January 30, 2019 | International, Naval
More Missile Defense Ships, New Ground Deployments
By PAUL MCLEARY WASHINGTON: A top Pentagon official on Tuesday said major upgrades being made to dozens of Navy destroyers to give them new missile defense capabilities will continue, even as Navy leadership bristles at having so many ships tied up hunting for missile launches. The comments by James Anderson, assistant Defense secretary for strategy, plans and capabilities, came on the same day that Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified before Congress that US intelligence agencies assess North Korea is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs in any potential deal with Washington. “The Navy does have this mission of ballistic missile defense,” Anderson said during a talk at the Brookings Institution. “It is one of their core missions and it will remain so.” The Navy currently has 38 Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyers in the fleet with missile defense capabilities, he noted, and has plans to convert “all Aegis destroyers to fully missile defense capable” status, meaning 60 ships will be able to perform the missile defense mission by 2023. Just the day before Anderson's remarks, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson complained again that he has ships sailing in “small boxes” protecting assets on land, when they should be out performing other missions. “We've got exquisite capability, but we've had ships protecting some pretty static assets on land for a decade,” Richardson said. “If that [stationary] asset is going to be a long-term protected asset, then let's build something on land and protect that and liberate these ships from this mission.” Full article: https://breakingdefense.com/2019/01/more-missile-defense-ships-new-ground-deployments