We do not know if Syria has seriously tried to halt IAF attacks. Syria has not been able to use these systems effectively against Israel since the early 1980s. Syria may be willing to wait out limited IAF strikes rather than reveal the electronic order of battle and send signals that would help Israel develop improved methods of suppression during a limited attack.

We know most of the Syrian longer-range surface-based air defenses are still largely active and provide overlapping coverage of much of the country. But they also have aging surface-to-air missiles (SAM) that have been only partially upgraded and are vulnerable to jamming and other electronic countermeasures, as well as antiradiation missiles.

There are no reliable estimates of what is left or active. Before the civil war intensified, the IISS and Jane’s estimated that they included 25 AD brigades with some150 SAM batteries. These include a mix of aging low altitude defense systems, largely developed in the 1970s or earlier, using S-125 Pechora (SA-3 Goa), 2K12 mobile, short-range Kub (SA-6 Gainful), obsolete medium to high altitude defenses with S-75 Divna (SA-2 Guideline), and 2 AD regiments with 2 battalions each, which each had 2 batteries with S-200 Angara (SA-5 Gammon).

We also know that Syria has sought far more modern Russian systems like the S-300 and S-400 for more than two decades and every attempt has failed-largely because of Syrian financing problems and Russian sensitivity to Israeli views.