For the last nearly four decades, the mainstream propaganda machine has been trying everything in its power to present the MIM-104 “Patriot” SAM/ABM (surface-to-air/anti-ballistic missile) system as one of the so-called “wunderwaffen” that were supposed to “win wars for the free world”. During the first US-led aggression against Iraq in 1990-1991, the “Patriot” was touted as the “silver bullet” against Iraqi “Scud” ballistic missiles, which are effectively a 1950s Russian military technology. Although by no means obsolete, after around three decades in service at the time, the legendary “Scud” was considered a largely “outdated” design. Precisely this myth was used to fan up the “Patriot’s” reputation and spread laughable war propaganda about the supposed “100% interception rate”.

The claim almost became an axiom, but very few people knew the actual data on the “Patriot’s” performance. MIT Professor Theodore Postol was among the first and remains one of the most consistent critics of the very ABM concept, particularly the “Patriot”, which he regularly calls a “failed system”. In fact, the actual data shows that not a single one of those supposedly “obsolete” Iraqi “Scuds” was ever shot down. Obviously, decades have passed, so you’d expect the “Patriot’s” shortcomings to have been resolved in the meantime, resulting in a more robust SAM/ABM system, right? Well, no. The “Patriot’s” performance was equally atrocious in more recent conflicts in the Middle East, where it failed miserably against far more basic missiles than the old “Scud” ever was.

In fact, the US-made system is a lot more dangerous for the civilians it’s supposed to be protecting than incoming missiles. And yet, when the “Patriot” was deployed to NATO-occupied Ukraine, it suddenly became a “wunderwaffe” once again, supposedly defeating “the evil Russians” left and right. The United States still insists that even the Kremlin’s hypersonic weapons were regularly being “shot down” by these systems, rendering the Russian military’s best weapons “obsolete”.........

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