{"id":20674,"date":"2022-07-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2022\/07\/18\/pentagon-plan-for-homeland-cruise-missile-defense-taking-shape\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:51:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:51:18","slug":"pentagon-plan-for-homeland-cruise-missile-defense-taking-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/pentagon\/2022\/07\/18\/pentagon-plan-for-homeland-cruise-missile-defense-taking-shape\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon plan for homeland cruise missile defense taking shape"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 The Pentagon\u2019s plan to defend the U.S. homeland from cruise missiles<\/a> is starting to take shape after a prolonged period of development because until recently<\/a>, the threat was perceived as a more distant regional one, a senior Air Force official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command have been working for several years and across two presidential administrations to come up with a design that can effectively defend the continental U.S. from cruise missiles, according to Brig. Gen. Paul Murray, NORAD deputy director of operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NORAD and NORTHCOM, in consultation with the Missile Defense Agency and the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization are closing in on a design framework for the mission, Murray said, just as the Pentagon enters a critical decision-making period as it formulates the fiscal 2024 budget request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the design is created, \u201cit\u2019s time to go out and defend the design,\u201d Murray said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference July 14. This translates to conducting modeling and simulation to prove out, in part, that the architecture will work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also not to say \u201cmy computer\u2019s crunching numbers, buy me these capabilities,\u201d he said, adding capabilities need to be demonstrated which includes partnering with the MDA and others to experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Budgets for cruise missile defense of the homeland<\/a> in fiscal 2022 <\/a>and 2023 were modest, with combatant commands including NORTHCOM placing additional funding for development<\/a> in so-called wish lists rather than in base budget requests and hoping that Congress ultimately supplies the dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cruise missile challenge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Land-attack cruise missiles can be launched from the air, ground or sea and because they fly at low altitudes under powered flight, it is difficult for radars to detect them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ballistic missiles can be detected much earlier, which allows more time to detect, track, decide and act. For cruise missiles, decision makers may have only a couple of minutes and salvos of cruise missiles can attack from different directions, complicating the approach to defeating the threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the U.S. has been focused on ballistic missile defense of the homeland <\/a>from adversaries including North Korea, Russia and China have made investments over several decades to develop cruise missiles capable of carrying out a non-nuclear attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2019 Missile Defense Review <\/a>highlighted the need to focus on near-peer cruise missiles and directed the Pentagon to recommend an organization to have acquisition authority of cruise missile defense for the homeland. The designation requirement also appeared in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, but the Pentagon has yet to choose what organization will be in charge of the effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lack of an acquisition authority can hamper the budget process. And budget requests during the Trump administration contained little to get moving on cruise missile defense. In President Joe Biden\u2019s first two budgets, the mission also received very little funding save to conduct a cruise missile defense kill chain demonstration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous attempts to figure out how to defend against cruise missiles hit roadblocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, for example, a large aerostat being evaluated for cruise missile defense at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland broke free from its mooring <\/a>and drifted across Pennsylvania. It\u2019s long tether knocked out power lines and, once it landed in a grove of trees<\/a> in Amish countryside, had to be shot at by State Troopers to get it to deflate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The JLENS program was promptly canceled<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debate over what part of the U.S. is most important to protect from cruise missiles also hindered progress because it was difficult to land on policy to help determine site locations, Peppi DeBiaso, a non-resident senior associate at CSIS, said during a panel discussion at the conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impossible to protect everything<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

CSIS, in a report it debuted at the conference<\/a>, said it will be impossible to protect everything. Lt. Gen. A.C. Roper, U.S. NORTHCOM deputy commander, said in a recording played at the event, that \u201cplacing a Patriot or a [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] battery on every street corner is both infeasible and unaffordable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t