So your one neighbor, Pakistan, possesses nuclear weapons and is working assiduously on short- and medium-range missiles, no doubt with nuclear delivery in mind as part of a deterrent package against your own nuclear forces. China, with whom you share a fairly long (and disputed) border has also been engaged in building a modern force of short-…
OK, so trying to get back to some semblance of normalcy around these parts now that the rogue satellite has been dispatched. We’re hoping the powers-that-be relent in their parsimonious attitude towards releasing video of the event, but given some of the organizations involved, doubt that will happen anytime soon. Likewise being able to tell…
At the end of a very long day/night for YHS (that has stretched into the bright new dawn…): American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Feb. 20, 2008 – A network of land-, air-, sea- and spaced-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits…
UPDATE: 20 Feb (21 Feb UTC) MARK INDIA – all indications intercept successful. More to follow… In the 24 hours since the press conference announcing the decision to use a special modification of the Aegis BMD/SM-3 system to mitigate risk from the failed NRO satellite, reaction across the ‘verse (net) has been, well, predictable: “It’s…
This is an Aegis Destroyer: This is an Aegis Cruiser: This is an SM-3, launched from an Aegis Cruiser or Destroyer: This is a Delta, used to launch satellites. From land. Not ships. Class over, back to your regularly scheduled programming…
Got Pyrolytic graphite for your jet vanes? No? Umm, too bad… (fast forward to 2:33, 3:01 and 3:10): ——- ——- (Detailed analysis over at ArmsControlWonk) Incidentally, pyrolytic graphite is a Category II controlled item under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) which, unfortunately, does not include two of the greatest missile technology proliferators of record,…
JDS Kongo arrives in Pearl Harbor for JFTM-01 Deterrence. Deterring aggression must be viewed in global, regional, and transnational terms via conventional, unconventional, and nuclear means. Effective Theater Security Cooperation activities are a form of extended deterrence, creating security and removing conditions for conflict. Maritime ballistic missile defense will enhance deterrence by…
Lost in the turmoil these past few days of the NIE debate, the missing waterboarding tapes, Oprahpaloosa, etc. were two announcements of note out of India. The first was their claim of a successful anti-tactical ballistic missile (ATBM) test using an interceptor based on the indigenously developed-Prithvi SRBM missile, earlier this week with presumably…
A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) is launched from the Pearl Harbor-based Aegis cruiser, USS Lake Erie (CG 70) on November 6, 2007 enroute to an intercept as part of a Missile Defense Agency test of the Sea-based capability under development, yet tactically certified and deployed with the U.S. Navy. This was a multiple simultaneous engagement involving…
WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (Reuters) – A U.S. interceptor missile on Friday shot down a dummy warhead replicating an incoming North Korean missile in the 7th successful test of Boeing Co’s long-range missile shield, a witness told Reuters. "We got it," said Riki Ellison, president of the private Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. "It was a success." A…
