July 1, 2016

Securing the Third Offset Strategy: Priorities for the Next Secretary of Defense

Following a process of examining strategy, scenarios, and assessments, this article identifies for the next Secretary of Defense eight capability statements that merit attention as the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) top new investment priorities as part of the Third Offset Strategy in the fiscal year 2018 budget and beyond. Additionally, this article recommends that reforms to the analytical processes informing force planning decisions in general and the Third Offset Strategy in particular be guided by increased selectivity, transparency, and commonality.

July 1, 2015

Understanding the Indications and Warning Efforts of U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense

The critical mission of defending the U.S. homeland—homeland defense—requires a fully integrated capability to identify, categorize, and fuse strategic and tactical indications and warnings (I&W) by U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), and U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM). Today’s fiscally constrained environment may encourage decisionmakers to eliminate perceived I&W “redundancies” and create an I&W stovepipe for weapons release authorities (WRAs). In a mission area where time is of the essence and failure would result in grave damage to national security, such an arrangement would create an unacceptable risk to homeland defense.

Dec. 30, 2014

Seeing 2020: America's New Vision for Integrated Air and Missile Defense

On December 5, 2013, with the stroke of a pen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey profoundly altered the U.S. approach to the pressing problem of air and missile defense. On that date—coincidentally, 70 years to the day after the U.S. Army Air Corps began Operation Crossbow, the Anglo-American bombing campaign against Adolf Hitler’s V-1 and V-2 missile forces and a missile defense milestone—General Dempsey signed the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense: Vision 2020.1 This seminal document for air and missile defense (AMD) outlines the Chairman’s guidance to the joint force and, by extension, to all the stakeholders that contribute to the air and missile defense of the U.S. homeland and its regional forces, partners, and allies. What makes the new vision both exceptionally timely and highly relevant is that it accounts for the volatility and reality of 21st-century strategic and threat environments characterized more often than not by rapid, enigmatic change.

April 1, 2014

Silent Watch: The Role of Army Air and Missile Defense

The Army’s G-3/5/7 represents Army air and missile defense (AMD) interests and understands that threats that have evolved in capability, complexity, and capacity; a defense strategy and policy that rely on an enduring deterrence capability; and an increasing need to maintain joint operational access to distant regions ensure its importance.

Jan. 1, 2010

U.S. Withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty

As President George W. Bush made these remarks in a speech at the National Defense University (NDU) on May 1, 2001, National Security Council (NSC) Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation, and Homeland Defense Robert Joseph listened attentively. Within just 4 months of taking office, President Bush was articulating one of his key national security priorities: setting the conditions for the United States to move full steam ahead on developing, testing, and eventually deploying a wide range of missile defense technologies and systems—a priority that in all likelihood would mean U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.

June 1, 2002

Toward Missile Defenses from the Sea

The authors argue for the sea basing of national defenses against intercontinental ballistic missiles and for the construction of a new type of ship designed solely for that purpose.