Brian A. Jackson, David R. Frelinger, Michael J. Lostumbo, Robert W. Button, RAND, 2008
View report

This monograph aims to help bound the problem about one type of potential threat to the homeland: cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. The research also presents the defensive options to address the threat, including adversary activities before, during, and after an attack. The methodology used can be applied to other modes of attack, and the insights gained from this methodology extend to other threats as well.

George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2008 
View report

The article presents and explains technological deficiencies of Europe-based missile defense system, including the system's inability to differentiate between the warheads and the countermeasures, the difficulty in detecting the warheads due to the small warhead radar section, exaggerated by the Missile Defense Agency, and the system's capacity to intercept Russian missiles, rather than Iranian.

Philip Coyle and Victoria Samson, Ethics and International Affairs, Vol. 22.1, April 23, 2008 
View report

In this paper, Coyle and Samson present their analysis of the U.S. proposal to establish missile defense sites in Europe, specifically in Poland and Czech Republic. The authors argue that missile defense system was unable to prove itself in testing and provides no security to the U.S. and Europe. Furthermore, the Iranian long-range ballistic missile threat, cited as the official justification for the establishment of missile defense sites in Europe, is at fault as, according to the authors, Iran has no intention to develop its missile program and exercise its power. Finally, the proposed missiles compromise the U.S.-Russian relations and bring them to the point of creating a volatile situation that did not previously exist.

Todd Fine, Center for Defense Information, March 5, 2008 
View report

In his analysis, World Security Institute Program Assistant Todd Fine argues that the possible transfer of U.S. missile defense technology to India, as it was announced by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, presents considerable strategic risk.

Center for Defense Information, December 5, 2007 
View report

Co-sponsored by the World Security Institute’s Center for Defense Information, the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense, and the Secure World Foundation, “Improving Our Vision II – Building Transparency and Cooperation,” held Oct. 25-26, 2007 at Inmarsat headquarters in London, was designed to bring a broad mix of stakeholders together to discuss opportunities, challenges and new ideas for transatlantic cooperation to improve space situational awareness (SSA). The event, which featured presentations by senior representatives of U.S. and European governments, the global satellite industry, international organizations and academia, was the second spearheaded by CDI in order to bring about greater multi-disciplinary consideration of the importance of “seeing” and understanding the space environment.

The Missile Defense Agency, December 3, 2007 
View report

This test involved the successful imaging at close range of a boosting Orion sounding rocket by an NCADE seeker equipped AIM-9X missile launched from an F-16 aircraft.

The Missile Defense Agency, November 6, 2007 
View report

For the first time the operationally realistic test involved two unitary "non-separating" targets meaning that the target’s warheads did not separate from their booster rockets. This was the 32nd and 33rd successful “hit-to-kill” intercepts since 2001.

Richard Speier, Arms Control Association, November, 2007 
View report

Missile nonproliferation and missile defense are directed against the same threats. Each seeks to prevent damage from proliferators’ missiles, one by acting before launch and the other after launch.[1] For good reason, the United States has been pursuing both approaches. Nonetheless, in practice there are gaps and potential conflicts between nonproliferation and defense strategies.[2] To bolster U.S. and global security, the United States should lead efforts to meld these two approaches better. In particular, the United States should seek to restrict the export of countermeasures that could make it easier to penetrate missile defenses. The United States also should tightly restrain the export of large interceptors, such as those used in its ground-based midcourse defense system, and ensure that such interceptors remain under U.S. command and control.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, Arms Control Association, October, 2007 
View report

In January 2007, the Bush administration announced that it was beginning negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic about the possibility of placing missile defense interceptors and a radar, respectively, on their territories. The administration argues that placing such capabilities in Europe will allow the United States to protect itself and its European allies against potential Iranian long-range ballistic missile threats in the future.

Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering, Arms Control Association, October, 2007
View report

When North Korea launched short- and long-range missiles last summer, we had for the first time the means to defend all 50 states and our allies in Japan and South Korea against a possible ballistic missile attack. For the first time, leaders in Washington had defense options available to them to protect American cities other than preemption, retaliation, or capitulation.

Center for Defense Information, August 28, 2007
View report

A collection of short briefs on space policy progress over the summer of 2007.

Wade Boese, Arms Control Association, March, 2007
View report

Anti-missile programs have been a consistent Bush administration funding favorite, and its recent budget request to Congress continues the trend. All told, the Pentagon is seeking approximately $10.8 billion for its various missile defense projects. The full Department of Defense fiscal year 2008 spending submission equals $623 billion and is supposed to fund all military activities, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, for the year beginning Oct. 1.

Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Association, January 26, 2007
View report

Since the beginning of the space age, countries have contemplated how they might protect their military and civilian space assets from attack by others. China’s destruction of one of its satellites using a ground-launched ballistic missile January 11 reaffirms the fundamental reality that space assets are physically vulnerable to attack, as U.S. and Soviet anti-satellite testing first demonstrated decades ago.

Center for Defense Information, January 22, 2007
View report

At 5:28 p.m. EST on Jan. 11, 2007, China launched a medium-range ballistic missile at an old weather satellite in-orbit. The test destroyed the satellite and allowed China to pick up the reins of a space arms race that the United States officially dropped 20 years ago. This move is even more portentous now, as the United States is entirely dependent upon its space assets and has much to lose if it allows space to be weaponized.

Rebecca Johnson, published by the EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, Directorate-General for External Policies of the Union, June 19, 2006.
View report

The study analyses Europe's space programs and argues for an effective European Space Policy to manage the civil-military interface and national-regional interests to enable Europe to benefit from a more effective coordination of technologies and assets for the purpose of enhancing European and international security, while preventing destabilizing developments, such as the testing, deployment or use of anti-satellite weapons or weapons in and from space

Wade Boese, Arms Control Today, November 2006
View report

The Bush administration recently released a new space policy that eschews future binding measures to regulate space activities in favor of keeping open all U.S. options, including space-based anti-missile systems, to promote and protect U.S. security and space assets.

Wade Boese, Arms Control Today, November 2006
View report

A group of countries devoted to stemming the spread of missiles vowed recently to intensify efforts to deny Iran and North Korea exports that could aid their missile programs. China’s alleged failure to curtail such exports to Iran is a key factor frustrating Beijing’s campaign to join the group.

Theresa Hitchens, Center for Defense Information, October 13, 2006
View report

After four years of review, the administration of President George W. Bush has finally released a revised U.S. National Space Policy (NSP), superseding the previous 1996 policy crafted by the Clinton administration. The document, signed by Bush on Aug. 31, was released at 5 p.m. on Oct. 6 – the Friday before the Columbus Day weekend – a clear indication that the administration was hoping for as little media attention as possible. Indeed, administration and Pentagon officials have downplayed the new NSP as little more than a continuation of the Clinton policy, aimed in part at clarifying interagency relations that long have been troubled, particularly in the national security arena.

Lt. Gen. Robert Gard and John Isaacs, August 10, 2006
View report

Despite the many tens of billions of dollars spent on missile defense and the flagrantly inaccurate claims by proponents of missile defense systems, after 50 years missile defense remains an experimental system that has provided the United States with very few tangible results. Moreover, despite Pentagon claims that solving missile defense problems is merely an “engineering” problem, defending against missile attacks of any range remains a complex and extremely challenging problem that the expenditure of well over $100 billion has not solved.

Thomas Graham and Dinshaw Mistry, Disarmament Diplomacy, Spring 2006
View report

The proliferation of missiles has been a major security concern for many years. Missiles are the key delivery system for nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons, and missile proliferation therefore greatly exacerbates the NBC threat. And yet, while major international treaties - the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT), the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) - limit the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, respectively, there is no worldwide treaty banning missiles.

Wade Boese, Arms Control Association, March 2006
View report

President George W. Bush’s fiscal year 2007 budget re quest reaffirms his administration’s commitment to deploying an array of anti-missile systems, including to Europe , despite continuing uncertainty about whether they work. Submitted to Congress Feb. 6, the roughly $11.2 billion request for missile defenses is the largest ever by the Bush administration.