JP 3-01 Countering Air and Missile Threats - Defense Innovation ...

Introduction
significantly increased the AMDs of US adversaries. CMs and unmanned aircraft (UA) also
present elusive targets and are difficult to detect, identify, and engage.
c. Adversaries may employ area denial strategies designed to prevent the protected
buildup of US forces. Most “anti-access” strategies today rely in some measure on the threat
or employment of advanced aircraft and/or missiles that may be employed alone or in
coordinated operations with other area denial capabilities. Targets may include attacks on
the infrastructure supporting US power projection capability (e.g., seaports, sea bases,
airfields, and communications networks [COMNETs]) or relevant military and political
targets. In this environment, adversary use of WMD against US forces, allies, and interests
should not be ruled out. Since nations can acquire modern missiles rather cheaply, the
number of countries with a small but lethal offensive missile capability will continue to
increase.
d. The JFC also must assess the cross-AOR BM threat from a state/non-state that
possesses long-range missiles and may be aligned with the adversary. See Chapter II,
“Command and Control,” Paragraph 10, “Cross Area of Responsibility Command
Relationships Considerations,” for more details regarding cross-AOR operations.
e. Some adversaries may consider military aircraft and missiles to be instruments of
political coercion. They may also consider civilian population centers and government,
cultural, and religious structures and locations as valid targets. In addition, propaganda value
exists in attacking US and MNFs to show their vulnerability, particularly in rear areas.
f. For a given operation/campaign, proper assessment for counterair planning should
take into account the possibility that initial enemy attacks may employ missiles in
conjunction with manned and UA against a variety of targets: air defense artillery (ADA)
sites, C2 elements, communications nodes, air facilities, seaports, sea bases, logistic centers,
key civilian facilities such as power and water plants, nuclear delivery systems, storage sites,
and industrial complexes.
g. Consideration must be given to the potential for irregular forces using civilian aircraft
(e.g., hijacked or stolen) to attack friendly forces. Other considerations include the
following: intelligence to provide situational awareness of the irregular threat; a security
system to prevent illicit use of civilian aircraft; and the proper use of identification (ID),
tracking, and combat identification (CID) to engage asymmetric aircraft threats but not
accidentally engage innocent civilian aircraft.
For additional details regarding offensive missile threats, see Appendix D, “Threat Missile
Systems.”
5. Supporting Homeland Defense
a. There is no higher priority than the security and defense of the US homeland. For
most CCDRs, a general responsibility from the Unified Command Plan (UCP) is to “detect,
deter, and prevent attacks against the United States, its territories and bases, and employ
appropriate force to defend the nation should deterrence fail.” The homeland is the
geographic region that includes the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, US territories,
I-7