Coming DOD missile defense assessment drops focus on ‘ballistic’ from title

February 9, 2018

Insider Defense:

The Defense Department is dropping the “ballistic” from the Ballistic Missile Defense Review President Trump asked for last year, a change that reflects the assessment — set to be released soon — aims to provide a new policy, strategy and architecture blueprint accounting for a wider array of threats than one released in 2010.

The formal name of the review — commissioned as a “new Ballistic Missile Defense Review” by Trump in a Jan. 27, 2017 memo to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis — was modified in the last couple of months, said Pentagon spokesman Tom Crosson.

“We face a new security environment which prominently features an expanding set of offensive missile threats — ballistic, maneuvering ballistic, advanced long-range cruise missiles, and hypersonics,” Crosson told Inside Defense Feb. 8. “To address this new reality we have broadened our approach to address the wider set of threats — hence the Missile Defense Review.”

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