For the JAGM contract, Lockheed provides a 27-month technology development program that includes design, test and demonstration of joint air-to-ground missile system that significantly enhances warfighters operational flexibility and combat effectiveness.
The contracts received in the past month range from providing air-to-ground missiles and missile defense systems to light tactical vehicles that can transport troops safely through combat zones.
Targets selected by the United States since the air operation began Sunday have included air defense facilities, ground-to-air missile sites, and command and control facilities of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and the al Qaeda terror network.
Cue the dispatch of three Japanese destroyers equipped with missile interceptors to the East China Sea near Okinawa, and the positioning of ground-to-air PAC-3 missile-busters on land nearby.
On Friday days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Russian officials in Moscow and raised concerns over Russian arms shipments to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the Kremlin said it would go ahead with deliveries of ground-to-air missile systems for the Assad government.
There are, moreover, other ways to provide such a defense -- notably, from the sea using modified AEGIS fleet air defense ships -- that could enable a national missile defense to be fielded for a fraction of the cost of the ground-based system.