Defending against hypersonic missiles is strategically necessary, technologically possible, and fiscally affordable, but it will not be easy. Its realization will require different approaches and new ways of thinking from those employed for legacy ballistic and cruise missile defense missions. Hypersonic weapons combine the speed and range of ballistic missiles with the low-altitude and maneuverable...
The 2022 budget request for missile defense and defeat seeks, but does not yet achieve, alignment with the reality of long-term strategic competition.
Whether based on land, aerostats, aircraft, or in orbit, elevated sensors can supplement targeting capabilities.
The Biden administration is expected to release its first budget request for FY 2022 in May. The request marks the first budget since FY 2011 that is not subject to the discretionary spending limits imposed by the Budget Control Act. While the defense budget request for FY 2022 was developed predominantly under the previous administration,...
The 2021 budget submission represents an inflection point for missile defense programs, the relationship between active defenses and other forms of missile defeat, and the institutional makeup of the missile defense enterprise.
In this brief, experts from the CSIS International Security Program outline major issues to watch in the FY 2021 defense budget.
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...
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...
