The Politics of Patriot Missiles

Abstract

The US congressional hearing were held between Professor Theodore Postol and Mr. Robert Stein, manager at Raytheon, Patriot’s manufacturer, where its effectiveness was openly debated in April, 1992. The key topic was what is considered to be the success of Patriot. However, Raytheon’s criteria on the success of Patriot was not easy to establish and even raised further questions on Patriot’s effectiveness. At the end, Raytheon even emphasized its political success; regardless of Patriot’s defense effectiveness in air, Patriot ended up keeping the US policy among the allied nations in a region.