Intercontinental ballistic missiles may look slow off the starting line when you’re watching old launch footage, but make no mistake–these are rockets that are not all that dissimilar from those that carry astronauts into space. They tend to move at speeds measured in miles per second once they lift off. That’s a far cry from being able to engage enemy aircraft or surface vehicles from a distance, which are far slower moving targets that are often moving along a predictable horizontal axis. ICBMs destined for far-off targets move faster and behave differently, forcing even Griffin to concede that a new weapon would likely need to be fielded to make this strategy work–and new weapons with new capabilities cost a whole lot of money.
Further, both F-35s would have to already be airborne and in the vicinity of the launch when it occurred, so U.S. defense assets in the region would need to receive enough advanced warning to get the fighters in the air and deep enough into enemy airspace to execute the intercept. If the launch is then delayed, American fighters would have to loiter in the launch zone over enemy territory to engage the missile once it was fired.
So the interceptor the F-35 might utilize probably doesn’t exist yet, and in order for this strategy to work, the fighters would need to reach the launch area safely before the laundry list of ifs associated with the actual intercept itself could even come into play.
So is it really feasible?
Maybe. In some regions of the world, like the aforementioned North Korea, it’s likely that F-35s could penetrate enemy airspace without facing much in the way of anti-aircraft fire thanks to its stealthy design. It’s highly likely that North Korea would launch fighters to intercept, which may be little threat to America’s fifth-generation fighters under normal circumstances, but with limited weapons capacity thanks to internal weapon bays full of interceptors, the F-35s would be limited in their ability to respond. Some American jets would have to be equipped to provide security, while others would be after the missile.
The most important facet of this strategy is recognizing that it would not be intended as a primary means of missile defense. American THAAD launchers, Aegis-equipped Naval assets, and in the event of an attack on American soil, the U.S. Ground-based Midcourse Defense system (despite all its flaws) would all still be active and working to engage the launched missile as well. The F-35 intercept strategy would likely be seen as another potential anti-missile tool in a growing missile defense tool box.
Further, even without purpose-built interceptors on board the F-35, placing a few of these jets in the vicinity of the launch could provide ground-based missile interceptors (likely rocket-propelled ones capable of higher speeds) with the targeting data they need to reliably take out a launching ICBM. The F-35 has already proven its ability to relay target information to other platforms to engage, so this would simply be an addition to that capability.
In short, this program wouldn’t be a sure thing, but it could be a useful addition to the American missile defense initiative–provided it could be done without breaking the bank. The high cost of simply maintaining the F-35 has already prompted the Air Force to warn that it may need to scale back its order of the fifth-generation fighter by almost half just to afford to fly the birds it’d have, though Lockheed Martin and the Air Force have reportedly been working to reduce maintenance costs across the board until they’re more sustainable.
For now, at least, this concept still seems pretty jam-packed with “ifs,” but, in theory, it’s at least possible.
COMMENTS