What happens when the Pentagon’s new ballistic missile defeat program doesn’t work? They keep using the old one, which has a spotty track record.

WASHINGTON: Two days after North Korea’s latest missile launch, the US conducted a successful test of its homeland missile defense system for the first time in almost three years. Codenamed FTG-15, today’s event was also the system’s first test ever against an “ICBM-class” target, as opposed to lesser surrogates, the Missile Defense Agency announced. The painful… Keep reading →

UPDATE MDA Deputy says transfer talks with services “making progress” WASHINGTON: Long-range R&D for missile defense is being squeezed by near-term needs, warns a new report from the Center for Strategic & International Studies. The problem? The duties of the Missile Defense Agency keep expanding even as its budget shrinks. CSIS’s solution? Reform MDA in either… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: In a report out this morning, CSBA scholars Bryan Clark and Mark Gunzinger argue that we don’t just need new technology and new tactics to confront the growing missile threats from China and Russia, though lasers, railguns, and hypervelocity projectiles are all useful. We need a different missile defense mindset than what we have today, one that trusts… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, wants to boost funding for readiness and modernization and he’s using a budgeting gimmick in the defense policy bill to do it that is prompting much head shaking. (A similar gimmick led to a short-lived presidential veto last year). Colin’s bet is that, should the Senate… Keep reading →

Monday marks the beginning of the Army-centric Space and Missile Defense Symposium, an annual conference in Huntsville, Ala.  Here are a few topics likely to generate conference buzz. Missile Defense The Obama administration’s 2016 budget request for missile defense investments went up slightly to $9.6 billion for missile defense development and operations, of which $8.1 billion is for the Missile Defense… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: America’s missile defense strategy is “not sustainable,” the deputy director of the Missile Defense Agency said today. We can’t keep buying multi-million-dollar interceptors to shoot down adversaries’ ever-growing arsenals of much cheaper offensive missiles, said Brig. Gen. Kenneth Todorov. We have to find a better way, Todorov said: lasers, jammers, something. That means… Keep reading →