As missile threats evolve and the Arctic grows more accessible, defense leaders are rethinking what it takes to protect the homeland in the High North. Speaking on a recent Red Hat Government Symposium panel, “Missile Defense in the Digital Age,” experts underscored that the next generation of missile defense will depend on artificial intelligence (AI)-ready data, resilient networks, and close cooperation among allies.
Stephen Gordon, strategic accounts director at Red Hat and a national security fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, moderated the discussion with Col. Arnel David, Task Force Maven director at NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, and Troy Boufard, director of the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a research fellow at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
The conversation spanned changing threat vectors, gaps in Arctic domain awareness, and how allied and industry partnerships can help build a multi-layered defense architecture.
Defending against hypersonic missiles
During the Cold War, the Arctic region was seen primarily as a corridor for ballistic missiles. With the development of hypersonic cruise missiles, that’s no longer the full picture, Boufard noted.
“The threat is changing,” he said. “What used to be the threat from the Cold War and the Arctic as the shortest avenue of approach for ballistic missiles has now become the shortest avenue of approach for hypersonic cruise missiles, [a] completely different threat that’s going to engulf us for decades and decades. So we need to have this discussion.”
Those hypersonic threats demand faster sensing and decision-making than legacy architectures can support. That’s where AI and modern data infrastructure come in.
From his seat leading Task Force Maven in NATO, David framed Project Maven, an effort to integrate AI and machine learning into defense programs, as a vehicle for digital transformation.
“I think our mission … is to just drive, to fundamentally drive a digital transformation to make the alliance more data-centric,” he said. “It’s exciting.”
That data-centric approach, he added, is laying the groundwork for future AI applications that can compress timelines from detection to decision across the kill web.
Closing the Arctic domain awareness gap
AI may be positioned as an intelligent engine of future missile defense, but today, the Arctic’s sensors and networks are playing catch-up, the experts said. Boufard stressed that basic domain awareness remains a challenge at the top of the world.
“Since satellites don’t work up here, we’ve got to figure out how to use all the other sensors, right?” he said. “And as Arnel said, we’re going to need AI to help do that. These are very different tools to be used for time-sensitive decision-making … Something has to aggregate those and then see things that human beings can’t see through all of that data and give us that common operating picture that we need.”
Because geosynchronous satellites can’t cover far northern latitudes, defense planners are looking to a mix of polar-orbiting assets and non-traditional sensors: over-the-horizon radar, maritime and subsurface systems, fiber-sensing along undersea cables, and human reporting. The challenge is knitting it all together securely, David said.
“Integrating those sensors that we need to pull into, not just Maven, but writ large … it’s critical that we figure out how do we to get to some kind of zero trust environment and to do things like data-centric security so that that data is protected,” he said.
Industry experience with data-centric security, zero trust, and hyperscale cloud architectures will be important as NATO and national commands work to scale out digital infrastructure, David noted.
Coordinating across allies and simulating challenges
The Arctic’s defense challenges do not stop at sophisticated missile threats. Melting sea ice is opening new sea lanes and increasing commercial and scientific activity, raising the stakes for both civil security and military operations.
“On a day-to-day basis, what are our real concerns? It’s civil security,” Boufard said. “It’s … [potential] disasters and emergencies.”
The combination of strategic competition and climate-driven change makes allied coordination essential. David pointed to growing cooperation among Nordic nations, NATO maritime commands, and U.S. Northern Command to align command-and-control architectures and share sensor coverage across the wider North Atlantic and Arctic region.
Wargaming using modeling and simulation is becoming a key tool to prepare for specific challenges. For example, teams with Fight Club International, a global wargaming network founded by David, are experimenting with commercial off-the-shelf simulation tools and large language models in mixed analog-digital wargames.
“If you’re participating in the games or looking at the simulations and seeing what’s coming out from the analysis … you’re starting to get a better understanding of the problem,” he said.
For Federal IT and defense technology leaders, the message from the panel was clear: building an effective, multi-layered missile defense system for the Arctic era will require AI-ready data foundations, innovative sensing strategies, and deep collaboration across government, allies, and industry.
To hear the full conversation, including additional discussion on AI, data, and allied cooperation in the High North, watch the “Missile Defense in the Digital Age” panel on demand, and explore more sessions from the Red Hat Government Symposium.