Sheila Vemmer / Defense News Media Group Mark Gallagher is chief of the Defense Advocacy Division at U.S. Strategic Command.

Integrating the cruise-missile defense efforts being carried out by the different military services is one the eight key missions for the U.S. Strategic Command, said Mark Gallagher, chief of the Defense Advocacy Division at the command.

The new role for StratCom — adding cruise-missile defense to the broader missile defense efforts — was approved by senior Pentagon leaders in late March, Gallagher said.

Though the different military services are developing components of sensors and radar to combat cruise missiles as part of their broader air defense effort, StratCom is beginning the process of defining requirements that will allow these different sensors to adopt common communication standards, Gallagher said.

“Right now each sensor is developing unique standards for their data,” he said. “The goal is to have them share the information.”

These standards, once adopted, will allow shooters — missiles and interceptors — from different services to identify and shoot down cruise missiles, he said.

“We want plug and play,” he told government and defense industry representatives April 27 at the 2006 Cruise Missile & IED Defense Conference: Joint Engagement of Time-Critical Air & Ground Targets, sponsored by the Defense News Media Group, in Arlington, Va.

“We aren’t dictating answers but want to be a facilitator,” he said. “We are working hard toward bringing every thing together.”

Asked why cruise-missile defense isn’t part of the Missile Defense Agency’s portfolio, Gallagher said the agency already is dealing with the complex challenge of developing ballistic missile defense but he speculated that defense against cruise missiles could become part of the agency’s mission in the coming years, because it “can’t be delegated to any one service.”

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