There is Political Reality and then there is what we might call Actual Reality - and the contrast between them has been vividly laid bare in recent days.

Largely, the US armaments industry has been driven by politics (in contrast, for example, to the Russian) with hugely expensive, spectacular technology; its products created in small quantities sufficient to support the narrative but now shown to be wholly inadequate for actual combat. Inadequate both quantitatively and, as it turns out, qualitatively too.

The ineffectiveness of the Patriot system is becoming an enormous political embarrassment – Ted Postol estimates, as an anti-missile measure, Patriot is ‘actually’ no more than 5% effective – contrasting with its ‘political’ effectiveness of 87%.

Alexander Mercouris has today gone so far as to describe this as “a piece of mythology”.

Now you might argue that, surely, the Ukrainians and the Israelis must have been aware of this for some time – so why are they so desperately calling for more Patriots? The answer is that their governments must appear to be protecting the masses – so that, when the alarms are sounded, sometimes eight or more defending missiles are seen streaking into the sky. For the majority, who can’t interpret this fireworks display, there is the appearance of successful interceptions as the failed missiles explosively self-destruct and, even though an intruder is seen to slam into the ground, it’s natural to think most of its companions have been destroyed - politically, 87% of them!