In Depth Analysis, Commentary, and Publications
Several decades ago, former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone once described his country as a “big aircraft carrier” from which to defend against Soviet aircraft. Although such an analogy fails to capture the richness and depth of the U.S-Japan alliance, it did say something important about Japan’s unique geographic and strategic position. Today’s air and...
Later this spring, the Trump administration will release its 2018 Missile Defense Review (MDR), which is expected to better align U.S. missile defense policy with the present security environment. President Barack Obama’s 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review (BMDR) reflected the security environment of the time and the aspirations of the Obama administration. In particular, technological...
The administration’s budget request for FY 2019 prioritizes near-term readiness against limited but growing ballistic missile threats from sources such as North Korea. This choice, however, falls short of connecting missile defense efforts to the reality of renewed great power competition as articulated in the National Defense Strategy.
Recent budget moves will give the U.S. missile defense effort a major boost in funding over the coming year, likely allowing the purchase of additional Ground Based Interceptor missiles on top of the 44 already deployed for use by the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system against ICBMs headed toward the U.S. homeland.
Iran’s missile forces, in tandem with other strategic tools, support a complex national security strategy that both enables the projection of power across the region, and imposes costs on adversaries seeking to directly challenge Iran’s regime.
In a nuclear world, nuclear weapons are needed to deter major attacks, but who should possess these instruments of deterrence? Today the challenge of keeping nonnuclear states from going nuclear may be growing, perhaps nowhere quite as much as in northeast Asia...
Despite the rising salience of missile threats, current air and missile defense forces are far too susceptible to suppression. Today’s U.S. air and missile defense (AMD) force lacks the depth, capacity, and operational flexibility to simultaneously perform both missions
Missile defense funds are likely to grow—a lot. In addition to a September reprogramming of an additional $249 million for the Missile Defense Agency for FY 2017, appropriations for FY 2018 could exceed $11 billion, over $3 billion more than the president's original request. This would make for the highest level of missile defense funding in a decade...
The U.S. Army has been at war continuously for 16 years. New technologies pose new threats and old technologies grow in numbers and capability. If ever the Army were ever to think creatively about how to meet the extraordinary demands it faces, now would be the time.
President Trump’s recent claim that U.S. ballistic-missile defenses are effective “97 percent of the time” has provoked much discussion about the capabilities of one U.S. defense system in particular: Ground-Based Midcourse Defense.
