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…
Download the PDF The Issue: The Trump administration’s proposed 2020 budget is not a masterpiece for missile defense. Its actions are inadequate to the challenge of complex and integrated air…
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…
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…
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…
The Trump Administration’s proposed FY2018 budget for the Missile Defense Agency was released yesterday with a topline request of $7.9 billion. The amount represents $380 million more than the budget…
In policy pronouncements over the last two administrations, the protection of the American homeland was regularly identified as the first priority of U.S. missile defense efforts. Homeland missile defense today is provided by the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program and other elements of the larger Ballistic Missile Defense System…
The Russian military test-fired two submarine-launched ballistic missiles and a ground-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile in the midst of growing tensions between Moscow and Washington over Syria. The SS-N-23 SLBM launches…