Seeing 2020: America's New Vision for Integrated Air and Missile Defense
Abstract
O n December 5, 2013, with the stroke of a pen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey profoundly altered the U.S. approach to the pressing problem of air and missile defense. On that date coincidentally, 70 years to the day after the U.S. Army Air Corps began Operation Crossbow , the Anglo-American bombing campaign against Adolf Hitler s V-1 and V-2 missile forces and a missile defense milestone General Dempsey signed the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense: Vision 2020. This seminal document for air and missile defense (AMD) outlines the Chairman's guidance to the joint force and, by extension, to all the stakeholders that con - tribute to the air and missile defense of the U.S. homeland and its regional forces, partners, and allies. What makes the new vision both exceptionally timely and highly relevant is that it accounts for the volatility and reality of 21 st -century strategic and threat environments characterized more often than not by rapid, enigmatic change. By crafting a holistic integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) vision that is, one that encompasses a full range of integrated means including passive, nonkinetic, and left-of-launch the Chairman has definitively departed from the previous paradigm that addressed an era of fewer, less capable threats. No longer can the United States reasonably expect to unilaterally defeat most air and missile threats with its own active defense systems or to outpace growing threat capabilities by outspending all of its potential adversaries. Instead, the new vision directs the joint force to embrace a broad spectrum of cost-informed options that enable greater IAMD adaptability and create flexibility to meet the challenges presented by proliferating air and missile threats across the global battlespace.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2015
- Accession Number
- ADA618547
Entities
People
- Geoffrey F. Weiss
Organizations
- National Defense University