Britain needs better missile defences
When the Iranian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Seyed Ali Mousavi, said RAF Fairford was a ‘legitimate target’ on Times Radio this Tuesday, this wasn’t diplomatic bluster. The ballistic missiles fired by Iran at the UK-US military base on Diego Garcia travelled roughly 3,800 kilometres – the exact range needed to hit Gloucestershire from Iranian soil. The UK only has six Type 45s (of which only two or three will be available on a good day), and only a handful of SkySabre missile defence batteries In a sense, Mousavi has done us a favour: he has exposed the glaring hole at the centre of British national security. Since the end of the Cold War there has been a belief that war happens ‘over there’ and not here.
