What is preventing the Pentagon from fielding emerging missile defence technologies?
SM3 Block IIA interceptor. (Photo: MDA)
The US will likely face multiple obstacles in improvement its missile defence architecture. Despite the White House ordering the fast development and implementation of next-generation solutions, the slow progress in the main acquisition programmes, integration issues across the services and low budgets remain critical problems to be addressed.
From a procurement perspective, although the current US terrestrial- and space-based sensor inventory is insufficient to identify and track certain types of aerial attacks, such as hypersonics, the field of new solutions has not been keeping pace with the proliferation of threats.
Several efforts in the missile defence domain have recorded
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