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EXCERPT:
Modern air and missile defense is approaching a structural limit. The model that protected forces over the past two decades remains effective, but only within a narrower envelope than current threats demand. A new approach is required, built on fire-control-level integration, disaggregated survivable architectures, affordable magazine depth, and the integration of offensive action as the central element of defense.
I am a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general and now lead international business development and strategy for Northrop Grumman in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. I previously served as chief operating officer of DEFCON AI. As a defense industry executive, I have a direct commercial interest in the integration and command-and-control issues covered here. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for the Integrated Battle Command System, the U.S. Army program most closely associated with the fire-control-level integration concepts discussed, so readers should weigh that overlap most carefully in the procurement section, where my analytical argument and my employer’s commercial position are closest. The argument is not for my company’s solution specifically, but for any architecture or federated set of systems that can deliver sensor-shooter integration, disaggregation, survivability, and coalition interoperability.
The reason is simple: The threat has changed faster than the defensive architecture. Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, one-way attack drones, and loitering munitions are no longer niche capabilities employed in small numbers. They are becoming routine instruments of coercion and war, used in combinations designed to overwhelm decision-making, exhaust magazines, expose seams between sensors and shooters, and force defenders into bad cost exchanges. Recent combat has shown that even capable defenses can perform well tactically while still revealing strategic fragility. It is time to invest in systems that are not just able to intercept threats, but do so at the scale, speed, cost, and survivability required for a sustained campaign.
