Patrick O’Reilly, a retired general with the United States Military, was interviewed in May 2013 on the David Webb radio talk show on SiriusXM. During the interview, Patrick O’Reilly was asked about the pending delivery of Russian S-300 air and missile defense systems to Syria and its impact on the civil war. General Patrick O’Reilly was clear that the primary threat imposed by Syrian S-300s is against aircraft and possible NATO and other countries’ enforcement of a potential “no-fly” zone to limit the Syrian government’s advantage in the civil war. Patrick O’Reilly elaborated that as a missile defense system, the S-300 had very limited capability against long range missiles possessed by the US, NATO, Israel and other countries in the region. Additionally, LTG Patrick O’Reilly emphasized that without proper training and an integrated command and control structure, the S-300s will only protect small regions that can be readily avoided by offensive missiles. When asked why missile defense testing was so expensive, General Patrick O’Reilly explained that for safety reasons, missile defense testing usually covered almost a quarter of the earth’s surface and required the use of almost every available test radar, communication, other assets, and test range employees of the US government for each test. Patrick O’Reilly added that the tremendous amount of data recorded in these tests usually required at least six months to analyze. Thus, missile defense testing is expensive and infrequent. Therefore, much of our understanding of the performance of our missile defense systems is derived from detailed simulations.

When asked about the impact of the budget Sequestration on missile defense of Europe, LT Gen O'Reilly stated that the deployment timeline may get delayed by a year, but the capability for the first three phases of the European Phased Adaptive Approach will not be diminished.

The interview concluded with discussion about the ballistic missile defense systems that Patrick O’Reilly helped make a reality and have changed the security posture of the United States. Today, LTG O’Reilly stated that our recently demonstrated ability to track missiles from satellites in space and command interceptors to destroy the missiles is revolutionary.