“What keeps everybody up at night over there is really the ‘A,’ the ‘air’ part in integrated air and missile defense, especially for my Ukrainian and Georgian counterparts,” said Col. Janell Eickhoff, who heads the Europe-based
10th Air and Missile Defense Command. “They talk about
the Russians’ use of UAVs” to spot for massive artillery barrages.
One of the Army’s initiatives to counter Russia is
upgunning its eight-wheel-drive Stryker with a 30 mm automatic cannon. The original intent was to destroy light armored vehicles like the Russian BMP — but that’s not the only application, argued Markowitz: “We start to get 30mm Stryker airburst munitions, that might have some air defense capability.”