By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
The Pentagon is arming up its Aegis Ashore Missile Defense sites in Romania and Poland to ensure their growing arsenal is in position to counter Iranian and Russian ballistic missile threats to Europe… and possibly even threats to Israel.
A key portion of this involves an ongoing effort to produce, acquire and deliver large numbers of Raytheon-built Standard Missile-3 interceptors increasingly capable of tracking threats more precisely and destroying longer range targets. The emerging SM-3 Block IIA, for instance, has shown it can intercept ICBM-like targets as they transit from space into the upper portions of the earth’s atmosphere and cross into the Terminal phase. Testing has shown the SM-3 Block IIA can track and hit ICBMs, so arming land missile defense sites in Europe with these interceptors appears to be a sound and well-considered decision given its capabilities and the current threat environment.
Beginning years ago as a staged European Phased Adaptive Array program aimed at providing European allies with a greater protective envelope from increasingly precise-and long-range Iranian missiles, the land-based missile sites have evolved to the point where they will take on a wider mission set. The Iran threat is center stage at the moment given the current war between Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces, and Iran is known to operate weapons with the capability to reach and attack israel as well as parts of Europe, depending upon the weapon used.
In response, the Pentagon adapted advanced radar detection, fire control and missile interceptor technologies to engineer a land-based variant of the very successful and fast-evolving Aegis Combat System. Primarily used on warships, Aegis is comprised of an integrated system of software, radar, fire control and command and control designed to identify threat specifics, establish target tracks quickly and launch the necessary interceptor. Technical insertions primarily through the use of advanced software, and upgrades to what the Navy calls Baseline 10 Aegis have enabled the system to quickly and progressively improve in radar sensitivity, target tracking, fire solution calculation and multi-domain networking.
Drawing upon all this, the two Aegis Ashore locations in Poland and Romania are showing great defensive promise and in the process of being armed with upgraded weapons. Aegis typically fires the Standard Missile -3 for ballistic missile defense from ships, yet the Navy has worked with Raytheon to engineer a number of new SM-weapons variants capable of advanced weapons performance parameters. The Pentagon’s 2024 budget is asking for $1.8 billion for Aegis, to include massive amounts of R&D on hardware and software upgrades and adjustments. This approach has already shown to be extremely effective, as the Navy and Raytheon engineered the new SM-3 Block IIA missile using primarily software upgrades. The new variants is larger, longer-range and it operates with vastly improved precision-guidance systems and seeker technology. As part of this progress, the SM-3 Block IIA has also shown it can intercept and destroy targets as large as ICBMs as they approach the terminal phase just beyond the earth’s atmosphere.
There are implications here for Aegis Ashore, as Aegis has in recently years primarily existed to track and destroy short, medium and long-range ballistic missiles and other closer-in threats. Now however, Aegis is showing capability to destroy ICBMs, something of great tactical significance given the threat equation and current global circumstance in Europe and the Middle East. Should Iran somehow acquire an ICBM, it could threaten Europe and even parts of the US with intercontinental nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles across the European continent.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization and Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
