WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — In the 2016 defense budget, the US Congress set aside $36.6 million on the Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) missile, which is intended to replace the nearly 30-year-old ALCMs currently in operation.
“[The Russian cruise missile threat] is why we need to modernize our air-launched cruise missile,” Soofer said at a Missile Defense Advocacy seminar in Washington, DC.
On Wednesday, US House of Representatives Armed Services counsel Timothy Morrison stated that the US warfighter is “remarkably forward-leaning” in considering “how do we defend this country from Russian cruise missiles.”
In early October, Russian warships in the Caspian Sea launched 26 long-range cruise missiles against Islamic State targets in Syria nearly 1,000 miles away.
Top Pentagon officials have warned of the threat posed by Russian cruise missiles, because of their range and the difficulty in detecting them.
The Pentagon is currently testing an advanced radar cruise missile defense system around the Washington, DC area, also known as the JLENS. The multi-billion dollar JLENS system is still in its testing phase.
