The Pentagon is working with industry to explore the possibility that bomb, missile or laser-armed F-35s could destroy an attacking nuclear-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) targeting the US, potentially bringing a new dimension to existing defenses.
The idea would be to use F-35 weapons and sensors to detect or destroy an ICBM launch during its initial “boost” phase of upward flight toward the boundary of the earth’s atmosphere.
I've noted the F-35 could do that, and I've long recognized the possibility of this approach:
And while the F-35 does provide, because of its stealth, a theoretical option to loiter above a hostile nuclear power without sophisticated air defense detection systems, the work-around to the limited patrol time over the target is that the F-35 provides that shoot-down capability during a preemptive strike on the nuclear missile launch sites.
The purpose of the F-35s would be to provide an early line of defense in a defense-in-depth against leakers that survive the preemptive attack or to be able to attack missiles from launch sites we didn't know about.
This F-35 capability isn't really a defensive system. It is a capability only useful in a preemptive strike. Or do you really think we'd have patrols over a launch site 24/7, 365 days per year?
Not that that is a bad thing necessarily. But that's the reality. Although the capability might encourage a state with a small one-dimensional land-based nuclear force to launch quickly in a crisis out of fear that unseen F-35s will soon thicken up over their silos.
UPDATE: Pretty much:
“You would need to be very close to the launch site, within North Korea itself, said physicist Laura Grego, who studies missile defense at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Amusingly, the article doesn't then make the obvious conclusion that one could use the F-35 in this role only during an attack on North Korea's nuclear facilities, stating instead:
That suggests that by using the F-35 made by Lockheed Martin, the U.S. could secretly monitor for ballistic missile launches with jets flying inside North Korean airspace.
Just. Wow.
