Air Defense Systems

I

Introduction

Air Defense Systems, combination of electronic warning networks and military strategies designed to protect a country from a strategic missile or bomber attack. Air defense systems use radar and satellite detection systems to monitor a nation’s airspace, providing data that would allow defense forces to detect and coordinate against such an attack. Several industrialized nations, including the United States, also maintain an arsenal of offensive nuclear weapons as a deterrent to a nuclear attack.

II

Strategic Defense

Modern air defense systems originated during World War II (1939-1945) in response to the advent of long-range bomber aircraft. Radar stations in Great Britain were installed to detect approaching German bombers and give British fighter aircraft time to intercept the enemy. Before World War II, most nations focused national defense against assaults from land or sea.

After World War II, the United States enjoyed a brief period of military superiority as the sole possessor of nuclear weapons, but the detonation of an atomic bomb by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1949 brought a new military threat. The United States began to focus its defenses on early detection of long-range bombers, to give U.S. fighter aircraft enough time to respond to a large-scale attack.

The ballistic missile threat was the most important development in air defense systems. When the first German V-2 ballistic missiles arced over England on September 6, 1944, a new day in warfare dawned. The V-2 traveled at supersonic speeds and was impossible to intercept. After World War II an immediate missile race began between the United States and the USSR. The goal was to build upon German technology and create a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, that could deliver a nuclear warhead.

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A

Deterrence

By 1958 both the United States and the USSR had successfully tested ICBMs and immediately began to improve them. As a result, both nations became extremely vulnerable to attack. The amount of warning that existing national radar systems could provide for an incoming bomber attack had been measured in hours, but an ICBM could loft from a launching base in the USSR and impact in the United States within 30 minutes. There were no technical means to stop a missile once launched, so national leaders turned to the idea of deterrence.

Deterrence uses the threat of an offensive attack as a defense—or deterrent—against such an attack. The USSR, with its initial lead in rocket and missile technology, had adopted a so-called first strike strategy. The Soviet leaders recognized that an exchange of nuclear missiles would be so devastating to both countries that the USSR had to launch its missiles first, and in such numbers that a crippled United States would not be able to mount a significant retaliatory strike. The United States publicly said it would never undertake a first strike, deciding instead to develop a second-strike capability of such magnitude that no Soviet first strike would avoid retaliation. This strategy became known as mutually assured destruction, which had the appropriate acronym MAD. The arms buildup between the United States and the USSR, and the tensions surrounding the buildup, became known as the Cold War because no direct combat took place. Although the world came close to nuclear war on several occasions, such as during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the USSR never dared to launch a first strike, so the United States never had to retaliate.

B

Defense Systems of Other Countries

Although the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, major military powers continue to employ some version of offensive deterrent and defensive warning capability. Shortly after World War II, political and military alliances were created to offer mutual defense. The United States, Britain, France, and several other countries formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), while the USSR and its satellite countries responded with the Warsaw Pact. Almost all countries monitor their own airspace, but for strategic defense—that is, for protection against nuclear attack—the members of these alliances generally looked to either the United States or the USSR for protection.

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