Missile Defense 101: Intro

‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax –
Of cabbages — and kings –
And why the sea is boiling hot –
And whether pigs have wings.’
– The Walrus And The Carpenter by Lewis Carroll.

Well, the time has come to talk of things - Missile Defense in particular, and as promised, this will be the primary topic for the coming week. There are many things the BMDS (Ballistic Missile Defense System) is and is not (and one thing it is, is a repository for an eyewatering collection of acronyms. Help deciphering the same may be found here). It is not nuclear, nor is it the space-based, directed energy weapon system envisioned and advocated under the Reagan Administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative. Rather, it is conventional, terrestrial-based (for the most part) and kinetic (i.e., "hit-to-kill") in origin. It is composed of globally-deployed sensors and shooters tied together with an extensive command and control communications network. To gain an understanding of this "system of systems" we will break it down into its component parts, beginning with the sensors, follow with shooters, then some discussion on the C² tie-in. Your "Rosetta Stone," as it were, is the illustration above. Following that we tie them all together in the context of an engagement sequence where you, dear reader, will hopefully come to understand and appreciate the challenges of operating a globally-dispersed system such as this. Along the way we will utilize open-source videos and imagery to illustrate our points, not unlike this: