Integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) is an overarching term that subsumes both ballistic-missile defense (BMD) and Fleet air defense (FAD). While it is true that the systems, units, and personnel employed in both elements are often the same, and that this commonly leads to the impression that there is a unity in the conduct of both, this is far from absolute truth.
Indeed, despite the Navy’s conceptual desire to achieve a seamless understanding and conduct of IAMD, we are nowhere near that ideal state. The chief challenge is that although both elements address defense against “airborne” threats, the natures of these—and consequently the requirements necessary to defend against them—have been and still are so widely divergent that until recently, the paths of BMD and FAD seemed only remotely connected.
‘Three Discrete Branches’
Further complicating this integration is that there are actually three discrete branches of IAMD. Today, the Navy’s primary BMD offices think largely in terms of engagement in the “exo-atmospheric” region; that is, outside of the earth’s atmosphere, for which the Navy has capable systems. This is not to say that this intervention in the “upper-tier” is simple. Rather, it is a wildly complex affair, captured best in the cliché, “shooting a bullet with a bullet.” The airless, distant, and cold nature of the space in which upper-tier ballistic missiles travel creates a need for highly specialized, esoteric systems and approaches. Moreover, this is especially true since modern ballistic missiles can now vary their flights in unpredictable, non-ballistic fashion.
Second is what might be thought of as “classic” air defense, which protects the Fleet against “air-breathing” threats. This capability is also manifest; we have been dealing with FAD in a modern sense through the use of radar-guided projectiles since at least World War II. Consequently, a sophisticated understanding of the concept has evolved in the Navy’s air and surface-warfare communities, and over time, capability and capacity have roughly kept pace as the threats themselves became ever more sophisticated.
The third element is the “lower-tier” piece of BMD. This refers to the segments of ballistic-missile flight in which the threat is operating in earth’s atmosphere, either during the period from launch to exit of the atmosphere (known as “boost phase”) or after the missile reenters the atmosphere in the “terminal” phase of its flight. These lower-tier, or “endo-atmospheric,” engagements inevitably involve short timelines, very high speeds, low radar cross-sections, extreme target angles, and inescapable problems of geography. This is so much the case that currently half of lower-tier engagement—boost-phase intercept—is little more than the subject of intellectual ferment. At the terminal end of the endo-atmosphere lies the “point-defense” engagement of ballistic missiles. Unfortunately, until the SM-6 standard missile arrives in the Fleet, the Patriot system remains essentially the military’s only effective tool for the conduct of such defense.
In short, BMD in the upper tier is as different from lower-tier BMD as it is from classic air defense against “air-breathing” manned and unmanned aircraft. So it should come as no surprise that as the Navy worked in each of these areas, starting at different times and addressing different requirements, each area has grown almost independently of the others. As a Navy and as a nation, unfortunately, we cannot afford this approach. It is neither efficient nor does it create the integrated whole that will allow synergistic jumps in capability.
To arrive at a desired, unified IAMD destination, a complete understanding of that destination is required by all of those involved in the pursuit. Perhaps more important, reaching this goal will require the holistic commitment of all to only take actions that consider the whole of this integrated defense, rather than simply the parochial interests of a single part of the larger effort.
The Vision
Put simply, the IAMD battlefield must be understood to be a fully integrated network of weapons and sensors, transparently connected in such a manner that any weapon system, anywhere in the grid, can use any sensor anywhere in the grid, regardless of grid size, to engage the appropriate target in sufficient time.
In this vision, upon detection and tracking of a threat, automated matching takes place. The correct weapon system is paired with the correct radar systems. At the same time, correct and appropriate supporting information is provided from myriad sources to the decision-making process without drowning those making the decisions in superfluous data.
This sensing network will remotely control radar modes for maximized effect. It will be aware of and responsive to local weather conditions, and will also know what sorts of weapons and inventories exist at every launch point, as well as the status of those weapons and their support systems. Finally, it will automatically switch between varied communications pathways, without operator intervention, to ensure connectivity between all units.
The One, True Picture
To put this vision into operation, a near-real-time fire-control quality picture of the battle space must be established. This picture is identical in every participating unit—an accurate and real representation of “ground truth” in the grid. When this is achieved, it will signal the advent of the ability to leap forward to “The Vision.” In reality, the air-defense community has been hotly debating the exact definition of this single integrated air picture, or SIAP, for some years: must it be real time, or near real time or only real time for some tracks as displayed in some units? This esoteric discussion does little but allow the most doctrinaire to hold forward progress hostage. It delays attainment of the long-sought Holy Grail of IAMD, and indeed of all warfare. Until this SIAP is achieved, we will forever be trapped in the “fog of war.”
Actually, it may be surprising to some, especially in an era of the so-called common operational picture (COP), that today, if one were able to view any given unit’s “picture” of the world around it, one would find that it is dramatically different from every other unit’s picture, regardless of how close the proximity of those units may be. Imagine how much confusion and difficulty this creates in an urgent, short-timeline fight.
Consider that in combat ships today, many commanders would simply shut off external data sources when missiles are inbound, rather than be overwhelmed by confusing and incorrect remote-track information. In truth, the COP, which joins together the Global Command-and-Control System (GCCS), Data Links, and Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), is neither common nor operational. At best, it is a minor remediation useful for operational-level planning. At worst, it is far too faulty for real-time use, and it may create the dangerous illusion that a common picture actually exists.
However, once a SIAP is available, unit-to-unit, all else desired in IAMD becomes a natural outflow of that ability. Commanders are able to grasp ground truth, or at least they are able to understand the battle space in an identical manner to everyone else involved. A ship in the Sea of Japan is able to use a land-based radar’s track on a ballistic missile to conduct an engagement without ever having its own organic track on the target. An over-land cruise missile can be engaged using track data from an E-2D aircraft or an Army Aerostat, and the shooter never needs see the target. Not only is stealth defeated, but engagements can be controlled or automated in real time, and the commander knows exactly what ordnance is in every unit and what the state of every radar is.
While we are a long way from realizing this vision, it is clear that we have come far. With regard to linking sensors and weapons and developing an identical, real-time, fire-control quality picture, the CEC points the way at least in the Fleet Air Defense segment of IAMD, and it is leading shortly to the advent of Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter-Air (NIFC-CA). Fundamentally, this aligns Aegis ships, SM-6, and airborne sensors through the CEC, allowing for the first time an extension of the naval theater air- and missile-defense battle-space out to the maximum kinematic range of the SM-6 interceptor.
With regard to the BMD fight, which covers areas much greater than can be handled by line-of-sight CEC, the connective tissue clearly seems to be extremely high frequency (EHF) multicast tactical digital information link-joint (MTJ), which brings reliability, anti-jam capability, granularity, and low time-lateness necessary to support advanced BMD capabilities such as Launch on Remote (LOR) and, one day, Engage on Remote (EOR). Can these two systems—CEC and EHF MTJ—be combined to complete the picture?
Does IAMD Even Exist Yet?
Short of realizing the vision, there is an ongoing and vigorous debate around the questions, “Does IAMD, in any true sense, exist in the Navy today? Or, are the three elements of IAMD really only viable independent of one another?” There are those who understand that while current systems do, technically, allow an Aegis ship to conduct simultaneous air and ballistic-missile defense, this ability is immediately and dramatically compromised in any but the most minimally challenging situations. Those people point to the fact that the Aegis weapon system, which controls all air engagements, is designed to “steal” radar load from air defense to support higher-priority BMD, and that this happens automatically and without the possibility of operator intervention. So when and if a complex situation exists in the BMD arena, the ship inevitably becomes blind to AD threats.
What to do? So far, the answer has been to assign a warship to each BMD ship in order to provide air defense while the BMD ship looks “up.” This plan is understood to be unworkable, though. Sufficient assets do not exist to provide an air-defense “minder” for every BMD ship doing its mission. So far, the long-term solution lies in the air- and missile-defense radar, for which industry is competing and which promises a radar with a capacity large and capable enough to perform both functions without compromise.
On the other hand, there are those who contend that a current BMD-capable ship can simultaneously engage a ballistic missile while protecting itself and those around it from air-breather attack. Those proponents opine that it is simply a matter of prudent consideration of risk versus mission, and that setting up the AN/SPY-1 radar properly, with fully informed use of its features, will allow for continuous defense within the kinematic range of the missile. But they also contend that even if the BMD mission does rob SPY assets from AD, it is only a transitory and short-lived loss. This, however, supposes an expertise in the fire controlman community that frankly has not existed in years.
The jury remains out on this critical discussion. So far, the testing of Aegis ships in simultaneous IAMD environments has only taken place in the pristine and unrealistic vacuum found in the Flight Test Standard Missile (FTM) series. In these events, every effort is made to ensure success. But what about the real world of limited training and maintenance and sustained operation? Inevitably, it is a plain fact that today no one knows how much BMD will result in a significant and sustained loss of AD capability. Likewise, no one knows the floor below which a ship cannot go, in terms of SPY availability, to provide even minimal self-defense.
Obviously, every cruiser and destroyer must be able to simultaneously conduct all elements of BMD, even if only in an independent, ship-by-ship basis. The number of ships available is continuing to decline even as their price skyrockets. The SIAP is the entering argument to leap forward in a netted sense, but the problem of conducting ballistic-missile and air defense at the same time, while perhaps more soluble, remains every bit as underappreciated.
Launch and Engage on Remote
Some solutions to SPY overload problems are available today. FTM 15, “Stellar Charon,” demonstrated that a ship could receive a remote track—in this case from a AN/TPY-2 radar via EHF MTJ—and successfully launch against a ballistic vehicle on which the ship had no organic track. This meant that no radar assets were required to persistently search for the target. The LOR process, while still being refined, is planned as a capability available soon as a part of the Phased Adaptive Approach.
The next step in this evolution eliminates the need for the shooter to ever organically detect the target. EOR will be available in 2015, and will allow ships to both shoot and consummate an engagement, based on remote track information, without ever self-acquiring the target. Obviously, this would have a salutary effect on a ship’s ability to conduct ballistic-missile engagement without the dangers of stripping AD tracking capability.
The second major benefit of EOR comes along with the fact that current Standard Missiles can “out-fly” the radar. In other words, the abilities of the SPY radar, insofar as maintaining track on distant, challenging targets, is exceeded by the kinematic envelope of the interceptor. With a better radar, available through EOR connection, the SM’s kill range is greatly enhanced.
Command and Control
In his seminal 2002 essay, “Rediscovering the Art of Command and Control,” then-Vice Admiral Robert Willard opined:
We in the U.S. military made a mistake when we combined command and control with communications and computers to yield the C4 acronym. Following that initiative, the acquisition of and training on command and control (C2) tools—computers, radios, and software—became confused with the requirements for continuous training in the operational art of and methods for effective control of forces. Frequently these days, commanders tinker with new technologies such as chat rooms, three-dimensional graphics, and web sites and call that command and control. The immense power of all those tools will go to waste until we master the whole of C2 and understand precisely where and when the tools play in the commander’s decision and responsibility to control the fight. We have lost sight of a fundamentally operational duty.
Above all else, a viable C2 methodology needs to be evolved with which to master the capabilities both in place and contemplated. While architecture has been designed for IAMD at the theater/combatant-command level, it has yet to be demonstrated to be effective. In this architecture, the combatant commander’s air component commander, located at an Air Operations Center (AOC), will control the entire IAMD fight, theater-wide. It is likely that at minimum, the commander will delegate responsibility for local air defense to regional air-defense commanders, each located at service-specific nodes—for example, the Navy’s Maritime Operations Center (MOC). However, with regard to BMD issues, the lines are less and less clear.
To test this one small architecture (which ultimately must be nested into larger, and yet-to-be-defined joint or combined C2 architecture) the Navy has established a “Task Force IAMD,” which is being stood up for deployment to the 6th Fleet MOC. This team will provide on-call, persistent, air defense expertise in an actual, working C2 architecture. Certainly, the work of TF-IAMD will wring out the first, highly general IAMD architecture.
Which brings us to the other half of Admiral Willard’s maxim: As the Navy’s system commands (SYSCOMs) seem determined to introduce wave after wave of eye-watering technological innovation—it often seems simply because they can—the question that seems not to be asked is, “Why are you doing this, and how does it ‘fit?’” We have fallen into the trap against which Willard warns us. Instead of figuring out which IAMD architecture works and then directing SYSCOMs to designing supporting C4I, we are perpetually trying to force existing, expensive, imperfect systems into solutions. The tail wags the dog.
Take, for example, the case of the major BMD planner—the Command, Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) system, located at each AOC. C2BMC does a lot of things besides serving as the remote operational controller for in-theater SPY-2 radars. It is also the conduit for LOR and EOR cueing from TPY-2 to ship, as well as a BMD (as opposed to IAMD) planning system. As far as this planning is concerned, the concept is that that these BMD plans will be forwarded to the MOC, where they will be interwoven by way of an MIPS (Maritime IAMD Planning System), with AD considerations, and send to Fleet units for further refinement through the Aegis Mission Planner, followed by execution.
It is, at best, a bulky and slow process, leaving the carrier strike group commander and the strike group area air-defense commander out of the loop. Not only is C2BMC a sort of patchwork, ever-growing, Rube Goldberg C4I system, but because it will soon have the ability to transmit force orders, it is a frightening example of C4I leading C2. Is the Navy ready for an Army officer at the Air Component Command to cause missiles to leave individual ships without any stop between the orders issue and the discrete fire unit?
End Game
Imagine three BMD-capable ships operating off the coast of Continent Orange. Ship X is attached to a carrier strike group and is both the air defense “shotgun” and the BMD defense ship should the carrier be targeted by “carrier-killing” BMD weapons. In this capacity, Ship X is only in receipt, via a discrete EHF MTJ network, of tracks which are of local IAMD interest. Ship Y is executing a long-range surveillance and tracking, mission in support of Northern Command and homeland defense. In this capacity, Ship Y will automatically reject any track that is not a long-range BMD track bound for the continental United States. A third ship is providing BMD for an allied country and is in an EHF MTJ network that includes local BMD-capable forces.
These ships may be, quite literally, within 100 nautical miles of one another, yet there is exactly zero track-sharing between them, because they are in different IAMD architectures. This neither supports “The Vision” nor does it enhance either effectiveness or efficiency of limited assets.
Keep the vision in mind. To dwell on one part of the whole may be interesting or profitable, but it is the whole that is valuable. The missile and the radar, regardless of how sophisticated they may be, are infinitely more potent when employed synergistically. To achieve this, command and control must be described, agreed to, and implemented, and the C4I must follow this, not lead it. Only then can we begin to talk about planning and controlling an IAMD fight from anywhere other than at the unit level, where a swamped captain shuts off the noise and exercises his enormous responsibility.