Administration unveils its Missile Defense Review

Today, President Donald Trump, in unveiling the Missile Defense Review, is announcing that the United States is reviving its interest in ballistic missile defense, and that it will explore various technologies — space-based interceptors, lasers, and high-altitude drones in pursuit of this goal.

The Pentagon says that its search for more effective missile defense technologies is the result of its focus on near-peer adversaries such as China and Russia, but the administration’s Missile Defense Review appears more suitable for defending the United States against more limited attacks, such as those likely to come from North Korea or, perhaps, Iran.

IBD offers a brief review of the Here are five key missile defense technologies the Pentagon is highlighting:

“Star Wars” interceptors
The administration is exploring using a layer of sensors in space to detect missiles once they are launched.

It also calls for a review on basing interceptors in space to target missiles in their boost phase – that is, while they are still climbing — before any decoys or countermeasures are released in space.

Such space-based interceptors appear to be similar to the Reagan administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative.

Hypersonic missile defense
Russia has made several announcements, some accompanied by video footage, of its hypersonic weapons under development, including an air-to-ground missile and a missile that could carry a nuclear warhead. China has also showed off its hypersonic weapons.

Current defensive technology cannot stop them, because conventional defense systems with conventional sensors are not effective against these superfast missiles. The Missile Defense Review called for a focus on defending against hypersonic weapons.

Raytheon is developing hypersonics, and it says that building the weapon will help find a way to defend against them.

F-35 missile defense
Lockheed Martin points to its F-35 as the “quarterback” of a joint strike force. Now the Defense Department wants to explore using the stealth fighter to shoot down ICBMs in boost phase.

Defense officials have aired this idea before, as the F-35’s advanced sensors and ability to evade enemy air defenses allow it to detect launches at close proximity. The F-35 could also be used to detect and take out mobile missile launchers.

SM-3 Block IIA
Raytheon’s Standard Missile-3 is a defensive weapon the U.S. Navy uses to destroy short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles. It destroys its targets by using kinetic energy, or brute force.

The Block IIA version is already in development and has a larger kinetic warhead and larger rocket motors to expand the areas it can defend. The Pentagon plans to test it next year to shoot down ICBMs.

High-altitude drones
Boost-phase defense could be accomplished with a high-altitude drone equipped with a powerful laser that shoots down missiles.

Analysts are skeptical the technology is mature enough. Fuel and cooling requirement make laser weapons heavy, limiting their feasibility on smaller aircraft.

Israel is said to have developed drone-based anti-missile system which it plans to use against Iranian missiles as they emerged from their silos. It is not clear what kill mechanism these drones use.

The United States is close to having ship-based lasers with ground-based laser weapons next, said Steven Walker, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, last month. These ship-based lasers may be used against smaller countries like North Korea or Iran – the ships at sea will be close enough to the missile launch sites – but they are irrelevant against missiles launch from the middle of Russia or China.

Airplanes-based lasers will likely be the last application for lasers.