Navy’s Aegis Combat System Takes Center Stage As Missile Threats Proliferate (From Forbes)

The U.S. Navy’s Aegis combat system is the most advanced air and missile defense architecture in the world.  It is also the most survivable, given the fact that it is mobile at sea rather than sitting at a fixed site on land.  Aegis is becoming more important to both national and regional missile defense as overseas threats proliferate — partly because threats are becoming more diverse, and partly because upgrades are making Aegis much more capable than it was only a few years ago.  The Navy traditionally hasn’t thought of Aegis as a strategic weapon — the way it thinks about its ballistic missile subs — but if nuclear deterrence were to one day fail, Aegis might prove more important to national survival than all the nuclear warheads in America’s strategic arsenal.  I have written a commentary for Forbes here.