As the National Defense Strategy is reprioritized to address near-peer adversaries, specifically China and Russia, threats to the U.S. from rogue regional actors and terrorist cells remain. DoD needs to address both scenarios through a mix of next-generation and legacy systems for decades to come.
As tensions rise, ISR demand will increase exponentially as will the need for kinetic response to threats. This means the MQ-9 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platform will remain foundational, complementary and indispensable to the American way of war.
In this Game Changer from Breaking Defense, the former four-star commander of both U.S. Air Forces in Europe and NATO Allied Air Command makes the case for medium-altitude persistent air power in the form of the MQ-9. He explains how the platform provides foundational capabilities that are complementary to the rest of the joint coalition force, and why MQ-9 is an indispensable weapon system for now and in the future.
