Air-and-missile-defense (AMD) systems have performed well in recent conflicts, defending against waves of cruise missiles and drone swarms with a high success rate. But interceptors are being burned through at an alarming rate, and that along with the loss of THAAD/TPY-2 radars have forced the US to scramble to ensure assets in the Middle East are protected.
Refilling current stockpiles is a challenge, and preparing for future needs is an even bigger challenge. Meeting both current and future needs means being able to quickly adapt to changing tactics by adversaries, said Rob Mitrevski, president, Golden Dome strategy and integration, L3Harris.
“As we’ve seen, Iran had a real capability in deploying and launching a multitude of well-stocked multi-domain threats, ranging from several classes of missiles through several classes of UAVs,” said Mitrevski. “We saw a significant number of them deployed concurrently and set to hit their targets within short time frames. The Iranian threat was unique in that it challenged the defender to defeat low-cost threats with low-cost defensive means, and defeat high-cost, more capable threats with more capable effectors.”
When it comes to establishing a roadmap for AMD going forward, there are three primary concerns: cost, effectiveness and industrial base capacity. Managing all three of those concerns will require a concentrated effort from both the Pentagon and industry to ensure AMD is up to the task.
