Turkey announced September 12, 2017, that it has signed a deal with Russia to purchase the Russian S-400 surface-to- air missile defense system. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the press that a deposit has already been paid. Though the prospective purchase was made public several months ago, this announcement is the first time Erdogan has...
On September 7, the U.S. Navy completed its third test of the new AN/SPY-6 (V) Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR). According to Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), during the Vigilant Talon flight test the radar searched for, detected, and simultaneously tracked a complex short-range ballistic missile and multiple air-to-surface cruise missile targets throughout their...
On August 28, North Korea flew what is believed to a be a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. The missile was launched shortly before 6 a.m. Japan local time, and reportedly traveled over 2,700 km before landing in the Pacific Ocean. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the missile...
On August 23, the U.S. Air Force have selected Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to develop the Long Range Standoff (LRSO) weapon. Both companies were awarded contracts valued around $900 million and given 54 months to “mature design concepts and prove developmental technologies” for the new missile, according to an Air Force spokeswoman. In fiscal year...
On August 21, the U.S. Air Force awarded contracts to Boeing and Northrop Grumman, $349.2 million and $328.6 million respectively, for the development of a new ICBM to replace the nearly 50 year old LGM-30G Minuteman III. Part of the nascent Ground Based Strategic Deterrence project (GBSD), the companies will have until August 2020 to...
On August 22, the U.S. Navy announced a successful live-fire test of the Harpoon block 1C antiship missile from Littoral Combat Ship USS Coronado (LCS-4) off the coast of Guam. An MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned aerial system and an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter, part of the Coronado’s air detachment, provided targeting support as the Harpoon successfully...
A new challenge faces the joint force: the prospect of conflict with a near-peer adversary who has spent two decades going to school on the U.S. way of war. Potential adversaries have integrated air defenses and precision-strike weapons that can hold forward-based U.S. forces at risk, complicate maneuver and impair freedom of action.
On August 10, President Trump announced his administration’s intentions for a “billions of dollars” increase in missile defense spending. The President told reporters, “We are going to be increasing our budget by many billions of dollars because of North Korea, and other reasons having to do with the anti-missile. We are going to be increasing...
On August 2, the U.S. Air Force successfully test fired an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Fired out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the missile traveled approximately 6,800 km across the Pacific before striking a target area at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. According to a statement from the USAF,...
On July 30, the United States conducted an intercept test of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system. The test was deemed successful, with THAAD intercepting a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) target. This was the 15th successful intercept in 15 attempts for the operational version of the THAAD weapon system. The Missile...
