Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command
WASHINGTON: The Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) program is headed to initial operational test and evaluation next month, and if you listen to the head of Army Space and Missile Defense Command, it can’t get up and running soon enough.
Speaking at the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium this morning, Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler laid out a case for why the Northrop Grumman-built IBCS program is vital for a service facing an ever growing series of threats. In a nutshell: both the high- and low-end threats are dramatically proliferating, and a system able to network together the service’s sensors is a must-have.
Ballistic missile flights are up globally by 200 percent in the last 15 years, while drone usage “has risen dramatically across many combatant command theaters in the last two years,” Karbler told the audience. “Most disturbing is the ever increasing normalization of adversaries using ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and UAS in complex attacks in the last 15 years.”
That is doubly concerning, he noted, when you consider that China and Russia are “actively developing and testing hypersonic weapons, even as we work to develop systems to defend against them, and field our own.”
And those are just the land-based threats, Karbler noted.
“At the same time, our adversaries are persistently contesting our dominance in space by trying to neutralize, deny or limit our space based services. These capabilities include kinetic and AI satellite- and directed-energy weapons, as well as electronic warfare systems to deny degrade and disrupt GPS signals in satellite communications,” the general said. “Our adversaries continue to operate on orbit space platforms in ways that have been characterized by General (Jay) Raymond (head of the Space Force) and General (James) Dickinson (head of Space Command) as disturbing and unusual.”
Karbler’s remarks made clear how deeply the threat now drives requirements, and how it is forcing service leaders to really think through what weapons to build and why.
“What does all this mean,” the general asked rhetorically. “It means that our adversaries are growing increasingly bold in their hostile acts of using ballistic missiles cruise missiles and UAS. They’re crucially bold in their conduct of irresponsible space activities. It means the Joint Force will demand more from the Army’s Space and Missile defense capabilities and expertise going forward.”
