The Pentagon’s new missile defence review finds that a space-based system is needed to thwart threats from North Korea, Iran, China, Russia
Declaring that space is the new military domain, US President Donald Trump on Thursday vowed the US will develop an unrivalled missile defence system to protect against advanced hypersonic and cruise missile threats from competitors and adversaries.
In a speech at the Pentagon, Trump said that the US would do what it takes “to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, any time, any place.”
Trump did not mention Russia, China or North Korea in his roughly 20-minute speech.
But the Pentagon’s new strategy makes clear that its plan for a more aggressive space-based missile defence system is aimed at protecting against existing threats from North Korea and Iran and countering advanced weapon systems such as the hypersonic missiles being developed by China and Russia.
“We will protect the American people from all types of missile attacks,” Trump said. “In the past, the United States lacked a comprehensive strategy for missile defence that extended beyond ballistic missiles. Under our plan, that will change. The US will now adjust its posture to also defend against any missile strikes including cruise and hypersonic missiles.”
The new review, the first since 2010, concludes that to adequately protect America, the Pentagon must expand defence technologies in space and use those systems to more quickly detect, track and ultimately defeat incoming missiles.
Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who also spoke, said that competitor nations such as Russia and China are aggressively pursuing new missiles that are harder to see, harder to track and harder to defeat.
Specifically, the US is looking to put 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 on Wednesday. The US regards 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 that the US can strike incoming enemy missiles during the first minutes of flight when the booster engines are still burning.
