The what, who, how, and why of GPALS command‐and‐control

Abstract

Command and control of antimissile defenses presents enormous technical challenges. The Bush administration's shift toward Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS), however, involves a fine interaction between the command and control aspects of missile defenses and the political impact of an eventual GPALS system. While mounting a global defense against a small missile attack, regardless of launch site or target location, would appear to be a more awesome command‐and‐control challenge than that posed by its predecessor SDI concept of a U.S. defense against a massive Soviet attack, the nature of the GPALS mission may render control more manageable at lower command echelons. The global function of GPALS may even hold out the possibility of placing missile defenses under the auspices of multinational organizations without reducing U.S. military or political return from the system. Much of the unique potential of GPALS will be related to its hybrid surface‐ and space‐based configuration.

Keywords:

• Antitactical ballistic missiles
• ballistic missile defense (BMD)
• battle management
• command‐and‐control (C³)
• GPALS
• multilateral defenses
• SDI