Will the United States oppose the sale of Israeli Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missiles to Germany?

Just a few days ago, following Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Prague speech in Prague, which now stands out as the founder of Germany's European defense strategy, the German authorities confirmed their intention to order the Israeli anti-ballistic missile system Arrow 3 to constitute its anti-missile shield, and consequently, that of the European countries that will join the initiative proposed by Berlin. If this announcement made Paris and Rome cringe, which together are developing the all-European Aster 1NT anti-ballistic missile, it did not provoke any official reaction from Washington. It is precisely this absence of reaction which today worries the Israeli press, who fears that the American authorities will come to oppose such a transaction between Berlin and Jerusalem.

It must be said that, in this area, the United States undoubtedly have serious reasons to be annoyed by the choice of Berlin. Firstly, they now arm almost all of the European anti-missile shield deployed in Europe within the framework of NATO, through THAAD batteries deployed in Europe, US Navy Aegis destroyers and cruisers sailing in Mediterranean and North Atlantic and armed with the SM-3 anti-ballistic missile, as well as two AEGIS Ashore sites built in Poland and Romania, to also armed with SM-3. Moreover, Washington has no shortage of solutions for arming an anti-missile shield, whether it be the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system or THAAD for intermediate-range and medium-range ballistic missiles, the SM-3 and the AEGIS system which operates on the same targets, or the Patriot PAC-3 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system to counter short- and medium-range missiles. In addition, these systems, all very expensive, would represent a very important market for American industrialists if it were a question of constituting an anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe.

But the most annoying point for Washington, and constraining for Jerusalem and Berlin, is none other than the origin of the Arrow 3 system. Indeed, if the system is officially developed and produced by the Israeli IAI, it was developed largely thanks to the technological support of the American Boeing, which participated actively in particular in the development of the Group Based Interceptor system that defends American soil against long-range ballistic strikes. In fact, from a technological point of view, Washington has a particularly strict right of veto concerning the possible export of the Arrow 3. But this veto takes on a completely different dimension when we add that 80% of the development costs of the Israeli system were paid by the American taxpayer in order to ensure the protection of the Jewish State against Syrian and especially Iranian ballistic threats. It is one thing to help Jerusalem to protect itself, it is quite another to see the fruit of this aid deprive American industries of a strategic market, and Washington of reinforced control over European defences.

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