That's the wrong question...

Israel's Iron Dome anti-rocket system worked astonishingly well - it shot most of the Iranian supplied rockets out of the sky. It was intelligent in application, as well - only the rockets that might land in peopled areas were targeted; if it predicted a rocket would land in a field, it let it be. The net-net was a wasted expenditure by the Iranians. (Unless you count that they now know any plans to heat up the cold war they have with Israel and America are pretty much useless. Which is an important point for the American, Egyptian and Syrian militaries and the Iranian regime as a whole.)

However, there is some discussion, as typified by this question over on Slashdot, that Iron Dome might only be useful for Israel. Which kinda misses the point... Iron Dome works - all that's needed is a way of translating that into something viable for, say, naval aircraft carrier groups, as well as localized land-based communities such as airfields and military bases, not to mention munitions factories and strategic choke points. Iron Dome relies on one size of rocket; give it different ammunition types and all of a sudden you have the basic foundation of an almost impenetrable shield. 

"But Hamas rockets were undirected!" you say. Well, it's not impossible to put various primitive and increasingly sophisticated seeker systems into the weapons; let the command and control facility manage the launch and initial aiming and the anti-rocket system takes over during flight. It's how anti-torpedo torpedo systems work under the water; shoot in the general direction of the threat and let the threat kill itself. Obviously it would all have to happen pretty fast for airborne missiles, but that's not a science problem - it's a technical and engineering one. An application specific computer could be built pretty cheaply (as these things go), it could be fast and it could be very capable. Heck, working with drones you could even build in a loiter capability; put the drone and the anti-missile rocket into the air around a target and watch as Hezbollah is reduced to a few angry men with guns.

No, the problem isn't trying to decide if Iron Dome works only for Israel. The problem is figuring out how to not need the resulting plethora of anti-weapons systems that it will spawn. And that's a very human problem. 

Carolyn Ann