I figured that this capability would be most useful as part of an aerial campaign against enemy nuclear missiles. These aircraft would be more useful circling over enemy missiles silos while other aircraft try to destroy the missiles in the silos. If the enemy tried to use them in fear of losing them, we'd knock them down soon after launch.
Strategypage writes about another approach to this problem:
The U.S. Department of Defense has developed seekers for AIM-9X (Sidewinder) and AIM-120 (AMRAAM) air-to-air missiles that enable ballistic missiles to be shot down. This happens when the missiles are in their "boost" (moving skyward) phase. Moreover, the seekers were transmitting their images via a NCADE (Net-Centric Airborne Defense Element) communications system. NCADE links aircraft and UAVs, equipped with air-to-air missiles, into a network of sensors, looking for ballistic missile launch.
Actually, this latter development is more appropriate for the offensive role I envisioned earlier. Capable of hitting missiles in their boost phase, these aircraft would really have no other ability to shoot down ballistic missiles but as part of an offensive to destroy an enemy's missile capabilities.
The airborne PAC-3 missiles would be better filling gaps in ground-based interceptors while our aerial attack on the enemy missiles sites goes on, or reinforcing sectors of the ground-based network that might be in danger of being overwhelmed. Knowing when we'd need the airborne PAC-3s ready because we are attacking would eliminate the problem of figuring out when to launch the aircraft in a purely defensive role.
So, we will have bunker-busting missiles to hit the silos and other nuclear infrastructure in a disarming strike, aircraft to circle launch sites to shoot down missiles we don't knock out in their silos, long-range ground and sea-based anti-missiles to shoot down missiles that escape the fighters orbitting the launch sites, airborne PAC-3s that can be flown to hit the missiles while still far from the target, and point-defense ground-based PAC-3s. It will be a layered defense that starts with offense and ends with last-ditch shots taken from the target site.
In the entire depressing area of the lack of will to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, this is the one really hopeful sign that I've seen. We will be able to detect new missile launching facilities. And if our government and people belatedly discover that Iran is a threat after Iran deploys nuclear missiles, we will still have an offensive option rather than believing we can deter nuts with nukes.
