By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON – The missile defense system of 2040 will be networked across nations and feature cyber and directed-energy components – at least if a top US Army general has his way.
Asked by Defense News to describe missile defense 25 years from now, Lt. Gen. David Mann, the head of US Army Space and Missile Defense Command/ Army Forces Strategic Command, put an emphasis on a network that is joint both across the Pentagon services and foreign partners.
“What you are probably going to see is probably more of a combined nature to missile defense,” Mann said Monday at the AUSA conference. “You’ll see more integration. You’ll see more cross-talk, sharing of data, sharing of components. But I think in 25 years from now you’re going to see more of a combined integration where we have a lot more allied integration into what we’re doing.”
“So we might be using a German Patriot radar data, providing data that will queue a Spanish Patriot system or a US patriot launcher,” Mann said. “Same thing in the Middle East. Hopefully in the Middle East we will see, maybe, data provided from a Kuwaiti radar that is feeding information to one of the other GCC partners out there to prosecute a threat.”
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