Technical debate over patriot performance in the gulf war∗

Contributions are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of their institutions or agencies.

The performance of the Patriot PAC‐2 theater missile defense system in the Gulf War sparked a prolonged public debate of unprecedented proportions. We review the technical dimensions of the debate over Patriot, concentrating on the two official Army studies of Patriot performance and the analysis of Patriot performance carried out by two MIT scientists using video tapes taken by the commercial news media during the Gulf War. We find there is an absolute contradiction between the Army scores for Patriot performance during Gulf War for all engagements and the scores based on the video data. We analyze in detail all of the technical challenges raised against the video analysis and find these challenges largely wanting. We conclude that the video tapes contain important information about Patriot performance in the Gulf War, and that the Army should have made use of the video information in its studies of Patriot performance. We identify three lessons from the Patriot debate that are likely to be applicable in the future conflicts where high technology weapon systems are being introduced into combat for the first time. Our study does not cover other U.S. theater missile defense systems, such as Patriot PAC‐3/ERINT and THAAD.

Notes

Jeremiah D. Sullivan, Department of Physics, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security, University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign

Currently at United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

Daniel Fisher, Department of Physics, Harvard University

Ruth Howes, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ball State University

O'Dean Judd, Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Roger Speed, Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and International Security Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Contributions are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of their institutions or agencies.