Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Today's Unannounced U.S.-Israeli Missile Test In The Mediterranean Sea Scared A Lot Of People



An Unannounced U.S.-Israeli Missile Test Freaked A Lot of People Out This Morning -- Josh Voorhees, Slate

In what looked an awful lot like show of military force, Israel and the United States conducted a joint missile test over the Mediterranean this morning, according to the Israeli Defense Ministry. The ministry said a medium-range Sparrow missile was launched shortly after 9 a.m. local time and was successfully detected and tracked by the Arrow missile defense system.

The test itself wouldn't have normally been major news, but these aren't exactly normal times in the Middle East, as the world waits to see if the United States launches its own missile strikes at Syria. Making matters that much more intense was the fact that this morning's test was unannounced ahead of time. Reuters with the details:

Read more ....

My Comment: I know that the reaction in Russia when the missile test was detected was to inform Russian President Putin right away. I could only imagine the scurrying around and concerns among around everyone in the region where the assumption (probably) was that this was a prelude to an attack on Syria. The question that now needs to be asked is .... was the secrecy behind the done deliberately .... so that the reaction to it was done to assess the early warning systems in Russia, Syria, and elsewhere.

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