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.
All figures in millions of dollars. * The Senate NDAA transferred authorization for THAAD O&M and Procurement obligations to the Army. The Senate Appropriations Committee transferred appropriation obligations for Aegis BMD to the Navy and THAAD to the Army. ** Military construction is appropriated by a different subcommittee than the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee. The...
Recent Pentagon actions have produced considerable uncertainty in the future of homeland ballistic missile defense. In August 2019, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Dr. Michael Griffin cancelled the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) program, a long-running effort to replace the kill vehicles on older Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI) designed to defend the nation from a long-range ballistic...
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...
On August 1, Congress passed the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill authorizes a total of $10 billion for the Missile Defense Agency, $51 million more than the Trump Administration request. The authorization includes relative reductions to programs that were forward financed in the final FY 2018 omnibus appropriations bill and supplements...
Rethinking the push for program transfer When the U.S. Missile Defense Agency was created in 2002, the expectation was that it would initially develop missile defense systems but then transfer responsibility for their procurement to the military services that would operate them. The process has not worked out quite as expected. Missile defense capabilities have...
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.
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...
