Marines Realize They Can’t Depend On Army For Ballistic Missile Defense

Summary

The U.S. Marine Corps is actively studying whether it needs to develop its own theater ballistic missile defense capability, driven by concerns that the U.S. Army will lack sufficient capacity to protect Marine forces from ballistic missile threats in future conflicts. Marine Lt. Col. Robert Barclay, speaking at the Modern Day Marine exposition, emphasized that the Army simply won't have enough resources deployed where Marines are operating to adequately counter threats like short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles. Currently, the Marine Corps relies primarily on Stinger missiles for point defense and is working toward fielding its new Medium-Range Intercept Capability (MRIC), a variant of Israel's Iron Dome system using SkyHunter interceptors, which is primarily designed to counter cruise missiles, drones, and high-end aerial threats rather than ballistic missiles. Recent conflicts involving Iran have highlighted the severe danger that ballistic missiles pose even to sophisticated, integrated air defense networks, making this capability gap particularly urgent as the Corps prepares for potential near-peer adversary conflicts, especially against China. The Marines previously possessed a limited ballistic missile defense capability through the now-retired HAWK surface-to-air missile system, and the service intends to spend the next year conducting studies and simulations to determine the exact requirements for a future ballistic missile defense solution.