As another portent of what Brussels and Tel Aviv are jointly anticipating - if not planning - NATO sponsored a three-day course in Haifa in November that provided "emergency management professionals with training on staff teaching and preparation methods in the face of mass casualty situations.
"These situations include all emergencies causing a large number of casualties that require special organisation and response by local, regional and national medical and other services." [65]
Earlier in the month NATO's Supreme Allied Commander and U.S. European Command chief Admiral James Stavridis arrived in the Israeli capital to meet with "Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Gantz and several other commanders. The Admiral [was] accompanied by other EUCOM commanders." [66]
The occasion was the last day of the two-week Operation Juniper Cobra 10, the most recent and by far the largest of biennial joint U.S.-Israeli military exercises. Last year's was on an unparalleled scale, in fact the biggest-ever joint war games between the two nations. 1,400 American troops and seventeen warships participated in what is probably the most ambitious layered, integrated missile defense exercises ever staged anywhere. [67] "An unprecedented number of American generals, along with 1,400 U.S. army soldiers, are participating with top IDF brass in the high-level Juniper Cobra military exercise that one U.S. Navy commander said is aimed at 'specific threats.'" [68]
The unprecedented drills came shortly after the current U.S. administration announced plans to cancel the ground-based midcourse missile project of President George W. Bush in Eastern Europe in favor of what President Barack Obama on September 17 affirmed were "stronger, smarter, and swifter defenses of American forces and America's allies." Reports had surfaced earlier that the U.S. and NATO were to abandon the project of basing ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and a complementary radar installation in the Czech Republic and instead deploy far more mobile, often non-detectable missile interceptor components to Israel, the Balkans, Turkey and the South Caucasus. [69]
Last year's Juniper Cobra exercises were the opening salvo for the new plan, clearly prepared for long in advance.
The official purpose was to protect Israel from possible Iranian missile attacks, but the truth is far different. More than a year before, the Pentagon's European Command, whose top military commander is also NATO's supreme commander, installed a missile shield radar base in Israel's Negev Desert, near the host country's nuclear program at Dimona. The American Forward Based X-Band Transportable Radar has a range of 2,900 miles [4,300 kilometers], far more than what would be required for Iran but sufficient to cover all of western and much of southern Russia.
120 U.S. military personnel were assigned to the base, the first foreign troops to ever be stationed in Israel. Juniper Cobra was the testing phase for U.S. global interceptor missile deployments in the Middle East and beyond. The new American plans have been described by the White House and the Pentagon to be fully integrated with NATO to encompass all of Europe, and Israel's role in those designs is pivotal. Last autumn's U.S.-Israeli missile exercises helped "the United States craft its European missile shield...Featuring in the...maneuvers is Aegis, a U.S. Navy anti-missile system that the administration of President Barack Obama plans to deploy in the eastern Mediterranean as the first part of a missile shield for Europe announced last month." [70]
As a U.S. Army officer present for Juniper Cobra stated at the time, "On a wider perspective, what the Americans learn from these complex exercises will help shape a NATO defense shield for Europe." [71]
Earlier this month Israel announced that it has successfully tested what it calls its Iron Dome short- and medium-range anti-missile system, which consists of the newly-developed Arrow 2 and David's Sling interceptor missiles. The first Arrow "was deployed in 2000, and Israel and the United States have since conducted a joint, biennial missile defense exercise, called Juniper Cobra, to work on integrating the weapons, radars and other systems of the two countries." [72]
Last May in the "first meeting of senior Israeli defense officials with the Obama administration's new staff at the Pentagon," the Director General of Israeli Ministry of Defense, General Pinchas Buhris, and American counterparts in Washington, DC it was announced that the U.S. will fully fund a $100 million advanced Arrow 3 missile defense system.
"Israel and the United States are also developing David's Sling - a missile
defense system for medium-range missile with a range between 70 and 250
kilometers. The Arrow 3 will be a longer-range version of the Arrow defense
system currently in IDF operation. It will be capable of intercepting incoming enemy missiles at higher altitudes and farther away from Israel." [73]
In July the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency worked with Israel to test the Arrow system at a U.S. range in the Pacific Ocean.
The head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Army Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, said regarding the Pacific drills that "the test will allow Israel to measure its advanced Arrow system against a target with a range of more than 620 miles (1,000 km), too long for previous Arrow test sites in the eastern Mediterranean.
An unnamed U.S. Defense Department official was quoted by Reuters as saying "The upcoming test...provides us the opportunity to have the Patriot system, the THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] system and the Aegis system all interacting with the Arrow system so that we're demonstrating full interoperability as we execute this test." The same four interceptor missile systems were used jointly in the Juniper Cobra exercises in October and November. [74]
Other NATO states are also assisting the missile and general military buildup for a potential catastrophe in the Middle East, most notably Germany, which will double the amount of Dolphin submarines it has provided Israel. Dolphins are considered capable of carrying Israeli nuclear cruise missiles for any future conflict with Iran. "A bigger Dolphin fleet could allow Israel the option of basing some in its Red Sea port of Eilat, providing a short-cut to the Gulf. An Israeli submarine crossed the Suez Canal for an exercise off Eilat last July, the first such deployment." [75]
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