Pentagon seeks to expand scope and sophistication of U.S. missile defenses
Source: Washington Post
By Paul Sonne January 16 at 9:00 PM
The Trump administration is seeking to expand the scope and sophistication of American missile defenses on a scale not seen since President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative in a new strategy that President Trump plans to roll out personally on Thursday alongside military leaders at the Pentagon.
Known as the missile defense review, the document that Trump will unveil marks the first official update to American missile defense doctrine in nine years. It comes as North Korea and Iran make advances in ballistic missile production, and as Russia and China press forward with sophisticated cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles that potentially threaten the security of U.S. forces and allies in Europe and Asia.
The Trump administration’s response is to call for urgent new investments in missile-defense technologies across the board, many of which the Pentagon pursued during the Cold War but abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s and 2000s, the Pentagon focused on building interceptors to down missiles from rogue states. Now it is again broadening its ambitions, both in terms of technology and mission-set. Whether the administration secures enough money to tackle such lofty ambitions in missile defense remains unclear.
The Pentagon wants to put a constellation of sensors above the Earth that can track missiles as they launch, and is recommending a study of weapons that can shoot down missiles from space. The review will also note that further development of high-energy lasers could give the United States a cost-effective way to destroy missiles shortly after their launch in what is known as “boost phase.”
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-seeks-to-expand-scope-and-sophistication-of-us-missile-defenses/2019/01/16/35c86a28-19d9-11e9-a804-c35766b9f234_story.html
Source: The Guardian
US plans new space sensors for missile defence against 'rogue states'
Trump likely to present Pentagon findings about changing threat as justification for his planned ‘space force’
Julian Borger in Washington
Thu 17 Jan 2019 02.00 GMT
Donald Trump will unveil a plan on Thursday for a major expansion in US missile defence that will rely on a new generation of space-based sensors.
The administration’s long-delayed missile defence review, which the president will present at the Pentagon, will call for the expansion of the US network of sensors and interceptors designed to identify and shoot down incoming projectiles from “rogue states” such as Iran and North Korea.
Since the last review in 2010, a senior administration official said, “we have seen a really significant change to the threat environment”.
“What the missile defence review responds to is an environment in which our potential adversaries have been rapidly developing, and fielding, a much more expanded range of new offensive missiles,” the official said. “These missiles are capable of threatening the United States, threatening our allies, our partners, and our US forces abroad.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/17/us-plans-new-space-sensors-for-missile-defence-against-rogue-states
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