By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior
(Washington DC) The US Navy’s experience in the Red Sea highlighted the successful doctrine, training and weapons systems woven throughout the US Navy, while also informing commanders and war planners with new tactics, concepts of operation and doctrinal approaches needed to counter enemy drones and cruise missiles.
Interestingly, it would seem clear that these experiences might offer essential insights into current Pentagon planning to strengthen air defenses to protect the US homeland. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has asked the Pentagon to generate a tentative plan or sketch for the development and deployment of wide-reaching, precision air defenses intended to protect the continental US from long-range missile strikes.
The US Navy’s defensive efforts against the Houthis in the Red Sea involved using an ability to track and destroy incoming Houthi ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles. Analysis emerging from this combat experience could clearly be leveraged to assess possibilities for better defending the continental US from a wide range of air attacks.
There were several key lessons fundamental to these experiences which Navy and Pentagon experts continue to analyze closely, because maritime warfighters and commanders in the Red Sea established enterprising ways to track and destroy enemy drones and cruise missiles.
One key take-away, according to the Commanding Officer of Carrier Strike Group 2 in the Red Sea Rear Adm. Kavon Hakimsadeh, is that fighter jets and air assets can be used to great effect as aerial sensor nodes and points of attack against incoming enemy cruise missiles. Multiple instances in the Red Sea wherein Houthi cruise missiles were intercepted relied upon carrier-launched aircraft for targeting and kinetic destruction.
“Hak,” as he’s known by fellow servicemembers, told Warrior that another key lesson related to the need for the Navy to operate a large enough “magazine” of ammunition sufficient to counter drone swarms and multiple drone threats. Part of the added effectiveness of kinetic intercepts relates to the potential use of ship-fired and air-launched “air burst” weapons and proximity fuses able to reach a specific target area and then detonate or generate fragmentation designed to destroy a number of targets at once. This kind of tactical approach can increase the potential for defensive effectiveness against drone swarms.
Non-Kinetic Countermeasures
Part of the modern threat environment has also led ground, air and ship commanders to recognize the growing importance of “non-kinetic” countermeasures. Interceptor weapons such as deck-launched SM-3s and SM-6s proved effective at destroying approaching enemy attacks, yet “Hak” explained that Navy commanders increasingly used fewer interceptor missiles and used other methods.
The service also recognized a need to reduce costs associated with the use of a high volume of interceptor missiles and therefore leveraged the many advantages associated with non-kinetic countermeasures and defenses such as EW. Advanced EW can help identify a “line of bearing” and potentially jam a group of electronic signals at one time, offering additional defenses against drone swarms.
US Missile Shield
While considering all of these variables, the Pentagon is now working with the Trump administration to help devise a comprehensive US missile defenses system capable of defending the homeland against large-scale foreign missile attacks. Many have raised the possibility that perhaps the Pentagon could help architect a nation-wide network of “iron dome” kinds of missile defenses. This kind of interceptor weapon, which has proven effective in the Middle East, might add an additional dimension to homeland security protections, particularly if fortified by Patriot and THAAD air defense missile batteries and us-made air defenses such as NASAMs. Advanced networking could help create an integrated, meshed system of air defense nodes capable of tracking and destroying groups of incoming missiles.
Why Not Use IBCS?
For instance, the US Army has in recent years been breaking through with various kinds of networked sensor-radar-interceptor technologies, such as the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS). IBCS is a suite of radar systems, sensor nodes and interceptor weapons all networked together such that target detail can be exchanged and essentially “handed” off from one node-to-another. Most recently, IBCS has been expanded to incorporate the use of air nodes such as an F-35 and maritime surface nodes such as Aegis radar. While primarily designed to operate in a forward hostile location, it seems entirely conceivable that IBCS could also be deployed on the homeland. This is particularly critical given that growing numbers of potential adversaries continue to develop and acquire long-range, precision-guided missiles designed to reach the continental US from thousands of miles away.
Any large scale defensive missile shield protecting the US would need a wide range of kinetic interceptor systems able to identify, track and destroy an incoming missile or group of missiles. However, large scale use of kinetic interceptor missiles could encounter cost challenges as well as tactical challenges. Systems such as THAAD, Patriot and NASAMS can prove effective tracking incoming enemy aircraft and missiles, yet they might struggle to track a group or “salvo” of incoming missiles at one time. Advanced Patriot radar and interceptor systems has shown it can track and destroy two maneuvering cruise missiles at one time. Patriot missiles have also reportedly been successful shooting down aircraft in Ukraine, according to Ukrainian accounts. This is extremely significant as it indicates breakthrough progress of Patriot missile radar and target tracking, as it is capable of moving beyond pure missile intercept and potentially tracking moving air targets as well.
Integrated Defenses
This is why the Pentagon is working intensely to expand its envelope of air defense weapons to include a use of EW, high-powered microwave and laser countermeasures to help. New innovations in the realm of energy storage and allocation, along with new types of gateway technologies able to “translate” incoming sensor data between different transport layer communication modes, are likely increasing an ability for these countermeasures to network together.
There are certain threat scenarios in which a number of interceptors might prove ineffective against a major attack involving a salvo of missiles. Even advanced radar and precision-guided interceptors, which have proven effective against multiple kinds of missile attacks, might not be able to stop 10 ballistic missiles at once. This is why a layered, integrated system using a variety of coordinated countermeasures would likely prove to be an optimal approach.
Use AI
Finally, any use of a wide-envelope missile shield would be greatly fortified by the use of cutting edge AI, fast evolving technology increasingly capable of instantly analyzing ISR and sensor-provided threat data. Modern applications of AI can organize incoming sensor data from a wide range of sources, perform near real-time analytics to verify threats, discern margins of difference between threats and recommend an ideal “shooter” or “countermeasure” for a given threat scenario. This capability has been demonstrated with success at the Army’s Project Convergence and experiments with the other services as well. This kind of technological infrastructure and concept of operation likely informs the foundation of the Pentagon’s Joint All Domain Command and Control.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in 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
