DAWG Brief

A senior Pentagon group will receive a briefing this week on the results of a recently completed study of the force requirements needed for the Obama administration's missile defense plan.

Rear Adm. Archer Macy, the director of the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization, said at a missile defense conference in Washington today that the results of the Joint Capabilities Mix Study III will be briefed to the deputy secretary of defense's advisory working group -- affectionately known as the 'DAWG" -- sometime this week.

Testifying last December before the House Armed Service strategic forces subcommittee, Macy explained what the study would cover:

JCM III is examining our missile defense strategy in the PAA to inform decisions on the number and types of sensors, launchers, and interceptors we require. In order to determine force needs at this level of granularity we have to take into account how the Combatant Commands intend to employ them, what the threats are, and generally how the threat will be expected to be employed. Historically, a lot of these types of studies make assumptions about all these factors based on what other studies have used. We chose not to do this. Instead, we went to the experts. For operational employment information, like asset laydowns and shot doctrine we went to each of the Combatant Commands. We are using how they will conduct BMD operations within their Area Of Responsibility (AOR). For system performance, we went to the experts at the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). In order to keep it all in perspective we set up a joint analysis and review process.

"While this could appear to be a rather laborious structure, in reality it worked quite smoothly, and we found it was very effective in getting the combatant commands, the services and system developers" together, Macy said today. "It helped keep our efforts coherent and complete as we worked through the factors."