Next-generation defense systems will be faster, more accurate and more powerful to better protect the United States and its Allies and Partners from emerging threats. As the U.S. military and its Partners modernize their systems, new technology offers advanced capabilities that include offensive systems to detect and defend against threats to the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Russia increasingly seek to disrupt U.S. and Allied defense systems and the CCP continues to field its own offensive systems. Iran and North Korea also are expanding their arsenals and nuclear capabilities.
“For U.S. forces and U.S. Allies and Partners around the world, in this era of missile-centric warfare, active missile defenses have become an essential element of a credible military force posture,” John D. Hill, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for space and missile defense policy, told the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee in December 2023. “In the most basic sense, IAMD [integrated air and missile defense] encompasses diverse sensors and shooters and the command and control systems that network them together to give battlefield commanders the optimal selection of interceptors to defend against a given threat. But in a broader sense, IAMD must also be integrated with other elements of military posture, including strike capabilities that can hold an adversary’s critical military capabilities at risk.”
New threats, new technologies
The U.S. and its Allies and Partners are advancing both their offensive capabilities and defensive warning programs, across all domains, to meet growing security challenges and ensure global stability. Offensively, evolving technology is helping to develop weapons that can strike with enhanced accuracy and lethality, adding to tools designed to deter the enemy. Defensively, future missile defense systems will incorporate enhanced technology to detect, track and intercept weapons developed by adversaries. Evolving defense systems include:
• Missile Defense Sensors: Sensor architecture is evolving to meet threats from longer-range hypersonic weapons. “We’re at an inflection point with missile defense, and that starts with sensors,” Masao Dahlgren, a fellow at the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project, said in a December 2023 panel discussion. “Sensors are the first link to the missile defense kill chain. And you design every other requirement for missile defense around them.” For example, the hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor (HBTSS) uses multiple wavelength optical sensors to detect and track hypersonic weapons, ballistic missiles and threats in a high-clutter environment, better enabling forces to intercept. In February 2024, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and the U.S. Space Force’s Space Development Agency launched six satellites into low Earth orbit, two of which are equipped with HBTSS prototypes. The U.S. also is upgrading its network of infrared sensors, which can detect the hot plume of a rocket as it launches, giving U.S. and Allied forces time to respond. The sensors can detect the missile type, launch origin and target location from tens of thousands of kilometers above Earth due to a constellation of satellites in geosynchronous orbit (matching Earth’s rotation to stay focused on a specific location) and highly elliptical orbit (providing high latitude and polar coverage). Future satellites will be deployed to low and middle Earth orbits to provide additional layers of surveillance.
• Missile Systems: Next-generation long-range standoff (LRSO) missiles, which can strike targets deep within enemy territory, will incorporate new technologies to improve guidance and navigation, range, and stealth and survivability. The U.S. Air Force is developing a nuclear-capable, air-to-ground cruise missile designed to penetrate and survive integrated air defense systems. The AGM-181 also will be able to integrate with the B-52H Stratofortress and B-21 bombers, armed with a low-to-intermediate yield, two-stage thermonuclear warhead. The missile, with a range exceeding 2,500 kilometers, is scheduled to
enter service by 2030. The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, is developing a hypersonic air-launched offensive (HALO) antiship missile that can travel at more than 6,000 kilometers per hour, according to The Defense Post, a Washington, D.C.-based online publication. HALO will be compatible with the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, a supersonic, twin-engine, carrier-capable, multirole fighter aircraft, and is expected to be operational by 2028.
• Updated Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles: The U.S. Air Force will replace the 400 aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles with the LGM-35A Sentinel. The Sentinel program also includes modernizing 450 silos and more than 600 facilities across more than 100,000 square kilometers. Sentinel is synchronized with Minuteman III decommissioning to avoid operational shortfalls. Construction began in March 2024 on a new weapons generation facility at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.
• Directed Energy Weapons: Directed energy (DE) weapons, including lasers, high-power radio frequency or microwave devices, and particle beam technology, use electromagnetic energy to deny, degrade, destroy or deceive an adversary — without the need to transport ammunition. DE also is used in target identification, counterintelligence search and reconnaissance, and electronic warfare, including disrupting or jamming signals and disabling or destroying targets. Commercial sector innovations are expected to drive DE development, including smaller, more efficient and lower-cost systems. Systems in development and testing largely are for counterdrone operations, and military leaders are particularly interested in high-power microwave weapons that would be more effective than a laser at countering drone swarms. “The bigger concern is if you start talking about swarms, so we need to continue to invest in things like high-powered microwave to be able to counter a drone swarm that is coming at you,” Gen. Michael Kurilla, Commander of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), told lawmakers in March 2024. “You have to have
layered defense.”
• Artificial Intelligence: The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has incorporated artificial intelligence (AI) into systems for more than 60 years. As AI becomes increasingly sophisticated, defense leaders are looking for more ways the technology, including machine learning and autonomous systems, can facilitate faster, better decisions in the field. “New technologies such as AI and unmanned systems have changed the way that militaries provide security and try to deter war … and could ultimately decide who prevails in a time of war,” U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, deputy commander of USCENTCOM, told defense and security experts at the March 2024 “AI in the Era of Strategic Competition” conference in Tampa, Florida. “At CENTCOM, we’ve been able to use AI in the maritime domain for pattern detection in order to identify threats at a faster rate,” he said. “We want to get ahead of nefarious acts and AI … has proven itself to be very effective.” AI is a key element of the Space Based Infrared System, which incorporates sensors to characterize attacks, for example, on commercial vessels in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. “Being able to provide missile warning, to say, ‘there’s a missile inbound and here’s the location where it came from, and here’s where it’s headed,’ is valuable information to keep people safe,” Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, U.S. Space Force chief of space operations, told The Wall Street Journal newspaper in February 2024. While AI can provide rapid data for decision-making, humans will still retain control of systems, Cooper noted. “We’re able to move at speeds that were previously unimaginable,” he said.
Strengthening Partnerships
In a world facing multiple security threats, the U.S. is strengthening ties with Allies and Partners and building new coalitions, particularly in data sharing and AI.
“Realizing the full promise of data, analytics and AI is not the exclusive responsibility of a single organization or program,” the DOD’s AI adoption strategy states. “It requires a concerted effort by every unit, leader, servicemember and our Partners and Allies across the globe.”
In a recent experiment dubbed Project Convergence, personnel from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom joined U.S. joint forces to compile intelligence sharing and decision-making to choose the best weapons for countering threats. The exercise was conducted as part of the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, the DOD’s strategy to collect and interpret data at unprecedented speed. The goal is to eliminate organizational barriers to the flow of information and feedback among services and allied nations, which can lead to duplicated efforts and wasted assets.
Conducted over four weeks in February and March 2024, Project Convergence boasted impressive results: Personnel identified targets in a fraction of the usual time — sometimes in seconds. “I think there’s a real opportunity with the Project Convergence series and our wargaming series to make sure we’re not just sharing with our partners but genuinely learning,” Gen. James E. Rainey, commander of the U.S. Army Futures Command, said at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Global Force Symposium & Exposition in Huntsville, Alabama, in March 2024. “Some of the best thinking is happening in places that are not the United States … I think we have a moral responsibility to learn and observe everything we can.”
The U.S. is also working with multiple Indo-Pacific Partners to counter increasing regional threats. The DOD has helped Japan acquire U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets, E-2D airborne early warning aircraft, the KC-46 refueling tanker, the Global Hawk uncrewed aerial system and the Osprey, as well as the Air Intercept Missile 120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile system, the UGM-84 Harpoon antiship missile system and the SM-3 Block IIA ballistic missile defense interceptor. Japan and South Korea have added the U.S.-made Patriot missile defense system to their domestically manufactured capabilities. In 2023, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. announced activation of a real-time data-sharing mechanism to monitor North Korean missile launches and established a multiyear, trilateral military exercise plan to enhance capabilities and coordination.
The Philippines also has increased cooperation with Allies and Partners, including the U.S. and Vietnam, in response to the China Coast Guard’s continued harassment of Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) vessels within Manila’s exclusive economic zone. AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. in January 2024 announced upgrades to the nation’s South China Sea military outposts to counter the increased threats. The U.S., which signed a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines more than 70 years ago, pledged
support and will provide $120 million in grants annually for Manila’s defense forces, The Washington Post
newspaper reported.