In Depth Analysis, Commentary, and Publications
Originally published in The Hill. The attacks on the oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in Saudi Arabia are neon flashing warning signs of the threat presented by the proliferation of low flying precision guided weapons like drones and cruise missiles. These attacks were highly successful, despite the apparent presence of air defenses. This illustrates...
New missile defense plans depend upon the success or failure of one thing: a new layer of space-based sensors. At the January release of his administration’s new missile defense policy review, President Donald Trump announced the beginning of a “new era” for missile defense. To be sure, a new period of missile threats has already...
Tensions with Iran are once again increasing. The slow implosion of the nuclear accord, Iran’s harassment of cargo ships, and the downing of a U.S. unmanned aircraft have made plain the risk of conflict between Iran and the United States. The dispute should also draw attention to the questionable preparedness of the United States and...
Tensions with Iran are once again high, making plain the risk of unexpected conflict between Iran and the United States. In the event of such a conflict, the United States would likely rely heavily on regional missile defense architectures like the European Phased Adaptive Approach, or EPAA, designed to protect NATO from ballistic missile attacks...
Next week, people from across the missile defense community will gather at an annual symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, to consider how to adapt U.S. missile defense efforts to the challenge of renewed competition with Russia and China. A centerpiece of their discussions will be the emergence of advanced hypersonic missile threats and what to do...
On July 12, Turkey received the first elements of the S-400, a fourth-generation surface-to-air Russian missile system. Few recent weapon sales have been as geopolitically charged as this one. U.S. officials have threatened both military and economic sanctions should Turkey acquire the Russian system. The delivery comes after many years of negotiations for more advanced...
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan has warned that the U.S. has come to take military superiority for granted, as a kind of birthright. Perhaps no aspect of military superiority has been taken for granted in the post-Cold War period more than air superiority. With the return of great-power competition and the renewed need to...
Like its three predecessors, the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review reaffirmed the need for the nuclear triad of bombers, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Now comes the hard part. With the authorization and appropriation cycle for fiscal 2020 now underway, the United States is moving closer to the coming bow wave of modernization efforts...
The 2018 National Defense Strategy calls renewed strategic competition with major powers the central challenge of our time. The 2019 Missile Defense Review (MDR) represents the Trump administration’s attempt to adapt US missile defense policy, posture, and programs to this challenge. Upon the document’s public release in January 2019, President Trump stated that it marked...
Just over a year ago, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan announced that the 2020 defense budget would be the “masterpiece” that would finally align Pentagon spending with the new direction of the National Defense Strategy. The release of the new budget follows the January 2019 release of the Missile Defense Review, which laid out...
