The plan will be unveiled in the Missile Defense Review, to be released during Trump's Pentagon visit Thursday
Updated on: January 17,2019 / 1:06 AM
/ CBS/AP
The Trump administration will soon roll out a new strategy for a more aggressive space-based missile defense system to protect against existing threats from North Korea and Iran and counter advanced weapon systems being developed by Russia and China. Details about the administration’s Missile Defense Review — the first compiled since 2010 — are expected to be released during President Trump’s visit Thursday to the Pentagon with top members of his administration.
Senior administration officials who briefed reporters said the new review will make the case for “investment into new advancement of defense concepts and capabilities.” Using space technology for missile defense, they said, is “very important to next-level capabilities” that will help the U. S. “stay ahead of the threat.”
Since the 2010 review, officials said the U. S. has seen “a significant change to the threat environment… What the missile defense review responds to is an environment which our potential adversaries have been rapidly developing and fielding, a much more expanded range of new advance offensive missiles.” Some of these missiles, the officials went on to say, are “capable of threatening the United States, threatening our allies, our partners.”
The new review concludes that in order to adequately protect America, the Pentagon must expand defense technologies in space and use those systems to more quickly detect, track and ultimately defeat incoming missiles.
Recognizing the potential concerns surrounding any perceived weaponization of space, the strategy pushes for studies. But no testing is mandated, and no final decisions have been made.
Specifically, the U. S. is looking at putting a layer of sensors in space to more quickly detect enemy missiles when they are launched, according to a senior administration official, who briefed reporters Wednesday. The U. S. sees space as a critical area for advanced, next-generation capabilities to stay ahead of the threats, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose details of the review before it was released.
The administration also plans to study the idea of basing interceptors in space, so the U. S. can strike incoming enemy missiles during the first minutes of flight when the booster engines are still burning.
Congress, which ordered this review, already has directed the Pentagon to push harder on this “boost-phase” approach, but officials want to study the feasibility of the idea and explore ways it could be done.
The new strategy is aimed at better defending the U. S. against potential adversaries, like Russia and China, who have been developing and fielding a much more expansive range of advanced offensive missiles that could threaten America and its allies. The threat is not only coming from traditional cruise and ballistic missiles, but also from hypersonic weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new strategic weapons he claims can’t be intercepted. One is a hypersonic glide vehicle, which can reportedly fly 20 times faster than the speed of sound and make sharp maneuvers to avoid being detected by missile defense systems.
“Developments in hypersonic propulsion will revolutionize warfare by providing the ability to strike targets more quickly, at greater distances, and with greater firepower,” Lt.
