Author:
Tom Karako

66 items, Page 6 of 7

Missile Defense Budget Trends

Explore high resolution graphs analyzing decades of U.S. missile defense budget trends featured in the CSIS report The Missile Defense Agency and the Color of Money: Fewer Resources, More Responsibilities, and a Growing Budget Squeeze. Click on the graphs to access the full resolution image.   

The Dirty Secret of US-Israel Missile Defense Cooperation

We need a way to fund Israel’s missile defenses without undercutting our own. This weekend, the acting head of Israel’s National Security Council will visit Washington, reportedly to conclude a new multi-year aid package. Replacing an arrangement set to expire in 2018, the deal is expected to include hundreds of millions of dollars for Israeli...

FY17 Budget Squeezes MDA’s Research and Development

The recently released $7.5 billion FY17 budget request for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) represents an $822 million reduction from last year’s enacted budget. These cuts are essentially divided between procurement ($501 million) and research and development ($322 million) as compared to the $8.3 billion MDA budget enacted by Congress for FY16. While cutbacks to...

What North Korea’s Latest Missile Test Means for the US and Its Allies

The Unha launch is hardly the basis for panic, but it is time for certain measures to ensure security and stability. Coming on the heels of the North’s fourth nuclear detonation, the launch reflects both continued technical advances and their sustained ICBM ambitions. These recent events mean that active measures to counter North Korea’s missile program will likely take on renewed importance.

North Korea’s February 2016 Satellite Launch

On the morning of February 7, North Korea launched an Unha-type rocket, headed due south. The rocket then apparently orbited an “earth observation satellite” called Kwangmyongsong-4 (lode star), reportedly weighing 200 kilograms, about twice the size of a satellite by the same name orbited in December 2012...

LRSO: Underappreciated Component of 21st Century Deterrence

The U.S. Air Force awarded a much-anticipated contract for the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) last month, a critical platform to support both conventional missions and nuclear deterrence. Much remains to be done to deliver a nuclear-capable LRSB on budget and on schedule. Beyond the LRSB and the B61-12 gravity bomb life extension, however, modernization...

European Missile Defense after Ukraine and the Iran Deal

With the conclusion of a joint plan of action for Iran’s nuclear program, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of Russia has returned to his favorite talking point: that NATO should scale back missile defenses. NATO should do nothing of the sort. Not only does the Iran deal not roll back the most numerous and diverse missile...

Sustaining Nuclear Deterrence Requires New Capabilities

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter recently visited Berlin to assure allies that the US would deter aggression. NATO leaders are worried that Russia might invade the Baltics in a Crimea-style fait accompli, and then threaten nuclear escalation unless the alliance backs down. Moscow’s treaty violations and “nuclear sabre rattling,” Carter warned, raise “questions about Russia’s...