This report explores the strategic significance of air and missile defense for the homeland and develops and costs a defense architecture.
This report provides a fresh assessment of key issues related to boost-phase defense, including the ways missile threats are evolving and broader technological trends.
Today's U.S. missile defense architecture is designed for legacy ballistic missiles, but may be adapted to counter hypersonic threats.
Improved ODI would go a long way to countering modern missile threats. This report examines its benefits, challenges, and the possible road ahead.
The Missile War in Yemen is the first comprehensive review of missile and missile defense activity in the ongoing Yemen conflict.
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
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...
Note: This appears as Chapter 6 in Missile Defense 2020: Next Steps for Defending the Homeland. Future Options This study has so far examined the policy and strategic context for homeland missile defense, the historical background and basis for today’s architecture, the state of GMD today, and currently planned upgrades. We turn now to additional...
Note: This appears as Chapter 4 in Missile Defense 2020: Next Steps for Defending the Homeland. Ground-based Interceptor Development Perhaps the most recognizable component of homeland missile defense is the Ground-based Interceptor (GBI) itself, which represents the product of a long line of hit-to-kill interceptors dating back to the 1980s (Figure 4.1). Many of the...
Note: This appears as Chapter 3 in Missile Defense 2020: Next Steps for Defending the Homeland. The State of Homeland Missile Defense Today Today’s homeland missile defense efforts rest on an integrated system encompassing a wide range of sensors, interceptors, and command and control mechanisms. Since late 2004, these have provided a limited defensive capability...
