Nipp
Nipp
Defending America: The Next Steps in Homeland Missile Defense
David J. Trachtenberg
David J. Trachtenberg is Vice President of the National Institute for Public Policy. Previously, he served as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
Introduction
Among the more consequential decisions the second Trump Administration must confront is whether to allow America’s continued vulnerability to coercive nuclear threats from China and Russia to remain unchallenged or to take steps to mitigate and alleviate the threats to the U.S. homeland posed by both countries’ growing nuclear arsenals.
Both China and Russia are seeking to overturn the established international order and displace the United States from the position of global dominance it has held since the end of World War II. And the growing entente between Beijing and Moscow, augmented by increasing cooperation and collaboration with the likes of North Korea and Iran, suggest that the United States has entered a period of unprecedented vulnerability to the whims of malignant actors. In this dangerous environment, President Trump must seriously rethink whether it makes sense to continue to leave the American people vulnerable to Chinese and Russian nuclear threats or whether it is time to move forward—deliberately and with all due urgency—to build and deploy defenses that can not only help deter potential aggression against the U.S. homeland but can also help protect Americans from nuclear Armageddon should deterrence fail.
It will take determined leadership and a solid commitment to overturn obsolete Cold War orthodoxy—accompanied by adequate funding to translate policies into programmatic reality—to implement the necessary adjustments to U.S. missile defense posture, and to do so with the urgency required. President Trump has already taken the first step in this direction by issuing an Executive Order on January 27, 2025, calling for an “Iron Dome for America” and the deployment of a “next-generation missile defense shield” to defend the United States against all types of missile attacks from both rogue states and peer and near-peer adversaries.[1] This now must be followed by the allocation of sufficient budgetary resources to implement the president’s direction and to do so with alacrity.
Evolution of the Threat
Over the past several decades, the missile threat to the United States has evolved in ways that complicate defense of the homeland. Ballistic missiles have been seen as the weapon of choice for states seeking to reign terror upon an adversary, as they are difficult to counter. Today, more than 30 countries possess ballistic missiles of varying ranges and capabilities. Yet, the ballistic missile threat has been augmented by newer, more sophisticated, types of missiles that are even more difficult to counter. These include hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles, and other types of unmanned aerial systems like drones. As the 2022 Missile Defense Review noted, “missile-related threats have rapidly expanded in quantity, diversity and sophistication. U.S. national security interests are increasingly at risk from wide-ranging missile arsenals that include offensive ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic weapons….”[2] And as one former Biden Administration official put it more starkly in congressional testimony, “Offensive missiles are increasingly weapons of choice for Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, for use in conflict and to coerce and intimidate their neighbors.”[3]
The growing threat of faster, longer-range, and more deadly ballistic, cruise, hypersonic, and other unmanned missiles and systems means that the United States is increasingly at risk of more complex missile attacks, including those employing sophisticated countermeasures. As one study concluded:
Defenses for the homeland have largely focused on long-range ballistic threats, while cruise missile defense and other air defense efforts have focused on regional and force protection applications to the exclusion of the homeland. The lingering homeland-regional dichotomy creates a vulnerability that near-peer adversaries are seeking to exploit.[4]
Consequently, missile defense of the U.S. homeland must address these multiple types of threats, either singly or in combination, on an urgent basis.
In 2023, the congressionally mandated, bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission concluded that “to date the United States has chosen to not build homeland missile defenses against major powers. U.S. homeland IAMD [integrated air and missile defense] capabilities do not adequately protect the critical infrastructure necessary to project power and avoid coercion in light of growing Russian and Chinese nuclear and conventional strike threats.”[5] Consequently, the Commission recommended that the United States “develop and field homeland IAMD capabilities that can deter and defeat coercive attacks by Russia and China,”[6] and proposed that:
The Secretary of Defense direct research, development, test and evaluation into advanced IAMD capabilities leveraging all domains, including land, sea, air, and space. These activities should focus on sensor architectures, integrated command and control, interceptors, cruise and hypersonic missile defenses, and area or point defenses. The DOD should urgently pursue deployment of any capabilities that prove feasible.[7]
The Trump Administration should publicly endorse the bipartisan conclusions of the Strategic Posture Commission and move out expeditiously to enhance U.S. missile defense capabilities in light of the growing missile threat to the homeland.
From Mutual Vulnerability to Defense Against Rogue State Missile Threats
During the Cold War, U.S. policy makers assumed that the best way to prevent nuclear war was to remain vulnerable to the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. Any U.S. action that would appear to the Soviets to undermine their own nuclear deterrent was considered provocative and destabilizing. This was the environment that led to the negotiation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 1972—a treaty that was intended to codify a mutual hostage relationship between the United States and Soviet Union and a relationship that became known as Mutual Assured Destruction—in order to decrease the risk that either side would strike the other first given the risk of retaliation in kind.
The ABM Treaty prohibited nationwide missile defense, and the United States quickly abandoned its sole missile defense site at Grand Forks, North Dakota. It was not until 30 years later that President George W. Bush announced the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in order to allow a limited defense against possible rogue state (e.g., North Korean) missile attack. Despite the U.S. withdrawal, American missile defense policy has remained relatively consistent throughout subsequent administrations.
The Obama Administration continued to foreswear the development of U.S. missile defense capabilities that could be useful to deter or defeat coercive missile strikes from either China or Russia in the belief that neither great power posed a significant nuclear threat to the United States and that both Moscow and Beijing would adopt a more benign security posture and take a more cooperative stance toward the United States. The 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report noted, “Today, only Russia and China have the capability to conduct a large-scale ballistic missile attack on the territory of the United States, but this is very unlikely and not the focus of U.S. BMD. As the President has made clear, both Russia and China are important partners for the future, and the United States seeks to continue building collaborative and cooperative relationships with them.”[8] Further, it stated:
As the United States has stated in the past, the homeland missile defense capabilities are focused on regional actors such as Iran and North Korea. While the [Ground-Based Midcourse Defense] GMD system would be employed to defend the United States against limited missile launches from any source, it does not have the capacity to cope with large scale Russian or Chinese missile attacks, and is not intended to affect the strategic balance with those countries.[9]
The first term Trump Administration’s missile defense policy also acknowledged that the rudimentary U.S. missile defense capability was insufficient to defend the homeland against the larger and more sophisticated ballistic missile arsenals of Russia and China. However, unlike previous Missile Defense Reviews (MDRs), the Trump MDR did not, as a matter of policy, state that the United States would not seek to improve U.S. missile defense capabilities to defend against Russia or China in order to preserve “strategic stability.” In fact, the term “strategic stability” did not appear at all in the 2019 MDR.
Nevertheless, the 2019 MDR fell short of President Trump’s own description of what U.S. missile defense policy should be. In a speech at the Pentagon to unveil the MDR, Trump stated, “Our goal is simple: to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States — anywhere, anytime, anyplace.” He also stated that “Regardless of the missile type or the geographic origins of the attack, we will ensure that enemy missiles find no sanctuary on Earth or in the skies above.” To help achieve this objective, he declared that the United States “will invest in a space-based missile defense layer.”[10] In reality, however, U.S. missile defense programs remained limited in scope, directed toward defeating rogue state missile threats, and lacked a space-based defensive component other than sensors.
The Biden Administration’s 2022 Missile Defense Review maintained a prohibition against expanding U.S. homeland missile defense posture to defend against coercive nuclear strikes from China or Russia, despite noting that China “has dramatically advanced its development of conventional and nuclear-armed ballistic and hypersonic missile technologies and capabilities,” and acknowledging that Russia “has prioritized modernization of its intercontinental range missile systems and is developing, testing, and deploying new, diversified capabilities that pose new challenges to missile warning and defense of the U.S. homeland.”[11] The Biden Administration’s refusal to adapt U.S. missile defense policy to the emerging Russian and Chinese missile threats it identified highlighted a significant disconnect between an acknowledgment of those threats and the U.S. response. It now falls to the second Trump Administration to correct a Cold War policy that has survived through the post-Cold War era and is in need of significant modification.
The Benefits of Homeland Missile Defense
Despite the views of those who still cling to the erroneous Cold War belief that homeland missile defenses would be destabilizing, provocative, prohibitively costly, technologically infeasible, and strategically unnecessary, there are numerous benefits that would accrue to the United States by having a more robust and resilient defense against missile attack. In the face of growing nuclear threats, an expanded U.S. homeland missile defense posture makes strategic sense.[12] It would complicate the attack calculus of any aggressor contemplating a potential attack against the United States.[13] It would also diminish the value of adversary coercive nuclear threats or threats to engage in limited nuclear strikes. Moreover, given the heightened threat environment, there is always the risk that deterrence might fail—by design, accident, or miscalculation.
Protecting the homeland against the failure of deterrence by the deployment of more robust active missile defenses would not only save lives but is the morally justifiable and prudent course of action in an increasingly dangerous and uncertain geo-strategic environment.
The Role of Congress
The U.S. Congress has responsibility for authorizing and appropriating funds for defense programs. Yet, the Congress also has the power to create or modify policy and has done so numerous times with respect to U.S. missile defense policy. Despite repeated legislative language over the years favoring effective, layered missile defense capabilities and multiple expressions of congressional support for more robust homeland missile defense capabilities, little has been done to implement congressional directives. Although some upgrades have occurred and additional more modern interceptors are planned, the U.S. homeland missile defense program remains essentially unchanged from the initial deployment of 44 Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) that began in 2004. While some capability enhancements have been made, protection of the U.S. homeland from ballistic missile threats remains focused on a limited number of terrestrial-based mid-course and terminal phase interceptors. The United States has not moved forward with a space-based intercept component to counter ballistic missiles in their boost or ascent phases. Nor (with the exception of support for defense against cruise missiles)[14] has it sought to develop or deploy more capable active defenses against peer nuclear missile threats.
Enacted legislation is not advisory and must not be treated as such. It is time for Congress to step up to the plate and demand that the executive branch fulfill the legislative mandates directed by Congress and signed into law by the president. This is especially true when those mandates involve the protection of the nation and its citizens, and the executive branch openly declares that defense of the homeland is the nation’s top priority.
Adapting Existing Law to Current Realities
Some may question whether congressional statements of policy have any practical effect on U.S. missile defense programs, as it is generally assumed that the executive branch establishes national security policy and decides which specific programs to pursue. However, once enacted as law, congressional policy statements are as legally binding as the other legislative provisions that provide funding, establish requirements, and provide guidance and direction to the Department of Defense.
Others may argue that a congressional statement of policy simply reflects current practice rather than establishing policy direction in perpetuity. In other words, stating that it is U.S. policy to rely on nuclear deterrence to address Russian and Chinese strategic missile threats to the U.S. homeland is nothing more than an acknowledgement of existing reality, similar to the language used in the 2019 MDR. However, the 2019 MDR was not a legally binding document while the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is U.S. law. Moreover, unlike general policy statements that express the sentiments of the legislative branch through non-binding resolutions, codifying a policy in law means that the policy remains valid and legally binding unless and until it is amended or otherwise overturned by subsequent legislation.
If Congress mandates that the United States will rely on deterrence rather than active defense to protect the homeland against strategic missile threats from peer nuclear adversaries, then industry may be reluctant to develop capabilities that are perceived as inconsistent with policy guidelines established by law. In this way, a simple statement of policy, embedded in and codified in law, may have an unintentional or inadvertent negative impact on both industry’s willingness to produce capabilities that are perceived as contrary to legal guidance and the government’s willingness to ask industry to do so.
This congressional policy statement may also become an issue as U.S. missile defense capabilities seek to keep pace with the development of more sophisticated rogue state missile capabilities, in that improved U.S. missile defenses designed to defeat increasingly sophisticated rogue state missile threats may also have some latent capability against peer nuclear threats. If U.S. policy eschews active defenses against peer nuclear missile threats, will industry be willing to improve systems to defend against rogue state threats if doing so will also provide some capability to counter Russian or Chinese strategic missile forces in contravention of U.S. policy established in law?
As President Trump stated in releasing the 2019 MDR, “We are committed to establishing a missile defense program that can shield every city in the United States…. Regardless of the missile type or the geographic origins of the attack, we will ensure that enemy missiles find no sanctuary on Earth or in the skies above.”[xv] This cannot be done as long as the United States continues to rely solely on nuclear deterrence to protect the nation against Russian and Chinese missile threats. Indeed, a policy that allows the U.S. homeland to remain vulnerable to coercive nuclear threats from Russia and China seems incongruous with repeated statements that defending the homeland is DoD’s “top priority.”[16]
Congress should clearly articulate, through the NDAA process, a new direction for U.S. missile defense policy that acknowledges the need to defend the homeland not only against rogue state nuclear threats but against more significant and sophisticated peer nation nuclear missile threats. This will help expedite greater understanding of the urgency of improving U.S. homeland missile defenses as well as help ensure that confusion is avoided, industry is unfettered by imprecise or unclear policy direction, and that the United States can go forward expeditiously with a much needed and more robust missile defense capability to protect the homeland.
The Cold War mentality that argues missile defense against peer nuclear threats is “destabilizing” must be relegated to the proverbial dustbin of history. Statutory language must make it clear that it is U.S. policy to defend the nation by providing for a layered defense against all types of missile threats, launched from any location, in all stages of flight. Such policy language is a necessary prerequisite to action, would be consistent with the president’s Executive Order, and would serve as an important catalyst to the budgetary and programmatic decisions required to protect the U.S. homeland from expanding missile threats.
The Advent of Advanced Technology: From Brilliant Pebbles to Starlink
The United States relies on space for a multitude of societal needs ranging from satellites that provide everything from telecommunications to navigation to intelligence and surveillance activities, to position, navigation, and timing in support of military operations. As such, space is becoming increasingly contested and is now considered a warfighting domain.[17]
The demise of the ABM Treaty in 2002 opened the door to the development and deployment of more technologically sophisticated missile defense capabilities no longer prohibited by the treaty. Nevertheless, despite U.S. technological advances across the board, the United States has limited its missile defense efforts to improvements in sensors, the Command, Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) system, and the deployment of terrestrial interceptor systems—primarily focusing on intercepting incoming ballistic missiles in their mid-course or terminal phases of flight from the land and from the sea.
The benefits of developing a space-based intercept capability are numerous. It would allow longer-range missiles to be countered in their boost- or ascent-phases, when they are most vulnerable due to the highly visible signature while their engines are burning. A boost- or ascent-phase defense would also allow the destruction of missiles over enemy territory rather than over U.S. soil. This, in itself, could serve as a powerful deterrent to missile attack. Moreover, as one report concluded, “Boost- or ascent-phase defense can mitigate many of the technical challenges associated with intercept in later phases of flight, where targets can deploy countermeasures and execute evasive maneuvers.”[18]
In addition to the development of space-based kinetic and non-kinetic intercept capabilities, the United States should move forward expeditiously with improvements to both terrestrial and space-based sensors that can provide early warning and detection of offensive missile launches—whether ballistic, cruise, or hypersonic—as well as improved tracking and discrimination capabilities. The technology has advanced dramatically and a “layered sensor architecture” can enhance the effectiveness of all intercept systems.[19]
As a matter of policy, the Trump Administration should seek expeditiously to implement the president’s Executive Order to incorporate space-based kinetic and non-kinetic options into a comprehensive missile defense posture that fulfills the president’s earlier commitment to “invest in a space-based missile defense layer” that will allow the United States to “detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States — anywhere, anytime, anyplace.”[20] Nothing less will address the suite of emerging offensive missile threats to the U.S. homeland.
Investing Resources
Despite repeated assertions that deterring attacks on and defending the U.S. homeland is the “top priority” of the Department of Defense, the budget for missile defense activities has remained relatively constant for many years. In fact, of the $28.4 billion the Biden Administration requested for missile defense in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025,[21] only $2.7 billion was requested for homeland missile defense activities—an actual decrease from the $3.3 billion requested in the previous year and a particularly significant decrease given inflation.[22] Most missile defense funding is allocated for defense against non-strategic ballistic missile attacks and for the protection of U.S. deployed forces, allies, and strategic partners.
Likewise, the budget for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has remained relatively stagnant for well over a decade, with a relative downward trend in overall MDA funding since 2005.[23] The FY 2025 MDA budget request was $10.4 billion, roughly a $500 million decline from the previous year and nearly $1 billion less than what was planned for FY 2025 one year earlier.[24] As the Senate Armed Services Committee noted, this decrease will negatively impact the ability of the United States to counter hypersonic missile threats, field appropriate directed energy systems, and provide missile defense interceptors with the capability to counter the growing threat from relatively inexpensive unmanned aerial systems.[25]
The proposed U.S. defense budget for FY 2025 is $883.7 billion. Yet the requested budget for missile defense activities represents only three percent of the overall defense budget request, the MDA budget request is barely one percent of the overall defense budget request, and the amount proposed for the homeland missile defense mission is 0.003 percent of the total. This hardly reflects a level of effort commensurate with what repeatedly is said to be the Department of Defense’s “top priority.”
The trend in missile defense funding reflects an approach that is anything but serious. U.S. homeland missile defense efforts have essentially been treading water and have not kept pace with the evolution of missile threats to the homeland. This must change—and quickly.
Avoiding the Arms Control Trap
There are those who still remain wedded to the Cold War proposition that missile defenses are destabilizing and that any enhancements to U.S. missile defense posture will inevitably prompt adversaries to increase their offensive missile capabilities in accordance with an “action-reaction” dynamic. This thinking ignores historical realities that clearly demonstrate the fallacy of this argument.[26]
It is imperative that the Trump Administration avoid falling into the trap of believing that constraints on U.S. missile defenses will lead either Russia or China to abandon their quests for nuclear supremacy and to agree to additional offensive nuclear arms reductions. Such a belief is not supported by history and ignores the divergent goals and objectives of Moscow and Beijing, both of which seek to displace the United States as the predominant global power and reorient the global geo-political landscape more to their liking.[27]
Bureaucratic and Organizational Impediments to Progress
Progress in expanding U.S. homeland missile defense capabilities has been stymied by outdated concepts of “strategic stability,” fealty to arms control agreements, erroneous claims of technological immaturity or impossibility, and legislative restrictions. In addition to these impediments, bureaucratic and organizational roadblocks have created additional challenges.
The Missile Defense Agency has the responsibility to develop and mature various missile defense technologies and systems; however, the procurement, operation, and maintenance of missile defense systems is the responsibility of the individual Services. Yet, the Services have failed to prioritize the homeland missile defense mission over the acquisition of other capabilities seen as more urgent or responsive to existing military requirements. As long as the Services consider the homeland missile defense mission a lower priority than other missions, little progress in bolstering the U.S. homeland missile defense posture can be expected.
In 2019, the U.S. Space Force was created as a separate branch of the U.S. armed forces. Yet, the mission of the Space Force is mostly relegated to space surveillance and domain awareness. Nevertheless, the role of the U.S. Space Force should be elevated by giving it greater responsibility to defend the nation against space-based threats, including long-range missiles that travel through space to attack their targets. This can be done by executive branch action, consistent with the FY 2025 NDAA, and reinforced by congressional authorization and appropriations in the FY 2026 NDAA and Department of Defense Appropriations Act.
Recommendations and Near-Term Courses of Action
In the face of increasingly provocative nuclear threats by Russia and more belligerent behavior by China, coupled with their extensive nuclear weapons buildups, the Trump Administration has a unique opportunity to change the course of American national security policy by moving forward expeditiously to improve the nation’s protection against missile threats from U.S. adversaries. Though some actions have long lead times and may not be completed within President Trump’s second term, other decisions and actions can be taken now to expedite progress toward defending the American people against deliberate, accidental, or coercive nuclear threats.
Specifically, they include:
Conclusion
Progress in homeland missile defense has been stymied by outdated Cold War notions, declining funding, lack of prioritization, organizational and bureaucratic roadblocks, and ideologically based political opposition. Reluctance to improve active defenses for the nation has been evident throughout successive administrations, both Republican and Democratic. In light of the growing threats to U.S. security from both peer nuclear adversaries and rogue states, the time has come to abandon the outdated thinking that American vulnerability to missile attack is a stabilizing feature of the international environment.
The U.S. homeland is more vulnerable than ever to offensive missile strikes from all kinds of missiles—ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic. America’s main rivals are seeking to overturn the existing U.S.-led international order and are using their expanding nuclear weapons capabilities to underpin their more aggressive behavior and coercive threats. Allowing the homeland missile defense status quo to continue is no longer a prudent option—if it ever was.
The Trump Administration now has a unique opportunity to take America’s missile defense policy and programs in a new direction. Acknowledging the benefits of protecting the homeland against missile strikes of any kind, launched from anywhere, is the first step. This should be followed by changes in policy guidance and direction from the White House to the Department of Defense that clearly demonstrate that defense of the homeland is a true “top priority.” The president should reiterate his earlier calls for a missile defense posture that can effectively “detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States — anywhere, anytime, anyplace.”[28]
The administration should then propose to implement the programs identified in this Information Series and should provide adequate funding to do so in the president’s initial budget request to Congress, consistent with his Executive Order on “The Iron Dome for America.” In addition, as part of the budget process, the Trump Administration should identify fixes to existing law and propose legislative language to Congress that will remove any confusion or uncertainty over U.S. homeland missile defense policy and the need for a more robust national missile defense effort.
While some programs will take years to come to fruition, decisions can be taken now to move the ball forward. It will take presidential leadership and a serious commitment by senior level appointees to effectuate the necessary changes. Nothing short of this will suffice. It is time to ensure that the United States is not self-deterred from protecting its national security interests by coercive nuclear threats. The time for action is now. Hopefully, the Trump Administration is up to the task.
[1] The White House, Executive Order 14186, “The Iron Dome for America,” January 27, 2025, available at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-02-03/pdf/2025-02182.pdf. Since the promulgation of this Executive Order, the “Iron Dome” program has been renamed “Golden Dome.” See Jen Judson, “Iron Dome for America gets a golden makeover,” Defense News, February 25, 2024, available at https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2025/02/25/iron-dome-for-america-gets-a-golden-makeover/.
[2] Department of Defense, 2022 Missile Defense Review, p. 1, available at https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.pdf.
[3] Testimony of Dr. John Plumb before the Senate Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces Subcommittee, May 18, 2022, available at https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ASD%20Plumb%20SASC%20SF%20Missile%20Defense%20Written%20Statement%20-%20May,18%202022_FINAL.pdf.
[4] Tom Karako, Matt Strohmeyer, Ian Williams, Wes Rumbaugh, and Ken Harmon, North America Is a Region, Too: An Integrated, Phased, and Affordable Approach to Air and Missile Defense for the Homeland, Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 2022, pp. X, 1, available at https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/220714_Karako_North_America.pdf?VersionId=BhIKa8jHHF_kV94NXRMx6D4m2o6LQqUf.
[5] Madelyn R. Creedon, Jon L. Kyl, et al., America’s Strategic Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, October 2023, p. 28, available at https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/a/am/americas-strategic-posture/strategic-posture-commission-report.ashx.
[6] Ibid., pp. X, 72, 105.
[7] Ibid., p. x.
[8] Department of Defense, Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report, February 2010, pp. 4-5, available at https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/features/defenseReviews/BMDR/BMDR_as_of_26JAN10_0630_for_web.pdf.
[9] Ibid., p. 13.
[10] The White House, “Remarks by President Trump and Vice President Pence Announcing the Missile Defense Review,” January 17, 2019, available at https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-announcing-missile-defense-review/.
[11] Ibid., pp. 2-3.
[12] For a comprehensive treatment of the benefits of a more robust homeland missile defense system, see Matthew R. Costlow, Vulnerability is No Virtue and Defense is No Vice: The Strategic Benefits of Expanded U.S. Homeland Missile Defense, Occasional Paper, Vol. 2, No. 9 (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, September 2022), available at https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/OP-Vol.-2-No.-9.pdf.
[13] As one recent study noted, “The objective of the missile defense system is to create enough doubt in the adversary’s mind about the prospect of a successful attack that the adversary concludes such an attack is not worth the risk—especially alongside fears of enormous consequences. In other words, such an attack would be futile and fatal.” See Robert Soofer, et al., “’First, we will defend the homeland’: The case for homeland missile defense, “Atlantic Council, January 4, 2025, available at https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/first-we-will-defend-the-homeland-the-case-for-homeland-missile-defense/.
[14] Ibid.
[15] The White House, “Remarks by President Trump and Vice President Pence Announcing the Missile Defense Review,” January 17, 2019, op. cit.
[16] See, for example, Department of Defense, 2022 Missile Defense Review, op. cit., p. 6.
[17] Steve Lambakis, Space As a Warfighting Domain: Reshaping Policy to Execute 21st Century Spacepower (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, May 2021), available at https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Space-as-a-Warfighting-Domain-pub-5.21.pdf.
[18] Ian Williams and Masao Dahlgren, et. al, Boost-Phase Missile Defense: Interrogating the Assumptions, Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2022, p. 1, available at https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/220624_Karako_BoostPhase_MissileDefense.pdf?VersionId=WjJxlNM58oru1LK21LC9untewoK_UAQD.
[19] For additional details, see Dr. Steve Lambakis, Moving U.S. Tracking Sensors to Space, Information Series, No. 575 (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, February 12, 2024), available at https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IS-575.pdf. Also see Steve Lambakis, Space Sensors and Missile Defense (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2023), available at https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Space-Sensors-2023.pdf.
[20] The White House, “Remarks by President Trump and Vice President Pence Announcing the Missile Defense Review,” January 17, 2019, op. cit.
[21] This figure includes funding for a variety of homeland and theater missile defense capabilities. See Department of Defense News Release, Department of Defense Releases the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Defense Budget, Statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III on the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Defense Budget, March 11, 2024, available at https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3703410/department-of-defense-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2025-defense-budget/.
[22] Peppino DeBiaso and Robert M. Soofer, “A Homeland Missile Defense Agenda for the Next President,” The National Interest, October 16, 2024, available at https://nationalinterest.org/feature/homeland-missile-defense-agenda-next-president-213226.
[23] Tom Karako, Ian Williams and Wes Rumbaugh, The Missile Defense Agency and the Color of Money, Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 2016, p. 4, available at https://missilethreat.csis.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/MDA-and-the-Color-of-Money.pdf.
[24] See Jen Judson, “Missile Defense Agency requests $500 million less in new budget,” Defense News, March 11, 2024, available at https://www.defensenews.com/smr/federal-budget/2024/03/11/missile-defense-agency-requests-500-million-less-in-new-budget/. Also see statement of Rep. Doug Lamborn, cited in Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, “The Overall Level of Funding is Inadequate Given Today’s Threat Environment,” April 12, 2024, available at https://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/alert/the-overall-level-of-funding-is-inadequate-given-todays-threat-environment/.
[25] Senate Armed Services Committee, Report to Accompany S. 4638, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 (Report 118-188), p. 319, available at https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/118th-congress/senate-report/188/1.
[26] For a more detailed analysis refuting the offense-defense “action-reaction” dynamic, see Hon. David J. Trachtenberg, Dr. Michaela Dodge, and Dr. Keith B. Payne, The “Action-Reaction” Arms Race Narrative vs. Historical Realities (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, March 2021), available at https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Action-Reaction-pub.pdf.
[27] For a comprehensive treatment of the strategic goals and objectives of the emergent Sino-Russian entente, see David J. Trachtenberg, “Deterrence Implications of a Sino-Russian Entente,” in James H. Anderson and Daniel R. Green (eds.), Confronting China: US Defense Policy in an Era of Great Power Competition (London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024), pp. 169-192.
[28] The White House, “Remarks by President Trump and Vice President Pence Announcing the Missile Defense Review,” January 17, 2019, op. cit.
This Information Series is adapted from David J. Trachtenberg, Next Steps in Homeland Missile Defense, Occasional Paper, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2025).
The National Institute for Public Policy’s Information Series is a periodic publication focusing on contemporary strategic issues affecting U.S. foreign and defense policy. It is a forum for promoting critical thinking on the evolving international security environment and how the dynamic geostrategic landscape affects U.S. national security. Contributors are recognized experts in the field of national security. National Institute for Public Policy would like to thank the Sarah Scaife Foundation for the generous support that made this Information Series possible.
The views in this Information Series are those of the author(s) and should not be construed as official U.S. Government policy, the official policy of the National Institute for Public Policy, or any of its sponsors. For additional information about this publication or other publications by the National Institute Press, contact: Editor, National Institute Press, 9302 Lee Highway, Suite 750, Fairfax, VA 22031, (703) 293- 9181, www.nipp.org. For access to previous issues of the National Institute Press Information Series, please visit http://www.nipp.org/national-institutepress/informationseries/.
© National Institute Press, 2025