The Indo-Pacific region is vast. The range, speed, and number of advanced weapons, both manned and unmanned, are increasing. U.S. and allied infrastructure are already within the so-called threat rings of potential adversaries’ offensive systems. To cover the environment and deal with growing threats, U.S. air and missile defenses will need increased sensing capabilities spread over a wide area, from the Western Pacific to the Contiguous United States (CONUS). An architecture based on a set of relocatable land and sea-based radars would allow for enhanced data collection against all threats, including hypersonic ballistic and cruise missiles. More broadly, distributed sensor nodes also enhance the overall resilience of the defensive architectures and reduce the chances an adversary can blind the defense by attacking a small number of critical sites. Distributed radars will be particularly important for the defense of Guam. I have written more about this here.
Find Archived Articles: