USNI News:
Existing radars don’t provide the almost-split-second warning needed to keep Guam, carrier strike groups in the Pacific and Kadena Air Base in Okinawa from being held hostage to a future hypersonic attack, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer said this week.
Protecting ships and bases from the hypersonic missile threat is key to the future of U.S. missile defense, Michael Griffin, the under secretary for research and engineering, said while speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
“We can see it and find it,” but “we really need to be closer to the action” to defend against a weapons technology that China, particularly, and Russia are investing in heavily.
Hypersonic weapons’ low signature in flight and high degree of maneuverability upon final approach to targets make the weapons difficult to defend against, Griffin said. He added that missile defense’s goal is to be “persistent, timely, global” in addressing existing and emerging threats.
To meet that wide-ranging challenge, “I see value [in having] one agency” with its own acquisition authorities to concentrate focus on missile defense, rather than have the services develop their own systems. “I would like the Missile Defense Agency to set that pace” of speeding development to fielding systems to counter what Beijing and Moscow are now demonstrating in the hypersonic realm.
