Closing the Air and Missile Defense Gap in the Indo-Pacific

Key Takeaways

• US used 100‑150 interceptors in 12‑day Iran‑Israel conflict, 25% stockpile
• Stimson model predicts US Patriot interceptors exhausted within 24 hrs of war
• Latent Link shares sensor tracks across allies while keeping sovereign fire‑control
• Long Sense, Short Defence assigns sensors to partners, point‑defence to attacked state
• Hawaii tabletop exercise produced viable coalition architectures despite political and distance challenges

Pulse Analysis

The recent Iran‑Israel skirmish exposed a stark weakness in America’s high‑end missile‑defence inventory. Burning through a quarter of the world’s stockpile in less than two weeks highlighted how quickly interceptor reserves can vanish, especially against a foe like China that can launch swarms of cheap missiles and drones. Analysts now argue that relying solely on national procurement will not keep pace with the volume and cost asymmetry of a potential Chinese strike, prompting a shift toward shared regional solutions.

Two concepts emerged from a Track‑2 tabletop in Hawaii that could transform how allies defend the Indo‑Pacific sky. The "Latent Link" model creates a technical backbone for real‑time track sharing among U.S., Japanese, Australian, South Korean and Taiwanese sensors, while each nation retains independent fire‑control authority. By keeping the network dormant in peacetime, political risk is minimized, yet activation can be instantaneous when hostilities erupt. Complementing this, the "Long Sense, Short Defence" framework assigns forward‑deployed, over‑the‑horizon radars to monitor inbound threats and feed high‑quality data to the partner under attack, which concentrates its interceptors on point‑defence. This division of labour maximises early warning and conserves expensive interceptors for high‑value targets.

Implementing these ideas faces hurdles: vast distances, divergent risk appetites, and fragile bilateral ties could stall integration. Nevertheless, incremental steps—joint training, interoperable data‑link standards, and open‑architecture weapons—can build trust and capability without demanding full‑scale command unification. For policymakers, the payoff is a more resilient deterrent posture that leverages collective assets, reduces the probability of interceptor exhaustion, and narrows China’s strategic advantage in the region.