Integrated Air And Missile Defense: Early Lessons From The Russia-Ukraine War
ByCarl Rehberg
Neptune Anti-Ship MissileNeptune Anti-Ship Missile. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
As the deadly Russia-Ukraine conflict moves to new phases, the U.S., its allies, and partners must heed critical and emerging insights from this hot war. After more than one hundred days of high-intensity conflict, some clear and compelling initial insights for the U.S. and Allied Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) are emerging. The effectiveness of IAMD systems in countering both missiles and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have been critical elements in this conflict–with a continued evolution in competition between fires and the defender. A clear understanding of these dynamics and the key lessons they provide will be vital for the U.S. and its allies to mitigate capability and capacity shortfalls while enhancing and revising operational approaches in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and elsewhere around the globe. These are initial insights and preliminary lessons learned, developed using open-source information, so additional insights and revisions are expected later, with the benefit of in-depth evaluation(s) and more complete data.
Missile Threats and IAMD
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has already shown numerous examples of attacks featuring large numbers of missiles and UAS. So far, Russia has expended over 2,100 total missiles (as of May 25, 2022), consisting of ballistic missiles‒mostly Short Range Ballistic Missiles (SRBMs), cruise missiles, and a few hypersonic and air-launched ballistic missiles. Dr. John Plumb (Assistant Secretary for Defense (Space) stated, “..the use of missiles is becoming increasingly commonplace in conflicts worldwide.” In addition, there is now real reason to be concerned about the consistent use of large and complex salvos, comprised of both missiles with different profiles and complementary capabilities (e.g. cyber and UAS) to strike targets simultaneously or near-simultaneously.
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/06/integrated-air-and-missile-defense-early-lessons-from-the-russia-ukraine-war/
