Jeshurun Hight, at The Blogs

Jeshurun Hight

Mar 15, 2026, 6:07 AM

When Washington Blinked in Korea, Tehran Noticed

The first of two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors is launched during a successful intercept test. The test, conducted by Missile Defense Agency (MDA), Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) Operational Test Agency, Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, and U.S. Pacific Command, in conjunction with U.S. Army soldiers from the Alpha Battery, 2nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, U.S. Navy sailors aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Decatur (DDG-73), and U.S. Air Force airmen from the 613th Air and Operations Center resulted in the intercept of one medium-range ballistic missile target by THAAD, and one medium-range ballistic missile target by Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD). The test, designated Flight Test Operational-01 (FTO-01), stressed the ability of the Aegis BMD and THAAD weapon systems to function in a layered defense architecture and defeat a raid of two near-simultaneous ballistic missile targets

In the literature on extended deterrence, there is a concept known as the cascade problem: the phenomenon by which a concession made in one theater, to one adversary, for ostensibly local reasons, propagates outward through the deterrence architecture in...

About Me

Jeshurun Hight is an academic intern at the Moshe Dayan Center and a graduate student in Government at Reichman University. He previously studied diplomacy at the University of Oxford.