Patriot system has proven its capabilities in Ukraine, but is far too expensive for a war.
Kiev - Fabian Hoffmann sees the matter crystal clear: He expects Russia to attack NATO within two to three years after the end of the Ukraine war.
Since Vladimir Putin's army is conventionally inferior to the West, his only option would be a missile-based attack from the Kaliningrad enclave against parts of the Baltics.
NATO must adapt to this.
Other scientists consider this pessimism to be exaggerated - although, for example, the German political scientist Carlo Masala said
in
an
article
on
do,” as he writes.
This means that with powerful air defense, the North Atlantic defense alliance would have regained a lot of security - the Patriot system should become a supporting pillar.
It has already proven itself in Ukraine, as the
Business Insider
currently reports.
According to him, the US system with many critics has become a true war hero.
Patriot: The war hero was a shaky candidate for a long time
Older Patriot missiles for air defense were sent into combat in 1990 in the Second Gulf War, or in the offensive under the name “Operation Desert Storm” as a strategic measure, although their effectiveness against the Iraqi Scud missiles was controversial at the time and the system has long been described as shaky - the
business insider
cites the shooting down of a US F/A-18C Hornet jet by a Patriot in 2003 as an example. An investigation concluded that the Patriot misidentified the jet as an incoming Iraqi missile identified and that soldiers had violated their own missile firing procedures.
The Patriot performed pretty spectacularly in Ukraine.”
Justin Bronk from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) told Business Insider
The follow-up efforts in the 1990s led to the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC) - an adaptation program in several stages to increase combat value, especially on the software side.
In contrast to the Desert Storm experience, Patriot missiles defeated every Iraqi ballistic missile during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
Despite the “friendly fire” on their own jet, the system prevailed.
Since 2015, Patriot has successfully eliminated numerous missiles and drones in the Yemen missile war.
Israel has also used it on multiple occasions to deter drones, aircraft and other threats.
At the beginning of the Ukraine war, the think tank
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
expressed cautious optimism about the Patriot deployment: Patriot would not be a game changer because its usefulness is limited by the range, the deploying unit and the high cost of its projectiles be.
CSIS
authors Mark Cancian and Tom Karako assessed the US commitment
soberly: “The United States is sending Patriot to Ukraine for three reasons: to help defend against Russian missile attacks that hit Ukrainian cities and destroy supply facilities;
to clearly express political support;
and because the United States has few other anti-aircraft missiles to deploy.”
Patriot: The only missile that can stand up to Putin
The entire world is now threatened by Russia's missiles - and in the eyes of far-sighted military officials has been since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. As early as 2013, former German NATO general Egon Ramms warned in Bild that
Putin
's missile strategy meant a relapse Cold War thought patterns and seen as a clear declaration of war on NATO in terms of power politics.
The background to this statement was the stationing of the first 48 Iskander missiles in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad along the border with the Baltics, i.e. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
More rockets followed five years later.
Warsaw, Berlin, Copenhagen and southern Sweden were suddenly within range of Russian firepower.
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Accurate, deadly, expensive – a Patriot anti-aircraft system fires a missile.
It has proven its value in Ukraine, and NATO wants to use it to close its cover in its own skies.
(Symbolic photo) © IMAGO / ABACAPRESS
“The Patriot performed pretty spectacularly in Ukraine,” Justin Bronk, an air force expert at Britain's
Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)
, told
Business Insider
.
However, there is a lack of reliable evidence, as all experts admit to
Business Insider
.
After all, despite all the air strikes, Russia has not yet been able to bring Ukraine to its knees - that alone is seen as proof of the Patriot's capabilities.
Rajan Menon, director of the US think tank
Defense Priorities
, said: “Without the Patriot and other systems, Ukrainian cities would be in very bad shape.
The air defense provided by the US and the West was absolutely crucial.”
Patriot: Your own costs are your biggest enemy
In the spring of 2023, the USA and Germany delivered the first of these modern air defense systems to the war zone.
A third system from Germany followed in December 2023.
Apparently Ukraine now has five Patriot batteries, as the
Wall Street Journal
reported in December.
However, the exact number and their locations remain hidden.
So far, Russia has apparently been unable to destroy or significantly weaken Ukraine's air defenses and is therefore using its air forces in a low-risk manner - and especially against civilian targets.
Nevertheless, missiles are the weapon of choice for Vladimir Putin.
However, the economic reach of the Patriot is limited.
The
CSIS
puts the cost of a battery at up to 1.1 billion euros - around 370 million euros for the system and around 650 million euros for the missiles.
This makes the Patriot systems the most expensive weapons system that the USA has made available to Ukraine to date, which is why it is all the more important for NATO partners to join forces in order to position themselves autonomously compared to the US system.
Since the middle of last year, the second step of the “Sky Shield Initiative” has been achieved, an association of 21 European countries that want to rely on a parallel system to Patriot in the future.
Patriot: NATO collective order – preparation for the worst case
Due to their low altitude and therefore very late detection, defense against cruise missiles, including hypersonic missiles, is only possible in the sense of protecting individual objects. According to the German Ministry of Defense, comprehensive protection over the area is therefore extremely expensive and can only be achieved with a large number of systems - this in turn illustrates the need for a multinational approach, which is now to be realized with IRIS-T SLM (Infra Red Imaging System Tail Surface Launched Medium Range).
Like all experts, Justin Bronk notes in
Business Insider
that there is a “massive global shortage” of Patriot missiles because the system is used in many countries, but long-term use consumes resources faster than they can be refreshed again Ukraine is therefore not only fighting primarily against Russian missile strikes, but also against sensible use with limited resources.
The political scientist Fabian Hoffmann from the University of Oslo wants the Western countries to be so equipped in two to three years that an attack on NATO would be far too expensive for Putin.
Hoffmann explicitly speaks of an emerging “risk-taking competition” between Russia and the Western alliance.
“Russia's military strategy is basically based on two components: one is the military capabilities, as they are now being used in Ukraine;
The other is the willpower to hold out in a fight with NATO and also to assume that NATO would not be prepared to take ever greater risks in an active combat operation with Russia,” as Hoffmann says.
For example, the USA has 15 Patriot systems, the Bundeswehr has ten, having given two to Ukraine;
Now NATO wants to jointly buy up to 1,000 Patriot missiles at an estimated price of more than five billion euros - clearly preparing for a worst-case scenario.