Objectives / Programme committee

In the past 2 years, we have witnessed an evolution of the air and missile threats, through their use in the context of different conflicts. The combination of various threats – UAS, rockets, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles – is a reality in Ukraine, in the Middle- East and in the Red Sea by the Houthis attacks on maritime traffic. This demonstrates the reality of high intensity scenarios where sophisticated weapons are operated together with more widespread civil and military technologies used in a very pragmatic and practical manner.

Outside conflicts, demonstration of force with ballistic, hypersonic or cruise missiles and UAS continue in different areas of the planet, with a strong increase in the past 4 years.
It is now clear that air and missile defence must be integrated and that quantity, accuracy, and adaptability are key requirements for defence architectures. Fighters and SBAMD in the land and sea domains need to combine their forces (Rational Surface Based Missile Defence includes the former GBAD and NBAD) to enhance collaborative defence, scale up AI based networked sensors capacities, increase fire power, increase flight domain and smart manoeuvrability of effectors, to face an enemy that can also mix fighters with missiles and UAS to adapt its tactics and saturate defences.
Linked to these developments, the air and missile defence landscape is changing with the emergence of new industrial and state actors.

The 16th 3AF Integrated Air and Missile Defence conference will take place in
Thessaloniki (Greece) from May 13 to 15, 2025.

The air and missile defence community, policy makers, warfighters, procurement agencies and industry, has therefore an increasingly difficult challenge to anticipate likely evolutions and adapt as fast as possible to the current and evolving threat.
Industry and stake holders have to be inventive, propose fast evolutions of systems while looking to the longer term. The answer to the threat is not a unique and performant effector, or sensor or C2 … but the integration or interoperability of systems. Building blocks are being developed by Nations, on their own, in bilateral or multilateral cooperation, within NATO and the EU or through ad hoc initiatives. International cooperation is indeed key to address the technical, operational and budget challenges.
The 3AF Integrated Air and Missile Defence conference continues to support these efforts, providing a stage to share and promote collective technical, policy, and operational vision.
The conference will host a mix of technical and non-technical sessions, presenting contributed and invited papers to discuss Integrated Air and Missile Defence challenges. VIPs will provide unique insights into IAMD policies and priorities, many existing IAMD programs will provide a status update, and specific plenary sessions will focus on some of the hot topics for the community. Supported by industry, the conference includes an exhibition where companies can display their systems and technologies. It is a sound opportunity to meet customers, suppliers and decision-makers, to exchange facts and opinions, to initiate and develop business and to listen to papers presented by world experts meeting face to face on IAMD challenges.

We sincerely hope to see you again in May 2025 to continue our fruitful discussions!

Yannick DEVOUASSOUX, Luc DINI & Pierre ROTY
16^th 3AF International Conference on Integrated Air and Missile Defence IAMD16
Programme Committee co-chairs

Programme committee