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Advanced Technology
Key
to a Secure Future
 s
we enter the 21st century, America is faced with
a growing threat to national security and to global
stability: ballistic missiles. Today, only China
and Russia have long-range missiles that can strike
the United States, and neither country is considered
a threat. However, many other nations are taking
advantage of an ever-widening access to technology,
information, and expertise to speed both the development
and deployment of these weapons. As a recent demon-stration
by North Korea attests, it will be only a few
short years until some of these nations have the
same long-range capabilities as China and Russia
and can place the United States, as well as its
troops and allies abroad, at significant risk.
Advanced technology is key to countering these
emerging threats. The technological superiority
of America’s missile defense systems depends
on BMDO’s strategic research commitments
in areas such as sensing, materials, electronics,
propulsion, and communications.
Such advances are essential for building and fielding
surveillance systems to detect, identify, and track
ballistic missiles; interceptor and directed energy
weapons to destroy ballistic missiles in flight;
and battle management systems to coordinate the
collection, communication, and analysis of data.
Technology advances are helping BMDO to develop
missile defense systems both for use in confined
“theaters” of conflict and for protection
of the U.S. homeland. These systems include the
following:
 •
Missile
Defense, a nationwide system for long-range, high-altitude
defense,
•
PATRIOT
Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3), a mobile, ground-based
system for low-altitude defense,
•
Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), a rapidly
relocatable, high-altitude defense,
•
Navy Area, a ship-based low-altitude defense,
•
Navy Theater Wide, a ship-based high-altitude defense,
•
ARROW,
a defense system for Israel,
•
Medium
Extended Air Defense Systems, a short-range defense
system for the United States, Germany, and Italy.
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