Defense News:
The Pentagon’s Ballistic Missile Defense Review is underway and lawmakers, through both the House and Senate defense policy bills, are signalling the direction they want to go when it comes to developing the future defense architecture against both regional and homeland missile threats.
Both the House and Senate place a heavy focus on the future direction and modernization of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System (GMD) but also turn some attention out of the terrestrial sphere and into space.
Motivation is strong both in the Pentagon and on the Hill to ensure the United States is making the right decisions now on how best to defend against proliferating ballistic missile threats.
Since the release of the House and Senate draft 2018 National Defense Authorization Acts, the missile threat from North Korea has reached new levels, with the country testing an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, which analysts said showed the capability to exceed 10,000 km in range for the first time. That range is a distance capable of potentially threatening not just the West Coast but the East Coast.
