> Western militaries have never heavily invested in SAMs?! > Have you heard of the stinger, that the Ukrainians are using to great effect? The US also has the

> Western militaries have never heavily invested in SAMs?! > Have you heard of the stinger, that the Ukrainians are using to great effect? The US also has the patriot and aegis systems which are really good air defense missiles. That’s not including THAAD, etc. Not like the Soviet Union did. The article I'm trying to paraphrase said that SAMs were far more integral to Soviet air defense strategy than they were to Western air defense, which put more emphasis on using fighter aircraft for air defense than having the Army deploy different SAM systems for every need. Because the Soviets relied more on SAMs, then the West had to put more emphasis on counter-SAM weapons (which the Soviets has far less need to do). Also the article noted that the exception is Western navies, which the article said were in a more similar situation to the Soviet Army. That's why the more capable US SAM systems have naval lineage.