Videos Show US Destroyers Training To Intercept Ballistic Missiles
"The two destroyers' successful missile intercepts demonstrated the lethality of U.S. Navy systems and the ability to operate seamlessly with Allied nations to maintain a stable security environment," the Europe-headquartered U.S. Sixth Fleet announced on Thursday.
U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers equipped with Aegis weapons systems to provide "integrated air and missile defense," regularly conduct missile tests. As of December 2023, a total of 49 Aegis-equipped ships capable of ballistic missile defense were in service.
The missile intercept drills come as President Donald Trump revealed details of the $175 billion Golden Dome initiative, which aims at "forever ending the missile threat to the [U.S.] homeland" by building a multi-layered defense grid that includes space-based interceptors.
The drills were part of Exercise At Sea Demonstration/Formidable Shield 25 (ASD/FS 25), which has been taking place in the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, and North Atlantic Ocean since May 3. It features air and missile defense drills against a range of threats.
The three-week exercise aims to strengthen NATO interoperability in "a joint, live-fire, Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) environment," using the alliance's command and control reporting structures, according to Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO.
Destroyer USS Thomas Hudner launched a Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) at a short-range ballistic missile target on May 15. Five days later, it and its sister ship, USS Bulkeley, intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile target and a simulated target using a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor. Targets in both drills were "successfully engaged."
According to U.S. major defense contractor Raytheon, the SM-3 is designed to destroy short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles, while the SM-6 is described as "three missiles in one," capable of conducting anti-air, anti-surface, and ballistic missile defense missions.
Depending on its variant, the SM-3 has an estimated range of 434 to 1,550 miles, while the multifunctional SM-6 has a reported range of up to 290 miles, according to specialist outlets Naval News and Breaking Defense. The actual ranges of these missiles remain classified.
As of last October, five U.S. Navy anti-ballistic missile destroyers were homeported in Spain, providing "full coverage and protection" for NATO European countries against the threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles.
The U.S. Sixth Fleet said: "ASD/FS 25 includes a series of live-fire events against unmanned air and surface systems, subsonic, supersonic, and ballistic targets, incorporating multiple Allied ships, multi-nation/multi-service ground-based air defenses, and aviation forces working across battlespaces to deliver lethal effects, accomplish exercise objectives, and hone warfighting skills."
Captain Michael Dwan, commander of the Task Group 154.64 and Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (STRIKFORNATO)'s U.S. Maritime Ballistic Missile Defense Assets Adviser, said: "Exercises like ASD/FS are critical for refining our collective integrated air and missile defense capabilities, ensuring we can respond effectively to any threat from any direction and maintain a credible deterrent posture."
The U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported that a sixth destroyer based in Spain is scheduled to arrive at its new home port next year. These forward-deployed warships are intended to defend Europe against ballistic missile attacks from countries such as Iran.
Related Articles
India Ready to Raise US Oil Imports in Boost for TrumpMinuteman III vs Yars: US ICBM Passes Test Days After Russian Launch FlopsChinese Satellites Capture US Bombers and Jets at Island Air BaseNew US-Iran Nuclear Talks as Tensions Rise
2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jeanine Pirro confirmed as U.S. attorney for D.C. as Trump and Democrats trade barbs
WASHINGTON — Former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro won Senate approval to become U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia on August 2 as Republicans raced during a weekend session to confirm a long list of President Donald Trump's nominees. Pirro was confirmed in a party-line vote, 51-45. Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego and Peter Welch did not cast votes. The conservative television star has been serving in the role on an interim basis since May, when Trump withdrew his previous nominee, Ed Martin, amid Republican criticism of Martin's support for Jan. 6 rioters. Trump granted clemency to the rioters on his first day in office. Pirro was the elected district attorney in Westchester County, New York, and a county judge before she joined Fox. She hosted "Justice with Judge Jeanine" on the network for 11 years and was named in a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems that ended in a $787.5 million settlement. More: 'Judge Jeanine' Pirro pushed election falsehoods. She's Trump's pick for D.C. prosecutor. Days before Pirro's confirmation, Trump directed lawmakers to postpone their summer recess and clear a backlog of nominees whose confirmations had been delayed by Democrats over objections to his agenda, including judicial nominees. The president reversed course amid the marathon vote session on Aug. 2 . In a post on Trump Social, Trump accused Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of "demanding over One Billion Dollars in order to approve a small number of our highly qualified nominees." "This demand is egregious and unprecedented, and would be embarrassing to the Republican Party if it were accepted," Trump wrote. "It is political extortion, by any other name. Tell Schumer, who is under tremendous political pressure from within his own party, the Radical Left Lunatics, to GO TO HELL! Do not accept the offer, go home and explain to your constituents what bad people the Democrats are, and what a great job the Republicans are doing, and have done, for our Country." Schumer blasted Trump at a late-night news conference, where he accused the GOP president of throwing in the towel "in a fit of rage" and refusing to negotiate. Contributing: Erin Mansfield and Aysha Bagchi This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Senate confirms Trump pick Jeanine Pirro as U.S. attorney for D.C.
San Francisco Chronicle
38 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Can Trump eliminate the NEA? Experts sound off
President Donald Trump and his supporters may finally make their decadeslong right-wing fantasy of dismantling the National Endowment for the Arts come true. In the most aggressive move in years, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies recently proposed a 35% cut to the agency that underwrites theater, dance, classical music, visual art and more nationwide. And it's just the latest blow in a brutal year for the arts in the U.S. In February, the NEA abruptly closed a grant category, Challenge America, dedicated to underserved communities. Shortly after, Trump took control of the Kennedy Center. By May, the administration took the unprecedented step of terminating grants for projects it deemed counter to priorities, such as those promoting diversity, equity and inclusion or 'gender ideology' — dozens of them in the Bay Area. To many, this could possibly mark the beginning of the end of the 60-year-old agency. 'It feels as if the current administration is trying to finally eradicate the NEA and the NEH,' Ralph Remington, director of cultural affairs at the San Francisco Arts Commission and a former NEA director of theater and musical theater, told the Chronicle, referring to the similarly targeted National Endowment for the Humanities. 'We rarely ever see grants pulled midstream from any source — government or private foundations,' he added, dubbing it 'highly possible' that the NEA would cease to exist. But Jay Dick, senior director of advocacy and partnerships in the government affairs department at Americans for the Arts, sees the situation differently. While a reduction like the proposed 35% cut is very possible, he conceded, the endowment's wholesale annihilation is unlikely. For one, the president can propose any budget he wants, but Congress controls the purse strings — though that constraint is being tested. Since 2023, Trump has touted a fringe legal theory that would allow him to unilaterally reject Congress' budget allocations, and his second term is becoming a laboratory for how far he can push it. Secondly, since the so-called NEA Four — performance artists Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck and Holly Hughes — had their grants vetoed in 1990 over concerns about outré subject matter, the agency transformed its funding priorities to head off further right-wing criticism. For years now, its dollars have reached every congressional district in the U.S., not just those populated by coastal elites. That means that the last time Congress debated cutting the NEA, during a House session last year on a spending bill for the Department of the Interior, both a Democrat and a Republican opposed the idea. Even if they're more amenable to cuts this year, their reasoning remains telling. 'I'm not worried about the arts in Washington or in New York or in Los Angeles, but I'm worried about the arts in Shelley, Idaho,' Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said from the floor last July. Indeed, wealthy places like the Bay Area have other arts funders, but 'If you go to Wyoming, go inland a little bit, oftentimes the NEA is the only game in town,' Dick said. Members of Congress from those districts are loath to take the blame for wiping out a beloved local museum or theater. On the other hand, similar thinking had long helped sustain federal support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund NPR and PBS — until last week, when Congress cut $1.1 billion to the entity. If it's possible for Trump's influence to upend decades of precedent in that arena, the NEA and the nation's arts nonprofits seem all the more vulnerable. In any case, Dick added, the NEA's spending amounts to 'budget dust on the federal level.' No cuts there will make a dent in the budget deficit, which appears likely to skyrocket with the tax cuts in Trump's so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill.' For arts supporters, being honest about the NEA's role is a tricky balance. While the agency's support to any single Bay Area organization makes up only a small fraction of that grantee's total budget — leaders at Opera Parallèle and New Conservatory Theatre Center both told the Chronicle they will not go under as a result of terminated grants — the funds still matter. 'It helps us leverage, raise monies from other sources,' NCTC Artistic Director Ed Decker said. The theater's cancelled $20,000 NEA grant pays for less than 1% of its annual budget, but other philanthropists see it as what Remington called a 'Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.' Other funders, Dick pointed out, don't always have the resources or expertise to assess arts organizations. NEA uncertainty coincides with arts funding turmoil at the state and local levels. The Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund was on the chopping block under Gov. Gavin Newsom's May budget proposal, though this month state lawmakers restored that funding. Oakland has both slashed its arts funding and eliminated its cultural affairs manager position. San Francisco canceled Dream Keeper Initiative grant agreements and announced restructuring Grants for the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission and the San Francisco Film Commission as a single superagency, all while requiring more paperwork from SFAC grantees. A February report from the think tank the Urban Institute — 'What Is the Financial Risk of Nonprofits Losing Government Grants?' — illustrates what's at stake. In nine Bay Area counties, 69% of nonprofit arts organizations would be in the red without government support. The picture gets even bleaker when considering that private philanthropy is unlikely to be a stopgap, according to data from nationwide funders association Grantmakers in the Arts. From 2000 to 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, arts funding as a percentage of total philanthropy shrank by more than 5%. 'All the foundations in the U.S. cannot make up for public investment in the arts,' GIA founder and CEO Eddie Torres told the Chronicle. 'This is particularly true in rural and remote communities and for communities of color, where public funding tends to be their primary source of income.' But Mary Anne Carter, Trump's nominee to head the NEA, has not endeared herself to Bay Area grantees. In March, David Mack, co-founder of grantee Artist Magnet Justice Alliance in Oakland, saw Carter speak at an unrecorded seminar hosted by Creative West, which serves artists and arts agencies in the Western United States. He and fellow attendee Mariana Moscoso, who's based in Sacramento, said they recalled Carter making several controversial remarks. According to their accounts, Carter began her appearance by alluding to the notion that discriminating against white people is against the law, using her white daughter's workshop attendance at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as an example of an organization's anti-discrimination. She also named Elvis Presley, the musical 'Oklahoma!' and American jazz as examples of American heritage — attributing jazz's origins in 'Northern Irish dance, also in Western African dance.' When asked about 'gender ideology,' the subject of a Trump executive order, Carter reportedly responded by saying, 'There are only two biological genders. It's man, or it's woman. So if you're not one of those, I don't know what to tell you.' Moscoso, who's nonbinary, told the Chronicle, 'That phrase was a form of institutional erasure to me.' The Chronicle reached out via email to the NEA's public affairs department, which responded without a name in its signature. (The staff page on the NEA's website does not name individual employees.) 'We consistently have made the point that nondiscrimination laws apply equally to all races,' the response reads. The NEA's public affairs office defended Carter's remark about Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, stating it served 'as an example of an organization that may apply because it does not exclude a specific group from participation.' It also said that Carter's examples of American heritage were not meant to be comprehensive, adding, 'Any reference to American jazz dance was made solely to emphasize its multifaceted origins.' As Bay Area artists try to move forward amid this political and financial uncertainty, it's possible audiences will see more closures and leaner operations among the organizations that stay afloat. More teamwork is also likely. In American Conservatory Theater's next season, for instance, other theater companies are involved — whether as a cost-sharing co-production or otherwise — in all six shows. Emiko Ono, who directs the performing arts program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, takes some heart in seeing how her grantees are banding together, noting how Julie Phelps of CounterPulse recently asked Ono's foundation how it could help the region's broader dance community be more resilient together. 'That's a very different ask than 'Can you please help backfill this NEA grant?'' Ono explained. 'I think people know — philanthropy included — that there's not enough money to backfill what's going on right now, and there's an appetite brewing around, 'What are the long-term solutions?'' For their part, artists continue to vow to fight. 'If we just get caught up in how traumatic this is … they win,' said Los Angeles playwright Eric Reyes Loo, whose NEA grant for 'Simple Mexican Pleasures' at NCTC was canceled. 'The work has to be louder and browner and queerer and more female-centric and more empowered than ever.' Conductor Nicole Paiement, who's the founder and artistic director at Opera Parallèle, pointed out that the project her terminated grant was intended to support might suggest a way forward. Referencing an aria in the opera 'Harvey Milk Reimagined,' which had its West Coast premiere in June, a just-elected Mayor George Moscone (Matt Boehler) sings, 'Thank you for voting for what San Francisco looks like,' celebrating the diversity of winning candidates in that year's election. 'They did it then, and we will do it again,' Paiement said. 'It is a perfect city to lead the way.'
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
'DO YOUR JOB': Trump urges senators to skip summer break
WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump again called for senators to stay in town and bypass their usual, month-long summer break to push through a backlog of judicial confirmations. "The Senate must stay in Session, taking no recess, until the entire Executive Calendar is CLEAR!!!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post July 31. "Republicans, for the health and safety of the USA, DO YOUR JOB, and confirm All Nominees," he added. "They should NOT BE FORCED TO WAIT." As August approached, Republicans had a logjam of at least 130 nominees, according to Politico. Normally, the process of confirming most lower-level judicial nominees would move at a faster pace with some bipartisan agreement moving things along. But this year, Democrats are dragging their feet, frustrated by Republicans advancing Trump's agenda items like a sweeping tax bill and $9 billion in spending cuts. The delays have frustrated Trump, who called earlier in July for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, to cancel the chamber's August recess. The president also lashed out on social media against Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, urging the Senate Judiciary Committee chair to ditch a longstanding confirmation practice to expedite the process. "Senator Grassley must step up," Trump wrote in a July 29 post. "He should do this, IMMEDIATELY, and not let the Democrats laugh at him and the Republican Party for being weak and ineffective." Grassley said the next day during a committee hearing he was "offended by what the president said" and "disappointed that it would result in personal insults." To progress through Trump's list of nominees, Thune has left the door open to cutting into senators' break, along with other options such as changing Senate rules. 'I think everything is on the table,' Thune told reporters July 31. Lawmakers often use their beloved summer breaks to return home and reconnect with constituents in person. The prospect of staying extra days or weeks in Washington would likely be met with resistance from members on both sides of the aisle. However, some senators say they would be willing to stick around as needed. 'I'm for staying and doing what we need to do,' Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, told USA TODAY. 'They pay us to work. They don't pay us to go home and sit for a month.' This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump urges senators to skip recess and confirm more judicial nominees
